I wish to sit in your seat in this article, while being aware of the process of moving an idea through the stages to call it a book or ebook and help you make that process easier.
You are tinkering with the idea of writing a book or ebook – I can assure you many people are. Many ghostwriters and publishing houses are worse on this one, will not be sympathetic to your burst of creativity; they have heard it all before. They want tangible material they can turn into either pay or mega bucks respectively. How to get a publisher to notice your book or ebook by the way is a completely different topic. Here I wish to deal with the book or ebook idea that you wish to develop into a publishable book or ebook.
To avoid snooty looks from publishers and rude emails from a ghostwriter the best counsel I can give is this; the more complete the idea for your book or ebook is, the more attention you will get, and the faster it will move through the stages to a book or ebook you can sell.
How come? Well, as you probably do already know, all things are energy. The clearer you are about your content, the more energy you have given to your book or ebook so the faster it will harden into physical form – to put it in metaphysics-speak.
Here is the tough part; how do you make your idea clear without writing the book or ebook yourself?
Picture yourself coming from a busy, busy day being around and about. Now picture that you get home and you need to tell someone else the major highlights of your day. Now, picture having to tell the person those major highlights on paper and viola! You have a book or ebook!
Well, it may not be as simple as that, but the gist of it is there. When you are clear, you need not tell the story in terms of 'I met Susan, and she was wearing that yellow dress her mother gave her at Christmas when her mother came to visit her in a pink dress' kind of details.
However, you can get the gist of it in summary form. Here are guidelines you can use:
GENRE: Decide if your book or ebook is fiction or non fiction. If you are telling a story about events, then this is important. Memoirs and biographies are factual. If you went to a college in Connecticut, you went to the college in Connecticut; period.
In a fiction piece however, even if you are narrating events that did happen, the person who went to a college in North Carolina can happily go to college in New York or wherever.
The non-fiction genre is wide; you can also have corporate documents, reports, journals, academic materials and other informational scripts.
CLIENTELE: who is going to read your book or ebook? If you are like me and like most other creative minds, thinking through this one is dreary. However, it will give your ideas a more solid footing. Here are a few questions to help you along?
Do you wish to write for men or women? In what age range are your possible readers? Where are they? What solution do you wish to give? What questions are they asking?
It does no good to write a book or ebook speaking about starting an online business on a small 200$ credit card loan to retirees in Africa (because you traveled there for the holiday and met so many frustrated retirees). The idea is noble, but… first; they got no credit cards, baby! Second; they don give no loans to retirees in much of Africa! Third, they jus no see no internet in them villages, my friend! Fourth, be sure they no buying that internet mush!
In short – do serious research about your potential reader. In my experience with publishers, and marketers too, the more unique and/or specific your material is, the easier they'll pick it up (and I am not in any way suggesting that finding a publisher is a given).
LANGUAGE AND TONE: all writing has a tone, just as all speech has a tone. Do you want your work to come off as friendly, comical, serious, severe, academic? Writing a book or ebook with a severe tone for under 25s is a dead waste. Make it lighter reading, and you have game!
SIZE: if you wish to publish online, then the lighter the better. There are several ebook sizes. A professional ghostwriter should help you make a decision on an optimum size for your work. However, you can look around the books that resonate with you and copy those. If you have loads of content, then consider splitting your books into several smaller ones.
CONTENT: having done all that, now sit with pen and paper and draft your desired 'table of content'. Me!? Yes… you!
Chapter one – start with a summary paragraph with the main idea you want to include. Under that paragraph, add as many bulleted points as you like. Do the same for Chapter two until your book or ebook has some reasonable chapters. Four chapters are too few; thirty five is way many. Use existing books or ebooks as a guideline. You can also record your ideas and thoughts as audio files.
If you are planning a fiction novel, make an outline of each character too. Jane: African American girl born in a white neighborhood. Sullen, fifteen years old and unhappy at start of novel. Sixty years old and bitter by end of novel – or something. You and your ghost writer will create events as you go along, but have a storyline. Storyline? Yeah! That idea that makes you figure 'Billy Jean' by Michael Jackson was a pregnant girl.
Include one important line at the start or close of each chapter; an intention line. 'By then end of this chapter, the reader should…' and state what benefit the reader will get from the chapter.
IMPORTANT: do not agonize about getting the number of chapters right, the heading titles right, the book or ebook title right, at this point. Have all those in what we call 'the working format'. By the time you have the complete book or ebook, trust me, a lot will have changed. Now armed with these notes, tapes and information feel confident to find a ghost writer.
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For more information on a successful way to work with a ghostwriter for your ebook, I welcome you to visit my blog, Growing Within and Earning Higher. Once there, click on the 'Write my Story' Category. You will also find my public ghostwriter CV there for your viewing. The link to my blog Growing Within and Earning Higher is on my SelfGrowth.com author Bio below.
Paula Thayrow is a professional writer. She writes for people who wish to have their names on a book or ebook as authors, but may not have the time or skill to develop the material themselves. It does not matter if this is your first book or ebook, or your …nth one, Paula will be happy to work with you. Her first love is writing books and ebooks that focus on helping people have a better and happier life experience. Being a professional, however, she is comfortable writing corporate and academic books and ebooks too.
Paula also maintains a personal blog with articles that will make you laugh, cry, get angry, be enlightened, want to try a product, or even find an expert to partner with to grow your life and work to the next level.
Visit her blog, Growing within and earning higher at: http://grow-earn.blogspot.com
View her public ghostwriting CV http://dld.bz/ghostwriterpaula