One Reason People Get Stuck Writing their Book
One reason people start writing a Book and then get stuck is when they feel overwhelmed just thinking about all the detailed information they want to put into the book.
Like someone recently said:
“I had so much stuff in my head that I wanted to get into the book that every time I sat down to write, my head was spinning and I could not get one of those thoughts to stay long enough so I could type it, so I just stopped writing!”
There are two main misconceptions here about how much information needs to go into a book that people are writing to share their message and expertise.
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The first misconception is, that a lot of information shows that you are the expert and authority and the book, when it’s printed, needs to be reasonably thick, or people might think you don’t really know enough to fill a book!
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The second misconception about how much information needs to go into a book is about actually NOT knowing at the beginning what the book is to be about!
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Let’s clear up those misconceptions one by one.
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If you’ve had that ‘inner feeling’ you should write a book or people around you have said: ‘There is a book in you!’ and you’ve finally started writing until the point thoughts like these pop up in your head:
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‘Do I have enough material to write about? What will people say, my peers, for example, when they read my book? Am I really good enough to write a book? What if I get bad reviews about my book?’
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If you have thoughts like that floating around, you are NOT alone! When I was speaking with a Leadership Coach to Executives, she expressed those thoughts despite having been a coach for over 25 years with very successful outcomes for high profile clients!
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The notion people are ‘not good enough’ to write a book comes from a very long history of the publishing industry having had a hold on publishing and deciding who’s book is to be published and who’s not.
(You can read how that came about and why it no longer applies in this post in my FB Group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitableAuthorHub/permalink/364783611421597/ )
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The key to overcoming how much information needs to go into a book, when your head is spinning with too many thoughts about how many pages you need to write and how much detail to put into your book and if you really are good enough to write a book, is simply this:
BEFORE you sit down to write, consider what outcome you are looking for by writing a book.
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Do you want to share your expertise and therefore validate it with a book?
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Is it about attracting new clients to you in response to people reading your book?.
There are four main outcomes people express when they start working with me, writing & publishing a marketing optimized book in 6-weeks or less, and here is a short video I did, explaining those four:
https://stickybeakmarketing.com/training/
(The video is to the right, top of the page)
With clarity on the outcome of what is to be achieved with the book, the amount of information that goes into it, becomes ‘tangible’, meaning, you will know exactly what information needs to go into the book, and what not.
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In other words, when you know you wish your book to bring clients to you, you would select who that client is to be, you would choose a title that will attract that client to read your book and you would lay out throughout the book calls to contact you, in a way appropriate to that client (meaning, the type of contact they would prefer to make with you)
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I’ve written a post previously on writing a book to get clients, you can read it here:
https://stickybeakmarketing.com/book-to-get-clients/
Knowing what you want to achieve with your book gives you the confidence to write because you have an overview, from the start, before you put that first word into the word document, what exactly needs to go into the book.
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Now, in relation to how ‘thick’ a book has to be, that is ‘relative’ and here is why:
Depending on the book size, whether you want it to be a 6’x9’ or a 5’x8’ or whatever size you decide on, depends on how many pages you will end of with.
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Next, the A4 size word document pages are NOT the book pages – look at the book sizes I mentioned above, 6’x9’ is nothing like A4!
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The word count of your writings is a much better indication for you what to aim for.
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A readable size book is made up of approx. 35,000 to 55,000 words. That is for a book that an established coach or consultant, wanting to get their voice out there, share their message and establish their expertise, (a book written for any of the four main outcomes mentioned before) would need.
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Those are typical numbers I have seen clients get, when they’ve gone through my write and publish a marketing optimized book, since about 2014, and of course, those numbers do vary by book size, font type, font size and also, inside format of the book.
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Here is what is important for people who want to write a book, or have started writing a book and are stuck because of one of the two misconceptions mentioned earlier in this post:
STOP writing now and start planning the book first!
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These are the areas to plan:
– – – What outcome do you have in mind, writing your book?
– – – Who do you need to write for, to achieve that outcome? (who would want to read the book?)
– – – What information needs to go into the book, and what information do you not need to add into the book, that that reader is interested in?
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Those are the first steps I take with clients, who are established coaches and consultants with great client outcomes, in my Write & Publish a Marketing Optimized Book in 6-Weeks or less, and those steps are exactly the reason why my clients can write and publish their book in that timeframe (6-Weeks or less), and NOT get overwhelmed, have spinning thoughts they can’t stop to capture on to a word document, or get stuck and don’t finish their book for 2-3 years!
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Start planning your book before you start writing.
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If you want my help, the program I offer is 6-Weeks, for experienced coaches and other experts.
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I work with you on planning your outcome in mind, the marketing path to achieve that outcome, in fact, in many cases, we ‘build’ the marketing into the book (that might be the type of links or calls to action required to get the reader to take an action) and showing you the super simple publishing process, getting your book in front of the millions of buyers the online, on demand publishing platform Amazon, offers you.
Just PM me if you’re interested in this offer and we’ll chat in messenger to see if it’s a good fit for you and your business.
And if you’re interested in checking out my methods more first, go through the posts here and also watch the Video that shows you the Simple Steps of my Writing, Publishing and Marketing your Book Formula Click Here
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