Don’t count the Pages

If you’re trying to figure out how many more pages you need to write to have a ‘good size’ book and you’re counting the pages in your word doc, you’re making a big mistake!

This is a mistake that’s creating overwhelm for many in business writing a book and is often one reason that stalls their thought flow and kills their motivation to get that book finished!

Writing a book to share your message, position your expertise, attract new clients or whatever your specific reason for writing your book is, it does not have to take a long time to write and the amount of pages you need are best not counted by the page.

For example, one consultant who came to work with me had written 52 pages in his word doc and then stopped writing, over a year earlier.

He said: ‘I’ve written the story I wanted to tell and I can’t think of anything else to say but 52 pages does not seem to be enough to make a book!”

If you are in a similar situation, where you’ve started writing and have stopped, don’t worry, this does happen to a lot of people and here is why that happens:

#1 – People start writing without thinking about what outcome they want to achieve with their book.

When you have 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.

I’ve identified four main outcomes people usually want to achieve when writing a book and they are:

• Authority Status
• Attracting New Clients
• Attracting Consulting Contracts
• Attracting Media Opportunities

While the consultant thought he just wanted to tell this story to others with his book, we discovered in our very first session working together, that he actually wanted to show his expertise and also attract new clients.

#2 – When people writing a book want to attract new clients with their book, they need to know WHO those clients are!

Knowing who you are writing for makes it clear what the book chapters need to be and by knowing what the chapters will be about, we immediately know what type of content, and how much of it, has to go into the book.

For example, the consultant discovered in our planning session, in order to attract clients with his book, he needed to add chapters with more detail about the story he was telling and consequences people can avoid, by knowing what those consequences can be.

Now it was easy for the consultant to re-set his chapters and write new chapter headlines, which immediately added three more chapters, and with that, more pages to his book.

I work with every client on these two details, having a clear outcome in mind for the book and knowing who the book is to be written for, before the client starts writing and that is one reason why people in my program are able to write a book in 6-weeks or less.

The added chapters (well, of course the content in those chapters!) brought the total amount of pages in the consultant’s word doc to 82.

And now remember, I started this post by saying: ‘counting the pages in your word doc is a big mistake!’
…well, here is why:

The pages in a word doc are very different from how the text will look like in a book. There are various things that decide what your final book pages look like and how many pages you will have in your book.

Some of these things are:

• How many added pages you need for perhaps indexing, a contact info page, or maybe a summary page.
• The actual way each book page looks, whether the text starts at the top or further down the page changes the overall amount of book pages.
• The text font in a book and the font size alter the amount of book pages.
• The finished book size, whether it is a 5’x8’ or a 6’x9’ size book, makes a difference to your amount of book pages.

So, what should you use to measure if your book is of a reasonable size?

The word count of your writings is a much better indication for you what to aim for.

On average, the books I have helped my clients write (and I started my program approx. 2014), have been around 35,000 – 55,000 words which amounts to approx. 185 – 235 pages in book size 6’x9’.

For example, the last book I wrote for myself, had 30,000 words which came to 120 pages and was written over 3 weekends, with all new content (no existing posts, emails or articles were used) while the consultant I’ve been describing in this post, reached approx. 32,000 words and for his book, that amounted to 163 pages.

So now you know why it is a big mistake to count your word doc pages and conclude that is how many pages you will have in your finished book and you have a guide that allows you to keep writing, if you’ve already started on your book.

However, many people stay on track and do the work better when they have someone by their side guiding them from one step to the next.
That’s where I come in with my 6-Week Book Writing Strategy & Framework where we work on what I described in this post.

I also address getting complete clarity on your book topic and title before you start writing, which is another part of why people in my program can finish their book within 6-Weeeks or less.

With my step-by-step weekly plan, which also contributes to finishing your book fast, without any periods of stalling, you will always know what to do next and also includes strategizing your marketing for your book.

(Read my full Invitation to Work with me HERE )

PM me if you are at the point wanting to finally finish THAT book of yours!

It’s a few questions over messenger to see if this is the program for you to get your book written and published with me.

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