Self publishing your own book is one of the publishing industry’s dirty little secrets. Mainstream publishers, editors, and authors easily dismiss self publishing and print on demand publishing as a rip-off for both the writer and reader. After all, if the writer was a real writer then they could find a real publisher, right? That has been the conventional wisdom for a long time but in today’s modern, technological society that conventional wisdom does not always hold true. So who should consider self publishing?

Real writers should consider self publishing. Published authors often find themselves placed in a prison of their own making. Once they have achieved even modest success in a specific niche it is often hard to break out of that niche and publish something different. However self publishing gives authors control over their own writing so they can change direction or genre if they choose. Published authors who have taken some time off from their writing often find it just as hard to return as it was to break in initially. They can often easily parlay their experience and audience into a successful self publishing career. Finally, writers who have an idea that does not fit neatly into one of the major publishing houses slots may find self publishing their only alternative. Just because it doesn’t fit into a neat slot doesn’t mean your book doesn’t have great potential — think about Diana Gabaldon and J.K. Rowling.

Control freaks should also consider self publishing. Once you sign your baby over to a major publisher then you lose control of your book. The publisher can slap a horrible or inappropriate cover on it, change its name, or even alter the main characters. Your name will go on the book but what is published may be drastically changed from your original creation–and not always for the better. Think it won’t happen to you, or that you won’t care as long as you get the royalty check, then think again. I can tell you that I still cringe whenever I have to claim a book I published in 1998. It’s not the book that makes me want to crawl under a rock–but the cover and title the publisher slapped on it.

Money grubbers should also consider self publishing. While the independently wealthy may consider their art reward enough the rest of us need to eat and pay the mortgage (not to mention buy paper and pens) so money does matter. And of course, we want all our hard work to be rewarded. In our capitalist society that reward should be monetary. While self publishing may require you to put up some of your own money and traditional publishing will instead offer you an upfront payment, the final balance sheet will tell you a much different story. The initial advance from a traditional publisher will be small (unless you are Stephen King) and may be the only money you receive for your book for a long time — and perhaps ever depending how your book sells. Any book royalties you receive will be for a small percentage and will be spread out over years to come as well as held ransom for book returns. The final indignity is that your book’s sales depend greatly on the promotional effort your publisher puts into it. The ugly truth is that the publisher does not much care about your baby and will rarely put any extra money, manpower, or thought into how to promote your book. Most midlist and lowlist authors conduct (and foot the bill for) their own promotion. At least when you self publish you know you will be on your own and you can factor that into your budget.

If you are a real writer, a control freak, or a money grubber (or perhaps some combination) then you should consider self publishing your own book.

Deanna Mascle is a multi-published author, creative writing teacher, and freelance writer. If you are considering self publishing you should check out this free report "Self Publishing: Is It Right For You" at http://answersaboutwriting.com/selfpublishing/

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Self Publishing To Publish Your Book!

Self publishing might be the best way to publish your book. There are several advantages to self publishing that you might not have considered.

First, and most important, self publishing places you firmly in control of your book. When someone else is paying you to publish your book then they make many decisions regarding the editing of the manuscript, the cover, the title and the marketing that can impact not only how well your book will sell but also how it will be received by the reading public. For example, my second book ended up with the title "Kentucky Kisses" simply because my publisher’s marketing department reported that books with the word "kisses" in the title sold well. I felt the title was rather frivolous for the content but my wishes were ignored.

Self publishing is also faster than traditional publishing. With my novel, Kentucky Kisses, it took me over a year to find a publisher interested in buying and several months before we went to contract. Then after the contract was signed it was another 18 months before my book was released to the public. That is a long time to wait.
Self publishing also allows you to retain all the profits from your endeavor. While you may have to put some money up front (depending on the method you use to self publish your book) you will not have to wait for months or years to see income as a result. Most publishers only pay royalties once or twice a year and then those royalties are only a small percentage of the book price. When you self publish your book then once you have covered any publications costs everything you earn is pure profit.

Finally, it cannot be overlooked that self publishing offers you an opportunity to break into print that might not be otherwise available. The simple fact is that traditional publishing is highly competitive and many worthwhile manuscripts (and authors) cannot find a publishing home although there may well be an eager and receptive audience for that book.

It should be noted that self publishing may not be for everyone. If you are still struggling with your writing and voice, or your manuscript still needs polishing, then you should continue to work on your book and perhaps bring in the assistance of a critique group or professional editor. Self publishing a book that is not yet ready for publication could be a costly mistake. If your manuscript has been polished and well received by several critical readers then you should at least consider self publishing your book.

Not only does self publishing offer you the advantages of complete control, faster publication, and higher profits, it is easier and less expensive than it has ever been before thanks to modern technology. Self publishing could be your big break as a writer.

Deanna Mascle shares tips about writing and publishing with her newsletter Word Craft. You can find out more about Self Publishing A Book at http://wordcraftonline.com/selfpublishing.php

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Creative thinking requires stimulation for the brain! Read on for some creative thinking activities and exercises to develop one’s imagination to great proportions!

When was the last time you explored your creative side and gave a vent for your imaginative power? In today’s fast-paced life, creativity often takes a backseat. Work issues and then personal issues tend to overshadow our capability of creative thinking. Companies often hold problem solving sessions, brain exercise or brainstorming sessions to simplify issues in relation with the company. Sitting at a round table conference does not mean you will end up with creative solutions. Routine thinking leaves a person drained and this hampers creative thinking skills. Here, we shall take a look at some creative thinking activities and exercises to develop better coordination at work and resolve personal issues. These creative thinking exercises can be used for successful results even in schools.

Activities and exercises for creative thinking

This exercise for creative thinking will help students or professionals develop skills of looking at things through various angles. Divide the group into two teams. Give both teams a picture that has three shapes drawn on it. It can be anything simple such as a circle, a hexagon and a triangle in any color. The answers can range from the basic to the creative kinds. A person may describe it simply as a circle or a triangle or someone may describe the circle as a basketball or even a sun! The whole point about this creative thinking exercise is to develop various angles towards problem solving. It is about having an imaginative power to solve problems by having a different approach and attitude.

Creative writing exercises will help to hone a person’s skill and approach towards different issues. Give two objects to groups of people. For example - a cherry and a cake. Ask them to write down the materials or composition of the selected objects and describe its uses. It can be like the following - a cherry is red in color and is used as an ingredient for various recipes. The flavors of a cake can be many from chocolate to butterscotch. Once the meaning is clear, the two objects should be made to relate to each other. In this example, the cherry can be used as a topping on the cake. Ask the group to bring up endless possibilities to correlate and bring about a connection between the objects. With the combination of various ideas, one can end up having many creative answers.

Our brains also need exercise. Make people think regularly with this creative activity. Make a collection of 5 items of any kind. For example, it can be a cup, a bag, a bottle, jewelry item and a folder. Ask people to write down various uses for these objects but in a creative fashion. For example, the cup can be used as a jewelry box or the folder can act as a coaster. Encourage people for wacky and creative answers. The wackier, the better! It will be surprising to see the kind of answers that are possible. Such a creative exercise will even encourage introverts to participate and mingle.

This activity can help people to realize how we can dictate things in our everyday life by adding just a little amount of creativity. Give any random word to the group. For example - Cat. Ask the group to add random words that can alter the whole meaning of the initial word given. It can be cute cat, white cat, cat eyes, happy cat, etc. The words need not have relation with the actual word given. It shows how we can look differently at any situation only by having a positive approach.

This is yet another interesting exercise. Ask certain questions that make one think… creatively! For example, ‘how does one write with invisible ink?’ or, ‘what does one plant to grow a seedless watermelon?’ These questions can be given to groups and one can have a fun time reading some really creative answers. Questions like these are bound to set all the creative juices flowing.

A simple photograph of a colored box or an actual box can be put to good use. Ask a person to describe one part of the colored box. This can include description such as the number of edges, the colors, the size, the total number of sides, etc. From here, the person should add uses for the box. (For example, it can be used to play with building blocks.) Pose this question to a group of people and ask them to shed their inhibitions to be able to think creatively.

Use these exercises and activities for creative thinking and work on improving the way a mind can function. Find endless possibilities to reenergize the brain with these simple and creative activities!

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Tags: free creative writing prompts, ideas for writing a creative story, interview creative writing exercise

Writing a Book in Five Simple Steps

Because I’ve written more than a 100 books and even been a book publisher, people regularly ask me how one writes a book. I always shrug and say it’s not that hard. But this little article attempts to provide a better answer to the question by describing the easy five-step approach that I use and that I recommend you use.

Step 1: Research Your Topic

Your first step in writing any book is to research your topic. Obviously. To begin any constructive development work on a bookthat early thinking about what might make for an interesting book and that planning about what should go into a bookyou need to know your topic very well.

This situation leads to a pretty interesting conclusion if you gnaw on this idea a bit. How do you know what you should research if you haven’t yet actually come up with the idea for your book.

Here’s the reality: You can’t know. You can’t practically know what you should research until you possess a pretty good idea about what you should into the book. And yet you can’t have a good idea about your book–a professional quality idea– until you have your research done. It’s another Catch-22.

Which means that economically, practically, emotionally, the next book you write needs to be one for which you’ve already completed the basic research. You’re only going to be able to come up with a good idea for a book on something when you know the topic well. And you’re only going to be to organize the book’s material into some structure that really works when you know the topic well.

The good news is that for many types of writing and I argue for anything you should write aboutyou have largely completed your research. If you’re going to write fiction and use a collage of the people and places and ideas that you’ve collected over your life, your research may be essentially complete. If you’re writing an autobiography, you have completed your research. If you’re going to write about something that’s been part of your work for years, again, you probably have completed your research. The same thing is true if you’re writing about something you teach in college.

Step 2: Come up with the Idea

The second step in the process of writing a book is coming up with an idea for some really useful or interesting book. Based on your research and creativity, you need to come up with a good idea. Here are some tips for how to do this:

Don’t pick something big and obvious…

The first thorough book on any important topicthe last war, the current big business success, the next medical breakthroughcan be a good book that succeeds even to the point of becoming a bestseller. But I respectfully suggest that you leave the big topics to the big writers. The problem with big, well-known topics is that they are well-known. And that means, very probably, that big publishers are already talking to big authors about writing books.

Find your own space…

A related point to this idea of staying away from the really big topics is that you need to find your space. You will find it very hard to succeedespecially as a new writerif you’re doing what’s already been done. Publishers, booksellers and readers will too easily respond to your book or book idea with the feeling, ‘Well, yes, but hasn’t [insert name of well-known, bestselling writer here] already done that?’ By innovating, however, you may be able to find your own empty spacea niche that isn’t already occupied by some successful book or series or author.

Test the market appeal of your idea…

Here’s another technique for filtering and refining your ideas: You ought to write a press release for your idea to verify that the ultimate book sells well as a concept. A press release is a one-page news story that touts your book and proves to people who will help sell and promote your bookdistributors, wholesalers, booksellers and magazine editorsthat your book is special and unique and worth looking at. Your press release gives your book a chance to break out from the pack of other books and get noticed. Any idea that can’t be distilled into a great press release is risky. (You can see what book press releases are by visiting publisher web sites.)

Build a list of periodicals that will blurb your book…

If you’re considering a nonfiction book, you ought to be able to come with a list of a handful of special interest periodicals (magazines, newsletters, newspapers, and so forth) that prove people are interested in the topic of your book. If you want to write a book about raising Guinea pigs, conspiracy theories concerning the last president, or monetary policy in emerging economies, for example, one of the best ways you can confidently predict people will buy and read your book is to verify that people are already buying and reading periodicals about the topic.

Try to fit your idea into an existing series…

Here’s another technique. If you can fit your idea into a publisher’s existing series, you ought to try that approach. While of course, we writers find it most satisfying to go our own way creatively, you’ll find it much easier to sell another idea that fits in an existing successful series.

I’ve always written about how to use technology for business and for personal finance. That’s my space. And I’ve got lots of good interesting ideas for books. But my bestselling book has been Quicken for Dummies (Hungry Minds 1993-2005). Would I like to write a different sort of personal financial management book? Yes. But to date Quicken for Dummies has sold one million copies in its numerous editions. The royalties on those salve away any creative disappointment.

Focus on a small niche…

That last number I mentioned, the one million copies of Quicken for Dummies, raises an interesting point. As you consider book writing opportunities, know that you can make good money on a book that sells ten thousand copies. Maybe as much as $15,000. A book that sells twenty thousand copies or more is a big hit for both you and your publisher. And that means your best bet is often to go after niche.

Don’t just write another whodunit mystery, write a whodunit for children. Or better yet, write a whodunit mystery for Christian children or Muslim children or Jewish children. And then promote your book not just like all the other mystery publishers do but also using religious education periodicals that go out to churches or mosques or synagogues.

Verify your idea is big enough for a book…

One final idea and this is especially important for new writers. You need to make sure that your idea is big enough for a bookthe content you’ll create is big enough to fill 250 pages or 500 pages or whatever. Experienced authors can do this intuitively. I know which ideas of mine support two hundred pages or four pages of writing. But new writers often can’t gauge this very well. Ever read a book where by the third chapter the author just rehashes material already covered in chapters 1 and 2? That’s a book where the idea wasn’t big enough.

Especially for nonfiction books, you ought to try writing a couple of example chaptersmaybe chapters 1 and 4to make sure you’ve got a big topic. Your chapters don’t need to be pristine or perfect. But make sure that you can write a couple of good, rich chapters that aren’t redundant. When you’re done with those chapters, look at what other topics you want to cover and make sure that there’s still stuff left for at least two or three more interesting chapters. A bit of rehashing is okay, I think. But you don’t want people reaching for the television’s remote control in the second chapter.

Step 3: Create a Rough Draft Outline

After you have your idea, I’m going to argue that your third step is to create a rough draft outline. This rough draft outline isn’t the detailed outline that your high school English teacher talked about. A rough draft outline doesn’t go into exquisite detail about your book.

A rough draft outline, instead, just lists chapters and provides some idea of what goes into each chapter. Perhaps the outline includes just a few sentences about what you plan to stick into a particular chapter.

Because this seems very strange to writers who have only written short works, let me explain why the rough draft outline works. At the point when you’re ready to organize the content at a very granular levelwhen you truly know exactly what you want to say in a chapteryou might was well spend a few more minutes and get down the words. The composing doesn’t take much time at all. You don’t need to worry about redundancy across chapters as long as you’ve got a good idea of the boundaries that separate chapters.

Step 4: Create Your Rough Manuscript Draft

After you complete your rough draft outline, you should begin writing the chapters of your book. Sometimes, you’ll flesh out the rough draft outline a little in order to begin writing. Sometimes admittedly, you’ll need to collect just a bit more data or do a small amount of research to fill in some hole. But don’t delay. You want to get into a situation where you can produce large chunks of writing as quickly and easily (and, yes, as sloppily and slipshod) as possible.

The big challenge of writing a book is the book’s size. What you need to do first, therefore, is get your book in rough draft form. Worrying about grammar and spelling and word choice at the very least slows you down. At the very worst, this worry prevents you from finishing your book. Therefore, write your rough draft as fast as you can. Hurry along without concern about whether you’re being sloppy. Don’t worry about spelling. Don’t worry about quality. Don’t worry if you’re redundant or obtuse or meandering. You can and will fix all of this later.

What you have to do is get the rough draft manuscript done. That’s the Holy Grail. And, paradoxically, worrying about things like grammar actually impedes your progress.

Step 5: Self-edit Your Rough Draft Manuscript

After you complete your rough draft, you need to ruthlessly self-edit your rough draft. If you can cut some word or sentence without changing the meaning, cut. If you can tighten some description, tighten. If you can remove a section or a chapter without taking away from the book’s purpose, remove.

New writers commonly limit their self-editing. They’ve spent perhaps months finishing up the book. Writing one hundred thousand words has seemed like building the Great Wall of China. The prospect of ruthlessly hacking away at all those words is sickening. The effort of all those early mornings or late evenings?

And yet you have to do this. The biggest mistake you can make in your writing is thinking that everything you put down on paper is worth some reader’s time. It isn’t. Some large percentage of what you or I roughly draft is garbage. And if you or I don’t clean the garbage out of our books, it spoils the book.

One final tip about self-editing: Respect your reader. The point of you writing a book isn’t to express your feelings or share your expertise or to (finally) impress your father. You might get these things indirectly. But they aren’t the point of a book.

The point of a book is to supply a reader with useful ideas or information or literary art or good entertainment. It’s all about the reader. And when we writers lose sight of this point, bad things happen to our writing. And our books aren’t very good. In our self editing, mostly what we’re doing is making sure that everything we put on the page is there for the reader.

Closing Comments

When you distill it down to just its core ideas, this article doesn’t actually say that much. I suggested that you write about something you already know. I suggested some tips for identifying which of your ideas is good enough to turn into a book. And then I provided some advice about how to grind out a bookadvice which largely boils down to outline very roughly, write very quickly, and ruthlessly self-edit.

About The Author

Bellevue-Seattle accountant Stephen L. Nelson, CPA has written more than 150 books about computers and business for publishers such as Random House, McGraw-Hill, and John Wiley & Sons. He has also been a book packager and an independent publisher. His web address is http://www.stephenlnelson.com.

What Do Writers Read?

I’m always learning from readers’ comments. Something I learned recently is that not all writers agree that reading Dickens is a good thing.  

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Daily writing and marketing tips from Roger C. Parker for business professionals interested in planning, writing, promoting, and profiting from a published book.  

Mike’s Writing Workshop & Newsletter: Precise Edit’s Writing Tips …

Precise Edit’s Writing Tips for a Year: $2. Write better every day! Daily writing instruction delivered to your e-mail, every day for an entire year, for $2. Not 1-sentence rules,

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Find Creative Writing Ideas and Fresh Tips.

Looking for a few creative writing tips? Here are a few creative writing ideas which will enhance your writing…

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Creative writing is a vast subject and covers many genres, fields and techniques. When you write to convey a thought, an idea, a concept, a story and so on, and when you do that in an interesting and new manner, you are writing creatively.

Writing stories is a part of writing. There are other types of writing such as writing articles for print and web. Here are some general tips for all these kinds of creative writing:

Transport the Reader : Creative writing involves taking the reader from where he / she is right now, to the place you want him to be. For example, if you have written a story that takes place on another planet, then the reader must imagine for the duration of reading the story that he is right there watching it all happen. This is called ‘transporting the reader’ with your words.

Get the Reader Involved : The next step is to get the reader involved in your story. This is an offshoot of transporting the reader, but then it gets the reader in to the story so that he lives and breathes it not just during the reading process, but also after it.

Characters : The characters that are created must be such that the reader easily identifies with them. Towards that end, you must know your audience completely and create characters from people just like them. So you have to know the character well before you write about him / her. It helps if you can write a short biography of the character before you launch the story, so that you know his likes and dislikes, and his character traits better.

Plan / Plot : The article and the story that you are going to write needs to be planned or plotted well. You can do this by writing down bulleted points of the article or the plot and then expanding on it. Once you get into this habit, you will eventually be able to do this off hand. This is, however, the best way to ensure that you don’t lose the thread of the plot or the article plan.

Show, Don’t Tell : Write in such a manner that the reader feels that he is seeing the things happen right in front of his eyes. Use dialogues and descriptions in such a way that the reader feels that he is part of the story, be it as an observer.

Simple and Sweet : This rule applies to all kinds of writing. Brevity is the magic word in prose. If there is any complicated rule or concept that you must explain, break it down into simple parts. Use short sentences. Read your sentences aloud and see how long you need to speak it.

Keep it Focused : If you are writing about apples, don’t talk about oranges. Focus your article on apples. You really can’t get much simpler than this over here, can you?

Don’t Show Off : We all know that you are a master of the English Language. But do tone it down, will you? Write Simply. Your readers may not know the language so well. Simplicity is the best way to write. And often enough, those among us who can’t resist the urge, end up making silly errors.

All things Technical : While writing, one must double check the grammar and the spellings and the technical aspects of writing. Often wrong grammar or spellings can change the meaning of what you wanted to say in the first place. Don’t just rely on the word processor to do it for you. Use your own head. Consult a good grammar book and a dictionary.

Applying all these techniques to your writing will enhance your writing abilities. These creative writing tips and ideas will help you write better.

All the Best of Luck!

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Can you make money writing short articles? You certainly can. Discover how to make money without a website or autoresponder.

You certainly can. In fact, you can even make money without a website or autoresponder. With nothing more than a computer, word processor, and an Internet connection you can make money writing articles. The key to making money is consistency. You have to write articles every day. Each article should have between 350 and 500 words and will include a resource box with 2 to 3 links.

To begin, go to ClickBank or Commission Junction and register with them if you don’t already have affiliate accounts with them. Then, visit their marketplace and select 3 or 4 popular products that are related to an area that you can write about. Make sure that the products that you select are good, high quality items that are selling well.

Write 1 to 3 articles every day related to the products that you have chosen. This sounds more difficult than it actually is. It’s really pretty easy. Look for articles on the Internet that are relating to your niche, then rewrite them in your own words. Never copy another author’s work, it is illegal and carries severe penalties. Get the main ideas and put them into your own words. Using this technique, you can write an article in 10 to 15 minutes.

Submit each of your articles to 5 or 10 of the largest article directories. Make sure that your articles contain 3 affiliate links in the resource box. You can use the same affiliate links with every article but change the order that they appear. Sometimes make link 1 the first link, and sometimes add it as the third. Many people will just click on the first link. By varying their placement, all of your links will be on top part of the time.

Using this technique, money may begin to trickle in after 4 to 6 weeks. However, after 6 months, you may begin to make money every week. And after a year, you could be making some very nice money almost every day. Do you want to learn more about making money online? Get my free ebook on how make money every day!

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Writing articles doesn’t just mean putting down thoughts into words then typing and writing it. You have to capture the interest of your readers and get them to keep on reading. So what can you do when nothing comes to mind? No one can guarantee you of having the perfect mindset but there are many ways that will aid you in achieving that creative mind. Here are five easy ways for that.

Writing articles doesn’t just mean putting down thoughts into words then typing and writing it. You have to capture the interest of your readers and get them to keep on reading. To send your message across you have to get the attention of the reader and have a steady grasp of their interest and get their curiosity.

So what can you do when nothing comes to mind? There is no surefire ways to get the perfect ideas but there are easy ways to write creative articles. No one can guarantee you of having the perfect mindset but there are many ways that will aid you in achieving that creative mind. Here are five easy creative writing tips for that.

1) Keep a journal or a diary with you always.
Ideas can be triggered by anything you may hear, see, or smell. Your senses are your radar in finding great ideas. Write all of them into a journal and keep it with you for future reference. Sometimes I get my best article writing ideas in the middle of the night. stealing. Remember that ideas and creativity can come from anywhere; it’s the development of the idea that makes it unique.

2) Relax and take time to sort things out.
A disorderly mind cannot create any space for new ideas. Get rid of all obstacles that can be a deterrent to your creativity. If you are upset by something, you cannot force your mind to stay focused.

Try to relax every time that you can and think about your experiences and interactions with others. Your experiences are what shape your mindset and your opinions which could be reflected on your writings. Try to discover yourself, find
out what sets off your emotions. Learn what inspires you and what makes you mad. Use these emotions to help you in express yourself and your ideas, then you will find more creative ideas.

3) Create a place where you work, that can inspire your creativeness.
Creativity comes from being in a good state of mind and a messed up workplace that causes distraction won’t be easy to spark up your creative juices.

Surround your working place with things that makes you happy and relaxed. You may put up pictures, or scents, objects, or music that inspire you.

4) Set the mood.
Setting the mood requires you to just go with the moment or to induce your self to feeling what makes your mind works best. Discovering yourself could help you find ways to get your creative mind started. Set the pace and tempo for your mood and everything else will follow.

5) Go on a getaway and just do something unlike crazy.
Letting yourself go and have fun produces adrenaline that can make your imagination go wild. Take an adventure or a hike. Whatever you do that is different from your daily routine, can take the rut out of your schedule. Your creativeness will make use of that experience and get your imagination to go on overdrive in no time at all.

Maria has ran a successful business for 20 years and now teaches others how to market successfully online. Maria’s free website traffic techniques are used to drive targeted, quality traffic to their websites for free. Find out Maria’s Traffic Secrets just visit http://makeatonofmoneyonline.blogspot.com/

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How to Write a Book in Five Easy Steps

Because I’ve written more than a 100 books and even been a book publisher, people regularly ask me how one writes a book. I always shrug and say it’s not that hard. But this little article attempts to provide a better answer to the question by describing the easy five-step approach that I use and that I recommend you use.

Step 1: Research Your Topic

Your first step in writing any book is to research your topic. Obviously. To begin any constructive development work on a bookthat early thinking about what might make for an interesting book and that planning about what should go into a bookyou need to know your topic very well.

This situation leads to a pretty interesting conclusion if you gnaw on this idea a bit. How do you know what you should research if you haven’t yet actually come up with the idea for your book.

Here’s the reality: You can’t know. You can’t practically know what you should research until you possess a pretty good idea about what you should into the book. And yet you can’t have a good idea about your book–a professional quality idea– until you have your research done. It’s another Catch-22.

Which means that economically, practically, emotionally, the next book you write needs to be one for which you’ve already completed the basic research. You’re only going to be able to come up with a good idea for a book on something when you know the topic well. And you’re only going to be to organize the book’s material into some structure that really works when you know the topic well.

The good news is that for many types of writingand I argue for anything you should write aboutyou have largely completed your research. If you’re going to write fiction and use a collage of the people and places and ideas that you’ve collected over your life, your research may be essentially complete. If you’re writing an autobiography, you have completed your research. If you’re going to write about something that’s been part of your work for years, again, you probably have completed your research. The same thing is true if you’re writing about something you teach in college.

Step 2: Come up with the Idea

The second step in the process of writing a book is coming up with an idea for some really useful or interesting book. Based on your research and creativity, you need to come up with a good idea. Here are some tips for how to do this:

Don’t pick something big and obvious…

The first thorough book on any important topicthe last war, the current big business success, the next medical breakthroughcan be a good book that succeeds even to the point of becoming a bestseller. But I respectfully suggest that you leave the big topics to the big writers. The problem with big, well-known topics is that they are well-known. And that means, very probably, that big publishers are already talking to big authors about writing books.

Find your own space…

A related point to this idea of staying away from the really big topics is that you need to find your space. You will find it very hard to succeedespecially as a new writerif you’re doing what’s already been done. Publishers, booksellers and readers will too easily respond to your book or book idea with the feeling, ‘Well, yes, but hasn’t [insert name of well-known, bestselling writer here] already done that?’ By innovating, however, you may be able to find your own empty spacea niche that isn’t already occupied by some successful book or series or author.

Test the market appeal of your idea…

Here’s another technique for filtering and refining your ideas: You ought to write a press release for your idea to verify that the ultimate book sells well as a concept. A press release is a one-page news story that touts your book and proves to people who will help sell and promote your bookdistributors, wholesalers, booksellers and magazine editorsthat your book is special and unique and worth looking at. Your press release gives your book a chance to break out from the pack of other books and get noticed. Any idea that can’t be distilled into a great press release is risky. (You can see what book press releases are by visiting publisher web sites.)

Build a list of periodicals that will blurb your book…

If you’re considering a nonfiction book, you ought to be able to come with a list of a handful of special interest periodicals (magazines, newsletters, newspapers, and so forth) that prove people are interested in the topic of your book. If you want to write a book about raising Guinea pigs, conspiracy theories concerning the last president, or monetary policy in emerging economies, for example, one of the best ways you can confidently predict people will buy and read your book is to verify that people are already buying and reading periodicals about the topic.

Try to fit your idea into an existing series…

Here’s another technique. If you can fit your idea into a publisher’s existing series, you ought to try that approach. While of course, we writers find it most satisfying to go our own way creatively, you’ll find it much easier to sell another idea that fits in an existing successful series.

I’ve always written about how to use technology for business and for personal finance. That’s my space. And I’ve got lots of good interesting ideas for books. But my bestselling book has been Quicken for Dummies (Hungry Minds 1993-2005). Would I like to write a different sort of personal financial management book? Yes. But to date Quicken for Dummies has sold one million copies in its numerous editions. The royalties on those salve away any creative disappointment.

Focus on a small niche…

That last number I mentioned, the one million copies of Quicken for Dummies, raises an interesting point. As you consider book writing opportunities, know that you can make good money on a book that sells ten thousand copies. Maybe as much as $15,000. A book that sells twenty thousand copies or more is a big hit for both you and your publisher. And that means your best bet is often to go after niche.

Don’t just write another whodunit mystery, write a whodunit for children. Or better yet, write a whodunit mystery for Christian children or Muslim children or Jewish children. And then promote your book not just like all the other mystery publishers do but also using religious education periodicals that go out to churches or mosques or synagogues.

Verify your idea is big enough for a book…

One final idea and this is especially important for new writers. You need to make sure that your idea is big enough for a bookthe content you’ll create is big enough to fill 250 pages or 500 pages or whatever. Experienced authors can do this intuitively. I know which ideas of mine support two hundred pages or four pages of writing. But new writers often can’t gauge this very well. Ever read a book where by the third chapter the author just rehashes material already covered in chapters 1 and 2? That’s a book where the idea wasn’t big enough.

Especially for nonfiction books, you ought to try writing a couple of example chaptersmaybe chapters 1 and 4to make sure you’ve got a big topic. Your chapters don’t need to be pristine or perfect. But make sure that you can write a couple of good, rich chapters that aren’t redundant. When you’re done with those chapters, look at what other topics you want to cover and make sure that there’s still stuff left for at least two or three more interesting chapters. A bit of rehashing is okay, I think. But you don’t want people reaching for the television’s remote control in the second chapter.

Step 3: Create a Rough Draft Outline

After you have your idea, I’m going to argue that your third step is to create a rough draft outline. This rough draft outline isn’t the detailed outline that your high school English teacher talked about. A rough draft outline doesn’t go into exquisite detail about your book.

A rough draft outline, instead, just lists chapters and provides some idea of what goes into each chapter. Perhaps the outline includes just a few sentences about what you plan to stick into a particular chapter.

Because this seems very strange to writers who have only written short works, let me explain why the rough draft outline works. At the point when you’re ready to organize the content at a very granular levelwhen you truly know exactly what you want to say in a chapteryou might was well spend a few more minutes and get down the words. The composing doesn’t take much time at all. You don’t need to worry about redundancy across chapters as long as you’ve got a good idea of the boundaries that separate chapters.

Step 4: Create Your Rough Manuscript Draft

After you complete your rough draft outline, you should begin writing the chapters of your book. Sometimes, you’ll flesh out the rough draft outline a little in order to begin writing. Sometimes admittedly, you’ll need to collect just a bit more data or do a small amount of research to fill in some hole. But don’t delay. You want to get into a situation where you can produce large chunks of writing as quickly and easily (and, yes, as sloppily and slipshod) as possible.

The big challenge of writing a book is the book’s size. What you need to do first, therefore, is get your book in rough draft form. Worrying about grammar and spelling and word choice at the very least slows you down. At the very worst, this worry prevents you from finishing your book. Therefore, write your rough draft as fast as you can. Hurry along without concern about whether you’re being sloppy. Don’t worry about spelling. Don’t worry about quality. Don’t worry if you’re redundant or obtuse or meandering. You can and will fix all of this later.

What you have to do is get the rough draft manuscript done. That’s the Holy Grail. And, paradoxically, worrying about things like grammar actually impedes your progress.

Step 5: Self-edit Your Rough Draft Manuscript

After you complete your rough draft, you need to ruthlessly self-edit your rough draft. If you can cut some word or sentence without changing the meaning, cut. If you can tighten some description, tighten. If you can remove a section or a chapter without taking away from the book’s purpose, remove.

New writers commonly limit their self-editing. They’ve spent perhaps months finishing up the book. Writing one hundred thousand words has seemed like building the Great Wall of China. The prospect of ruthlessly hacking away at all those words is sickening. The effort of all those early mornings or late evenings?

And yet you have to do this. The biggest mistake you can make in your writing is thinking that everything you put down on paper is worth some reader’s time. It isn’t. Some large percentage of what you or I roughly draft is garbage. And if you or I don’t clean the garbage out of our books, it spoils the book.

One final tip about self-editing: Respect your reader. The point of you writing a book isn’t to express your feelings or share your expertise or to (finally) impress your father. You might get these things indirectly. But they aren’t the point of a book.

The point of a book is to supply a reader with useful ideas or information or literary art or good entertainment. It’s all about the reader. And when we writers lose sight of this point, bad things happen to our writing. And our books aren’t very good. In our self editing, mostly what we’re doing is making sure that everything we put on the page is there for the reader.

Closing Comments

When you distill it down to just its core ideas, this article doesn’t actually say that much. I suggested that you write about something you already know. I suggested some tips for identifying which of your ideas is good enough to turn into a book. And then I provided some advice about how to grind out a bookadvice which largely boils down to outline very roughly, write very quickly, and ruthlessly self-edit.

About The Author

Bellevue-Seattle accountant Stephen L. Nelson, CPA has written more than 150 books about computers and business for publishers such as Random House, McGraw-Hill, and John Wiley & Sons. He has also been a book packager and an independent publisher. His web address is http://www.stephenlnelson.com.

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How Do You Achieve Success As A Screenwriter Based At Home?

Screen writing is a very completive branch of writing and it can easily be done at the comfort of your home. To distinguish yourself as a prize- winning screenwriter, you will need to master great organizational skills, be uniquely creative and learn the best ways to present your final product to the buying studios. There are many techniques for screen writing. These are;

Organization

Any one person who masters organization in their writing tasks is on their way to becoming the master screenwriter. In fact, they are on their way to producing an award winning stellar screenplay. Organization is the key technique in screen writing. Before you start on your screen play, you should ask yourself the following questions;
a)Does my script have a clear start, middle and the end?
b)Does the story make any sense

The above questions may seem to be basic, yet many a screenwriters grapple with organizational problems that they don’t seem to know how to resolve. There are four organizational methods which any screenwriter can apply so as to succeed. These are, outlines, treatments, index cards and scene lists. All these tools are highly effective and all a screenwriter need, is to be discreet in deciding which organizational method best suits their situations.

Making your play captivating and interesting.

Any type of Writing is a process. All the most successful screenwriters take creative risks. Otherwise, without an interesting story even the most organized screenplay play will not get a market. A professional screenwriter should never copy another writer’s style, rather they should exercise their own imagination and experiment with various ways of telling and making the story.

When submitting your finished script, do it like a professional.

Once you are through with writing your interesting and well-organized screenplay, you will need to submit your script neatly and according to the receiving studio standards.

Below are the general guidelines to follow:

A feature length screenplay should be longer than 95 pages and short than 125 pages when you submit it to the studio for consideration.
Do not include character biography or synopsis with your script. This gives the studio editors with excuses not to review the whole screenplay.
Scene numbers should never appear on the script until it is sold. Studio readers or editors view the numbers as distraction and use it to demote your script as amateurish.
Studio readers prefer to receive scripts bound with circular metal brads. Use of folders and binders take up a lot of office space thus your script may end up being discarded by interns unintentionally during the normal cleans ups.
Finally, the use any of the many available screen writing programs in formatting your script will greatly aid in making your screenplay to given a consideration. These programs are such as Movie Magic Screenwriter, script wizard and others.

Think success and be a success

It is always good, to take calculated risks with the plot and character development. Also ensure you follow the set studio standards for script submission. Strong writing skills development takes time to show themselves. A screenwriter should have the willingness to learn new things all the times and should have perseverance capabilities. Writers who are always experimenting with new ideas and who constantly improve their writing skills always succeed.

By: F ngiam

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By Freddy Ngiam, Founder & CEO of www.1homebusinesshub.com.

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