I think I want to write a book.
[music]
Hey, Lenny Gale, Life is NOYOKE.
I just published my first book.
It's called "The Perfect Mix."
How to use a Vitamix to Ease Into a Plant-Based Diet (that sticks).
It's on Kindle, available on the Amazon Kindle store.
It's awesome.
It's getting a lot of good feedback.
I loved the process.
And people are asking me, "How'd you do it.
How'd you write the book."
So today, I have 40 tips on how to write a book.
So let's do it.
We have 40 tips.
Let's go.
Um, let me get some water because I'm a little parched.
Aright, here's 40 tips for writing your book.
1.
Build an audience.
You can't write a book to just you mom and your nana and your brother.
You gotta have an audience.
Okay?
Tip number two.
Embrace their problem.
Figure out what they're struggling with, what they're working on,
and really internalize that.
Three.
Solve their problem.
It seems obvious but you have to be useful and to solve a problem that people care about.
And it's not necessarily a problem that's keeping them up at night.
They may just be bored.
They may just want to be entertained.
But you have to solve a problem that they're having.
Four.
Have a singular purpose.
If it's to inform, if it's to persuade, if it's to entertain.
Have a singular purpose and stick with it.
Five.
Be really, excuse me, be really honest with your intentions.
You could write in the book, in the preface, in the middle of the book if it's non-fiction.
This is what I'm trying to do here.
This is my goal, this is what I'm trying to accomplish.
The more honest and forthright you can be, the better.
Six.
When you're writing it, turn off social.
No Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat.
Turn it off, you don't need the distractions.
You need flow undistracted.
Turn it off.
Um, seven.
Same with email.
Process email once-a-day.
Pick a time.
5pm.
Noon.
Process email for fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, once a day, otherwise, no email.
It's just a distraction, it's a way for you to procrastinate writing a book.
8.
Turn off spell check.
I write by hand usually, so spell check is automatically turned off, but if you're gonna
use a word processor, turn off spell check.
It's slowing you down, it's distracting for you.
Turn it off.
Um, 9, about your book.
Don't think.
Err. 9, about your book.
Think "Calling card."
Think of it as something you can give to people that can demonstrate your value.
Something that's going to get you gigs or speaking engagements or consulting jobs or
traffic to your website or just recognition and credibility.
Think of you book as a calling card.
10.
Don't think of you book as an income generator.
Write your book as I said a minute ago as something that demonstrate your value.
The value, the income will come from other channels.
11.
How to write it.
How to be successful in writing it.
Excuse me.
I'm trying to hammer these out fast and I just kind of there's hair everywhere and sweat.
Write in isolation.
Go to a room, go to the library, go to your home office, go to a park, write by yourself.
You need to be alone and distraction-free, alone with your thoughts in solitude.
12.
Write by water.
I wrote the perfect mix on a hill in Hawaii overlooking the Pacific ocean.
Now, not everyone is able to do that.
You can find a lake or a pond or just get a little fountain.
Or get a picture of water and put it by your desk.
Water helps keep you calm and enhances the flow of writing.
13.
Write with music.
Music without words helps you with flow.
14.
Set an early alarm.
I got up at 5 AM every day to write this book.
Do it.
It's not fun.
Set your alarm.
Throw your phone on the other side of the room and get your butt out of bed early.
An early alarm.
Thirsty again, hang on.
There's 40 of these.
I'm trying to go fast.
Set a deadline.
It will never get done if there isn't a deadline.
Set a deadline.
16.
Outline top-down.
This is going to help you actually get it done.
Because writing a book is an enormous task and it feels enormous.
So if you work top-down.
You're going to actually be able to make progress and feel good about the progress you're making.
Plus, your book is going to be coherently organized, so easy to digest for your readers.
17.
Next, write a title.
It can just be a working title.
Something that changes.
But your title is going to be the very top of your sort of top-down pyramid of your book.
18.
Pick a proven structure.
If you're writing a story, do the story arc, rising action, falling action, if you're writing
a screen play, three acts.
If you're writing to inform, 5 paragraph essay, if you're writing to persuade, Monroe's Motivated
Sequence.
Pick a proven form and use it.
19.
Build an outline.
Literally, just build a simple outline.
It feels good to know where you're going with it.
Next, 20, expand the outline.
Take the outline and make sub headings for each of the headings.
21.
Expand the outline again.
Before you know it, you're going to have the whole book written where you just need to
fill in the blanks.
22.
Fill in the blanks.
Write by section.
23.
Write the easy sections first.
Get the low hanging fruit.
Sometime you're not going to feel like getting started.
Like you're motivated.
Just get the easy stuff.
Get the low hanging fruit.
Write the easy sections first.
What's the smile for?
Lucy wants to say hi.
Hi Lou.
Hi Sealy.
You can hear her drinking water.
Hi Honey.
Okay.
I know.
Did you help me write this book.
Okay, can I finish this video first?
I know.
I know honey.
Okay.
Do you want to come up here?
Okay.
Come here.
Okay.
Perfect.
Okay, write the easy stuff first.
24.
Write conversationally.
People want to sit down with a book and feel like they're having a conversation with the
author.
Write conversationally.
And so that means, write in short sentences.
Sentences that are easy to read and easy to digest.
26, every sentence, the purpose of every sentence should be to get you to the next sentence.
You want to keep people reading and get them to the end of the book.
You don't want people to fall off.
Excuse me.
27.
Use really simple words.
It's counterintuitive, but simple words actually make you sound smarter.
And, people would rather read simple words.
It's easy to understand things.
Keep it simple.
There's dog hair everywhere.
28.
Make it finish-able.
Make it short and sweet.
Make it so people can actually sit down with it and finish it.
Nobody likes to sit down with a book and feel like it's agonizing to get through it.
29.
Keep 'em wanting more.
The shorter the better.
30.
Ignore page count.
When you're writing, you're gonna feel good about how many pages you've written.
Page count is actually your enemy.
You want a lower page count than a higher one.
Same thing with word count.
Ignore word count.
It's going to make you feel good, oh, how many words I've typed.
No.
Ignore it.
32.
Get a printer.
$50 at Walmart.
Get a printer.
You're going to print out your manuscript and edit it by hand.
33.
Get an editor.
If you don't want to hire an editor, get your spouse or your brother or your mom or someone
who has a fresh set of eyes to look at your book.
34.
Be done.
It's never going to be perfect.
At a certain point, you have to just be done.
35.
Price your book for value.
What kind of value are you going to be bringing to the reader.
That's how much it should be priced at.
That was terrible grammar.
36.
Publish it to the Amazon kindle ebook store.
Great way to get it in the hands of people, build some credibility and make it available
in an easily digestible format on Kindle.
I just love seeing my book cover on my Kindle.
The Perfect Mix.
37.
Tell your audience.
They're going to be so excited for you and proud of you that you wrote a book.
Tell them.
Tell them to download the book.
38.
Ask for honest reviews.
Amazon loves reviews.
But they have to be honest.
So ask your audience to give you honest reviews.
Reviews that would help potential buyers figure out "is the book something that they should
be buying?".
Ask for honest reviews.
39.
Give limited time free access.
You can do a five-day giveaway on Amazon Kindle, giving access to your book for free.
This helps get many eyeballs on your book.
And the more downloads the higher your book is going to rank on Amazon and the better,
the more likely it's going to be read by people.
More exposure, more downloads, give it away for free for a week.
And 40.
Be delightful.
Write a book that people want to read and are happy and it makes them smile and feel
good after reading.
That's it, go write a book.
Thank you for watching, please subscribe below.
Go to our website lifeisnoyoke.com for lots of Vitamix-related resources.
The Perfect Mix is available in the Amazon Kindle store, and thanks again for watching.
[theme music]
Ready?
How do I look?
Like Lenny f*cking Gale.
Lenny f*cking Gale.
I think I want to write a book.