“They” always say that to eat an elephant, take one bite at a time.
Whoever eats elephants anyway?
The principle holds true, though. If you have a big hairy task in front of you that seems onerous and huge, start somewhere and start small.
So it is with writing a book.
Here’s a method for getting it done in a relatively painless manner.
- Decide on your overall theme or overriding topic
- Break that up into a series of smaller themes or sub-topics
- Pick one sub-topic you know enough about or research one to gather information
- Write 10 – 20 pages on that sub-topic. That’s 3000-6000 words, give or take. Oh, and try to write it in ONE sitting. Clear your desk, your mind and your computer screen. Dedicate 2-4 hours to complete the task uninterrupted. Kick procrastination and distractions away. “Just Do It!”.
- Congratulations. Now, if you want to profit from that effort, you need to spend up to an hour putting together a sales page to promote that chapter.
- Decide on a price for the ‘report’, say between $7 and $10
- Let people know that only the first 10 buyers will get a copy at this price.
- Promote your product and send people to your sales page, let them buy the report and make sure you get their name and email. Also make sure the buyer goes onto a customer list in your autoresponder system.
- When the first ten people have bought, close the offer and don’t accept more sales.
At this point, you have one chapter of your book written; you have ten people added to your customer list and you hopefully have some pent up demand from those who missed out.
That’s not the end of it at all. Head back for the next instalment where the clever plan becomes evident!