Things You Should Know About Writing a Book - Our Journey (Part 2)

By: Stan Washington

Date: February 21, 2015

With project plan now complete and our topic solid we were ready to go! Or were we? When I sat down to write my part, there were some things I hadn't done in a while that I needed to look up. After a while I soon realized that other topics that I would discuss needed some research. 

Be Prepared Before You Write. Preparation of your topic, character or situation is important to your readers. They expect you to be the expert and want fresh new material, not tired retreads of the same old topics. Part of the preparation process is knowing when to use quotes and when to let those suckers go! 

We had quotes from various authors all over the place in our books. We then realized each quote needed to be sited properly and a random website isn't enough. After siting yet another source I thought to myself "We should have done this before we started!" 

After getting ourselves somewhat prepared, we began writing. 

Meet on a regular basis. We started off on fire. We wrote and wrote and exchanged what we wrote and reviewed each other's work. Then an emergency came up and then another and then another, soon we were dreadfully behind and were on the verge of not completing the book. We had to do something different. We changed the date and time of our weekly meeting. This enabled us to have a little bit of flexibility in our week. Even if you are not writing a book with someone, meet with someone to discuss your progress. 

Copyright as you go. We had a situation where two of our computers had to be repaired. This was the worst timing, but the best lesson! It made me think about the intellectual property I had on my hard drive. This made me do a little research. I found that I could copyright unfinished documents until the document is complete. I just assumed it had to be a complete work!

We uploaded images, ideas and finished chapters on a regular basis.  

Here is the link to the copyright office. The process is relatively easy barring a few hurdles we ran into with terminology <Click for:> Copyright Page . This is the first of MANY accounts we set up.

More to come in part 3!

Our books have been featured in Small Business Trends!

Blessings to you!

Things You Should Know About Writing a Book - Our Journey (Part 1)

By: Stan Washington
Date: February 16, 2015

Last year if you said to me I would write a book I would have told you these exact words "You are crazy!." Just the mention of writing a book left me in the land of procrastination. Where do I start? What do I say? Is the process hard? I think one of my main problems I ran into was I was trying to write a book versus telling people what I had to say.

Writing a book can be daunting task when writing without a purpose. The old saying goes, "If you aim for nothing, you get that in return." So last summer the purpose hit me like a ton of bricks. My clients asked me for tips on Marketing. It wasn't just one who asked. After hearing the question several times, I finally caved in. I will write a book! But how?

I on put my methodology hat... I come from a huge process background, and I wrote out plan.

This is what worked for me.

Find an accountability partner. Do not write your book by yourself first time out of the door. I don't mean you have to run out and find a book partner, even though I did. I mean, get a person or people around you who will truly hold you accountable. For me, I had to first pray for "who" would help me and three people came to mind, a peer from a previous company, Victoria Cook who I worked with on a board and Dan Duster who I've known for years.

Start with a purpose. Please do not write a book just to be writing one. Write with a purpose. I had a cause. I was tired of people struggling trying to get a business started, I was also tired of seeing people, who didn't have many resources, get discouraged because there were not many affordable resources.

Victoria and I discussed this and came up with a flurry of ideas. Dan and I met together to do the same. We asked ourselves "What problems have we heard the most?' We wrote these ideas down and reached back into our experiences to develop the most optimal way to address these issues.

Develop a project plan. Your plan will keep you sane! Yes, I know you are busy, but you still have plenty of time in your schedule to write a book if you can put your mind to the be dedicated to the plan. Our plan was pretty aggressive, but your's doesn't have to be.

We decided to meet twice a week. Once to turn in work and review, the other to plan and address any changes in direction that may have come up!

More to come in part 2!

Our books have been featured in Small Business Trends!

Blessings to you!