Latest / The Daily Writer / Write Your First Nonfiction Book with Honorée Corder: The Process, Part 2

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Write Your First Nonfiction Book with Honorée Corder: The Process, Part 2 · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: As you know, this week here on the podcast, we're doing a five-part series celebrating the launch of Honore Quarter's brand new book called Write Your First Nonfiction Book, A Primer for Aspiring Authors.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to feature this book all this week because a lot of you tell me that you want to write a book, and this is a phenomenal guide that's going to give you the exact formula, the exact framework that you need to write that first nonfiction book.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So today on this episode, Honore is going to help us understand the process of writing our first nonfiction book, specifically the eight chapters that you really, really need.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: In yesterday's episode, she talked about the first four of those chapters, and in today's episode, she dives into chapters five through eight, essentially, that you need in your first nonfiction book.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you're really going to enjoy this.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is super, super helpful information.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I encourage you, as I did in the previous episodes, to get this book first and foremost, and also to put it into practice and read it.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: You can grab the book on Amazon.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And while you're doing that, while you're on the internet, I encourage you to go ahead and hop on over to Honoree's website, which is honorecorder.com and sign up for her email list.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I mentioned this in the previous episodes as well.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: We've got five print copies of the book to give away to people who leave a podcast review for this show.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've not yet left a review on Apple Podcasts for the Daily Rider, make sure and do that.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And after you do that, take a screenshot of that review and email it to me at Kent at DailyRiderLife.com along with your mailing address where I can send the book and I'll drop the book in the mail.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Bada boom, bada bing, easy as pie, right?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks in advance for those of you who will leave reviews.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited to get you a copy of Honore's book in the mail.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And with that said, here is part four of our conversation about write your first nonfiction book.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Honore, welcome back.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: We are diving into chapters five through eight of the basic eight chapters that you recommend here.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we talk about chapters one through four in the last uh short episode.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter five, you're recommending that we talk about the formula in action.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I love this because you're kind of putting hands and feet on whatever formula or framework you're talking about.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um give us some insights into how how we can think about this in this chapter and what kinds of things should we include if we want to help people to put this formula in action?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it pull out a sheet of paper or open a new document in Word, right?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: However, you're gonna write it.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Get it get a piece of junk mail and write on the back of an envelope and just say, okay, if I'm gonna write about encouraging someone in chapter one, how am I gonna encourage them?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: In chapter two, who are people that I know that have gotten results that I've worked with?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're a coach, they would be coaching clients.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: If they're uh people that have hired you to speak and you're teaching someone how to be a speaker, um, go get some testimonials, um, go talk to some people who have become speakers and started with speaking for free and now are getting paid.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever your whatever your process is, you want to go find people who have gone through the process and they've come out the other side and they're like, woohoo, right?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: They hit through there, they're in stage five, right?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: They got their two thumbs up, their gold star, and you know, maybe a couple of bucks, right?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And they can and they can talk about it.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then you talk about what's gonna happen when someone tries to create your results, they're gonna have in internal resistance, they're probably gonna have people tell them that they can't do it, right?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, all those things they need to figure out what their stages are and what their process is and talk about that.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and just make some notes.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Just ask yourself the question: how does this apply to what it is that I want to write in my book?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: So it's always like, you know, what's the encouragement I need to give?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: How can I write about that?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Who can I write about?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Who can I write about that's gone through the process?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: What are my stages or what is my process or what's my word?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: What's my word that goes here?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: How do I how do I write about this in here?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and I want to circle back to giving people permission to to changing it.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: So remind me if I forget.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then talk about what it looked like when you did this yourself.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like apply what you're telling people to do to your story, like tell your story in there or show.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Show people what to do based on what you did.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Show them what you did or tell them what you did, and then say, like, you can do this, which would be chapter six.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay, now you can become a speaker.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now you can create your one sheet.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now you can get a speaking agent, or you can reach out to associations and learn how to speak.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I want people to kind of pull out a piece of paper and go, okay, so how does this apply to what I'm trying to do in the world?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what am I doing?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: And how can I write about these in these chapters?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so I can keep going.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: We haven't talked about six, seven, and eight yet, but chapter six is letting the words flow.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you get out of your way and get the words on paper?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Chapter seven is how do you write your first book?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is kind of my favorite part was like, how do I help people to write their first nonfiction book like I wrote my 50th nonfiction book?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Knowing what I know.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: What are the things that they need to know so that they can professionally publish a fantastic book that's really going to serve them?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: What do I wish I knew in my first book that I know now?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Dozens of books later.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then chapter eight is kind of like, okay, now this is your call to action.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: So the the, you know, in this book, it's like, now go write your first nonfiction book now, as in right now.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Go, go, go do it.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: So in your chapter eight, or whatever that looks like, um, what is it that you're calling them to do?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's the call to action.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like now, now that you finish reading this book, this wasn't a book that you read once and you put it to the side and went, oh, thank goodness this is over.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: I can log in in Goodreads as another book on the way to my my book reading goal for the year.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm actually gonna take action.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually gonna go put it into practice.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I like about your process here is that you emphasize many times through this book that this process is uh you got to personalize it to you.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not saying that it's you've only got to have eight chapters and it always has to be that exact number.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because in in various books of yours, you follow this, uh, but it's a little bit different every time.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say if you had a framework that has four elements to it, is it okay to have 12 chapters?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And four of those chapters are going to be you're breaking down each of those four steps in more detail, and then you just kind of have to you're taking this process and you're changing it up according to your personality and your style.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And what makes sense for your content, and what makes sense for your content, and that goes to word count.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this book is is a better business book, which is a product that I created to help people become authors, right?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a product that I sell that's a better business book, and it's 15,000 words, 100 pages, 4.2 by seven in dimensions, right?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's called the better business book.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this book happens to be that same size, a few more words.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: So there's about 21,000 words.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: But this isn't meant to be a small book formula.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: This is meant to be a book formula, a book process.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: You could do eight chapters and write 80,000 words.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so then you break that down.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: If it's 15,000 words, your word count per chapter is different than if it's 80,000 words or 50,000 words.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's math, right?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's all math.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, and I'm not a math person, I'm a writer, but I can do basic math.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's not about making it perfect, it's making it perfect for you.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's making it so that it works for you.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before I move on to this, to the final episode on this, one thing that I am curious about is um I've had a lot of conversations with people about book sizes and book length.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, in my Daily Writer Club group, which people who listen to this show have heard me uh talk about that before, of course.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we we had a conversation yesterday about this.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, there were only four of us on this call.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's a summertime, it's you know, there's we don't always have large attendance on some of these sort of off calls.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but two of us, Karen Hunsinger and I, had this, you know, your new book.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: We had copies of this.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: The other two people on the call each had um your previous book that you came out, that's the same size.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought it was absolutely it was so funny.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know, I've asked everybody on the call, what do you guys think about the idea that these books are, I just described them as kind of a cute little book.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: It because the size of it, the physical size, makes you want to pick it up and take it with you.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are your thoughts on that for people who are who are especially working on the first nonfiction book?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think there is something psychologically important about having a book that has a small footprint, it's a small size, it's a shorter book.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's something about that that seems to make people want to grab that book and take it with them.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think there's so many questions in that question, Kent, because I think that people want to do it right.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so they go, Oh, I thought a book had to be big.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: I thought a book had to be thick, I thought a book had to be six by nine, six inches by nine inches.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it had to be 200 to 300 pages.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Wait a minute, what is this?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: And also psychologically, from a reader perspective, the book does encourage you to read it because you think, yes, it's only so big.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: How long can it take me to read it?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: I can read this in a short period of time.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: I can fit this in my pocket or purse, which is what you intended, right?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Which is exactly what I intended when I came up with the size originally.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was for my first book.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was working with professionals, the majority of them men who wore suits and they didn't have anywhere to put a book.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so I measured the inside suit jacket pocket and found a book size that would fit right in there perfectly.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how that whole that's how that all started.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: When I wrote the best-selling book formula and chose to do that compact size, it was because the manuscript was about 15,000 words.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew that to get words on the spine, it had to be 100 pages.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the only way to get to 100 pages was to shrink the size of the book.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so one thing led to the next, and then the the response has been very positive.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I can read a book like this.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: This is helpful, right?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: If you just tell me what I need to know, you don't need 200 or 300 pages unless it's complex, you can keep it short.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And now people are saying, I can write a book this size.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's still a book.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: You still check the author box.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to go through years and frustration and writer's block and all the things, right?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: You can write and publish your book in a relatively short period of time, keeping it a palatable size for both author and reader.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: So all things being equal, it's it's good to have a book that people physically want to pick up and take with them and that they feel they can read fast.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, all things all things being equal, that can be really helpful and beneficial.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm gonna take the contrary position just for a second and say, if you need more pages, have more pages.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you need more words, have more words.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: If you need a bigger size, have a bigger size.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: The best-selling book formula is 15,000 words, right?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Your first nonfiction book is 21,000 words.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it was bordering on with a little bit of customization.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: It could have been a six by nine or a five and a half by eight and a half book, right?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: I could have put in some big pages with quotes, and I'm a huge fan of Jeffrey Gittimer.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna hold this up.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is about 21,000 words.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: But if you look at, you know, some of the pages, there's you know, probably 20 words on this one page, and this is a a six by nine book.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's fun to look at and fun to look at.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: It just depends.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's where I think law schools everywhere should be sending me money, is because I say give you the lawyer answer all the time.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: It depends.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you should a lot of lawyers say that.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I should there's there's a there's a royalty payment in there somewhere.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I hope that we can get it for you somewhere.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know I know a few attorneys and and you do as well.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe it'll maybe it'll come to you at some point.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this has been fun.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm gonna wrap up this episode.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is so helpful, and I hope this is inspiring people to take action on this as well as just get the book and give it away to all their friends too, because all their friends need it.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody needs this book.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's great.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think you're right.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you in the uh next and final episode of the series.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I hope you enjoyed that just as much as I did.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: I am having a blast this week talking with Honore about her new book.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And once again, I hope that you get this book and I hope that you put it into practice.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Seriously, it's really, really good.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a short book, it's not a super huge or long book, and it's once again gonna give you the exact pathway that you need to write that first nonfiction book that you've probably been thinking about for a really, really long time.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before I wrap up this episode, I want to give a big thanks to today's sponsor, which is Vellum.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you've heard me talk about Vellum before, and um honestly, Vellum is a huge part of my workflow as an author and as a ghostwriter.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: As you probably know, and uh as you've heard me talk about before, Vellum is only for Macs.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a PC user, this is not going to apply to you unless you want to get a Mac.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I I have heard, by the way, I have heard of people who get a Mac just to use Vellum.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know that sounds crazy, but you know, when you're an author and you want to format your own books and you want to have total control over how they look and you want to do it fast and easy and um and save a lot of money while you're doing it, then Vellum is a great option for doing that.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, if this is a big part of what you do, then I don't think it's crazy to get a Mac just for Vellum.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, as somebody who's used a Mac for like 10 years, I used to PC and all the years before that.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um I will say this.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm probably gonna get a little bit of heat for this, but I will say that I have heard of a lot of people who switch from PC to Mac, but I don't ever hear of people switching from Mac to PC.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, there are reasons for that, I think.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a PC person, Godspeed, that's great, stick with what you have.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I will say that uh there's a reason that I use Macs, and it's because they're really simple and easy, and I don't ever get viruses on my Mac, and there's a whole bunch of reasons.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: But all that being said, the cool thing about Vellum is that they designed it specifically to run on Macs, and that's there's a reason that they designed it to fit into the aesthetic of a Mac environment.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Vellum is super easy to use, it's a beautiful app, uh, it's fun to use, and it's what I use to format most of my own books, and I also use it in my ghostwriting business as well at times.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're looking for a great solution to help you uh format your own books, Vellum is absolutely the way to go.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can you can take it for a really fun test drive by going to trivellum.com slash daily.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's trivellum.com slash daily.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: You can play with it to your heart's content, and then you only have to pay for it when you're ready to generate those files for ebook and for the print book.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: So give it a whirl.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think you'll really, really enjoy it.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: All right, my friend.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks as always for listening.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate your time and attention, and I hope that you're enjoying this series with Honor Recorder.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I will see you tomorrow.