Do you ever ask yourself How To Become an Author?
Do you have a book inside you screaming to get out?
Do you want to become an expert author, but you’re not sure you have what it takes?
One of the main barriers potential authors face is that they think, “I’m not a writer, so I couldn’t possibly write a book.”
What is a writer anyway?
Most of us have an image in our heads of a “great writer” and feel that we fall short. But the truth is that what makes a great writer is the ability to communicate. It’s not about perfect grammar or how you weave words together. It’s how you take what’s in your mind and transfer it to another person’s mind, and this is something anyone can do if they’re willing to work on it.
Of course, it helps if you can write well. If you have experience writing and you’re good at crafting prose, this will make writing your expert book much easier. But actually, there are other key factors that are more important.
Contents
- What are the most important factors in how to become an author of a book?
- How to Get Help In Writing Your Own Book and how to become a book writer?
- 3 Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Your First Expert Book
- Why You Need to Plan Your Book Marketing Strategy in Advance
- 4 Proven Ways to Promote Your Book
- Other Questions You may have in how to become an author:
- Conclusion
Commitment and Staying Power
In order to write a book, you need to be able to commit and stick with it. Even if you have wonderful ideas and you can write prose like nobody’s business, the book will never get done if you don’t have a strong will to finish it and good writing habits. This means that you need to be passionate and enthusiastic, and you need to create good habits so that you’re writing regularly and making progress.
A Topic You Know Well
Your expertise is going to be the major selling point of your book, not how you craft your sentences. You should know your topic well. This will make the information you’re sharing with your audience valuable and useful to them. If the reader can use what you’ve written, they won’t be worried so much about how you dotted your I’s and crossed your T’s. Your personal message and story can really help others. Because your own story and experience can help you grow your business.
Experience and Knowledge
Beyond just what you know about your topic, your own experience and knowledge is largely what will set your book apart from other similar titles available. Through your work, you’ve learned things most people don’t know. This will provide further value.
For example, you might decide to write a book about how to get rid of clutter and simplify your life. You’ve thoroughly researched the topic and you have an outline full of excellent ideas. As you write, you’ll also share your own personal experiences and things you’ve learned yourself in your life. This makes your book more than just a collection of researched facts, and shows your reader the actual results you’ve gotten using the tips you’re sharing.
Just in case you are wondering how to become an author without a degree?? Well… Your experience and knowledge are all that are needed to become an author. If you have experience or you have overcome something then you can share what you did to then help others. The result is the key. You don’t have to have a degree to help others.
A Solid Plan
Finally, to write your expert book you need a goal and a plan for achieving that goal. You need to structure your book well and make sure the content will achieve the task you’re teaching the reader. This is just as important as the actual content you’re sharing.
If you’re really not sure about your writing abilities, you can also hire an editor to check everything for you. You can create your structure and get your ideas down, and then have an editor fix the small parts for you.
How to Get Help In Writing Your Own Book and how to become a book writer?
You don’t have to do it all on your own.
If you’re ready to pen your first expert non-fiction book, you have two options:
- Write it yourself
- Hire someone to either write it with you, or write it for you
The first option is best if you’re up for the time, work, and planning that goes into crafting a book. But you don’t have to do it all on your own. You can still impart your unique experience, knowledge, and point of view, while also leveraging the skills of a more accomplished writer.
Writing Your Own Book
The main reason to write your own book is if you have a burning passion to do it yourself. You might feel that letting someone else help or handle parts of it would potentially mar your own voice and enthusiasm.
However, in this case, you can still seek the help of an editor. You can plan and write the book yourself, and then hire someone to go over it once it’s finished and clean up any parts that need editing. The editor wouldn’t make any major changes, but simply polish your existing work.
Hire a Co-Author
Another option is to write your book together with a professional writer. You often see biographies or memoirs written this way, where on the cover, it will say, “Written with…” In this case, you provide the basic structure and ideas, and the writer helps you shape your ideas into well-written prose.
How much you write and how much your co-author writes depends on your agreement. For example, you could send them your writing and have them clean it up, like an editor who edits in real-time. Or, you could have regular meetings or Skype calls with the writer to explain your ideas, and have them do the actual writing.
No matter how you write it, the end result is a book full of your ideas but with the sheen of a professional writer.
Hire a Ghostwriter
If you don’t want to be so involved with the actual writing process, you can hire a ghostwriter. Again, the extent to which you write or the ghostwriter writes is determined by you. You could give them an idea of what each chapter should cover, some notes from your own experience, and just have them create. Or, you could offer a detailed outline with some of your own writing, and have them fill in the gaps.
Even if you hire a ghostwriter, you can have final editing rights. Once they send the deliverables, you can look over the text to make sure it’s not missing anything. You can work out an arrangement with the writer where they agree to a certain amount of revisions if the final version isn’t perfect.
Remember that your book’s writing doesn’t have to be professional or perfect. Its purpose is to communicate your ideas in a way that is valuable and helpful to your audience. Perfection can be a creativity killer and trying to be too perfect can prevent you from getting your book done. Focus on writing so that it’s easy to understand, and so that the reader can actually use what they’ve learned.
3 Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Your First Expert Book
Your first time writing an expert book will be the toughest of all. You’ll run into various problems you hadn’t anticipated and it’s likely to go over budget time-wise. But through writing your first book, you’ll learn a great deal first-hand and it will help you write your next one, and the one after, and so on.
Here are three mistakes to be aware of and avoid while writing your first book:
Writing the Book You Want to Write
You may have a topic that you love to write about and that you think your audience will love to read. But what if you write your book and no one buys it? You have to make your decisions not just based on a hunch, but based on real data from your market.
At the stage when you’re brainstorming topics, you need to do some market research and use the results of this research to guide your decisions. Define exactly who your market is and find out what they need. Check out other books and look at their actual sales figures. Conduct surveys on different topics to see what your market is willing to pay good money for.
Writing Without a Plan
One of the most important steps in writing a book is creating an outline. An outline helps you organize your thoughts so that you can create a book that’s coherent and helpful for your audience. If it rambles or goes on tangents, it won’t be helpful. Your book needs a clear topic and each chapter needs to follow in logical order. Outlining helps you to structure.
It also helps with the writing process. When you have a clear outline, you don’t have to spend your writing time trying to decide what to say. Your outline should be detailed enough that you can just go through the outline and flesh out the details. This makes the writing process extremely smooth and headache-free, and you can always make slight changes as you go along.
Failing to Schedule Writing Time
No matter how excited you are now about the great book you’re going to write, life is bound to get in the way. It takes time to write a book and you have other things to do. You can’t neglect your regular life or running your business. There’s a good chance that when you get busy, writing time will take a backseat.
You have to schedule writing time and give it the same importance as you give all other tasks. If you’re a freelancer, coach or consultant, make writing your book a “job” with yourself as the client. Set deadlines just as you would with a regular job and manage your time accordingly.
After you write your first book, reflect on what went well and what didn’t. Keep a record of the problems you faced so that you can overcome them easily when writing your next book.
Why You Need to Plan Your Book Marketing Strategy in Advance
It takes a great deal of work to write a book. Although that’s where you should focus your efforts, you also need to make sure you have a solid marketing strategy in place before your book is released. Once your book is finished and available online, you should be ready to put your marketing plan into action and start getting orders.
The Market Is Competitive
You may have an excellent book full of high-value information that your readers will absolutely love, but the problem is that many others do as well. It doesn’t matter what niche you’re publishing in, someone already has a slew of books out that may even address the same topic as you. Having a good marketing strategy in place is the crucial element that gets your book noticed above all the other noise out there.
Tell Your Readers
The main goal of your marketing plan is to tell your potential readers that you have a book for them. You find out where they are online and then get your offer in front of them. Just posting your book on your website and online marketplaces ensures that your current fans, followers, customers, and readers will see it, but it won’t help you reach out of your bubble and find more potential readers.
The Scatter Gun Approach Doesn’t Work
The main reason you need a marketing plan in place is that you have to do some careful work to identify your target market so you can focus on them. The “scatter gun” approach is a drain on resources that doesn’t bring back much in the way of results. Your book simply doesn’t appeal to everyone. If you spend time and money getting it in front of the wrong people, this is time and money wasted.
In order to focus and target, you need to clarify:
- What are your goals in writing the book? Is it to earn a passive income? Is it to spread awareness of your brand and bring people into your sales funnel? Is it to find new clients who will hire you for continued long-term work? This goal will guide your marketing plan from start to finish.
- Who is your target market of readers? Who is it that would benefit from your book? Who is your book written for? Depending on your goals with the book, you might ask, who would become an ideal lead? Which kind of reader would convert to a regular client?
- What does your ideal reader want from your book? What problems do they need solved? What questions do they have? What help are they looking for that your book can give them?
Your marketing plan doesn’t have to be complicated. It just needs to be in place before you start planning and writing your book.
In the simplest terms, the goal of your marketing is to get your offer (your book) in front of as many of the right people as possible. Have this plan in place so that as soon as the writing is done and your book is available for purchase, you’re ready to market it.
4 Proven Ways to Promote Your Book
Once you’ve written your book, it’s not enough to simply put it online and expect the orders to roll right in. You have to actively promote your book. There are people out there who will love your book, find it useful, become fans, start following you, and turn into perfect leads for your business. But you have to proactively go out and find your audience.
This is easy to do online. You just need to find opportunities to engage with potential readers and share your book. There are many ways to do this that are easy and effective.
1. Update Online Profiles
Put a short blurb about your book on all of your online profiles. Mention your book with a link where people can buy it on your social media profiles. Put a link to your book in your email signatures and forum signatures (if the forum allows it). Wherever you have a presence online, make sure it mentions the book and, if possible, offers a link.
2. Guest Post
Publish guest posts on other people’s blogs. Seek out blogs that are related to your topic and whose readers would find your book interesting. Reach out to the owners of these blogs and offer them a high quality piece of content in exchange for a mention of your book. It’s a win-win for both parties.
The post itself doesn’t need to mention your book. Just choose a topic that’s relevant to the blog’s readers. Tackle a common problem they face and offer a solution that works for it. You’ll mention your book in your author bio. This is the perfect place to promote your book where it’ll be smooth and natural. Readers who enjoyed your article will then check out the book.
3. Get Feedback
Nothing helps sell a book like social proof. It has much more impact when another person sings your praises than you yourself. You can reach out to customers and ask them to leave you feedback, or give away copies in exchange for a review. You can then:
- Ask them to review you on Amazon or other review sites
- Solicit a review to put on your website, blog, or social media
- Ask readers to take a funny picture of themselves reading your book or something whimsical and fun like that. This works great for Pinterest and other visual platforms.
- Give your book to influential bloggers and ask them write reviews
4. Get Interviewed
Whenever an author puts out a new book, you’ll see them making the rounds of TV talk shows and podcasts. You can do the same. Reach out to podcasts, internet radio shows, YouTube series, and anywhere else where you could be interviewed. Make a pitch to the show, emphasizing the benefits of having you on (you are an expert in your field) in exchange for a mention of your book.
Start by considering where your potential audience is enjoying content online and then think about how you can put yourself, your expertise, and your book in front of them.
The first step is to write a book. It does not have to be perfect, and it does not have to be long. Just get your thoughts down on paper (or screen). Once you have the book written, start looking for ways to market it. Get involved in online communities related to your topic, guest post on other people’s blogs, and get feedback from your readers. The more you can do to market and promote your book, the better chance you have of becoming a successful author.
The best way to become a successful author is to write a book that is of great value to your target audience. Solve a great problem, and give massive value so people get your best content. The bigger the problem you can solve the better. If you have experience then share what you know so it adds value to the other person’s life.
There is no definitive answer to this question. How much money an author makes depends on a variety of factors, including the genre of their book, how well they market it, and how successful they become. However, most authors make an income that ranges from a few hundred dollars per month to a few thousand dollars per month. You could get a publishing deal in which case your publisher may offer you something or you could self publish in which case the possibility is potentially high.
You could get the book ghostwritten. If there is a topic of interest you could do some research to get an outline of potential chapters and then share this with a ghostwriter who can then write the content for you. If you pay for a ghostwriter then in most cases you would have full ownership of the content and you can put your name to it. But it’s best to know something about the topic of interest.
Conclusion
Becoming an author is a big commitment, but it’s one that can pay off in dividends if you have the drive, experience, and knowledge to back it up. The most important factor in how to become an expert author is staying power – don’t give up when the going gets tough. If you want to write your own book, get in touch, I can help you every step of the way to make sure your book becomes a reality. And don’t forget about marketing – start planning your strategy now so you hit the ground running once your book is published. Are you ready to take the plunge? Click Here and let’s have a conversation.
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