I’ve spoken to so many people who can’t undestand how they could possible write a book themselves.  I agree many people who wish to write a book, just don’t have it in them to sit down behind a typewritter and click out 10-50K words, no matter how long you give them.  Therefore, I’m going to make just a couple of options that may be outside of your expectations to write a book.

Self Authoring vs. collaboration 

Self authoring is pretty straigh forward.  You are either an expert in the subject, or have an active imagination in the case of fiction writting.  Many authors have a system to keep them on task when completing the book.  Usually a book plan or outline is helpful.  The way I write is to design each chapter as if it’s a separate book, or story in an of itself.  They all work together and are integrally bound under the theme of the book.  In some cases they do build on each other, but generally they stand on their own as if they were an individual blog post.  Truth be told I generally use the same format for each chapter.  An introduction or thesis, 3 Topics and a conclusion.  I label the topics and conclusion and the name of the chapter is the name of the thesis.  I try to stay just over 1,000 words, and if it goes to far beyond that I create another chapter.  You can probably see that very style in this very blog post.  Then I decide which post will go best into the book that I’m releasing and that’s my format.  Everyon has their own style, mine is fairly predictable. I tend to have a short attention span and expect my readers have a life and wish to get to it.

Collaboration had become extremly popular in many industries.  From joint ventures, partnerships too co-authoring songs and books it’s a great way to write a book without having to be the only one who does the work.  It’s like a partnership.  However, there should or I may say must be a contract written before even starting the book. Outline each persons responsiblities to the book, and act accordingly.

Coaching, Interview Writing and, Ghost Writing

Book or litterary coaching is like training wheels.  You still do all the work, but he coach carefully guides you throught red ocean of authorship.  The coach also will hold you accountable to make sure that you complete the task in a timely mannor. It can make the seemingly impossible task fo writting a book viable, becasue they break it into several pieces. Interview writing is very simular. The interviewer asks the author a series of questions. The interview is recorded, and transalted into text. The text is then edited into a book, and returned to the author for final edits.  The book is then sent to the editor, and Voilà Voilà (Wah-Lah) the book is ready for the publisher.

I have a friend who is  a ghost writer.  No she’s not invisible, and doesn’t haunt empty houses, scribing poetry on the wall.  Well maybe… Seriously, she’s an extremely talented writter who loves reasearch and learning. That means she will gladly read books, blog post and listen to podcast until she knows the topic so well that she can write about it.  The dissadvantage to this is that the ghost writer must either be very neiche.  As in the case of my friend, she doens’t get really deep into any subject.  But, she is capable of writting a very high end book that just doesn’t go really deep into the subject.  You can work with a ghost writter by colaborating with them to make sure that detailed subjects are properly managed.

PLR, Content Curration and Republishing

This is without question my favorite type of writting.  First what exactly is PLR?  PLR means private label rights. It’s simular to Ghost Writting, but it’s much less expensive and often much lower quality.  In fact most of the time it is researched and written by someone who lives in a lower economically balanced country and doesn’t speak english as a primary language.  Therefore, there are a long list of reasons not to publish it direclty under your own name.  First several other if not thousands of other people have the same product under the same name.  More importantly accuracty and editing may be questionable.  Moreover, many book distribution outlets will not accept it and ban writters who try to use it.

What I like about PLR is when its a topic I’m already farmilar with, it allows me to get remember all of the important topics about the subject.  Furthermore it breaks most of my writers blocks.  Usually most of them are just reports and they are less then 2,500 words anyway.  But, the key to PLR is not to type it exactly the same, but instead leave out many segments of the plr completely, reword everything, and rewrite the entire books before you print it to make sure you weren’t tempted to just copy sections of their work.  I have heard more than one famous author say they love PLR and they rewrite it over 80% so it’s a completely different book when they are done.

Content Curration is when you take other peoples ideas and quote them, and often expand on their ideas.  This format often requires spending time with a copyright lawyer to better understand the fine points, and what contracts you may need to syndicate thier work, as well how to site it. Republishing is even easier. You find books in the public domain and rewrite/update them or rewrite them completely.  The good news there is virtually no chance of plagerism, the down side is that many of the works are over 100 years old, but it can be a much less expensive way to create a book.

How to get started

Self Authoring, Ghost Writting, Coaching, Interview Writting, PLR, Currated Content, or Republishing all have their advantages and dissadvanteges.  Although I favor PLR to avoid writting blocks, and ot make sure I don’t miss anything, each person has their own values as to if it’s really their book if they don’t write it.  Therefore, it’s entirely up to you what your comfort level and dedication level is when writting the book.