Every entrepreneur should a write a book, and in this series I provide the steps for doing exactly that – guiding the busy entrepreneur through the maze of authoring a complete book. In previous articles in this series we covered:
- The reasons why writing your own book is a great idea for the entrepreneur
- How to work through the decision making process to determine a worthy topic and target audience
- How to plan with the “end result” clearly in view
And in this article we’ll continue working on your new book with steps 3 and 4:
- Generating the Topic List
- Setting up to write
You may notice that we’re still not actually writing the book, but believe me, all of this preliminary work is going to pay off big time when we finally start to type.
Step #3 – Generating the Topic List
You already know the main topic of your book. In this step we are going to break that main topic down into 5 or more sub-topics that cover the key points you want to make. This is actually a quick process – almost a brainstorming session – except instead of thinking of new ideas you are listing current ideas.
Take out a blank yellow legal pad and a pen. Then, in a quiet, well-lit room, simply start writing down all of the things you know about your main topic. For example, if your topic was collecting guitars, possible topics might be –
· how to start collecting
· how to care for your collection
· how to display your collection
· where to find the best deals
· etc.
Make the list as long as you can. Even if something seems to be a small point, write it down. It will probably make into the book somehow. Think of it this way – imagine your little teenage cousin comes over and says, “I want to collect guitars, too. How do you start?” Then let the topics flow.
When you have exhausted your ideas, take a close look at your list. You should start to see general themes and groups appearing in your list. Start to group the ideas into these themes, and picture how much you think you could write on the idea. Is it a one-liner? Or is it a good 10-20 pages?
I like to group ideas into three categories: small (one liners), medium (a page or 2), and large (several pages or more).
Now, here’s a cool little trick: any idea that you determine to be “large” instantly becomes a chapter title. When you group all of the large ideas, it will form the general outline of your book.
Step #4 – Setting Up To Write
The last thing that needs to be done before you sit down to create your book is to complete the “set up.” You need to gather all of the tools and reference materials you might need, and place them in a way that provides immediate access. The exact process for this will vary depending on your project, but here are a few examples of things that I personally have available when I write a book.
- The Outline – I always have a copy of the outline handy so that I have a good feel for where I am in the book, and where I’ll be going.
- The Topic List – I take 3×5 note cards and write a sub-topic on each. Then I can place them in different orders of different categories without losing track of them.
- Yellow Sticky Notes – I keep these handy for ideas that I may get while writing. Sometimes I place them on my computer monitor, or directly on my desk.
- A tape recorder, or some other way to record your thoughts – we’ll get to the exact uses for this in the next article.
- Clear Work Space – I wrote an entire article on setting up your writing environment for maximum productivity. Rather than rehash that article, let me just recommend that you clear the clutter and give yourself plenty of room to work.
And that’s it! We’re now ready to start putting words on paper and authoring a book.