In this one, we’re looking at the six steps to publishing your own successful book and I’m going to cover step number three this time. That’s all about expanding on your outline.
I’ve mentioned how important it is to have an outline and how important it is to get feedback on that outline to make sure your book is going to be structured in a way that other people want to read.
Once you’ve got that outline, you have to expand on it. I’d like you to think of this as reusing your presenting skills.
You’ll have your template book that I can give you (if you want to work with me) and that’s going to have all the headings in it that you would have in a presentation. The tip here is to think of those bullet points, and instead of speaking them out loud, what I want you to do is just type them in.
Imagine that you’re on stage talking to some people, perhaps running a workshop or training session and you’re speaking to people.
Your book needs to come across like that, short, clear and concise just like you speak in everyday language. You’ve had lots of experience with that.
I find when a lot of people look at writing a book in that sense, suddenly your writing becomes a lot less daunting. You’re actually just talking on paper, so that’s a useful thing to remember. Just focus on the bullet points like you would when you’re giving a presentation and then you’ll stay on target and your book will stay well structured, logical and useful for readers.
As I mentioned earlier, a lot of people, when they get writing use very stilted language. They prefer to use long (polysyllabic) words, rather than short ones. They can often use long rambling sentences and long paragraphs. That doesn’t help the reader. Just keep it short and sweet and to the point, people will understand what you’re saying.
That ends my tip on number three. Remember to expand on your outline – clearly!
