Write a book

Writing a book? Dig deeper for a better story

Writing a book? Dig deeper for a better story

I’ve just finished watching the excellent television drama House of Cards – the US version starring Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood. If you’re into politics, it’s a must see.

During the third and final season, one of the subplots involves a writer, Thomas Yates, who is commissioned by Underwood to write a biography of him. In many ways it’s a poisoned chalice for Yates. The book is always intended as a puff piece.

Nevertheless, there are some interesting interactions between subject and writer across a number of episodes – interactions I think many ghostwriters and biographers could relate to.

A theme that ran particularly true for me was Yates’s challenge in getting any level of detail out of Underwood.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 12: Get your book out there

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 12: Get your book out there

When you finally have your book in your hot little hands, take a moment to reflect and enjoy the feeling – there’s nothing quite like it. But don’t bask in your newfound glory for too long. Now that your book is finished, it’s time to get it out to the world. This involves a combination of publicity, so people hear about your book, and distribution so that once people hear about it they are able to buy it.

Needless to say this topic could fill a book on its own; what I’m sharing here is the equivalent of the sixpence inside your Christmas pudding. 

It should also be said that while this topic is the last of my ‘write your book in a year’ series, publicity and distribution would ideally be considered before you start your project. When people ring me for advice on self-publishing, my first question is usually ‘How will you distribute it?’ simply because there’s little point writing a book unless you have the means to spread it around.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 11: Printing

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 11: Printing

You’ve got the book writtenedited and proofread, the administration done and a beautifully designed interior and cover. You’re only one step away from having that precious book in your hands: printing.

When it comes to printing there are basically two choices available to you: short run (aka ‘digital printing’ or ‘print on demand’) and long run (aka ‘offset’). Your choice will depend on how many copies you want to print, which in turn will depend on how many copies you think you might sell and how much money you want to spend up front. Often – but not always – you will want to print an initial short run to test the market.

As with design, book printing tends to be a specialist field within the broader printing industry. Whoever you use to print your book, you’ll generally be better off dealing with people who print books, rather than brochures, for a living.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 10: Proofreading

Receiving your fully laid out book back from the designer is often the first time it feels like a ‘real thing’. Even though all you get is an electronic file – usually a PDF – it looks like a real book for the first time.

But the job’s not done yet. From the outset I have talked about the fact that a book is different from most other writing projects. It needs to be done right. More than right. It needs to be done as perfectly as possible. So the next step – proofreading – is as important as any other.

Proofreading is not copyediting. Yes, there are similarities of course. But where copyediting is like the final quality control check on a car (checking that nothing is missing, and that everything is in the right place), proofreading is like the final detailing before delivery – making sure your book really shines.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 9: Design

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 9: Design

Visit this blog’s ‘Write a book’ category page for previous posts in this series.

When I set out to publish my very first book back in 2005, I never expected to sell many of them (and I met my expectations!). It was more of an experiment: I wanted to prove that it was possible to produce a self-published book that didn’t look self-published.

I couldn’t understand why so many independently published books look, well, amateurish.

What did I learn? I learnt that my hunch was correct. Trade published books look professionally designed because theyare professionally designed. In contrast, many self-published books look like their design was an afterthought … because it was.

Bottom line: if you want your book to look the part, invest in a designer. In fact you may even need two designers: one for the inside of the book (the ‘layout’), and one for the cover. The skills for these two tasks are fairly different and many designers are better at one than the other.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 8: Administration

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 8: Administration

Okay. Now we’re getting to the nitty-gritty of book publishing. Regardless of how far you’ve got into the writing and polishing process, and assuming you’re intending to self-publish, when you have a moment you can start thinking about the various administrative tasks you’ll need to complete.

Admin can be annoying, but it is important: a) because it will help people find your bookafter it is published, and b) because it will help give your book a professional ‘look and feel’.

And the administration required is not particularly onerous,

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 7: Copyedit

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 7: Copyedit

By the time you’ve drafted your book, rewritten it once or twice and then given it a good polish, it would seem reasonable to think that you are just about done with it. And you are … sort of.

The good news is that once your manuscript has reached this point you are getting very close to the end. However, there is a very important step to undertake: the copyedit. This means going over of your text with a fine-toothed comb to correct ‘typos’ – like spelling mistakes and grammatical errors – and to ensure consistency of presentation.

Without exception I recommend that this task is given to a professional editor who has the skills, knowledge and experience, including an incredible eye for detail, needed for the job. Don’t give it to a well-meaning friend (unless they have that qualification) and never, ever try to copyedit your own work.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 6: Polish

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 6: Polish

In the context of this monthly series, this post is less of a ‘how to’ and more of a call to arms.
In season five of the brilliant television drama The Wire much of the action is set inside the newsroom of a fictional version of The Baltimore Sun. On a number of occasions we see journalists and editors debating nuances of argument, word choice and grammatical accuracy. It’s a nod to the seemingly old-fashioned idea that getting the words right actually matters.

Sadly, if many of today’s newspapers are anything to go by, the pace and pressure associated with survival in the modern media environment have put paid to this dedication to accuracy. Hardly a day goes by where I don’t find at least one blatant typo in our paper – usually more – along with a missing or duplicated line or an obvious hole in an argument.

However, there is one area of writing in which ‘getting it right’ still matters: the book.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 5: Re-write

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 5: Re-write

Perhaps the best kept secret of the book-writing fraternity is that – contrary to the belief of many non-writers – the vast majority of finished books are not written in just one draft. Few authors, including the best of them, have a ‘gift of the gab’ that allows them to churn out golden words like the mint churns out golden coins. It doesn’t work like that.

What makes a ‘good start’ into a ‘good book’ is the re-writing. This is where you take your draft – your rough piece of clay – and shape it into something beautiful.

The task of re-writing is easier than you might think. It is so much simpler to work with a draft than it was to work with a blank page.

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Write and publish your book in a year – Step 4: Writing tips

Write and publish your book in a year – Step 4: Writing tips

No one – well, hardly anyone – drafts a whole book in a month. So at this stage on your journey I’d like to remind you of a few of things you can be keeping in mind as you write, and give you a couple of new things to think about.

Once you get into the swing of writing, it is easy to become buried in what you know and lose sight of what you want your book to achieve. It pays to constantly check yourself by revisiting the three major considerations raised previously:

  • Who is your audience? Who is this book for? Who will be reading it? How much do they already know about your topic?

  • What is your message? What is the single main thing you want to say with this book?

  • What is your purpose? What are you aiming to achieve with his book?

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