Most people say that they’d like to write a book one day, but few ever do. Book publishing is a challenging but rewarding process that too few get to experience. Luckily, one of our co-hosts has firsthand experience to share with any marketer or business leader looking to write a book.
Our co-host Robert Carnes has written three books, including his latest book The Story Cycle, all about storytelling for businesses. He shares his insights on the process of writing a book and how it’s more achievable than you might imagine.
Writing the book
- Choose a topic you can live with for a year
- Collect ideas and save them somewhere.
- Organize your ideas into chapters and sections.
- Write a crappy first draft to get it out of your system.
- Let it breathe for a while and give yourself a break.
Editing the book
- Aim to work on at least 4-5 revisions.
- Writing and editing are different skills.
- Knowing when to share with other people is tricky.
- Share with 4-6 people to give you initial feedback.
- Hire an editor who you trust to be objective.
- Come up with a title that’s clear and catchy.
Designing the book
- Collect 10-12 books whose covers & interiors you like. And explain why.
- Layout the book or get a professional to do it for you.
- Design the cover to be different from your competition.
- Focus group the title and cover with examples of your audience.
Distributing the book
- Either through a publisher or through Amazon self-publishing.
- This process is still opaque and hard to understand.
- The more versions (print, hardback, audio, e-book) the better.
- You don’t have to do every format at once- releasing a new format later is a secondary launch.
Promoting the book
- Use the book like a business card. Helps to build your credibility.
- The process of promotion never really ends.
- Break the book down into content chunks to share.
- Guest blog posts. Lead magnets. Podcast episodes. Speaking engagements.
- Create a list of everything you can think of to keep going.
