- You're busy, you don't have time to waste.
In other words, if you're writing a non-fiction book,
or thinking about it, then this video is for you.
(upbeat music)
Hey there, I'm Julie the Book Broad, from Book Launchers.
We're your professional self-publishing team,
helping you write, publish, and promote a non-fiction book
that will help you have a huge impact on your readers.
And done right, we'll help you grow your brand,
build your business and make you money.
The best part, you keep all rights and royalties.
First, I have a confession,
I don't have a proprietary method
to save you 1,418 hours writing your book,
I made up that number so you'd be intrigued.
When it comes to your book,
every chapter title needs to be interesting,
and that is the title of chapter five of my latest book.
More on that, later.
But here's the good news,
you can probably write the first draft of your book
in fewer than 100 hours.
Now, you may have just collapsed on the floor,
screaming, "100 hours?"
(laughing)
But that's the only two and a half weeks
if you work on it full time,
and that's not a bad investment of time
for something that can easily make you six figures or more,
if you do it right.
And that's what I want to focus on today.
Here's the secret.
Build Your Book Backwards.
That's right.
The vast majority of non-fiction authors write
using an outline.
There are exceptions,
but when you ask non-outliners, also known as pantsers,
(laughing)
about their process,
they will tell you that they often write themselves
into a corner and have to do some massive rewrites.
(whooshing)
That was me.
(laughing)
Your other writing experiences may give you the impression
that you don't need an outline, but don't fall for it.
When the unexpected sidelines your book,
as it undoubtedly will,
you will have a plan that you can pick up
where you left off.
And that alone, will save you tons of time.
You're also much less likely to find yourself staring
at a blank page for hours at a time.
The only problem is that you won't be able to hammer out
a brilliant outline in a day.
It can be tricky to know what's important to include
in a book and what needs to be cut.
And then there's also that pesky personal doubt
that will creep in as you try to figure out
what killer tips you need to share.
An outline is not as simple as you might hope.
Plus, you need to know whether each section fits
with your hook or not, which also takes time.
And if you don't know your hook, well, my goodness,
that's where you have to start.
Emotional and time challenges aside,
there are three main approaches to outlines.
Personally, I'm all about bullet points.
I write a list of my topics, put bullet points under them,
that cover my key topics and then see what's missing
or whether it's in the right order.
But for others, mind maps or note cards might work.
No one method works for everyone.
So check out these three strategies,
and find one that works for you.
Alternatively, know that you can get help with outlines.
Some of our clients will never create an outline
on their own.
Instead, they work
with our story expert or their writing coach
and they do a brain dump of all their topics,
and one of our team members organizes them
into a professional outline.
Some brains are just better suited to organizing data
than others, and others know story structure.
Know your strength and get help with the rest.
A book is a gigantic project and you will need help.
Now, a couple quick notes;
if you're not familiar with Note Card Outlining,
the benefit of this approach is that
you can physically reorganize your thoughts,
to keep the process more organized
by a package of tri-colored, a three by five index cards,
assign colors for each of the three parts of a chapter;
the chapter subject,
which is the main point of that chapter,
three to five topics to expand on in the chapter,
and then three to five subtopics that expand
on each of those chapter topics.
If you're writing a book on running,
chapter topics might include equipment,
nutrition, myths, injury prevention, or training schedules.
Each subject will get its own card.
So you'll create 12 to 15 topics, then assess them,
and then really figure out if any of the cards don't belong
or if they're actually subtopics, but they're note cards,
so you can rearrange them as you see fit.
(soft clicking sounds)
You know, magical.
(laughing)
Side note, determining the size of a chapter,
and ultimately your book size, can be a challenge,
and every chapter will not be the same length.
Lemme first say, there's no rule
about how long your book must be,
and there also isn't a rule
that a chapter should contain more than X number of words.
Overall, and generally, we encourage our clients
to shoot for at least 35,000 words,
so the book can be at least 110 pages long
without excessive spacing to fill in the pages.
That allows the book to be thick enough
to put on the title on the spine,
and it feels more like a real book than a brochure.
The typical non-fiction book that
we're helping folks publish
is more like 50 to 65,000 words.
Published into a print book,
that ends up being 180 to 240 pages.
They're usually 12 to 24 chapters
but there's always exceptions.
If you're not sure, look at your competition to get a feel
for what's common in your genre.
What seems to be right when you are looking
at a book that's gonna be like yours.
Most important make sure that your chapters align
with the hook of your book.
In the middle of your brilliant
"How to invest wisely in a down economy,"
for example, don't squeeze in a chapter
about you're a dancing pro
as in how many people know you
as "Vinny the dancing machine."
(upbeat music)
(laughing)
Once you have your book chapters,
figure out your chapter topics and go from there.
The big benefit of the Note Card Method
is to be able to manually move pieces around to see
what topics don't have enough cards
and be able to reorganize it quickly,
or you might lose a card. (laughing)
So make sure they're organized and
in one place and out of the hands of little kids.
(laughing)
All right.
The other approach I wanna mention briefly
is the Mind Mapping for your book outline.
If you are a visual person, and you prefer to work
in a way that is more visual and creative,
it might be for you,
especially if you like the online software options
like bubbl.us
B U B L dot U S or mindmeister.com,
you just wanna make sure you print
and save your mind map and know how to access it later.
Essentially, it's a very similar approach
but you're starting with your working title in the center,
as you think of chapter subjects,
you're going to put those in circles and connect them
to the center.
As details and topics occur to you,
you place them in headings or subheadings under that topic,
and you populate that map and spread it out,
letting your mind explore all the possibilities.
You can then play with the map,
and see how many circles you can derive from the center,
and so on.
Visually, this will allow you to see
if one side of the map gets lopsided.
Does a chapter subject not have enough topics to support it
or does one have too many,
and maybe needs to be two chapters?
It's really helpful for authors who have lots of ideas,
but don't necessarily come up
with their ideas in a discernible order.
And finally, there's my approach;
the Bullet Point Lists.
No matter what advancements
in technology emerge to help people with time management
and productivity, I'm still a list-maker on paper.
I write lists for anything and everything.
Groceries,
getting my work done, packing for trips. (chuckles)
So if you're like me and you like to make to-do lists,
and you automatically group items, according to where
or when you plan on executing 'em,
bullet list is probably the right method
for you to outline your book.
Essentially, it's a very similar process to what we talked
about with the note cards, but you're making a list
of 10 to 12 high-level bullet points that
you wanna discuss in your book,
then three to five subpoints for each subject,
and then maybe writing a sentence or three to five words,
that will help you remember what each
of those subpoints is going to cover.
You're gonna evaluate the subjects and topics,
cut or reorganize bullet points that are duplicated,
or that are weak,
they don't have enough or that they just don't make sense
in the context of the book.
Here is an example on the screen
so you can see what an outline might look like.
Special shout out to Jaqueline Kyle
from our Book Launchers team for sketching this out
for our clients and for our Book Launchers website.
It also fit perfectly in
my Self-Publish & Succeed
with a lot more detail to help you.
Whatever approach you take,
you're gonna create an outline that will help
you save dozens and dozens of hours writing your book.
Before you dive in and start writing,
have someone else take a look
at your outline to see if they think it makes sense.
Do they think anything is missing
or maybe too heavily covered?
It's your book.
But another perspective often helps.
Now you gotta move on
to identifying research stories, quotes,
and any other material you need to gather
to write your book.
If you ever sit down
and feel like you don't know what to write,
it's probably because you didn't do the research
or planning well enough for that section.
Do the prep so that when you have 20 minutes only,
you can sit down and work on a section
in your book and get your book written so much faster.
Want more, especially tips
on developing a great hook and writing, engaging chapters?
I cover that in great
but fun detail in Self-Publish & Succeed.
The book covers everything you need to know
to write a #noboringbook,
that will sell, and impact your reader.
You'll learn about creating a compelling hook,
editing, layout, distribution, and so much more.
Learn more and get your copy
at selfpublishandsucceed.com.
I'm curious,
do you outline your book
before you write, or are you a pantser?
(laughing)
What method do you use if you are an outliner?
Share in the comments below,
and when you comment the day a video is released,
you'll be entered to win some sweet #noboringbooks swag
like this hoodie sometimes.
We have new videos every Tuesday and Friday.
Make sure you catch everyone's by subscribing
to the channel, and turning those notifications on.
You're fun.
Would you like to hang out a little bit longer?
Okay, great.
This video right here is all about being a better writer.
I share five techniques to write a more engaging book.
Or, this video right here is right in line with this topic.
"How to create a killer table of contents."
Both videos are pretty fabulous if I may so,
not so humbly say.
Go ahead and click on the video that you wanna see next.
I'm excited to see you there.
(upbeat music)