Content Marketing Today

How to Write a Business Book When You Absolutely, Positively Haven’t the Time!

My friend, colleague, and co-author, Joe Pulizzi, recently wrote a great post about achieving the impossible. 

That is, he reveals the 10 secrets to writing a book when you already have a full-time job.  Well, perhaps more than a full-time job since we are both entrepreneurs in the demanding early stages of growing our businesses.

He was inspired by the arrival of the proof copy of our hardcover book.  That was a wonderful moment for both of us. It said that no matter what, we’ve done something amazing.  We’ve written a book. 

Here are my three favorite of his 10 secrets with my take on what he wrote:

1. Find a co-author.  If you are careful to pick the right co-author, you reduce your workload by 50%.  Actually, you probably accomplish more than that if you choose a co-author with complementary skills.  Each author can focus on what he does well and easily.  That means the project goes even faster.  He notes that trust is essential.  And Joe and I have learned that we can trust one another completely.  In fact, I laughingly came up with the dispute resolution mechanism which is now included in our business agreement: when a dispute cannot be otherwise resolved, flip a coin and follow the path of the winner of the coin toss.  Fortunately, we have not yet had to flip a coin.
2. Find a review team and a great copywriter.  We were blessed to have two superb writers and editors, Mike Azzara and David Drickhamer, give a careful and critical read of our first rough draft.  These two tough-minded guys told us what we needed to know–even if a was uncomfortable to hear.  Our wonderful copywriter Lisa Murton Beets really poured her heart into the project.  She made our pretty good prose an order of magnitude better.
3. Determine a core selling strategy (if you can) before you start writing. Unless you are already a best-selling author, you will have to find a way to promote and sell your books yourself .  In our case, Joe developed a bulk copy pre-sales strategy for custom publishers and other organizations whose employees and customers would benefit from reading the book.  This has been successful so far, because we have sold enough copies to more than cover the cost of our first print run.

I would add just one more secret.  Be prepared to laugh at all of the things that can and will go wrong.  In this way, writing a book is really a microcosm of life.  The only way to get through it is to laugh through good times and bad. The good times and the bad times come and go, but laughter transcends them both.

Click here to read all of Joe’s article.  If you’re giving serious consideration to writing a book you will find it invaluable.