It’s time for another episode of Shama TV! Are you one of the many people with a book in your head, but nothing on paper? In this episode Shama, who just finished her second book titled Momentum, shares some of her tips on how to turn your book idea into a reality. Scroll down for a transcript.
Hey Zen Nation, Shama here. In today’s episode, we talk about how to write a book.
I just finished writing my second book. It’s called Momentum. You guys are the first to hear about it and it’ll be out in the spring of 2016. It’s all about how to market in the digital age. I’m very excited about it! My first book, as many of you guys may know, The Zen of Social Media Marketing, is now going into its fourth edition, also in the spring, so, crazy book writing time for me.
I’ve really been immersed in the book writing world and I meet so many of you who ask me all the time, how do I write a book? You’ve got great ideas, and I often tell you, you should write a book!
So how do you actually write a book? If you have a good idea, you’ve got something to say, how do you actually get the process going? Here are my tips on how to write a book.
First, think marketing even before you write the book. Let’s face it: there are millions of books out there and if you want yours to succeed – and by that I mean just get a few readers even – you really have to think about how is it going to stand out, how will you market it, how will you angle the book, the actual content of it, so it actually stands out in a sea of other similar books. How will you give your book, your “book baby,” its best fighting chance?
The second thing you have to think about is: what’s your goal with the book? Very few authors get rich selling their books. You really have to think about, what is your goal? Is to get a bigger audience? Is it to get more speaking engagements? Is it to break into the children’s literature world? Or whatever it maybe. What is your specific goal with the book that you’re writing? Because so much of that will determine how you write it, whether you self-publish, or traditionally publish, so make sure that you have a really good grasp of your goals for your book.
The third best tip I can give you is: write the easiest chapter first! My favorite word going into 2016 is “momentum” – success breeds success! So many people never get started on writing their book, so, they never finish. You really have to take that first step! By that, I mean write your easiest chapter first. For me, when I wrote The Zen of Social Media Marketing, for example, I wrote the “Burning Q&A” question chapter first. If you’ve read the book you know it’s a huge chapter and it’s all the questions I get and my answers to those questions. It was the fastest chapter for me to write because I already knew the answers, I knew the questions I was getting. It felt a lot more free-flowing than even some of the other chapters.
Once I wrote that chapter, I was like “Hey, one chapter dow,n just 12 more to go!” You have to just get that momentum going.
The last tip I have for you is that an outline is going to be your best friend. In college I took a course on writing and a big part of the semester was dedicated to the importance of an outline. Let me tell you, I fought it all the way, I didn’t like the idea of having to write an outline, I just wanted to sit down and write, but I’ll tell you right now an outline for a book makes all the difference because as you evolve a book – and I promise it will evolve – you’ll want to remember things, you’ll have ideas that you want to go back and add to. Having an outline makes it much easier to be able to do that.
Those are my tips on how to write a book. The first step is, definitely, to get started! I will do future videos here on how to market your book and so forth, but I’m really excited about my book. You’ll find links to them below and I hope you find them useful.
That’s it for you today guys! Be sure to subscribe so you can keep up with all our great content they we are creating for you. Until next time, market like a Zen Master.
