SECRETS OF BOOK WRITING

What is Book Writing?

Most of us have a great idea of a book in our heads but face difficulty in writing our book or figuring out how to get it published. Anyone with a story to tell can write a book, either for their enjoyment and publish for all to see. Getting started is often the hardest part, however, with proper planning one can successfully write the story which they have in store. Book writing is a special skill where one presents the story, following proper frameworks and the process. Book writing is an art and very few can master it. However, with proper guidance and a clear thought process, one can be able to write a book successfully. The blog focuses on various tips and ideas on the basics of writing a book. Book writing for beginners can be challenging, however with determination, and following the book writing process, one can succeed.

What is a Good Title for a Book?

The title is the first thing the reader sees or hears about your book—even before the cover in most cases—and getting it right is the single most important book marketing decision you’ll make. The title forms the basis of the reader’s judgment about your book. Spend time figuring out the best possible title for your book, because it will largely determine what people think about your book, and thus, your book’s success. A good title should have all of these attributes:

1. Attention-grabbing: The right title helps you stand out and make that important first impression. You can be provocative, controversial, exciting, make a promise, etc. The point is your title should make people stop and pay attention to it.
2. Memorable & searchable: Remember, a book’s title is not only the first thing a reader hears about your book, it’s the one piece of information that a reader has that leads them back to the book itself. This also means you want the book title to be easily searchable. In the world we live in, a search is how people find things now. If your title does not lend itself to easy memorization and searchability on Google and Amazon, that is very bad.
3. Informative: This is the least crucial aspect for fiction books, but very important for non-fiction. The title, including the subtitle, should give the reader some sort of idea of what the book is about. Though your book title should be informative and easily understood, it doesn’t need to spell out the whole book idea.
4. Easy & not embarrassing to say: Having an easy-to-say title is a concept called cognitive fluency. It means people are more likely to remember and respond to words and phrases they can immediately understand and pronounce. Don’t try to be sophisticated at the risk of being obscure. One of the most important things to think about when picking your book title is word of mouth.
5. Short: Generally speaking, shorter titles are best. A short title is not only more memorable and easier to say for your target audience, but it also gives space and flexibility for a better book cover. One-word titles are the best. In the title, stick to the core idea. If you want to get wordy, then leave that to the subtitle. If you can, aim to keep the main title around 5 words or less. The subtitle can offer context or tell a bit more about what the reader will learn.

How to Begin Book Writing?

Deciding to start writing a book is intimidating, especially if you’re a beginner. Here are some steps on how to start writing your book:

1. Start by setting Up Your Book Writing Environment

One of the most important things to remember if you want to start writing a book is designing a writing space that allows your creativity to flourish unhindered. Create an environment that is designed to help you stay focused. Here are a few guidelines:

• Have collections of inspiration.
• Unclutter your space.
• Be Flexible.
• Create a music playlist for inspiration:
• Try Multiple Locations.

2. Start Writing by Developing a Writing Habit

The number one reason authors fail to publish a book is that they never finish the book they intend to publish. Why? Because they didn’t form a good writing habit. Feeling overwhelmed when writing a book is natural, but you must remember that this journey always begins with the first page. And to write your first page, you must take action.

3. Create an Outline Before You Start Writing

A clear book outline provides clarity and direction to your story. It is also the roadmap for your book that keeps you on track and ensures you have all your ideas organized in a natural flow. Before you write, spend some time creating your outline with these steps:

• Brainstorm: List every thought and story idea you want in your book by creating a mind map.
• Organize: Combine all related ideas.
• Order: Arrange ideas into subsections from general to specific.
• Label: Create main and subheadings that will eventually be your chapters.

4. Work on ONLY Writing

One challenge many authors experience is taking on multiple new projects when they should be focused on one because their minds are full of amazing book ideas. Although enticing, the division of attention can spread your energy thin producing bad writing or worse, failure to complete your book.

5. Maintain Your Focus

Once you get into the flow of starting your book, you want to remain focused through the duration of your writing session. Leave the distractions behind by creating a writing schedule and keeping aside all the possible distractions.

6. Schedule Your Writing Time

Scheduling your writing time using a calendar is an important step to be efficient and keep a track of how much you are writing.

7. Start by Dealing With Writing Distractions First

Distractions can hinder you and your desire to start writing a book. Resistance is a common obstacle that can distract us for too long. It’s a form of fear that intimidates you from writing and can throw you off your writer’s flow. Reading morning affirmations, exercising, and free-flow writing for 10 minutes can be useful.

How to End a Book?

If you want to become a better author, learning how to end a book well is crucial. The goal of a great ending is to tie everything together, neatly summarize your book, and then provide a specific call or calls to action for your reader. Don’t overcomplicate the conclusion—just let it do its job, and it’ll work great. Here are some tips to end your book:

1. Build to an intriguing climax

A great ending is all in the build-up. A taut climax isn’t equally important for every genre. How do you build to a climactic novel ending?

• Make it harder for characters to reach their objectives – what stands in their way?
• If applicable to your story, increase characters’ peril.
• Vary pace – write shorter scenes and chapters to increase momentum.
• Keep the largest confrontations between characters for your final chapters. Hint at their approach.

2. Make sure your ending is earned, not improbable

Usually, the ending that makes sense follows the simple logic of cause and effect. This doesn’t mean that you cannot have an outlandish, fantastical or unexpected ending. There are very few absolute rules when it comes to writing fiction. Yet laying the groundwork for your ending and building the anticipation of a specific outcome creates a sense of direction and objective.

3. Leave room for readers’ imaginations

An ending doesn’t have to be the last nail in your character’s coffin. Story endings that leave room for readers’ imaginations are enjoyable because readers get to picture what comes next, without being told. A little mystery, a few incompletions remains.

4. Bring home how your characters have changed

A story lies in change. Showing how your characters have changed at the end of your novel as they’ve reached (or fallen short of) their objectives creates a satisfying sense of development.

5. Use the ‘5 W’s’ to create finality

In addition to showing how characters have changed, use the ‘5 w’s’ – who, what, why, where, and when – as a whole.

6. Restate the book’s mission/thesis

This is pretty simple, but make sure you restate the book’s thesis. From the first chapter to the final chapter, your book’s primary message should be consistent.

How to Organize Book Writing?

Here are some writing tips to help you organize your latest book project:

1. Begin with written brainstorming: Before you can organize your ideas, you’ll need to come up with the ideas in the first place. Set aside plenty of writing time each day, and write down whatever ideas come to mind.
2. Put your ideas down on note cards: By now, you should have a notebook or computer document filled with ideas. It’s time to transition away from brainstorming and note-taking and begin organizing. Take all of your ideas—whether they’re scenes, character needs, or plotlines—and write them down on individual index cards or sticky notes. Continue this method until all of your novel’s main points, important scenes, and random ideas are copied onto note cards.
3. Arrange the cards in roughly chronological order: Once all of your ideas are on notecards, it’s time to put them in order. If certain notecards don’t seem to fit in with the broader scope of the story, place them off to the side for now. With all your cards laid out, you should start to get a big-picture sense of how your story looks.
4. Fill in the holes: Based on your notecard outline, ask yourself: Which characters need to be further developed? Which subplots need to be fleshed out? Which storylines need to be reworked? Focus on making sure your characters have strong motivations and that your plot moves are earned. Seeing your novel laid out in notecard form should help you visually identify what still needs to be done for your story to track.
5. Transfer your outline back to paper. By now, you should have a bunch of notecards that form the rough outline of your story. Copy the scene ideas back onto paper or a Word document, so that your outline is all in one place.

Writing an EBook

An eBook, or “electronic book,” is a book that is digitally distributed. EBooks have various benefits

• EBooks can be used to move your potential customers down the sales funnel.
• EBooks can have smooth navigation and plenty of visuals to keep the reader engaged to the very end.
• EBooks can help you establish yourself as an industry expert thanks to the in-depth analysis of a topic.
• EBooks can be stored and shared in an easy-to-access format, printed out partly or as a whole, and distributed with minimal effort on your side.
• Build trust with your readers
• Increase traffic to your site

Here are 8 steps to write your eBook:

• Choose a topic: Having a clear vision when choosing your eBook topic will make your writing process much easier. Choose your topic based on the goals you want to accomplish with it, not necessarily your interests. Also, consider your expertise and what your audience has to say.
• Build your chapter outline: Once you’ve figured out the specific topic for your eBook, write a chapter outline that provides valuable information about your main topic.
• Write your eBook one chapter at a time: You can break through the overwhelming fear of writing an eBook by treating each chapter as a single unit.
• Write the introduction and conclusion: Don’t take your eBook’s introduction and conclusion lightly—they may be the only sections some people read.
• Proofread and edit: Don’t edit as you write. Instead, finish your manuscript first, and then edit the whole document.
• Format and design: Once you have the body of your eBook ready to go, it’s time to format and design it to create an optimal reading experience for your audience.
• Publish: Making it to this step means your eBook is ready for the world.
• Promote your new eBook: Writing an eBook takes time and energy, but an even bigger challenge may be finding people to read it. Sending it to your email list and asking readers to share it, scheduling social media posts to announce it, targeting your audience with social media ads are some ways.

Is Book Writing Profitable?

We imagine a successful author’s life to be idyllic. The reality couldn’t be more different. A typical book author barely makes more than minimum wage. You receive an advance and 10% royalties on net profit from each book. You’ll make money as an author, not from the sales of your book, but from the relationships, you create with your books. Producers pay them a lot of money for the opportunity to capitalize on the relationships they’ve forged with their readers, and to give their fans a deeper experience with the stories they’ve come to know and love. 70% of books don’t make a profit. If it’s not profitable, why do so many people write books? Because being an author opens the door for other opportunities like speaking, training programs, and consulting. Plus, it makes your parents proud.

 Thus writing a book is a long and exciting journey and will bear fruit only with hard work, determination and interest. Hopefully, this article will be of some help to you in writing a book.