WRITING A BOOK

WRITING A BOOK

Who's the smart person who said that there is a book in all of us? Well it's true isn't it? Don't you hear people say 'Oh I could write a book on that subject'? Or 'I could write a better book' ?

Modern technology has made it much easier to publish a book. Here are a few tips for you, just in case you decide to write a book.

The first thing you need to do is to set a reasonable deadline for your book. Most of us procrastinate because we want the book to be perfect, or because we're afraid of failure. As a result the book remains in our heads or on random pieces of paper and it never gets published.

Think of your first draft as version number one. Once that's done you can improve on it and call it version number two. Just like Microsoft now has version no. 8 – each time is an improvement on the last one.

Nowadays there are a lot of self-publishing houses where you can print on demand. At a reasonable cost you can print just a few copies. The advantage of this is that this will enable you to see what your book looks like in print.

Of course before you do that you've got to have a good outline and table of contents. Some people write a book and then try to work around the table of contents.

If you're not sure of how to go about it then use a best-selling book in the same genre as your book as a model. Try and imitate the structure of that particular book.

Now once your book is ready you need to get publicity for your book right? Otherwise your book will just sit on the shelf collecting dust.

So how do you make your book stand out? How do you get media exposure? You need to have a 'hook'. You need that one line that they can use to attract an audience. Just as you need to sell your book, the TV and radio producers need to look at their ratings. So give them that one line that will help them get viewers.

Let's say you're a dietician and you've written a book on 'Healthy Fast Foods made in a jiffy'. The TV anchor would probably say 'Coming up..... Fast foods that can actually be good for you'. The people listening or watching the show would be interested in something like that, right? And they'll wait to see what it's all about.

Think of it as 'Coming up ….........' Now what do you need to add to make it interesting? Once you've done that you've got your hook.

Now go and write your book.

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