- Hey, what's up guys?
It's Pat Flynn here and in this video,
I'm gonna show you five
tips that I've learned
to help you write a best-selling book.
And this is applicable for those of you
who are mainly writing non-fiction,
but definitely these
tips are helpful for you
if you're writing fiction as well.
And the main thing to realize here
is that these aren't just writing tips.
How to write a book.
We are gonna get into some of that,
but mainly, it's the how to approach
the book writing process.
So that you can give yourself
the best chance of writing a best-seller.
And I know a little bit about this
because I wrote a book
a couple of years ago
called Will It Fly, and it was one
of the hardest things I've ever did.
I self-published it and to my surprise,
actually, let me show you.
On the wall here, we had this created.
Actually, this was gift to me.
And yeah, it was a complete surprise,
I had no idea that a self-published author
could get on the Wall Street
Journal Best Seller list.
So I'm gonna give you some strategies
as you begin your book writing process
to give you the best
chance to reach that list.
Now, before we get into the tips here,
I do wanna share that, you know,
as great as it is to be on the list,
the most important thing is
that you are giving this book
and serving it to as many
people as possible who need it.
I don't want you to feel disappointed
if you don't get on the best seller list,
like, for example, I didn't get
on the New York Times Best Seller,
a lot of authors want that.
But even if you don't hit the list,
doesn't mean your book is a failure.
So, success for a book author is,
did you write a valuable book?
And is it actually getting in the hands
of those who need it?
So, let's get started.
Number one, you need to do proper research
for the topic of your book.
And there's many
different ways to do that.
The way that I wrote Will
It Fly was specifically
by doing surveys with my audience.
My audience told me what their
most pressing problems were
and their biggest pains.
And that's what helped to
inspire what Will It Fly became.
Will It Fly is about how to
test your next business ideas
so you don't waste your time and money.
And literally, that tagline there,
came directly from many people surveys.
Because they were worried
about wasting their time,
and they were worried
about wasting their money.
So, I didn't have to guess anymore
what the topic was gonna be about.
It was about, okay, how
can we create a business
such that, you're not wasting your time
or you're wasting your money.
And this way, it's specifically written
with that reader in mind.
And number two, they also know
that this book is for them,
if that's a problem that they have.
So that's running a survey.
Now, likely, you already have an idea
of the kinds of things
you wanna talk about.
The next thing I would do, is
actually go out there and see
what other books exist that
serve that same audience.
That are in around the same topic.
How will your book stand out?
How will it be different?
It's really important to do this research.
And most authors that I speak
to who are just starting out
for the first time,
writing their first book,
actually don't get as deep
into that part of the research
as they should because
you're gonna be spending
a lot of time writing this
book, a lot of effort.
Perhaps, a lot of money
as well in the process,
not always necessary, but maybe.
And you wanna make sure
that you're giving yourself
the best chance to succeed.
And the only way to stand
out of the crowd is to
first of all, know who is in
that crowd in the first place.
How will your book be
positioned in a different way?
That's really important
to research first upfront
before you put any time and
effort into this project.
Okay, number two,
validate your topic idea.
Alright, so you've researched the topic.
Now you wanna go and validate it.
And that's actually what this
book Will It Fly is about.
It's about taking this big projects,
like writing a book,
and shrinking him down
into little litmus tests so
that you engage the response
and just determine whether
or not that something
you wanna move forward with.
And you can do that with your books.
A couple ways you can do this.
Number one, you can just
simply write a blog post
or create a podcast
episode about the topic
that you've researched for your book.
And you can gage based on
the number of downloads,
the traffic and especially the comments.
Especially if you have
any call to actions,
for example, by the way,
if you wanna learn more
about this topic or you're interested
in hearing more about this,
leave a comment below and let me know.
Or what other things about this,
do you wanna hear about?
That way, you can kind of get a feel for,
okay, does this actually resinate
with the audience that you have?
Number two, you can take it up a notch,
and do like like what my
friend Darren Rowse did
from problogger.net.
He wrote a book called 31
Days to Build a Better Blog.
And a lot of people don't know this,
but it was actually a series
of 31 different blog posts
that were then, put together into a book.
And so, because the blog
post series did so well,
he knew that this was gonna
be a book that he could sell.
And even though it's
the exact same material,
people like the fact that it's in a book.
It's a lot more convenient,
and it just feels more real.
And likely, when people are investing
in something like a book with
that kind of instruction,
they're gonna be more likely
to take action as well.
So, that book has done very well,
I've purchased it myself and
it still continues to sell
and make passive income for
Darren, even years later.
Now, instead of a blog post series,
you can take this up one notch
and collect email addresses to validate,
okay, yes, this is a topic that people
want more information about.
They gave me their email address,
so likely, it's something that they want
more information about.
Michael Hyatt did this with
his book Living Forward,
which, at first, was just a
.pdf file that you can download
in exchange for an email address.
But because so many people downloaded it,
and offered their email for it,
he knew that this was something
that he wanted to expand later
into a much bigger project like a book.
And this book did very very well.
Got on the top of a lot of the charts.
And so, you can validate your topic
by creating a small little lead magnet.
And it doesn't have to be a .pdf file,
it could be a video, or something.
But again, just having
the email be required
in order to get access to
it, that tells you something,
yeah, people want this and
then you can move forward.
Alright, tip number three
is to outline your book.
Now Pat, this sounds very obvious.
Well, it is very obvious.
You need to outline your book
before you write it, right?
But, there's a very specific
process that I wanna teach you
and I'm not gonna teach
here on this video,
I have a whole entire
video up here in the card
about how to write the first
draft of your book fast.
And there's a very specific process
involving post-it notes and recording
and dictating the first draft
that makes it super
simple and fast for you
to crank that out so that you can move on
to some of the next steps.
So making sure you outline
and follow that process,
is gonna be really important.
So we'll just have it in
the card up there for ya,
and also, a link in the description below.
But I would actually recommend
watching that video next
after you watch this video.
Alright, number four, this was
the biggest struggle for me,
was focusing when I was writing.
Because a book is a huge project.
And I could crank out
a 5,000 word blog post
in just a few hours, very easily.
But when it came to writing this book,
which involved multiple chapters
and multiple parts within chapters,
it just became this thing that,
in my head, was just
so hard to figure out.
And I wanted every word to be perfect
and it just became a struggle.
I saw this big list of all
the things I needed to write
that I hadn't even started yet.
It just became very overwhelming.
I actually stopped writing Will It Fly
for a good couple months, just
because I got so overwhelmed.
But, I hired a book coach,
and I got some advice.
And the best piece of advice I got was,
treat every individual chapter
as if it's its own blog post.
And I was like, that's so genius.
And that makes complete sense.
Why didn't I think of that?
So you can take that one post-it note,
and have that just be the one thing
that you're gonna focus on right now.
It might be one chapter,
it might be one story
within a chapter, if you've
outlined it to that detail.
Then, all of your focus is on that,
all of the writing is about that,
all of your research is
just about that only.
And everything else kinda
disappears and you can focus.
I use a google doc for every
individual part of my book,
so that I'm not distracted.
I used to use Scrivener
and that's a great tool
that a lot of people use as well.
But I just got so overwhelmed by seeing,
okay, I'm only writing like,
this one part of the 50 parts of my book.
I don't wanna see that, so I have now,
every individual chapter
in its own google doc
as I'm writing, and that's
been really really helpful,
to kinda just, like I
said, keep me focused
and again, treating
each individual chapter
as if it was its own blog post.
It really really helped
crank it out for me.
And tip number five, and this was big one.
You know, when you write a book,
you're gonna need an editor, right?
Now, when most people hear
that you need an editor,
most people don't know this,
but they are assuming the copy editor.
And that is the person
who checks for spelling
and grammar and that sort of thing.
That's really important, obviously,
because if you read a
book, and there's just
chock-full of spelling errors,
which is very common in
self-published books, right?
Because you don't have that team
that is in the publishing house
to kind do all that for you.
It just leaves a bad impression, right?
So you need a copy editor, yes.
And there's a lot of resources,
I'll put some resources down below
in the description for you.
But more important than that, I feel,
is the developmental editor.
The developmental editor edits,
not the grammar and the spelling,
but the order of stories.
The idea that there should be a new story
that should pop in here.
That there's too much in this one section.
That all the chapters
are in the right order.
Really, to make sure that
a person goes from A to Z
while reading your book, and
not A to C and then get lost,
and then go to F, and then G,
like it just gets insanely
crazy sometimes because,
we are so deep into our own books,
that we don't understand what it's like
for a brand new person to come in,
and go from start to finish.
So by hiring a developmental editor,
you're gonna make sure
that you're plugging in
all the holes, that you're
not being repetitive
when you don't need to.
That you have the stories
in the right places
to support the points
you're trying to make.
All those good things.
So two editors that you need
to get involved with, at least
because there are more,
but those are the two
I wanna share with you that are important.
The copy editor, obviously,
but that actually comes after
the developmental editor.
And again, I'll put some links below
to some of the people I've worked with
and that I know are
gonna be helpful to you.
Alright, so a couple of things
you should do from this point forward.
If you wanna learn how
to write the first draft
of your book fast, you
wanna make sure you click
one of the cards that's about to come up
around this side, so just hang tight.
And then, if you want to
learn how to market your book
and sell it and get more
eyeballs on it, get more sales,
well, then you're gonna
click around this side.
So here are those two videos right now,
this one over here, to
write your first draft fast,
click on that next if you're ready for it.
Or if you're already passed
the book writing process,
and you wanna learn how you're
gonna market this thing.
Click on this side over here.
So thanks again, best of luck to you.
And all the best.
