Do You Desire to Write a Book? You Can Start Now. Here’s how…
It is not so hard to write a book as some have portrayed it to be. Anyone with a story to tell can write a book, either for personal enjoyment or to publish for all to see, buy and read. If you find yourself constantly having creative imaginations, then you are not too far from writing a book. It may seem daunting at first, but once you start, you will not want to stop.
The Pre-Writing Stage
First thing first, simply outline everything you want to write about and come up with ideas and stories you want to share. Within a short time, you will have an entire rough draft outline of your book if you spend some time on it each day.
First, make an outline of your entire book, from the beginning to the end. Remember, it is simply a rough sketch. So don’t look for perfection at this stage.
Second, use your outline to make a rough draft of your entire table of contents including chapters and sub-chapters.
Third, add a few sentences to each section of your table of contents. It could be a word at a time. Don’t push yourself. Simply enjoy what you are doing.
Fourth, go back over your outline and see if there’s anything you left out.
Also, look at some other books on your topic and see what they cover. Learn from those who have gone ahead of you in that area. But be sure you learn from the best.
Fifth, fix the flow of your outline. In other words, be consistent. Make sure your ideas make sense and move from one point to the other with ease. If you need to move a point to another chapter or swap chapters, this is the right stage to do so.
The Drafting Stage
During drafting, do not bother much about revisions and editing, just get everything written down or typed. Forget about formatting, spelling, grammar, or writing properly. This is a brain dump! Get it all out and get it out fast so you don’t lose anything or forget vital points.
If you did your pre-writing correctly, you shouldn’t have a hard time getting started because you should have plenty outlines to talk about.
But if you’re freezing up, tell yourself you can always edit later – and you will. For now, you have to get something on paper – even if you think it’s horrible.
You can start slowly by adding a few sentences to each chapter. Then add a few more. Keep adding a few sentences until your table of contents grows into your entire book.
The Revision Stage
In the revision stage, you can finally go back and edit your work.
If you have parts that need to be moved, this is the time to do it. You can either add or subtract at this stage. Reorganize your thoughts, add stories where you need them, and create new chapters if you need to.
Then do another round of revisions to clean or tidy up, enhance, and polish your work.
This process could take a while because you might want to go through several revisions to get it as good as possible. The importance of this stage cannot be overemphasized.
The Proofreading and Editing Stage
This stage is very crucial. It would be very beneficial to hire out the process of proofreading and editing. This is because once you are finished with the work, you will be so close to it that you probably will not notice minor errors and typos.
Hiring a copyeditor will give you a set of fresh eyes to find things you missed and fix the quality of your book. But if you do not have the financial strength to hire a professional copy editor, at least have a few smart friends and family members look for problems like spelling and grammar and things that don’t quite flow.
You might also try to find a fellow writer who has a book he needs edited. You could trade books and do each other a favour.
Done, Publish Your Book!
Finally, your book is ready to be read by your audience!
Of course, you could try to find a publisher if it is for a commercial purpose. But if it is mainly for building up your credibility, it will be easier and faster for you to self-publish your book or even publish it as a PDF e-book to get it into the hands of your readers.
So, what are you waiting for? Do you have plans to write a book this year or next? Do not delay any further. Get on with the work right now!