2019 The year of creativity
Many of us always dream of writing a book but never get to do it. There can be no excuse anymore as most of us have all the tools we need in the palm of our hand.
I don't have the time is the biggest excuse but the same people saying that has the ability to hammer out hundreds of Whatsapp, Twitter or Facebook messages daily.
Writing a book is exactly the same. Putting down characters into an electronic form and then later arrange it into a readable book will take just so much time and energy. The beauty of our technology is that you can do it from anywhere using your smartphone or tablet.
What will I need to start writing my own eBook?
First, you will need an idea of what you want to write about. It is important to have some idea of what you want to do in your book and how you would like to present it to your reader. This is called a niche and you can find out more about niche writing here in one of our previous articles.
A basic outline with some chapter headers will set you off in the right direction. Remember it is only a guide to get you going and it will be edited later. Initially, all you want to do is to get some ideas down to form the basis of your book.
Next, you will need to load an app onto the device that will allow you to type and store your ideas. In my case, I have a word template stored with all the headers and chapters in place which I can jump around in and write my ideas down as it comes to mind.
Get cloud storage such as Google Drive or DropBox to which you can upload your file for retrieval from anywhere else you might want to work from. You can even email the file to yourself from time to time to ensure that you do not lose your hard work.
What do I do when I'm done writing my eBook?
That will all depend on why you have written the book and what your niche is. Does it provide enough information to be published as a non-fiction book on its own? Maybe you wrote a novel or romance that you can publish online for others to purchase and make some money on the side.
There are many online publishing sites that will sell your book for you taking a portion. My favorite site is Smashwords where you will find not only find various topics but also where guys like myself become affiliate members and sell your book for you.
Another option is to join Upwork as there are many blog owners who will purchase your book as a free giveaway on their website. Maybe you can give away the book yourself if you have a website you would like to grow. Free ebooks are great for building membership sites.
What if I fail to complete my eBook in 2019?
You will not fail to write that book. Spend one week thinking about it, do some research and do a layout plan. Don't just start writing without knowing your end goal.
It is better to spend more time on planning as it will make the writing easier. It is not unheard of that some people can write one short ebook a week as a give away for their website but these are guys that know their niche and can write from of the top of their head without planning too much.
Maybe you are the person that will take a year or two but in the end, you can come up with the best selling novel everyone was waiting for.
If you don't succeed do it again and again while you learn through the process as long as you look back and say "I started my writing career in 2019"
