My experience here is writing self-published books. If you’re looking for an agent and to be published with a major company, then this is not the blog for you. However, if you’re experienced in your field, expert or not, then you have a message to deliver. It is your right to give people information that you have collected, tested, and succeeded with. So, how should you start?
Write Mini Books
Seriously. You don’t have to write a large novel. I’m not going to tell you that people have short attention spans so that no one wants to read a 300 page book anymore. That’s not true. I love to read all sorts of lengths in books. What matters most to me is if the message was delivered well and I got value out of it. If that only takes 100 words, then fine. That’s all I need to read. If it takes 500 words, I’ll still read it. Chances are, by the time I hit 100 words into a 500-word book, I will know if it’s value-packed and worth continuing.
Most Long Books Are a Waste of Time
There have been only two books I’ve read where I believe it was necessary to write such long content. All the other big books completely wasted my time. Have you ever seen the title of the next chapter and cringed that you needed to read it? I have. I’ve thought, “Oh boy, how many pages are in this chapter? Nine? Okay, I can get through nine pages.” No one reading your book should ever feel like any chapter is a chore.
These chapters usually go on and on about the author’s background. They say it’s to build credibility, but I just think they like to talk about themselves. First of all, I already know your credibility because:
I bought the book
I’ve read your author bio
I learned what I needed to know in the Introduction
Stop taking entire chapters to explain why you left a job or why your ex-boyfriend went to prison. That’s not adding value to my life. Talk about yourself as it makes sense, but for the sake of all us readers, we do not want to know about your experience at Oxford for the next ten pages, thank you.
Break Up Your Topic
Some of my favorite authors deliver one book around 100-400 pages in variation about one specific topic. The next book will be on a related topic that requires more depth. Then the next book will do the same.
What I encourage you to do is to make a bubble chart. In the center bubble, add in your main topic, or business/goal. Then branch out other bubbles on all the topics that are involved with this main bubble. Under those branched out bubbles, write the points you’ll want to make with each. If you have only one point, then see where you can add it to another bubble. If you have one bubble with a lot of points, well, that’d be its own book, right?
Each of those bubbles branching out are your mini books. They are the topics you will stick to, in how ever many words, and they will be powerfully valuable to your readers.
Who cares if your book is long or short? Are you delivering the message? You are? Good. Then go and publish more of them because I’m sure you have a lot to talk about.
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