Any new writer wonders the same question: How long does it take to write a book? The definitive answer is: It depends. Let me explain…

According to a panelist survey of famous authors, when asked how long it took for them to produce their novels, the answers ranged from between four years to a decade. In other words, “Writing a novel takes as long as you want or need it to take.”

Here at Self-Publishing School, we beg to differ. Our students routinely crank out bestsellers in just 90 days, with the first-draft writing process taking as little as 30 days. (No, we’re not making that up!) The grind begins with the mindmapping and outlining process, which sets authors up for a successful writing phase before building launch teams and hitting publish on their masterpieces.

While the temptation can be to spend years, even decades, honing and polishing your book, a rough draft sitting on your hard drive isn’t working for you. It’s not building your author name, furthering your cause, or growing your audience. Moreover, it’s not earning you a single cent. Remember this when it comes to writing your first book: done is better than perfect.

How long does it take to write a book?

We have amazing news: Writing YOUR book can take far less time than you think. You just need to know the tricks to get moving and stay moving.

The faster you get your book finished, the sooner you can realize your goals. And once the publication ball starts rolling, the positive energy will continue.

Your readership will grow with each book, so that with each new publication, you’re building your fan base. If a fan finds and loves your fourth book, they’ll go back and read books one through three, earning you even more accolades and more financial gain.

The bottom line is this: You need to prioritize getting your first draft finished as quickly as your life, time, and circumstances allow. It may not be easy, but it’s not impossible.

Read on for tips to supercharge your own writing process so you’ll hit “publish” before you know it.

1. Choose a Deadline

“The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.” – Philip Roth

It’s no secret that knowing when to stop writing can be the hardest part of actually writing. You can write forever, and never have a clear end in sight. Part of becoming a published author is knowing when to wrap it up.

Setting a final deadline means that you’ll have a finish line in mind, and that can put the pressure on to keep the forward momentum going and finish what you started.

Here’s what to do: Set a deadline, right now, for your book-writing project. Set it somewhere between 30 and 90 days…that’s right, before you get started, you want to have a clear deadline set out for the completion of your draft.

Mark it somewhere you can see it every day. Your end date will help you stay on track.

Another recommendation is to hire your editor and schedule them for your deadline. That way, you have one more motivating factor to keep the writing ball rolling.

2. Set Concrete Goals

One of the best ways to keep your writing moving is to set word count goals for yourself. The idea behind word count goals is that if you set up parameters for your own success, you’ll be more likely to achieve those goals.

If you don’t have concrete, defined goals, then it’s that much easier to procrastinate, and then your pages might get done…someday. Or not.

Word count goals also serve the purpose of setting up a visual aid and reward system. It feels amazing to cross things off your list. So, document your achievements. Write down your daily, weekly, and monthly word count goals, then take a red marker and draw a big red line through each accomplishment when you’re finished.

What should your daily word count be? We suggest aiming for 500-1,000 words per day; that’s about one hour per day. If you stick with a word count goal of 1,000 words per day, at the end of 30 days, you’ll be looking at your completed 30,000 word first draft!

3. Find Your People

A supportive community can be a sounding board, a first pair of eyes, and a protector of your sanity. They can also be the extrinsic motivation you need to meet your own deadlines and word counts. When you know you have a team backing you up, it’s that much harder to drag your feet. They expect great things from you—don’t disappoint them!

At Self-Publishing School, we believe in something called the accountabilibuddy system, where students pair up with other like-minded students to encourage one another and hold each other accountable for reaching goals and deadlines. It’s a great motivator and helps our students complete their books on time.

4. Work at Warp Speed

Here’s the idea: Drafting at lightning speed will prevent you from taking decades to finish your book. As we already talked about, you CAN write a book in 30 to 90 days!

The faster you write, the easier it will be meet your goals. Here are some simple tricks to boost your writing speed:

• Write every day.
• Adhere to your set writing routine.
• Don’t get stuck, move on to another section if you’re floundering.
• Limit research so you move forward with your pages.
• Plan weekly meetings with a partner to cheer you on.

5. Prioritize Yourself

One of the hardest things to do is to put ourselves first. There are so many competing thing pulling at our time and energy. It can seem as though once we’ve met work, family, life, volunteer, and friend obligations, there’s little left over for ourselves.

We’re here to tell you that in order to write your book, you need to make the effort to be selfish, at least for a short block of time every day. Put yourself first. Make you your first priority. Get your book done—it will pay off. Not just monetarily, but in terms of life satisfaction and intrinsic rewards.

You can wake up half an hour earlier each morning, you can skip the social lunch at work and spend twenty minutes at your desk writing, you can use your subway ride to scribble pages—you get the idea. There’s time to be found, just make an effort to put yourself first and find it. You’ll be happy you did.

Don’t lose out on your dream of becoming a published author because you short-changed yourself. If you can carve out just a short window of time each day, you can make it happen. And it will feel fabulous when it does.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on 5/16/2016 and has been updated for accuracy.

 

Like what you read and want to learn more? We’re holding a FREE online workshop where Chandler is revealing the exact tactics and strategies he used to write and publish 6 bestselling books in a row… and use them to build a 7-figure business in less than 2 years. Click here to save your spot now!

Welcome to episode 5 of the Self-Publishing School podcast. Today, I am joined by Lisa Nichols, one of the world’s most requested motivational speakers. She is a media personality and corporate CEO whose global platform has reached and served nearly 30 million people. She has been featured on Oprah, The Today Show, The Steve Harvey Show, and on The Secret.

Lisa has six bestselling books including the New York Times Bestseller No Matter What and her seventh book Abundance Now was just released this January. I am so excited about this interview. Lisa is just hilarious. She is a bundle of energy and a whole lot of fun, and I know we are going to have an amazing interview.

Listen in to find out about guerilla marketing, creating hooks, overcoming fear, and so much more!

You can find Lisa here:

AbundanceNowOnline.com

@2motivate on Twitter

Lisa on Facebook

Show Notes:

[01:27] Lisa wanted to write a book as a way to inspire people while she was also doing other things like speaking.

[02:46] If you want your message to have the greatest impact a book should be in your path.

[03:44] How it took Lisa three and a half years to complete Chicken Soup for The African American Soul.

[06:26] How a book is about the message, not the writing and punctuation.

[07:43] No Matter What was Lisa’s first solo book.

[09:30] How Lisa’s English teacher told her she was the weakest writer she has ever met.

[10:38] Lisa’s grammar wasn’t strong, but her message was powerful.

[12:19] Pushing through the fear of writing a book after being in the Chicken Soup Series and the Secret.

[15:16] How Abundance Now is Lisa’s biggest book ever and her life’s work.

[16:24] How fear is present when you do big things, but we have to minimize the fear story.

[18:18] Lisa tries to get as creative and radical as possible with marketing. Guerilla marketing works.

[19:51] Study your market. Who will read the book and where do they gather?

[21:37] How Lisa sent a mass mailer out asking to speak at Churches and then organizations where her audience was.

[23:28] Making Abundance Now a movement and a moment. The new definition of abundance.

[26:40] Tempting readers to read your book by telling them what personal information is on certain highlighted pages.

[29:26] Books are about people and the message on the page.

[30:47] How to use current events in a book to open up a television opportunity.

[33:34] Always be creating a hook and speaking in a way to create your next opportunity when you do a television appearance.

[37:27] Getting that first opportunity to open the door for television shows. Start regional and work your way up. Put together a press release and media packet with video and give them a call.

[42:38] Lisa’s parting words about getting up every day and sharing our message.

Links and Resources:

AbundanceNowOnline.com

@2motivate on Twitter

Lisa on Facebook

self-publishingschool.com

Spsfreetraining.com

Chicken Soup for the African American Soul

No Matter What

You also might enjoy:

• How to Market a Book Step by Step
• How to Be a Writer: 10 Traits of Professional Authors

Today, I am joined by Ryan Levesque the #1 National Best-Selling Author of the book ASK. In 2008, armed with a $450 laptop, an Ivy League background, and neuroscience he was able to launch a multi-million dollar online publishing business. He sold information and software products using what is now known as the ASK Formula.

Ryan has used the ASK Formula to help build several multi-million dollar businesses spread across 23 different industries. He has generated over 100 million dollars in sales. This breaks down to generating over 3 million leads with 170 thousand customers across 19 different markets. Ryan has been a busy guy because these numbers are just from the last 23 months.

I met Ryan last September at The Titans of Direct Response Event. Ryan has a background in copy and direct response which is a skill in and of itself. In this episode, we are going to focus on his book ASK. We are going to talk about a case study and how he launched the book. Then we are really diving into the monetizing portion and the survey funnel and different back-end products.

For all this and much more, listen in to this episode of the Self-Publishing School podcast!

You can find Ryan here:
Ask Method
Ryan Levesque
Ryan Levesque on LinkedIn
Ryan on Facebook

Show Notes

[02:25] How a book fits into Ryan’s big picture strategy. Being in the information industry Ryan wanted to expand what he was doing to mainstream products like books on Amazon.
[03:37] How the process of writing a book took longer than Ryan had expected.
[04:22] The way Ryan shared his story in the book and the ASK formula. He laid it on the line and held nothing back.
[05:41] By telling everyone everything you know for free people will pay you to tell them everything again.
[07:31] How an illness inspired Ryan to really look at his life and decide how he wanted to make an impact in the world.
[07:55] ASK was called the single greatest marketing book since Breakthrough Advertising.
[08:35] Don’t be tempted to hold information back in your book and create a tease for your product. Instead, put it all in the book.
[12:25] How ASK came very close to being a New York Times Bestseller. Being in the How To category as opposed to the Business category had an effect.
[14:36] Promotion and launch methods for ASK included creating an amazing product to enlist partners to help promote the book.
[15:05] Cold traffic methods used included Facebook advertising, LinkedIn advertising, and they tested a few other things.
[16:20] Be prepared for customer inquiries if you sell books on a prelaunch basis.
[17:28] Getting great testimonials and telling a great story makes a huge difference in the success of the launch.
[19:05] How Ryan and his wife took their business from nothing to $25,000 a month in 18 months.
[19:43] Talking with people can help you decide if you really do have a great story.
[20:45] Podcast interviews were another awesome tool for the launch and pre launch of ASK.
[22:04] Ryan has someone who pitches his story to podcasters to get on their shows. Laddering up is a low-cost method to get guest spots.
[25:39] Hitting the top of the list on launch week because of pre-launch sales.
[30:14] How book buyers are more critical than information product buyers.
[30:41] Fake reviews and planting reviews are the wrong paths to go down.
[33:01] Trying to anticipate people’s objections to the book. By doing so, you will get counter one aspect of negative reviews.
[39:44] Things that Ryan wishes he would have done differently around the monetization of the book such as more clarity about readers options.
[43:10] Getting readers into your world without directly selling to them.
[47:45] The biggest product that the book helped to sell was the software or the mastermind program, which were also the same offer because they came free with each other.
[53:19] Trust created by being a #1 bestselling author is invaluable.
[54:57] How running out of inventory can create a hit on your rankings. Out of stock protection can prevent this problem from having.
[57:26] An unexpected result of the book is getting people to sign up for Ryan’s highest level mastermind group without Ryan even speaking to them.

Links and Resources:

Ask Method
Ryan Levesque
Ryan Levesque on LinkedIn
Ryan on Facebook
Breakthrough Advertising
ASK on Amazon

You also might enjoy:

• 3 Steps to Create an Online Course from Your Book
• How to Get Approved for More Categories on Amazon

To learn more about how to craft the perfect book introduction, join Chandler on this FREE webinar where he explains how to write a winning intro for your book.

 

“There’s no second chance to make a first impression.” This applies to meeting your future in-laws, and it applies to your readers’ first impression of your book. Okay—to be honest—while a reader’s first impression will be of your book cover, their second-first impression is going to come while they read your book’s introduction. It’s easy to think an introduction isn’t important because so many people skip reading them, but did you know your book’s introduction is actually a vital sales tool if you’re a non-fiction author? In this article, we’re going to tell you how to write an introduction that will actually boost book sales.

But first, let’s talk about…

Why Your Book Introduction is Crucial

Amazon offers customers a chance to give your book a sneak peek before purchase. It’s called the Look Inside feature, and when shoppers click on it, they’re treated to a free preview of the beginning of your book. This means you’ve been given the opportunity to grab their attention and make them reach for their wallets.

This is why your book’s introduction is crucial to your book’s ultimate success. Readers will pick up your book and make a decision about you as an author and your book based on those first few paragraphs.

How Your Book Introduction Will Help You Sell Books

Your introduction serves two goals. Think of your first 1,000 words as the foundation for the rest of your book’s chapters. Writing your introduction is going to be a useful exercise to help you distill down your ideas and to succinctly encapsulate the messaging of your whole book into just a few, short paragraphs.

And of course, the second goal of your introduction is to act as a sales pitch to intrigue readers so they’ll buy your book.

It’s intimidating, yes, and a lot of pressure is riding on just a few paragraphs. This is why writing your introduction can be one of your first major stumbling blocks as an author. This article is going to help you overcome this significant hurdle so you can continue merrily on the path toward your finished manuscript, and ultimately higher sales of your book once it is published.

How to Write a Book Introduction: 8 Steps

Self-Publishing School created a roadmap, much like we did for mindmapping and outlining, to nail down that book introduction—and also to jumpstart your writing process for the rest of your chapters.

As we go through these 8 steps to writing your introduction, we’re going to use the example of a book called How to Get College Scholarships. As you read, take notes, and insert your own book’s topic into your thinking and note-taking process.

Step 1: Identify the Problem

Don’t dance around the problem. What’s the problem your book promises to solve? State the problem clearly for your readers from the outset. Be straight-forward, unambiguous and concise when you identify the issue that readers hope you can solve for them.

Don’t try to be all things to all people—you want readers to know the specific problem your book will solve for them.

Using our example of How to Get College Scholarships, the problem is simple: college is expensive, and scholarships seem out of reach to most high school students.

Step 2: Present the Solution

Now that you’ve identified the problem that readers are struggling with, you’re going to make their day by telling them you’re going to share the solution in your book. You’ve helped them with a problem AND you’ve revealed that your book holds the solution on the first page. Your book’s going to be a winner!

Directional phrases such as, “In this book, I am going to show you …” or “This book is going to solve your problem by …”

Thinking back to our example, some solutions we’d present in our book would be teaching readers how to write a good essay so you can stand out from the competition, and how to find and apply for the top scholarships.

Step 3: Assert Your Credibility

Now that you’ve presented a problem and posted a solution, your next step is to convince your readers that you, the author, is qualified to help solve their problem. You need to build your credibility and provide readers with a reason to trust you and follow your advice.

Ask yourself these three questions:

• Why should people trust you?
• How do you know about this topic?
• Why are you passionate about writing this book?

Sharing your own struggles and how you overcame them is the first step to building rapport with your readers.

 

Step 4: Show Them the Benefits

How will your book improve your readers’ current circumstances? Now’s the time to really sell them on how reading your book is going to change their life for the better.

Sold! Who doesn’t want a better life? (It’s rhetorical: We all do!)

You’ve briefly touched on the solution—in our case, how to write a great essay and how to apply for scholarships. In this part of your introduction, you’re going to go a little deeper and explain what good things will happen if your readers take advantage of the information you present in your book.

In short, tell your readers what they’ll get—what knowledge or skill they will gain from reading your book and how that’s going to impact their future for the better.

In our example, the benefit of our book is that readers will go to school for free and live a life without the financial burden of student loans. Readers can achieve their dream of getting an education, without breaking the bank.

Step 5: Give Them Proof

Show your readers the proof of why your book is the answer to their prayers. Give the most tangible and relatable proof you can provide.

In our example, we might share how we put ourselves or our children through school on scholarship. We might also include testimonials from other people we know who followed our advice and got a free education.

Step 6: Make a Promise (The Bigger the Better)

Don’t make a promise you can’t keep, but make the biggest promise that you CAN keep. Aim high.

To come up with your promise, circle back to your books’ purpose—what is the problem your book is solving? Now promise that this book with solve their problem! It’s that easy. You need to be able to deliver on your promises, but don’t be shy in stating what they will get in return for reading your book.

While we can’t promise someone they will be awarded a scholarship (after all, their grades will have a big impact there), but we can promise that we will increase their chances of getting a scholarship by showing them where to find them and the steps to take to apply.

Step 7: Warn Them Against Waiting

You need to create a sense of urgency so your readers know that if they pass on your book, they will regret it because readers will miss out on something really good.

A sense of urgency is created by two magic words, “RIGHT NOW!”

In our example, we would urge people to start well ahead of the scholarship application deadlines so they can submit the best applications they can. Don’t delay, or others who are in the know will snatch up those scholarships! So let’s get started on getting you a free education RIGHT NOW!

Step 8: Prompt Them to Read (Call to Action)

You want readers to continue reading your book the second they finish the introduction. To do that, you have to hint at the juicy secrets your book will reveal to them that will change their lives. You want to intrigue them, and hint at the exciting revelations you’re going to make inside the book. They will have to buy it in order to find out.

Here’s how to craft a compelling Call to Action to prompt them to read your book right away:

The scholarship tips and tricks you’re about to read have proven results. Each chapter provides new secrets that will help you stay in control of your financial future, AND get a leg up on the competition for scholarships. If you follow the formula we reveal in this book, it’s highly possible you can enjoy the rest of your life unburdened by debt.

There you go—it’s that easy! By simply applying a few principles of psychology as you draft your book’s introduction, you can demonstrate to your readers how and why they need to read your book right now. Take advantage of this chance to explain in a few short paragraphs how readers will benefit by reading your book. They will thank you later, after they buy your book and they’re reaping the benefits of taking your advice.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on 4/11/16 and has been updated for accuracy.

 

Like what you read and want to learn more? We’re holding a FREE online workshop where Chandler is revealing the exact tactics and strategies he used to write and publish 6 bestselling books in a row… and use them to build a 7-figure business in less than 2 years. Click here to save your spot now!