Plan to write. Write to learn.

Plan to write. Write to learn.

You’ll change your mind about the content of your book as you’re writing it. But writing is an inefficient way to learn. You should start by meticulously planning, not writing, and you should reserve time for rewriting, too. There’s an efficient process that smart writers use and it looks like this: plan/write/revise/polish. I’ll explain. Writing…

Is writing a book your New Year’s resolution? Better read this first.

Is writing a book your New Year’s resolution? Better read this first.

This is the year! 2019. Are you going to write a book this year? If all you have is burning desire and willpower, you will fail. You need a plan. This is that plan. (While this plan is designed for non-fiction, much of this advice may help fiction writers as well.) Here’s what not to…

Writer, editor, ghostwriter; what I learned from 11 book projects
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Writer, editor, ghostwriter; what I learned from 11 book projects

In the last decade I’ve been intimately involved with 11 nonfiction book projects. I wrote or cowrote four, edited five, and ghostwrote one-and-a-half (one is not yet complete). These were the most rewarding experiences in my career. Here’s what I learned: the keys to success in a book project are planning, passion, trust, perseverance, and…

A plan for the penultimate draft: taking your book from good to great

A plan for the penultimate draft: taking your book from good to great

When your book is complete but not done, you have an opportunity. You can make it excellent. Or you can stagger across the finish line and spend the next few months dealing with unnecessary bullshit. This post is about how to crush it on that penultimate draft. This advice is for writers of non-fiction books,…