No. You can have someone do it for you.

Different people have different ways of working with authors. And of course, it very much depends on the type of book you want written.

I’m writing a book for an inventor/engineer right now. He does not intend to use it to market his services; he wants to simply put forth some of his ideas, many of which are quite provocative, into the world.

I’m speaking with another person who also has provocative ideas, but wants to use the book to build a speaking platform and additional products.

Different purposes, different processes. With the first book, we worked to come up with a detailed table of contents. Then I interviewed the man accordingly. Now I am turning those results into a manuscript.

And he wants me to be the author.

With the second, the client will be the author. I will structure, interview, and write. I don’t plan for my name to appear on the book.

In both cases, I will take care of the publishing, and consult on the promotion and sales.

Is this a good way to do things? That depends on your goals. My time–and that of anyone who you’d want to have write a book for you–is valuable. The question you have to answer is: How valuable is your time? Would you be better served creating new products for your business, or writing your book yourself? (I can help you do that, too, of course.)

Do you want it done quickly? What’s it costing you not to have a book out yet? When you consider the whole picture, the cost of having someone write a book for you might show up as a good investment.

There are other–less expensive–shortcuts to getting a book out. For example, I have a template-based book kit for coaches, and will soon have them for other professions. For a few hundred dollars, you can create a good book, and have it published inexpensively.

If you’d like to discuss your options and possible strategies, click on the calendar in the right-hand column to pick a time for a no-obligation strategy call with me.

Your book can replace your color brochure. Let’s do a simple comparison:

A brochure tells what you do, what benefits the prospect will get, and how to contact you.

A book can do all that–plus you have as many pages as you need to explain the uniqueness of your process and to share case histories of clients you’ve worked with.

A nicely designed and nicely printed brochure establishes your significance.

Your book establishes you as an authority, not just someone who was able to afford a fancy brochure.

Do you keep fancy brochures you get? No? Neither does anyone else. They throw them out as soon as you’re out of the room.

Do you throw away books? Especially books that have been inscribed to you? No, and neither do I. Your book will hang around your prospect’s office or home–probably forever.

What does a brochure say about you? That you have good artistic taste; that you invested in a nice brochure.

What does a book say about you? That you are an author–and therefore, an authority. An expert in your field.

A nice brochure is expensive–$3-$5 each, by the time you’ve paid a designer and printer.

A hundred-page book with a full-color cover is $1.10 in quantity 500–less in larger quantities.

So–what’s a better investment for you? Book or brochure?

Literally? Nothing. A book, even one with a  cover, and your name and face on it, and marvelous content describing your uniqueness, and the uniqueness of your approach to your clients’ greatest pain, will do nothing for you. Nothing.

However, you can do a lot with your book. You can use it as a key to unlock hitherto sealed doors, a credential to bring you the respect you deserve, a validation to allow you to charge the fees that are your due.

Moreover, the book-writing process–actually, my book-writing process–will empower you to take the stuff that is floating around in your head and turn it into an organized body of knowledge. That organized body of knowledge can become a book, and much more–ebooks; courses; keynote speeches; and many other products.

By writing your book my way, you actually inventory your store of knowledge. You see, if you are like most people, you don’t know what you know. That is, you can’t make a list of all the things you have learned. You just know them, and they serve you in your profession. But if asked to make a list of them, you’d be hard put to lay them out.

My book-writing process empowers you to do just that–to list all the things you know in a way that you can share them with others.

Once you have this catalog, this inventory of your peculiar expertise and experience, you can easily turn it into products. Each chapter in your book can be a string of podcasts. Each subchapter is, at the very least, a blog entry. The book’s title is a theme for a course, a membership site, a coaching program–you get the idea. It’s all knowledge, and it has value.

So do it. Try my book-writing process. Build your new business.

Perfect Pages by Aaron Shepard is an indispensable aid to someone who wants to produce a fully formatted book manuscript in Microsoft Word. Get it for about $12.60 at Amazon.com and read its 150+ pages, and you will save yourself a lot of grief.

Now you may think, “I’ve used Word forever. I don’t need additional tips.” You may be right, but I doubt it. Book formatting requires different

things than article or report formatting.

Word is a powerful program, and it can also be maddeningly cranky. This book helps you avoid the cranky parts.

The few pages on styles are so lucid that you will get your money’s worth from the book if you just absorb them. Styles are the blessing and the bane of Word, and the five pages Shepard devotes to them are spot on.

Partial contents:

• Managing Word–Options; preferences; workspace; features; safety; memory
• Formatting your document
• Typesetting your text
• Formatting your text
• Perfecting your text
• Handling special text
• Handling graphics
• Enhancing your layout
• Preparing for print
• Creating a cover
• Resources–a good long list of websites

This book will save you time and energy if you write in Word. Highly recommended.

This is one of Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Successful People.” It also corresponds to an ancient Jewish dictum that is part of the Shabat service, “Lekha Dodi”: “Sof ma’aseh b’makhshava tkhila,” says the Hebrew–”The end of a deed is in prior thought.”

Here’s the application to books: If you want to wind up with a book, you have to start with a book in mind.

“Well, duh!” I hear you snorting. And yet–most people who want to write a book don’t do that. They start with some general notion that they want to get to a book, then do random things–journaling, reading, lots of web surfing, thinking, feeling frustrated… and are disappointed and distressed that they seem to be no closer to a book weeks or months or years later than when they began.

It’s not their fault. It’s as if they had determined to travel to some distant destination–say, Joplin, Missouri–but had no idea where Joplin is.

So they start traveling. They drive, they walk, they fly, just to be moving. But they never get to Joplin, and feel worse and worse about it all the time.

One thing that would be helpful would be a map. Here’s one:

• Decide who you are writing for
• Decide what you are going to say to them, and why they will want to hear your message
• Name your book
• Create the table of contents–the list of chapters
• For each chapter, create a list of subchapters
• Only when you are satisfied that your table of contents and all the subchapters are in the right order do you begin to write
• If there’s anything you need to look up or find out, note it and leave it for the end. When everything else is done, go do whatever is required to fill that blank

That’s how you build a book. You begin with the end in mind.

Need help? Schedule an appointment with me for a free strategy session. Click below.

In book-writing, as in other activities, the quality and quantity of your output will depend on your state. No, I don’t mean California or New York. I’m referring to your internal state–the vector sum of your emotions and feelings. What comes up for you when you ask yourself, “How am I?” Serene? Frazzled? Happy? Grumpy? Some combination?

Many people experience their emotional state like the weather, believing they have no control over it. If you are such a person, I have good news for you: You can affect your state.

Were you ever in the middle of an angry exchange when the phone rang? Did your anger spill over to the phone call, or did you find you were able to “switch gears” and “get into a different head”? If you were able to set aside your anger and enter into a conversation of a completely different tone, you can understand what I mean–and that it is within your reach.

The first step: Be aware of your state. Ask yourself uncritically, “How am I? What am I feeling?” Accept whatever answer comes up for you as useful information.

Now ask: Is this state serving me at this moment? Is there some other state that is more appropriate to my current activity–completing my outline; writing a blog entry; preparing for a business call? Here are some things you can do to create your own pattern interrupt and choose your new state:

• Get up and do some vigorous exercise. Run until you are exhausted. Do jumping jacks.
• Call a close friend and tell them something wild. Or ask them for the happiest thing that they did in the last couple of days.
• Change the music you’re listening to, or play some if you’re not. Put on something that always makes you smile–something with raw guitars and lots of drums.
• Pick up your favorite book of humor or inspiration and read some things at random. Or go to a humor website you love.
• Put on a hat; this is now your “state-change” hat.
• Do your happy dance!
• Read your favorite uplifting poem aloud.
• Draw a picture that excites you. Use colors.

Brainstorm your own list of pattern-interrupts. Use them! Your writing will benefit.

You may think there’s only one way to write a book, even if you’ve read my free book on the subject. You name it, plan it, structure it down to the sub-chapter level, then write it.

That’s the way I teach, and it works very well. But it isn’t the only way to produce a book. Here are several others that may suit your needs:

• Interviews. Find leaders in your niche and interview them. Tell them you’re going to transcribe the interviews and include them in a book. (Don’t forget to ask how many they want to order.)

  The interviews don’t have to  be very long. An ideal length will result in just a few pages of material.

  Pick a unifying subject for the book: “What’s the Biggest Problem in (your niche), and What Do the Experts Say about It?”

  You can conduct the interviews over the phone and record them. You can also package and market the recordings; don’t forget to get the interviewees permission. And ask them for a link to their website or a sales page for you to publicize; that’s their motivation for participating in the project.

• Quotations. Collect a bunch of quotations (that are out of copyright) relevant to your niche. Put each on its own page. Beneath it, or on the opposite page, write your interpretation of Socrates’ wise saying to people in your field. (You can also leave room for the reader to add their own reflections.)
• Blog. You may have already written your book: Your blog entries might be its content. In fact, FastPencil.com will let you import your blog, then rearrange and edit the entries into a book. That’s fast.
• Photo-journal. You can use the special book-layout tools of Blurb.com to create a gorgeous book of your photos. The price per book is fairly high, depending on various factors, but might be still worth it for, say, a construction project proposal or an investment offering, a commemorative book or gift.
• “The 47 best tips on…” Elicit tips, opinions, whatever from your readers, your Twitter followers, your Facebook friends, whatever, and compile them into a handbook. Jokes. Toasts. 6-word short stories (Hemingway’s famous one: “For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.”) Collect ‘em. Publish ‘em, with your intro, and a link to your website. You are now an opinion leader in your field.

A stroll through a bookstore or your library will inspire you with even more ideas.

Is it internal or external?

Internal: Do you want to write a book to express yourself? Do you feel you have a story to tell, something to teach, something to record? Those are great reasons for writing a book, and my BookProgram method–described in my free book, which you can get by clicking on the link in the header of the blog–will serve you well. Follow it, and you will get your book written. Well. And quickly.

External: Is your main reason for writing a book to accomplish something beyond getting a book out there? Is it to be a source of income? A door-opener for your speaking, coaching, advisory, therapeutic business? Will it serve as a way to attract customers to your other products, such as ebooks, courses, recordings, membership sites, and more? If this is your motivation, my method will really shine for you.

Whichever point of view you are coming from, you would do well to “consider the end from the beginning,” in the words of Stephen Covey (The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People).  What will you do with the book once it’s finished? If it’s internally motivated, you will want to think about the communities who will be interested in it, and how to reach them.

If it’s to serve an external function in your business, you should plan what products you’ll derive from the book material, how you’ll price them, and how you will promote them.

In either event, your book should have its own website, where people can order it and sign up to remain in touch with you–through your newsletter, your autoresponder sequences, or in other ways.

Being aware of your book-writing motivation will help you take the book to its next step. There’s a lot to think about–and it’s worth thinking about.

You can do it. And you should.

I have been teaching that if you write a book following my method, (a) you’ll have a good book, quickly; and (b), you’ll be very well-positioned to start creating additional information products based on the stuff you’ve generated to write the book.

It’s time to be a bit more explicit.

First of all, if you haven’t done so, head to the link at the top of the front page of this blog and get my free book. Read it.

Done? OK, at least you scanned it. I hope it intrigued you enough to actually start doing what it says.

If you do, you’ll create what I call a BookProgram–a simple outline that is your book, in essence. The writing part is just a matter of filling in the blanks, once the BookProgram is done.

Now, whether or not you’ve written your book yet, you can use this outline to create a course. Your course can be based on the entire outline, or just a portion of it. The important step that the creation of your outline has taken you through is the one I call, “the diamond is your friend.” That’s the part that helps you think about, “What questions am I answering? And what must I explain to help my reader get from the question to the answer?”

When you’ve already done this for your book, it’s now easy to focus on, “What are the desired outcomes of this course for anyone who takes it? What will they know, what will they be able to do after taking it?” By answering these questions, you’ll be able to enunciate the benefits of the course to your prospects. You’ll be able to state clearly to them what they will gain by taking your course.

Mind you, I am not minimizing the craft of course creation. I don’t mean to imply that if you follow some general rules, you’ll be as good as any course creator out there. But just as I believe you can create a “good” book–one that keeps its promise–by following my method, I also believe you can create a “good” course by following these guidelines. A good course, by my definition, like a good book, keeps its promise.

A discussion I had with my wife after posting yesterday’s blog entry made me think about how I teach people to write books. I’ll try to lay it out for you in brief here, so that you can see if this fits your thoughts.

My market for my book-writing products and services has been, to date, anyone who has professional knowledge they want to share with clients. They have a body of knowledge, and a method (perhaps more than one) for applying it to the needs of their clients.

So my book-writing “secret” is simply this: If you want to write a book quickly, you must complete the structure–a simple outline–before you do any writing. And I mean ANY writing.

If you do this, your path from finished outline to finished book is just days long; maybe even hours.

But how do your produce the structure?

Steven Johnson, the author I mentioned yesterday, describes his process: He spends months collecting pieces–notes, quotes, websites, articles, etc.–without being quite sure what the book looks like, or even what it is precisely about. That emerges as he sifts through the stuff.

Important distinction: My method does not necessarily offer anything to replace this process; it’s really not intended for this type of explorer. My ideal client already has a body of knowledge, and a way that she teaches it to her clients. So she can start her structuring process by simply clustering; it will all pop up.

Steven Johnson’s approach is for getting to the point when structuring is possible.

Now, I believe he could benefit from clustering, and from understanding the diamond (if you don’t know what these are, use the “search” above to find my explanations). And maybe he does, but just didn’t mention them in that article.

I’ll have more to say over time about what must precede structuring. What are your thoughts?