How to get started on your book

When I started out writing my first book, Awaken To Choice, several years ago, in hindsight, I now would characterize that as an “extended journaling” activity.

I just started writing. I was using the writing process to synthesize many of the key ideas I had been learning in my journey learning about and reading multiple authors on human spirituality.

Since I was using a word processor to write it, I just organized and re-organized the content as I went along writing that first draft so that it seemed like it flowed, at least to me.

My audience was initially just an audience of one: me. So it didn’t really matter that much how it was organized. Later, as I captured more and more content and key ideas, I realized that it may be beneficial to others – my family and friends at first, and then I realized eventually many other people.

About this same time I learned from one of my mentors, Brendon Burchard, that books really should be structured with a framework to be more easily accessible and read by others.

So, I ended up doing a massive edit to re-organize my first draft so that it flowed in a logical order and framework. That was a huge amount of work, and I ended up cutting fairly large amounts from the final book.

Having learned that lesson, with this new book that I’m currently writing, I’m starting out by laying down the framework and then filling in the content details later. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure that’s what my high school teachers taught me about writing. Outline it first for structure and flow, and then write the words.

So, that’s where I am right now. About a 3-page outline.

But I know that having a framework and a content outline will make the writing and editing process much easier and faster this time around.

Step 1 – Decide the audience that you’re writing for and your intention in writing the book. Is it for you, your family, friends, and acquaintances, or for a larger audience?

Step 2 – Organize your content into a logical framework to make your content more easily accessible to your audience.

Step 1 for me: I am writing this for the benefit of a large audience coaches, consultants, authors, speakers, and professional service providers who are interested in a systematic way to build their online business platform to create more visibility and impact for their mission.

There are many teachers of online marketing, and I have invested in many of their programs, but none of my teachers have taught a systematic and efficient way to use these technologies to build a business. That is what I will be teaching in my book.

Step 2 for me: At the highest level, I’m starting with the same outline I used for my free guide: Accelerate Your Online Success, and that same outline is also the basis for my 5-Day Live Training Workshop: Accelerate Your Online Success. 

That outline structure is the following 5 steps:

1. Engage Your Audience
2. Customer Journey
3. Systems
4. Online Assets
5. Implementation Plan

Following these steps in order will save the reader lots of time and frustration versus the alternatives.

To your online success!