If anyone says learning how to write a book is easy, that person has never actually tried or had an expert help them. If they did, they would know that it takes a lot more than using valuable resources like grammar software.

Yes. If you want to write and publish a book successfully, you’d need assistance from someone who’s done it before. But why is that? Among many reasons, you’ll be tempted to give up writing when you:

• run out of ideas,
• get distracted,
• Your message gets boring,
• Get overwhelmed with the number of tasks ahead of you.

However, if you knew where to begin, what each step entails, how to overcome writer’s block, procrastination, fear, and how to stop feeling overwhelmed, you can write a book. The key is to follow a proven, step-by-step plan, and that’s what this guide gives you.

Let’s begin.

1.  Find Your Big Idea

It’s pretty apparent, the first step to writing your book is to find out what you want to write about. Now, this doesn’t mean you should know every bit of detail about the book. Instead, you have to find the “big idea” or the general idea of the book before you proceed.

Let’s say you want to write a non-fiction book. First, it’s good to know why you’re writing the book in the first place. What problems do you intend to help your target audience solve? And why are you the right person to write such a book?

For fiction, you may have an impressive story idea already. But if not, you can find ideas through writing prompts. This writing can help you develop a character, a world, or develop a story.

2.  Make Time For Your Book

The next step is to find out what stops you from writing your book. For example, you may have thought of writing your first book but never actually started. On the other hand, maybe you thought you were not good enough or were too occupied.

No matter what it is, you need to find a way around it. If it’s time constraints, develop a schedule to write for at least an hour every day. Regardless of your crazy activities, if you’re serious with your book, you’ll find an hour a day to make progress.

No more excuses! The world is waiting for your book!

3.  Conduct Your Market Research

Market research is a critical step in writing a book, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction. For example, let’s say you’re writing a book on ways to recycle. You’ll need to conduct your research to know everything about recycling, including their positive impact on the environment, etc.

You also need to understand your ideal reader (or target audience), including what they want. That way, you can write a book that’s targeted to them.

We recommend studying bestselling titles and search through book reviews in your market. This activity can help you know what works and what doesn’t. In addition, that will help you understand what to do and what not to include in your book.

4.  Create A Book Template (Pre-Write)

Pre-writing is vital if you want to succeed in writing a book. It’s a fast and easy process to create a document. So what’s precisely pre-writing? It refers to all the ways you start your book writing. It entails developing ideas, organizing those ideas, and planning your books. It can help you think, save time, and produce a better book.

This simple writing process can give you extra motivation to begin your writing and help you through until you complete the book.

5.  Creative Writing (Begin Your Writing)

This is where you write your ideas and thoughts and let your creativity flow with no restrictions or distractions. This is not the place for research, charts, graphics, figures, footnotes, etc. You just write.

Most new writers try to do everything at the same time when they start their first draft. That’s a huge mistake. When you stop in the middle of your writing to research, fact check, or edit, you’ll destroy your productivity and writing output.

So don’t research or anything; focus on writing.

6.  Revise And Edit Your Manuscript

Once you’re finished with the previous step, you now thoroughly study what you’ve written and fix any typos, factual errors, grammatical errors, etc. This is where you do your fact checks, figures, include citations and hyperlinks, etc.

However, always keep your book simple. If it’s a non-fiction book, you want to make sure you get your point across. After going through several rounds of edits, it’s advisable to get a professional editor to improve your manuscript and make it even better.

Final Thoughts

It’s essential to keep yourself motivated regardless of the stage you are in writing your book. Focus on the prize and remember what inspired you to write the books in the first place. Don’t despise feedback. Embrace them, and you’ll write a better book.

It’s also ideal to have a mentor who’s been through what you’re going through. It can help you push through tough times when you feel stuck.

This book was kindly contributed by BookDeal.com. BookDeal is a book buying website where you can compare different offers and sell your books at competitive prices.