How Writing a Book Changes you Completely!

Many of us have toyed with the idea of writing a book at some point in time or other. It might be linked to some topic we are very passionate about and want to put to paper our thoughts about this and share with as many people as possible. Most of us procrastinate this urge to get started with writing this book as at a subconscious level we are aware that this is going to be a daunting task requiring a Herculean level of dedication which s going to be a real challenge considering the activities that already fill our day to day lives. Add to it a 9 to 6 job and family responsibilities then it is bound to be deferred indefinitely. We will convince ourselves that it is not going to be practical before we retire.

I want to share through this post my experiences with the same dilemma around writing my first book .What were the challenges I faced in the process. Why I think it is definitely possible for anyone, especially for people who like to read and write blogs. Assuming you are reading this on a blog platform you already meet that criteria. Most importantly I want to share how you evolve personally while writing a book and that makes overcoming all the challenges totally worth it.

What Does it Mean to Write a Book?

Before going through the main difficulties faced while writing a book we need to define the target, that is what typically is the size of the book we are targeting to write.

The size of an average book on Kindle at any given time is in the range of 75,000 to 100,000 words and many specially fiction related can be even bigger.

I personally think that attempting to write a full fledged book on the first go is like attempting to run the marathon when you have barely started to walk. It is basically not a practical idea and will most likely result in frustration. It is always better to start with small steps and choose to write a short book, collection of a couple of short stories or mini book to begin with. Luckily Amazon has a separate categories for short books and it seems to be more popular than the bigger books. It is primarily due to the fact that most of the readers are finding it difficult to take out time to read a big book and prefer short books.

While I have not seen a clear demarcation for short books by Amazon but most short e-books on Kindle are in the range of 10,000 to 15,000 words and it might go up or down a bit depending on whether you are writing fiction or non-fiction.

Targeting to write a book of about 15,000 words is not such a mission impossible specially if you are accustom to writing blog posts which are generally in the range of 600-800 words.

How Difficult is Writing a Book?

Now that we have got a fair idea about what exactly classifies as a short book let’s consider what challenges we can expect while writing one. Considering the average blog size to be 700 words it means a short book would have a size of 20 average blogs.

If we do a very simple extrapolation then we can say that a person who can write one blog a day can finish this short book in under a month. This is where things start getting a bit complicated. Regular writers know that it is common to face the infamous writers block while writing a blog then you can imagine the size of this block for a short book.

If you are clear about the topic writing a blog of 600-700 words is not very difficult as that size can be used by covering the highlights or main features of the topic to be covered.

Structure: The first difficulty is that you need to spend some time to thing about the outline of your book and how will it be structured. You need to put in some thought about the preface or introduction, you need to plan what will be the first chapter, which points to cover in the main body and how to end it. The first time you try to do it you are bound to get confused and might have to redo it a couple of times. This is also a critical step as if you find after writing half the book that the structure does not make any sense then you are like to be frustrated.

Material: While it is easy to find topics on which you can write short blogs but if you are writing a book then it needs to be on a theme that you are genuinely passionate about else who will run out of ideas to include. If you try to fill in repetitive material just to fill it in then it will be clear for your readers and you can be sure they will not touch any future material you will post.

How Technology is Helping Writers?

If we look at the tools available for authors in todays era it has really simplified the process of writing a book compared to a few decades ago.

Earlier even after the actual content for the book was finished there were many tasks for which the author was dependent on other people.

The author needed someone to proofread his work, then he had to send his reviewed manuscript to multiple publishers with a printing press and wait for their response. Then agree on the terms for sharing the royalties and then the book printing will proceed.

Nowadays with platforms like Kindle this whole cumbersome process which used to last several months if not a year can be done in a matter of minutes. Once you have your manuscript ready you can simply go to kindle and perform the following actions:

Upload you manuscript, preferably in Word format

Review the automated errors and grammar check and fix accordingly

Select one of the royalty free cover image for your book

Select what royalty sharing plan you prefer

Set a price for your book

Hit Publish, and you are done

What Was my Experience Writing a Book?

I had been thinking of writing a book for the last couple of years but I kept deferring it for a long time. Initially it was a bit overwhelming as I was really confused about which topic to select, something that will be useful to readers and interesting for me to write. I narrowed down on crypto and spirituality as these are the two topics I know I can write effortlessly on.

After starting it took me a while to get the structure of the book defined.

After I actually started writing I felt as if most of the hurdles I imagined were cleared but there will still be days when I will face a writers block and will not be able to write more than a few lines but luckily to compensate for that there will be some days where I will be in a state of flow and will be able to write for hours at a stretch.

Finally when I completed the book I was grateful for the personal development I experienced on the following fronts:

Developing the will power to see a project executed to the end

Developing a routine to set aside time for writing

Gaining the confidence that I was capable of writing a book (there were times when I will doubt if I will ever finish)

Understanding the whole cycle from the book idea to publishing process

Motivation to write more in the future

What Did I write About?

I actually had started a book on crypto initially but then I put it on hold as I was not sure if I will need to get it legally vetted as if any section was deemed “financial advice” I will get into unnecessary hassles.

Then the second book I started was on the lessons I have learnt on how to lead a spiritually fulfilling life. This is one of the topic that is closest to my heart and I think is more relevant in today’s era when rat race is glorified and people don’t really take out time to stop and think about what exactly is the purpose of their life.

If this is something that might interest you then feel free to check out the preview on Amazon- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C3RRRKSB

If you decide to read it then I will be looking forward to your feedback on- [email protected]

Cheers,

Sam