Those of you who know me well know that “Discover Yourself On the Yellow Brick Road”, a book that took me two years to write.
But what you probably don’t realise is that in fact, it didn’t start out to be a book at all. It started out as a marketing exercise. I went on a course to learn how to create products so that my clients could sample my work and get to know me through my materials. Writing is an opportunity for me to share my knowledge instead of keeping it all in my head.
I’ve spent the best part of 15 years reading and learning about self development. One day I woke up one morning and thought “look Wendy, stop reading other people’s material and start writing your own!”. But since I’ve published my book loads of people have been asking me “how did you do that!?” So I thought I’d share a few of my secrets with you, so that you can get going on your own materials and in so doing promote your own expertise – therefore raising your profile and crediblity in your own field.
So, if you’re struggling to get started here’s a few tips
- If you are writing something with a specific target audience in mind. Mindmap the sort of challenges that your clients are facing. Don’t censor your thoughts, just get a big piece of paper, coloured pens and download your ideas from your brain. When you think you’ve finished, keep going because sometimes the longer you do this the better the ideas become.
- If you’re still not clear then carry out a survey and use the responses to add to your mindmap and complete the content
- Once you’ve got your mindmap take every key word out and put that into a list
- Look at this list and see if there are any words that could be put into common groups, or themes
- From these thems will come your headings – for instance you could have something that says “The 7 Biggest Challenges that Pig Farmers Face”
- Then go ahead and write everything that comes into your mind under these 7 headings – don’t aim for perfection, just write, write, write. One tip is to type this on your computer – but turn off the monitor so that you’re not tempted to edit or change anything. You can edit it all later
- Prepare a 20 page e-book. Feel free to ‘borrow’ the formatting from my e-book you downloaded from my website. However, before you publish it make sure you get some feedback from a respected person who will tell you straight what could be improved.
- If you’re stuck or have writers block – then here’s a fantastic book which tackles this very problem. ‘Blocks’ has been written by Tom Evans who specialises in helping people unleash their book and get it published. http://publishingacademy.com/buy/guidebooks/blocks/
So, what are you waiting for? Good luck and let me know how it’s going
Warmest regards
Wendy
p.s. Got any comments on this – I’d love to hear them!
