Rita in Writing

Are you thinking of writing a book but can’t find the time? Here is a quick tip that seems to work for everyone.

You are waiting for a time in your life when you have all day to write, and deep in your heart you KNOW that’s not likely to EVER happen. But you can find one hour, can’t you? Not an hour a day, but I’m suggesting you write one hour a week. You select the time, and mark it on your calendar, put it on your “to do” list. Actually set a kitchen timer for that one hour. Try to make it the same time every week.

My friend, Dottie, in California would get up at 4:30 in the morning to squeeze in her hour of writing. That didn’t work for me because I’m useless at that hour, so my extra hour was at ten at night. Many people simply give up one hour of TV, and eventually, they have an entire book.

You don’t know how many hours writing your book will take, but by the end of the year you will have about 50 hours worth of your manuscript complete. If it’s not finished, that should at least be a pretty good start.

The first hour or two writing a book might be spent simply getting ready. Deciding what to write and how to write it, outlining, gathering information, that type of thing.

When I started on my first book, I set the timer and wrote for one hour per week for 4 weeks. By the fourth week, I was so enthusiastic about it, I never had to set the timer again, and never had to “push” myself again. I MADE the time to write.

And isn’t that a lesson you’ve already learned? You don’t put off doing a WHOLE project, you simply put off getting started.

Don’t let yourself be overwhelmed by the idea of writing a whole book. Just set a goal each week for one hour. You will be amazed at what you will accomplish.

What’s the key to writing a book that sells?

That’s simple.
You must write a book your audience will want to read.

Quite often I meet writers who don’t concern themselves with their readers as much as they do with the “message” they hope to impart to these readers via their book.

There are a couple of HUGE problems with this way of thinking.

First, if you write a book mainly because you have a strong message for your readers, your book will tend to become WAY too preachy.

When this happens, you won’t find a publisher for your book because good publishers realize that readers do not want preachy books.

Second, if you choose to self-publish your book (which you’ll have to do since this is the only way you’ll be able to get your message out to the world), then you’ll still end up with a preachy book no one wants to read. But now, you’ll have a basement or garage full of these books.

A good coach can help you avoid these problems by showing you how to figure out just what your audience wants to read.

You can still weave “your message” into your manuscript.

But you will learn to do it in such a way that your readers will think your only reason for writing your book was to provide them with the help they needed.

When you write a book like that, you’ll have a book publishers will be willing to publish and readers will be willing to buy!

So, don’t just write a book. Learn to write a book that will sell!

You need to think about your audience and what they want in any given chapter. And, what kind of time they want to spend on learning from you.

How to Write to Please your Audience

1. Think a short book first. This is the best ebook starting tip for anyone. Write only 3-5 chapters for one book with an angle (sells better). Write other companion books that your can sell as a series or bigger package that makes you still the expert, and makes you more money too.

Yes, college text chapters are 35 pages long, and traditional publishers like 10-15 chapters with around 25 pages each.

Remember, you aren’t writing for them; you’re writing for YOU and your mirror audience. They don’t want to read a book of over 200 pages in their already laden schedule. Your business audience wants 1, 2, 3 solutions for particular challenges that your chapter titles should reflect.

2. Think a eBook for easy delivery for you, the author. Your potential clients want to download this format instantly from your Web site at any time of the day or night, and will gladly print the whole book out if it’s around 100 pages. Or they can just print the chapters they need to. They enjoy this convenience and your audience will not be going to the local bookstore to find your title. They may go on Amazon, where I have one book in several formats, but you, the author, will not get a big profit this way.

3. Give your short eBook (approximately 15-35 pages) away to your potential clients. Better than a business card, they’ll see your writing ability and love the short how to’s you include for them.

Don’t hold back for the big book that follows. Give as much as you can in each publication. You can use the free ebook as a giveaway included for your ezine subscribers too. It must be really informative or it won’t pull.

At every free eBook’s final words, include an offer to get your more complete packages or coaching. You’d be surprised how ready your potential clients are ready to be in the 5% Success Club.

4. Write each chapter’s middle first. First, include questions your potential clients want answered. You already know these from your coaching practice, speaker talks or your other service business.

5. Write your chapter beginning-introduction with a stimulating hook first and show compassion for your reader’s particular problem in your niche. Do this with 1-3 questions about their challenges as first sentences.

6. Conclude your chapter beginning-introduction with a simple sentence or two about what benefits your chapter offers. When you plan first, you’ll write smooth paragraphs and all will relate to your chapter title, a good chapter fast writing practice that doesn’t need much editing.

7. Write your conclusion as you would a mini sales letter to motivate your readers to the next chapter. This come after your summary or “take away thoughts” or “action steps” for the present chapter. The conclusion is different from what you’ve been taught so far. For you last paragraph in about one or two sentences, you give your readers a reason to keep turning the pages to the next chapter. That means naming three-five benefits in the next one.

Now you’ve engaged your readers so they will finish the book.

It’s not until they finish a book that they will want to spread the good work. Then, they become your 24/7 sales team for word-of-mouth success.

Write a book chapter fast with this “Fast-Forward” chapter-writing plan and you only need one line edit–a much less expensive and frustrating journey.

Results? You’ll get your outstanding eBook finished in less than a month and get it selling and branding you as the expert in your field. You’ll also get tons of testimonials you can use to refresh your book’s web sales letter and other promotions such as email campaigns.

There are many ways to write about literature, but one of the first forms that many people come into contact with is the book report. This form is one of the simplest to master, but writing a coherent, interesting, and complete book report takes practice and skill. This guide will show you how.

A book report is typically focused on the plot of the book: what is the story about and what happens in it? However, a truly outstanding book report contains more than that. It is a good idea to include some information on the historical background of the work, and also how it affected you. What did you think of it? Did it inspire you? Change you? Bore you? You can even add in some of the elements of literary analysis: what was the author trying to say, and what tools did he or she use to say it?

Your book report should answer these questions. How you answer them is what makes the difference between a good book report and a bad one. The key thing to remember in any type of writing about fiction is the principle of balance. If the reader wanted to know every single thing that happened in the book, they would go read it, so your job is the give the highlights.

Usually in a book report, it is acceptable to give away endings and plot details, so don’t worry too much about that, but remember that you do not want to get bogged down in the minutia of the author’s storytelling. You need to keep your book report flowing smoothly and moving along.

Start out with the title and author of the book, so that your audience knows what you are talking about. Once you have done that, you can give either a one-sentence summary of the setting and basic plot of the story, or perhaps a brief portrait of the main character. It really depends on the book: in this story, is the plot the most important thing, or is it the characters?

Think back to the characters as you move through the rest of your report, as well. In all likelihood, the protagonist will interact with many different people, and you don’t need to include them all in your report. It is a good idea to focus on a few key events and characters, and leave out the rest.

At the end of your report, have a few lines that summarize the book in the reader’s mind. You want to leave them eager to read it, and to let them know how you felt about it. In fact, one of the benefits of writing book reports is that they help you to crystallize in your mind exactly what it was that you liked or disliked about a book. Book reports do not have to be simply a dry retelling of the book: make them your own, and you will find that you enjoy writing them.

Many would-be writers do not realize putting words to a page is only a small part of the equation of successfully publishing. You must match what you want to write with what people want to buy.

You can write a book people are absolutely guaranteed to buy, if you follow a few rules. These rules aren’t here to take the fun out of your writing project. They are here merely to help you earn funds from your writing project.

If you’re against the idea of intentionally writing to earn money from your book because that offends your creative sensibilities, that’s all right, but this article is not for you. This article is for people who want to sell books and want to see a benefit to their bank accounts by writing marketable books.

I make this distinction because I’ve been around the writing world for quite a while now. As an author of my own books and e-books as well as a ghostwriter for others who speak and consult, I know the value of writing books that sell.

You can write a nonfiction book that sells if you follow these suggestions:

1. Ask what your intended audience wants to know. Find out what people who read the type of book you want to write need to know. Maybe they don’t need the thousandth book on the same angle of the same topic. Maybe you need to come from a fresher angle with new information.

2. Take a trip to the bookstore. Look to see what’s been covered to death and what is missing. If you see something that is missing, it could indicate a hole in the market. (Of course, it could also indicate nobody is interested in that particular thing, so making sure you do the Number One thing on this list is important).

3. Determine your own interest level. Consider whether you have enough interest in the topic to write a whole book on it. While you want to make sure you’re not just writing something simply because you like the topic, but because it’s of interest to others, you also want to make sure you are writing about something you can get excited about. If you can’t get excited about the topic, your readers will tell — and they’ll be bored. Think about it: If you aren’t even interested in what you’re writing about, why should they be?

4. Figure out what you can say that’s new. Now that you know what folks want to know and it’s something you’re interested in sharing, make sure you can give the reader some value. You don’t want to just rehash something; find a new angle, a new way of telling it, or something to make the reader glad she spent the money on the book. Because if you disappoint the reader, you can be assured she’s not buying the next book.