Articles

Thursday, 31 January 2013 20:29

Before You Begin Your Writing Project Featured

Written by
Rate this item
(0 votes)

Before You Begin Your Writing Project

We often jump into a new writing project without much thought. Driven by passion and fueled by the excitement surrounding the creative process, we dive in. Sometimes, this is a terrific strategy. Pour out what’s in your heart; try to make sense of it later. Other times, you simply waste your time by not answering a few preliminary questions. If you’re serious about a book project, it will serve you to clarify your intention with the following.

Before you lift a pen or fire up your computer, there are a number of critical questions you’ll want to answer. This little exercise will help clarify why you are about to invest hundreds of hours into a potentially agonizing—yet rewarding —process.

  1. Why do you want to write this book? What do you think the book will give you?
  2. What is the purpose of the book? Why do you feel compelled to write it?
  3. Who are you writing this book for? What kind of person will pull it from the shelf? Accurately pinpointing your audience in advance can determine your book’s salability to a publisher and ultimately, to the market.
  4. Why will someone want to read it? What need / problem will the book address and how will the book help the reader? This question assumes you are writing a nonfiction book. Again, know your market.
  5. Has your message already been said? What’s unique and remarkable about your message? Do some market research in your local bookstore and / or at Amazon.com. We’ll get into this further in the next section.
  6. How does being an author fit into your overall career?

Take twenty minutes or several days and soul-search the answers to these questions. It is the best time you can spend.

The above article is an excerpt from the guidebook included in Everything You Need to Know to Become a Best-Selling Author. In this program, Dr. X and Scott Jeffrey guide the listener step-by-step through the Book Proposal process with clear illustrations throughout.


By Scott Jeffrey

With an impressive client list including New York Times best-selling authors, speakers, and consultants, Scott Jeffrey is renowned for his ability to guide each client’s journey to the impossible—crafting their own adventure, zealously following their bliss and discovering their unique, meaningful contribution to the world. Scott is the master strategist behind Creative Crayon, LLC, a world-class strategic coaching enterprise and consultancy.

Scott is the author of Journey to the Impossible: Designing an Extraordinary Life, a Benjamin Franklin Award finalist, as well as the interviewer in the 10-CD audio program, Everything you Need to Know to Become a Best-Selling Author. He was the editor of Impossible Journeys.

Scott and his four-legged hiking companion, Yoda, reside in the mountains of upstate New York.

Find out more at http://www.bestsellingauthor.com


Click here to return to the index of Articles


Read 1191 times Last modified on Tuesday, 16 November 2021 23:20

Comments powered by CComment

Latest Posts

  • Sakshi
    I have been in a state of ‘emotional unwell-being’ for seven years. There, I’ve said it. Why? Well, after my father died, I believed that if I reached out with love to ‘good friends’, counsellors, suitors, and relatives, there could be pockets of joy to offset my grief and loneliness,…
  • The Creative Industry Needs to Look at Things Differently Post Budget 2022
    On 29 October 2021, the Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz tabled Budget 2022 in the Malaysian parliament. RM50 million has been allocated for the arts and culture industry. This comes after a year and a half after the entire industry came to an absolute standstill. With…
  • ‘The Covid Positives’ – life lessons learnt from the pandemic by Phanindra Ivatury
    After a long drawn battle with the biggest catastrophe in our living memory, global humanity is finally getting to see some quintessential ray of light at the end of the treacherous tunnel in the form of COVID-19 vaccines, currently being rolled out to all parts of the globe. A ‘COVID-19…
  • Chaos of Whole Books
    Is it possible to read several books at once? Aneeta Sundararaj finds out. When I was a child, my cousin used to boast that he could read four storybooks at a time. As an adult, when he invested in an e-Reader, he continued to boast that he could…
  • Writing for You? Or for Me?
    Writing for You? Or for Me? ‘You must always write with your reader in mind.’ This was one of the first pieces of advice that I received when I began my writing career. Honestly, I found this extremely hard to do because more often than not, I couldn’t picture my…