As we wrap up one year and enter the next, thoughts turn to goals and ambitions and—dare I say it?—resolutions. So perhaps the image of a book is appearing on the horizon…
The idea of writing a book sounds good, but then reality likes to stick out its foot and trip you.
This month I want to provide a “choose your own adventure” article that identifies some of the most common challenges I see with both new and not-so-new writers, with links to Clear Sight articles that help address these hurdles.
Find the section that resonates most with you and dig in—or bookmark this article and come back to it when you’re ready.
Challenge 1: Finding a focus for your book
- How to Begin Writing a Nonfiction Book. Here, we cover three elements to align up front—purpose, audience, and subject—with concrete examples to get you started.
- Purpose: The Starting Place for Strategic Alignment. Why are you writing a book? Does its practical purpose support your business purpose and personal purpose? Alignment may ease your journey.
- Reader Personas: Know Your Audience. Reader personas help you understand your book’s audience so you design and develop the right content for them, resulting in better engagement.
- Choosing a Business Book Topic. Want to write a business book but have too many ideas? Here are several considerations for deciding on a topic.
Challenge 2: Planning your book project
- How Long Should Your Nonfiction Book Be? The “ideal” book length depends not only on your content, but on strategy: your goals, your audience, your publishing path, and your book format.
- How Long Should It Take to Write a Book? Here are three factors, three strategies to tame time-frustration, and the one thing that can throw any estimate out the window.
- Book Project Plans: Reduce Overwhelm, See Progress, Finish Strong! A book project is BIG, so you need a book project plan. Here are the main elements of one—and a template.
- Reduce Book-Related Stress: Add Slack to Your Project Plan. Book projects are stressful enough without a time crunch. To mitigate risk and alleviate anxiety, build in “slack.”
- Help, I Lost My Book! The Art of File Management. Misplacing or losing your files is painful, and forgetting things is inefficient and frustrating. Get file management right—right from the beginning.
- Book Project Support: What Do You Need? Most of us do not have the skills or capacity to write and publish a book all on our own. This article explores how to decide what support you need.
Challenge 3: Finding ways to write more efficiently
- Match Your Nonfiction Writing Approach to Your Content. Choosing the appropriate writing approach for your project can increase efficiency and/or relieve pressure.
- The Building-Block Approach to Writing a Book. Lacking knowledge or experience on your subject? Or simply feeling pinched for time? Build your book in blocks, assembling the pieces one by one.
- Trouble Getting That First Draft on the Page? Speak Your Book. Speaking your book can speed up the process and deepen the content. Here are some tips on process and tools to get you going.
- The Automatic Table of Contents: Your Secret Writing Weapon. Word’s Automatic TOC tool lets you see and work on your book’s structure. This article gives you the setup basics.
- Using Editorial Style Sheets to Save Time, Improve Consistency. An editorial style sheet is a mini rule book for your book manuscript. Here we describe what goes into one and how it helps.
- Sources and Citations: A Quick and Dirty Guide. Tedious but essential, sources and citations go with the nonfiction book territory. Track them from the beginning of your project.
Challenge 4: Keeping your butt in the chair
- How to Stay Motivated to Write: Butt-in-Chair Advice. Having trouble building momentum or staying motivated? Here are five tips.
- Are distractions keeping you from writing your book? It’s easy to get sidetracked. Try these five remedies to manage your writing distractions.
- Write with Ease: Keep Your Creative Well Filled. Struggling to write? Nothing clicking? Lacking ideas? After pouring so much energy into your work, you might need to refill your creative well.
- Feeling Mucky? How to Get Your Writing Unstuck. Writing is a creative process with inevitable ups and downs—including getting stuck in the muck. Try these seven tips for getting unstuck.
- Tired But Still Need to Write? Try These Tips. Sometimes you must make writing progress even when you are not in top form. Here are three productivity tips to help you continue.
Challenge 5: Managing your mindset
- You don’t have to write THE book, just A book. Many people think their book must be comprehensive and perfect. A change in writing mindset can help get you started…and finished.
- The Reality of the Book-Writing Process: Hard Work and Growth. On any big project, knowing what is “normal” can help manage expectations. Here are some “normal” things on book projects.
- The Prick of New Growth: On Writing and Chickens. Writing a book is more than a project—it’s a personal growth effort. It might be uncomfortable, but hang in there—the transformation is coming.
The hardest part of compiling this list was curation—I have so many articles! If you don’t see one that addresses the challenge you’re facing, just send me an email at karin@clearsightbooks.com. If I have one, I’ll send it to you (or point you to another resource). Happy writing!