Writing a Book – Tips For New Authors
By Libet Chang
As a new author, you’ve been inundated with information on how to start writing your first book, most of them tips and how-to’s. It’s the reason you came upon this article in the first place.
The amount of available information on writing your first book can freeze you in your tracks before you even get started. What’s the solution? To find basic tips to get you going and keep you motivated. In fact, the following tips aren’t complicated at all–they’re merely foundational tools that all new writers can and should use and return to over again:
Identify Your Niche (The Right Way) I am not going to pretend that you haven’t heard this before. “Identify your niche” sounds helpful, but it’s vague advice: no one tells you how to go about it.
The subject that you write about is important because it’s associated with you. It gives you the opportunity to become an expert. Thus, figuring out your niche involves you asking yourself the following questions: What topic do you enjoy reading about? If you’re going to write a book about a topic, you’re going to research it a lot, so make it enjoyable. It’s not drudgery, but an opportunity to get to thoroughly understand a topic, share with others, and eventually gain respect. What questions need answering? As you research, you’ll inevitably find some gaps in the knowledge base, primed for you to answer. Chances are, the questions you ask yourself during your research has been asked by others, so answer it! What answers and insights can only I provide? Put a personal twist on your insights to make them stand out–tie in your expertise with your personal background and experience. The audience needs to know: how have your ideas impacted you personally?
Act Like a Writer You probably only consider yourself a “new writer” at the moment. As the weeks pass, you’ll have two choices: either write consistently and practice your craft, or continue browsing the internet for inspiration. Professional writers constantly perfect their work. To them, writing a good draft for the day is what a solid training run can mean for a marathoner.
Writing takes practice, and the more you do what you’re good at, the better you become. Malcolm Gladwell explained this in his book, Outliers: The Story of Success, when he says:
“Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good [... ] In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.”
When you act like a writer, you’ll live up to higher expectations by writing on a schedule and setting goals for yourself. You’ll also start today.
Build Your Reputation First It’s important to market yourself before marketing your book. Writers write books, expect to make massive sales on Kindle (or wherever) and are disappointed to see that it’s hard to get readers.
It’s hard to get people to read your emails, let alone your book.
I don’t want to sound flippant. Your book most likely is good, but readers read things from people they already admire and like. If you want readers, then you need to market yourself as an author first. Present people with interesting ideas and engaging conversation and it’ll be a start. Build your reputation slowly and before you know it, you’ll get your dream audience.
Don’t Compare Yourself to Other Writers Insecurity and the green-eyed monster are all parts of being human, they just don’t need to define your career. Don’t throw in the towel when you see the shiny cover of a bestseller or an author’s blog with thousands of followers.
Other peoples’ success is intimidating, especially when they’re kind of similar to you.
Comparing yourself to already successful writers is unhealthy and unrealistic. In case you haven’t thought of it, most of those “writers next door” have been practicing for years, following all of the tips in this article (probably without even knowing it). You’re just starting out, so cut yourself a break and don’t compare apples to rocks. You will get there, in time.
Research as You Go, Not Before You Write I used to be an academic, and old habits die hard. The worst habit I caught on to was this idea of knowing everything in the whole world before embarking on your professional path. That’s like putting life on hold because you haven’t found its “secret.”
You don’t need to read every single book on writing in order to start. All you need is one great book, some advice, and a few hours each day. You’ll seek and perfect your knowledge as you go.
So there you have it. You should be prepared to dive into the most important thing–the writing itself. If you’re a new writer, tips and technical knowledge are useless unless you have the desire to see through a goal in the first place.
The above tips aren’t terribly technical, but they are there to help you keep focus on the thing that matters most: helping a small fish like you navigate through a big pond.
What tips do you have to share with new writers?
Want to learn more about what it takes to be a better writer and get published? Get a dash of inspiration and solid advice at http://www.LibetChang.Com
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