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How I Wrote And Published My First Book In Three Months: Length

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I am not a writer. Well, I was (I have been writing business related documents and white papers for years) and wasn’t (as in an eBook or “real” book writer) until I committed to writing a book (actually at least two non-fiction books per year.)

Back to not being a writer. One of the issues I had to deal with was how long of a book to write. I needed a target to to have some sense of when I had what I would consider a book-length manuscript. I am not super prolific and believe strongly that most people do not need the 250-page non-fiction book. In fact, according to Kindle statistics, yes Amazon knows abut your reading habits, most people don’t finish their business books (see “Your E-Book is reading You” from the Wall Street Journal.) Frankly, I think that most non-fiction can be a bit word-padded (I just made that term up) to get to a marketable page count to satisfy traditional publishers. Once upon a time, I even thought that I would create a series of short books under a form of imprint related to attention deficit disorder. Imagine, “ADD Books.” Books for the millions of the unfocussed.

Back to length. There are no rules. However, research indicates that most fiction books seem to fall into the following range: Books are about 60,000 to 125,000 words or 200 to 500 pages at 250-350 words per page. Most fiction starts at about 80,000 words.

However, non-fiction books run the gamut and can be much smaller. My favorite non-fiction, especially for business books, tends to be punchier and designed to be quicker reads (think of Seth Godin.)

“Boomercide”, my non-fiction book, is topping out at about 20,000 words or 80 to 90 pages at 6”X9”. This works for me as the book is intended to be very direct. No fluff. I am trying to get to the point.

So, how long should a book be? Depends… as usual.

 

 

 

How I Wrote And Published My First Book In Three Months: “Why”

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Decide Why You Are Writing Your Book.

If it’s to get rich, you better look elsewhere. Sure, you might become the next Tim Ferris. But, it ain’t that easy.  Bowker, the company that issues ISBN numbers, more on this later, estimates that they will issue 15,000,000 ISBN numbers for individual books in 2012.

Your odds? 15,000,000 : 1. Maybe less as many books are simply garbage.

OK, so despite this competitive headwind, I decided to write a book. Why? Two reasons.

First:

I did some my-life scenario planning. I considered what I’d like to be doing in a couple of years and thought that it would be great to maintain my home-base in Portland but be able to have a very portable means of generating income while traveling around the world. Writing, combined with the growing ease of self-publishing and expanding eBook market, looked like a plausible path. Now, I am not oblivious to the fact that this won’t be easy. But, I think that if I apply my marketing background to writing books I should succeed.

Second: I think that I have a very compelling proposition for my first book. I am going to commit suicide to help add some control to my financial planning; I’ve picked the date and how to do it. My book, Boomercide: From Woodstock To Suicide, covers this journey, my view that I am not going to be the only Baby Boomer to do this (Baby Boomer have the highest suicide rates) and the details of the subject of suicide. Additionally, I am a 30-year marketer and know how to do my research and apply it to a rich subject. My smartest friends, strangers and some book editors have vetted the book’s premise.  All think that Boomercide is a powerful subject.

Now you:

Why DO you want to write? I recommend really getting this objective-driven rationale down so you can really focus. Hey, writing can just be for fun. Maybe you’ve had that idea in your head for years and want to get it down on ePaper. Maybe you really want to launch a writing career. Maybe you want to leave something for your kids and grand-kids. Maybe you see the value in writing a book to polish your personal brand to help your career. There are lots of reasons. But, be clear about this and then just start typing.

Everyone is going to approach the act of writing differently. People with full-time jobs have to go to work; dads and moms have to take care of the kids. Finding the time is hard. That said, find it and get going. It feels great. And, your friends will envy you.

There is lots of advice on the web — start here at Joanna Penn’s site The Creative Penn — about how to attack a writing project. Go Google and drive yourself crazy. But, just start and devote whatever time you can. Maybe its time to give up the NFL or Ellen or even Yoga for awhile. Yes, stop and feed the kids but get going on your eBook.

Introduction: How I Wrote And Published My First Book In Three Months

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I am going to do a series of posts about my experience writing my first eBook. It has been, so far, a very fulfilling experience.  The eBook and a print-on-demand paperback will be published using Amazon’s digital platform in the next couple of weeks. I started in late June. So, it’s been about three months from idea to birth. The book is 21,000 words. Research shows that this is a good length for ADD-type people like me (it seems, according to Kindle research, that most people do not finish non-fiction books.) I didn’t want to write one of those 75,000 word books (think 250 pages) that repeats itself in order to deliver a “marketable” page count.

During this process, I’ve learned that I have a big idea for the book; that I am a fairly good writer; that writing takes real effort, concentration and time; that I needed partners (editor, cover and book designers, supportive wife); lots of coffee; that there are costs involved; that I need a very smart marketing plan (critical, more on this later); that there is a huge growing world of digital publishing (I kinda knew this but actually getting down to business showed me that its booming.)

The book:

I had been thinking about the concept of committing what I call rational suicide as soon as I left my financial planner’s office. His advice that I had three variables to consider when planning my financial future didn’t sit right. After all, as he said, I could control my income (to a certain extent) and my budget but not how long I would live. This one variable, a significant one, as in longevity, “what if I lived to 95, how could I support myself?” was simply too variable. That idea was the genesis of the book. As I began writing, the book morphed into adding a detailed discussion of the act of suicide, the world of physician-assisted suicide and the retirement saving deficit – a major issue for all of us.

Stay tuned.

eBook, E-Book, Whatever You Call Them, Sales Are Exploding

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I am close to publishing my Boomercide eBook (and paperback.) So, thought that I’d hunt down some eBook / E-Book sales numbers to pump me up.

Here is an industry defining (as in look at the eBook trend) chart from E-book comments HUGE grow. And huge growth in the number of new authors. Traditional publishers are being bypassed. I am going to do a mini series of posts on how I went from idea to publish in 3 months.