- I'm sure that if your life is already busy,
you don't wanna make it busier
by having to write a book.
But today, I'm gonna talk about writing a book
on a busy schedule, and more importantly,
we're gonna discuss how to outline a book so
it really expedites the process.
Stay tuned.
(lively music)
Yeah, I'm Dale L. Roberts, a best-selling author,
as well as a self-publishing advocate who wants
to show you how to publish books that sell,
and if you want that to, of course,
make sure you subscribe to this channel
and join me on Twitch every Monday at 12:00 p.m.
Also, if you have Amazon Prime,
you can subscribe to me at Twitch.TV/selfpublish
and get a few extra freebies
Stick around to the very end because I'm gonna show you
how to produce stellar content even if you
are too busy and I'm gonna say even this,
even if you lack the knowledge when
it comes to writing the content.
I'm gonna show you just how simple this is.
This is the second part of how
to self publish a book series,
exclusively sponsored by Fiverr.
Big thank you to the folks over at Fiverr.
You want more details,
make sure that you visit DaleLinks.com/Fiverr
so you can get started today.
So if you didn't watch the first part of this series,
I recommend that you go back.
There's a link inside the description down below.
First of all, why should you outline a book anyway?
This is the best way to maximize the most out
of your time and one of the safest ways
to keep the Train on the tracks because often times,
I know that there's a lot of people out there
that want to just kind of write by the seat
of their pants and just go like crazy,
but the problem is, that train can really run off the rails
and before you know it, you've been working
on this epic novel for the last 10 years
and have nothing to show for it.
Don't get me wrong.
It's okay to deviate but outlines are one of the best ways
that you can kind of know exactly the direction
that you're going in and continue to push forward.
So there's five steps to outline your content.
Number one, brain dump.
All right, take all of your ideas about your specific book
and I want you to just jot it down,
whether it's on a journal of some sort
or you're doing it on a Microsoft Word document.
Either way, you're going to just get as much stuff
as you possibly put on there.
Think about everything that's gonna be in this book.
You don't need to put out full sentences.
It could be some good bullet points.
Number two, prioritize.
All right, so now, we gotta kind of figure out,
okay, what is our book and what isn't our book.
And we're gonna go ahead and start to figure out,
okay, this is more important than this
and this is more important than this,
Does this have any kind of relevance to this,
then let's go ahead and pull this one out
and let's add this one in.
Number three, organize.
Now you got to kind of organize it
in a very sensible order.
You're gonna wanna put everything to where
it seems right, it's going to be a logical flow.
Think about it almost like putting together
your table of contents, 'cause essentially,
it might end up being that.
Number four, interrogate.
I couldn't think of a better word when it came
to this particular area but what I typically
will do is put down questions within each one
of the bullet points in the outline.
And I'm just gonna go ahead and ask myself questions
about what's happening here,
what's relevant about this particular bullet point,
what's relevant about this and some time,
you'll have to put questions on your questions.
And the more that you can kind of put in here,
the easier it's going to be for you
to fill in the blanks as you start to write.
Number five, double check.
Okay, so now you're just gonna kind of go through
what essentially is your table of contents.
Everything's organized,
you've got all of your questions put in order,
make sure everything looks pretty good,
and you've got yourself an outline.
Okay, so there's three ways to write and produce content,
now rest assured, if you're like,
"Dale, I'm not a very good writer,"
like okay, hang in there just a second.
Number one, write it yourself.
That simple, start writing.
Get behind the keyboard.
If you're one of the people that kind
of chicken pecks everything on out, then you go for it.
Either way, this is your time to shine.
Number two, dictate it.
I know a lot of old-school authors aren't big fan of this.
They say there's a difference
between voice dictation and actual writing,
but I have to say that in most instances,
if you have a good editor and proofreader,
chances are very likely it's all going to get kind
of worked out in the end.
So any of those people that say dictation
is totally different, I don't care about those people.
We're gonna go ahead and focus
on you getting your content,
so you'll get your outline out,
put it in front of you and start to kind of talk
like it's a full story from you.
You're gonna answer the questions,
you're gonna fill in the blanks.
Number three, hire it out.
Okay, let's just say, for instance,
you're not a good talker, you're not a good writer,
you just honestly don't have the time to do it,
then it's time to go ahead and hire out a ghostwriter.
And you're in luck because I actually don't
have the time to go through and create a new work for you
and since this is how to self publish a book series,
I'm gonna show you exactly how I'm gonna go ahead
and put this stuff together.
I've got no time, so I'm gonna hire a ghostwriter.
First thing you're gonna do is browse
the Fivver marketplace at DaleLinks.com/Fiverr.
You'll select nonfiction.
Narrow your search down to the top rated seller
or my preference is a level two seller.
This essentially means that they've been utilized a lot
and they've been on the platform for a bit.
You typically will see how many gigs they've done.
So the more gigs that you see and the better star rating
that you have, the more assurance that you have
that you're working with somebody who's great.
Nothing against with the level one sellers
or anybody brand-new.
I just like to go with any of the freelancers
that have been on the platform and are proven.
Now select your service and check out.
You're gonna want to make sure you communicate
your needs with your freelancer.
So, in this instance, I went ahead and I took
my outline that I put together and I just uploaded it there.
I told her my specific needs and what the project
was gonna entail, and then from there,
she was able to run with it.
Now, if you stick around for the whole video series
and how self-published a book,
you can find out exactly what that was,
but I'm not gonna tell you for another few videos.
And then, now all you're gonna do is wait
for an email from Fiverr.
They're gonna let you know once your project is ready
or if your seller is going to communicate with you.
Keep an eye on the countdown clock
because they will, you know,
say for instance they'll deliver it in seven days,
or in this instance was 11 days.
Then you know you're gonna want to make sure
that it's delivered on time because if it isn't,
you can go through, find out what the issue is,
or even cancel your gig if they're late.
But I was very fortunate in working with somebody
that actually was not just on time,
she was extremely early.
And so, it was very reassuring.
Good seller's etiquette usually is they
will get a hold of you before they ask
for an approval on a gig.
I know there's quite a few of the sellers on there,
sometimes, they'll send you the finished product
and just say, "Okay, go ahead and approve this,"
but really good, experienced ones will say,
"Here's the finished product.
"Can you review this before I go ahead
"and ask for your final approval?"
If you have to be getting ghostwritten work
and this room is regardless of the platform,
be it Fiverr or elsewhere, always do a plagiarism check.
So what I did was I downloaded the document
on the very first draft.
I went over on to Grammarly's platform,
used their plagiarism checker to make sure
it all came out well.
Now plagiarists and scammers out there found
a way to work around the system,
and so, what I do is I'll go ahead and I'll select all.
I'll go ahead and hit Control + C and then I'll Control + V
which means paste, over into a new document,
save it as a .txt file.
Go ahead and open up that text file and if you see
any weird symbols and things like that,
things that are popping up that look really weird,
chances are, pretty likely,
you might have a plagiarized document.
You may wanna get a hold of Fiverr and let
them know that you have something sketchy on your hands.
But after the first run,
I sat down I read the very first draft.
I loved it, got back to her, gave her a couple of notes.
She went ahead and sent me back a second draft.
It looked beautiful.
And now, we're ready for the next step which
is going to be editing and proofreading
and I'm gonna walk you through the entire process,
whether you're doing it yourself or you're hiring out.
Nonetheless, I will see you in this very next video
here really soon.
Once it launches, it will be a part of the how
to self-publish a book series.
'Till then, I'll see ya there.