There are many good reasons to want a book with your name on it. You can share your ideas or tell your story. You can share your wisdom, count it as an accomplishment, and use it to boost your business and reputation. That’s why so many people want to have written a book. The problem is, many of them don’t want to do all the hard and unfamiliar work it takes to get a book from between their ears to between covers.
Writing A Book
Writing a book is hard and uncomfortable work for most people. You must take the jumble of knowledge and good ideas in your head and put them down in linear form. That’s hard enough. But writing is a craft, and if you haven’t mastered it, it will be unfamiliar work as well as hard work.
Book Writing Help for Sale
The good news is that you can get help with just about anything it takes to write a book. The bad news is that it will cost you money. Here are some of the kinds of help available.
The most expensive kind of help is ghostwriting. That’s a term that covers a lot of different ways of working. Some ghostwriters will take all your notes or lectures or course materials, organize them, and write the book for you. That’s a good solution if you need a book quickly. The downside is that no ghostwriter will ever know as much about your subject as you do. He or she will do their best to capture the essence of what you have to say, but it will still come up short compared to what you could do.
Some ghostwriters, like me, are more book collaborators. We’re like the coauthor that doesn’t get credit on the cover and we work with you the way a coauthor would. We’re more expensive and more work than the other kind of ghostwriter, but it makes the book the way you would write it if you had professional writing skills and time.
My friend and client, Terry Moore, worked with me on his book, Building Legacy Wealth. We took over two years. We revised chapters over 20 times. The final book was everything Terry wanted it to be. As he said “I could have hired another kind of ghostwriter and had a book two years earlier, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as good.”
If you’re wanting or willing to do the actual writing yourself, there are other kinds of help you can get. That help goes by different names. Sometimes, we’re called “book consultants.” Other times, we’re “book doctors” or “developmental editors.” Whatever you call the work, we help you get the big pieces in order, make suggestions we know will make the book better, and help with the kind of planning and idea-sharpening that go into every great book.
There are also book coaches. When I work with a client that way, we work one chapter at a time. We plan the chapter together, then my client goes off and writes. Then I get a look at it and suggest changes.
Some people will do all the writing work, but they want someone to be accountable to, besides themselves. Sometimes, that accountability partner is a friend. Often, it’s someone like me. When I fill that role, my clients tell me what they’re planning to do in the coming week or month. I may send them a reminder or a nudge, and they will report back at the end of the period and tell me how they did.
Bottom Line
If you want to have a book with your name on it, you can get lots of help to get the work done. Pick the mix of hard work and professional help that’s right for you.