Latest / The Daily Writer / Jennifer Harshman: How to Write Your Book in 12 Weeks

Transcript

Jennifer Harshman: How to Write Your Book in 12 Weeks · The Daily Writer

0:13
SPEAKER_00: Hey my friend, welcome to this Saturday edition of the Daily Rider Podcast.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: Each weekday we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer: creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Here on the Saturday edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers, as well as teaching that helps us apply what we're learning.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: You know, we've all heard stories about people who take years to write a book, and in some cases that's necessary, especially if the author is writing a very large book or one that requires a lot of research, like a biography or a technical book or something like that.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: However, in most cases, we can write books a lot more quickly if we will just get focused and organized.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: And my guest today is here to give us a system for doing exactly that.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: In fact, she's going to walk us through how to write a book in just 12 weeks.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: Her name is Jennifer Harshman and she's the owner of Harshman Services.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: Jennifer is an upbeat overcomer and language lover who taught herself to read and write when she was just three years old.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: She hasn't stopped consuming nearly 19,000 books so far.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: She began editing professionally in 1992, polishing more than 200 books and 30 million words since.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: When she's not working with words and leading her team, Jennifer can be found with her family coping with disabilities, homeschooling, playing with paint, or making music with her flute.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, Jennifer's going to walk us through why we should consider writing a book in 12 weeks and exactly how to do it.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: And I think you're going to be blown away by just how doable this is.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Even if it seems impossible, I encourage you to give this idea a shot.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: And Jennifer is going to help you see that you can absolutely do this.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: So let's get right to the conversation with my good friend, Jennifer Harshman.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Jennifer, welcome to the Daily Writer Podcast.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: Or should I say welcome back?
2:03
SPEAKER_00: This is, I think, your third or fourth time, something like that, on my podcast.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: So you're you're one of my more repeating guests, which is really, really cool.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: So welcome back.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me, as always.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, we have such a great time together.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: And it's funny because we we sort of interface with three or four different groups and different things.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: So uh literally, we we were laughing a minute ago.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: Of course, listeners wouldn't know this, but uh we got off a mastermind call.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: We're we're both part of uh uh the Total Life Freedom Mastermind that our mutual friend Vincent Puglisi runs.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: And then literally, as soon as that call ended this morning, we caught on this other Zoom link, and it's like, oh, it's been like what 15 seconds since I saw you.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: It was really funny.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: I guess you kind of had to be there to appreciate the humor in it.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so we are here today to talk about how to write your book in 12 weeks, and I love this title, which I stole from you by the way.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: This is uh directly from your book bakery program, and I love this because it's it's a little bit controversial because people might think, How could you possibly write a book in 12 weeks?
3:08
SPEAKER_00: But I also think it's super fascinating because it is absolutely doable.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: I've written books in in shorter times than 12 weeks before, and I know you have too.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: So I'm anxious to dive into this.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: So my first question is why would somebody want to write a book in 12 weeks?
3:22
SPEAKER_00: That seems like a crazy fast goal.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: What's going on with that goal?
3:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: So one of the reasons that someone would want to write a book in 12 weeks is they're a busy person and they have a lot of things going on in their life.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: Maybe they have some other goals they want to accomplish later, and right now they can carve out some time and get this one knocked out.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: So is it possible to do it in less time than 12 weeks?
3:47
SPEAKER_00: Or is that do you feel like that's really excessively short?
3:52
SPEAKER_01: It's definitely possible to do it in less than 12 weeks.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: There are certain conditions that have to be met though.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: So if, for example, you have an idea for a book, but you don't have expertise in that field, you don't have experience with it in your job, you have to do a lot of research.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: You are not going to produce a quality book in 12 weeks if that's your situation.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: If, however, you have this thing that's been sort of, you know, brewing inside of you for a while and you know your material, you you have expertise in it, maybe you have a degree in the field, maybe you have job experience in in this topic, and it's just sitting in there like a pressure cooker building.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to go out and do a lot of research, but you need a good recipe, a good path to follow.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: Once we put that into place, it's like opening the floodgates.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: So, in that instance, absolutely.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: I once wrote a book in three days when I had some uninterrupted time.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, our friend John Stongey wrote a book in four hours, and it's one of his best sellers.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: And he's written, I think, somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 books.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's insane how many books he's written.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: He's like a machine, basically.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: So walk us through the process of how would you actually write a book in 12 weeks?
5:22
SPEAKER_00: Now I know you cover this in your book bakery program, which we'll talk about in a little while, but generally, what is the process for doing that?
5:28
SPEAKER_00: I assume you start basically with nothing and then you end up with a finished draft at the end of three months, correct?
5:34
SPEAKER_01: Yes, you are absolutely correct.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so kind of walk through that if you would.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, the first thing that I would do is figure out what do I want to write the book about?
5:43
SPEAKER_01: Who is it that I'm serving?
5:45
SPEAKER_01: And I have a list of questions that I send to my book bakery participants that help them to figure all of this out if they haven't already figured it out.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: But questions like, who is it that I'm wanting to help?
5:57
SPEAKER_01: And how?
5:58
SPEAKER_01: Exactly what kind of transformation do I want them to experience when they read this book?
6:04
SPEAKER_01: And you know, Stephen Covey's concept of begin with the end in mind.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: So we we need to know where we want to get to.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: We need to know what we want to produce, and then we backward map from there and we do a literature review where we look at other books that are similar to what we want to create.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we go to Amazon or we go to a local bookstore.
6:29
SPEAKER_01: Maybe if we've been studying this for a long time, we might have 10 books on our shelf and we look at what they contain and decide which of those things we want to include in our book.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: And we do keyword research.
6:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, I love using SEO to help outline books, and I teach people how to do that in this process so they make sure they're not having any gaps in their content.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: So once you lay that foundation, once you figure out what you want to go in your book and where, it becomes so clear what you're going to do.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: So once you have all that, and then do they start, is the best thing to start the process of uh just you know, start with the intro, then chapter one and chapter two, and then just you spread that out over a certain number of weeks.
7:19
SPEAKER_01: I have them write over the course of about four weeks, and then later in the process is where we do some of the revising and tweaking things.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
7:28
SPEAKER_01: But I don't have them write it in order from start to finish.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: Most people feel really intimidated if they think they have to do it in order from start to finish.
7:39
SPEAKER_01: So what I usually do is I'll say, okay, the first week, if you want to start writing chapter one, you're gonna write chapter one and chapter six.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: Next is chapter two and chapter seven.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: So I make them jump around in their outline.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: And if they don't like those particular numbers, I'm really, really feeling like writing chapter three today, Jennifer.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't care about what you said to do in this outline.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: That's fine.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: Go write the pieces that appeal to you that day.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think that's a really good strategy.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: I use that a lot when I'm producing my podcast.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: So I I always batch, write, and record those.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: And many times I'll I'll have like two weeks worth of episodes.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: So it'll be like, you know, 12 to 15 episodes that I'm writing and recording, sometimes, you know, in one sort of really long day.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: And I'll do the first few and then I'll do the last few and then I'll sort of do the middle few.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: And I find that that mixing it up and not going from start to finish, it like almost jumbles up your brain a little bit.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: And it prevents that feeling of, oh, I've got so far to go, I've got so much more to do, and I'm so discouraged.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: So I love that strategy.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: That's that's really great.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: So what what happens next?
8:53
SPEAKER_00: Once they get the first draft finished.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, after they get through that, we and we call it like a dirty first draft, right?
8:59
SPEAKER_01: Or dirty rough draft.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: Once they get something for every chapter, then we go through and look at certain elements like, are we missing any content?
9:11
SPEAKER_01: Do we need to add stories?
9:13
SPEAKER_01: Are they going to be our own stories or or are they going to be stories that we've brought in from other people?
9:19
SPEAKER_01: And I encourage a mixture of both because if they can lift up other people and get other people invested in their book, it just does more than if it's just a solo project.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's really true.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: That's something I encourage my clients to do as well.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times in internet, it all depends on the project, of course.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: But if the project lends itself to it, it will include interviews from people in their industry or their niche or friends or whatever.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: And man, it's a great way to round out content of your book, but then also the people who you feature in the book, when you release that book, they're going to be really excited to promote it generally, which is pretty cool.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Plus, they'll they'll oftentimes give a blurb, and there's just all kinds of cool reasons to include other people in your book instead of it just being like, here's what I think about a topic.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: If you send out those requests early enough in the process, then it can fit well with this timeline of 12 weeks.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, completely, completely, totally agree.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: So once you have once they have the draft done, then what's the process that you walk them through with rewriting, revising, editing, and so forth?
10:30
SPEAKER_01: So I encourage them to have some outside input.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: So right now I have a group of 14 people that I'm walking through this process and they are helping each other.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: They're being each other's eyes on the project.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, some people will use the term beta readers, others just say feedback.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, you can use whatever term you like, but I definitely have them go and find some trusted people.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: And about six need to be people who are in their genre or in their field who know that that topic and that material and know what should be there and what should not, how it should be phrased, how it shouldn't, things like that.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: And then have a couple of people that are totally unfamiliar with their material, complete beginners, and get questions and feedback, comments, things like that from all of those people, and then consider the source.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: If it's someone, you know, this group of six people who definitely know all of my material and they know my field well, and they say, Jennifer, you're really missing the mark here on this thing, then I will want to take that and address it.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: But if it's one of those people who's who are completely unfamiliar with it, and they say something that I know, no, you know what?
11:49
SPEAKER_01: I know this industry, I've been in it since 1992.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to say thank you, and I'm not going to incorporate that feedback.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: That's really good.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: I love that idea of including people who are not familiar with your material and people who are, because the people who are really familiar with it have a certain perspective.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know anything about the field, then you're going to bring a whole different perspective, which could be really helpful.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: I like that.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: Yes, because they'll ask you questions that a beginner will ask you.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: And some of your readers are going to be new to your topic.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: So you do want to make sure that you're guiding them well.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: So when you're finished with that process, uh incorporating beta reader feedback, editing, revising, and so forth, then is that where the 12 weeks would end?
12:34
SPEAKER_01: Well, we do have um each week I'll have them look through certain things like um sentence structure and length.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: That was the last week where they're going to go through their material and vary the length of their sentences, and they're going to vary the sentence structure so that their reader does not get bored.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: You want to maintain the reader's attention and you want to keep them energized as they're reading through your book.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: So each week we'll have something, you know, past that um drafting phase and then the revision phase, there are several elements in the revision.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Can you walk through what some of those would be?
13:13
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: So I mentioned um the sentence structure.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: I also um have people look at pet words and pet phrases.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: So some people call them crutch words.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: You know how each person has uh maybe it's just two or three words that they rely on too much in their writing.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: And I give them some tools that will help them to count the words, which I think is amazing, um, to find out, oh, guess what?
13:43
SPEAKER_01: I used the word so 75 times.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: I think that might be a pet word, that might be a crutch word, and I'm going to go and examine those instances just to see if it's necessary in each one or if I can replace it.
13:58
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I can just simply delete the word and it the sentence works just fine.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: My pet word is actually.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: I use it all the time.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: It's it's almost like a joke between my mom and I because she says it all the time too.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why we say it, it's just something in our family, it's just a pet word that we use.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: And uh, I also have the pet word so.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Like when I'm writing a first draft, I'll say blah blah blah blah blah and so, da da da.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: And then I actually did that one time.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: I was transcribing uh somebody's interview for a client book, and I sent and I left a few of those in, but I left a few too many in.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: And the person who was being interviewed for the client book, they were like, Why do you have so many sews in this book?
14:41
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Well, that's a good point.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: I just was trying to keep it conversational, you know.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: That that that's always kind of a hard line determining what's conversational and what's more formal, sort of grammar and language and and so forth.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: But I guess we all have these pet phrases and words that we tend to use.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: We absolutely do.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: Once you see it, it can become annoying to you when you start to notice it.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: It's really, really true.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: So your reader will see it faster than you do.
15:11
SPEAKER_01: That's why it's good for us to look at them and and ask for feedback.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: What do I do that I could improve upon?
15:19
SPEAKER_01: Because your reader will spot it faster than you do, and they'll they'll get frustrated with your book.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: Oh, totally.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Which is not really what you want to do.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Readers to get frustrated with your book.
15:30
unknown: Right.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's break this down a little bit.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: Um for those who are listening, um, maybe this is a totally new concept.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Can you walk us through kind of like week by week?
15:42
SPEAKER_00: If someone was going to write their book in basically three months, like what is the things they would need to do week one, two, three, four, five, all the way to 12?
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Just kind of roughly, or at least just kind of review the major steps we would need to take in that process.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: Um so in week one, it's all of the foundational stuff.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: They want to do um the literature review, figure out what they need to get into their outline, do the SEO research, all of those types of things.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: And then they're going to outline their book.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: Um one thing that I should mention that's really important for anyone who's doing this, um, something I push in your book bakery is self-care and rewarding yourself as you go through the whole process.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: So every week I have something for them, um, assignments for them to do self-care and rewards.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: So um and even day by day, like do this, do this, do this.
16:39
SPEAKER_01: And it it can help to keep people motivated and feel good because they're putting a lot of energy into this.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: It can be pretty draining.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: So then they're finishing their first draft, they're getting feedback on it, they're revising their draft based on that feedback.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: They're pulling in stories, whether they are their own or other people's stories, to flesh out the content.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: They're putting in any action steps or anything like that.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: So they're structuring their chapters in a way that's going to lead their reader from point A to point B like they want to.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: They're looking for any content that might be missing.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: They're looking for their pet words and phrases, revising based on that.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: And then they're looking for endorsements and different stories, again, you know, that they can put in if there's something that's not there that should be.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: And they're revising their sentence structure, they're varying the sentence length, making sure that there's a variety for the reader to maintain that attention.
17:48
SPEAKER_01: And then when they're done, they are ready to hand their manuscript off to a line editor or copy editor.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: And with this program, they don't need a developmental editor because we did that in the beginning when we were laying the foundation.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: Now help us understand uh for listeners who aren't familiar with different types of editing.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Can you explain the difference between line editing, copy editing, editing?
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, let's just do the whole shebang.
18:15
SPEAKER_02: All right, love to.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Talk about the difference between developmental editing, line editing, copy editing, and then proofreading.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: You got it.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: Is that how you break it down into those four?
18:25
SPEAKER_00: Or do you have a more granular way of looking at it?
18:28
SPEAKER_01: It is, just like that.
18:29
SPEAKER_01: So, development is where you look at what needs to be in the book, what doesn't fit, what you want to accomplish with it, how you want the reader to transform during the process of reading it, all of the big picture items, you know, purpose, content, all of that.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: And that can be the part that takes the longest, and it's usually the most expensive.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: Right.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: Um, line editing is where we look at the language that is being used and the reading level that the book is at.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: So if you're writing a book that's aimed at people who are comfortable with a lower reading level, let's say it's a casual how-to, then you don't want to write it at a 14th grade reading level.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: Right.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: It's going to just sail right over their heads and you're you're totally going to miss them.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: So we want to make sure that there's a match between the level of language used and the intended audience for the book.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: That one is sometimes lumped in with developmental editing and sometimes it's lumped in with mechanical editing.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: And mechanical editing is copy editing and proofreading.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: So for copy editing, wait a minute.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, let me say a little bit more on line editing.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: Line editing is where we look at every single sentence in the book.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: So line by line, we're going through and making sure that not only is the languaging targeted right, but that each sentence makes sense.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: So it fits within its paragraph, the paragraph fits within its section, the section fits within its chapter.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: So that's why some people think, yeah, line editing is really developmental editing because it does look at some of that bigger picture stuff.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: But some people lump it in with mechanical because oh, you're looking at every sentence and making sure the sentence is structured and clear.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: So then with copy editing, that's what most people think of whenever they think of the word editing, spelling errors, grammar, punctuation, things along those lines.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: And then proofreading is a little bit tricky in the last several years with self-publishing, it has become confused.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: Proofreading is actually looking at the printed or the proofs of a book before it goes to press.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: So that's after it's been designed, laid out, you know, typeset, all of that.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: Then we look at every single character, we look at every single image, we make sure that the headings are right, the font sizes haven't changed, because some strange things can happen during the layout and formatting process.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: Some some weird voodoo happens.
21:25
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you've seen the fun things.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: I've well, I've committed some of those things too.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure we all have.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: It is kind of weird because you think like do you do you ever get involved in in these manuscripts and things and you think, people, this is 2022.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: Like, why are we still having these weird tech issues?
21:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I sound like my grandpa or something, but I'm like, why is it that we can put a man on the moon, but you can't copy something from scriveter into Microsoft Word and always have it look exactly right?
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Like, I just I really don't understand.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm totally baffled by this.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: But you Yet, you know, why is it that the uh the apostrophes are straight in one thing and they're curly in another thing?
22:06
SPEAKER_00: Like that just drives me insane.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why things go that way, but but stuff doesn't always talk to each other the way that it should.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: So as an editor, I'm sure you have daily fun with those with those issues.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: I absolutely do.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: One of the things that um that I encourage authors to do though is not worry about that.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: One of the biggest struggles is when somebody sits down to write a book, they want to make their Microsoft Word document look like a printed books page.
22:38
SPEAKER_02: Right.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: And that's a huge mistake.
22:42
SPEAKER_01: There are so many things that have to be done before then.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: And everything that, you know, all that time that you put into it is just wasted because it's all going to be wiped out and redone.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: So just pick a font that you can read.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, a lot of people like Times New Roman.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: They're used to seeing that, or Arial.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: Pick a font that you can read and write your book and keep maybe keep those things in mind, like, oh, I would love to have this type of font used in my book.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Write that down somewhere, make a note of it, but don't try to do it in your document.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: That comes way later.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: So, how much time can people expect to devote, like on a daily or a weekly basis?
23:26
SPEAKER_00: If they want to write their book in 12 weeks, let's assume they're doing a standard uh nonfiction book of let's say 120 pages.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: We're we're gonna go in the short end, but how much time do you think that that would involve?
23:39
SPEAKER_01: What I encourage people to do is pick either a time commitment or a word count goal, and they can switch from day to day if they like because you know life needs some adjustments.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: Um two hours or two thousand words in a day, that will absolutely get it done.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: Some people say, Oh gosh, I can't do that.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: That's that's too much.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Do what you can do.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: And also, your book does not have to be a set length.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: That's another mental hurdle that we help people get over because people have a mental construct of what is a book.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: And it's usually you know, 200 pages, you know, however many words.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: Amazon uh KDP allows a book to be listed as you know, 2,500 words that qualifies as a book for Kindle.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: That's really short.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I mean, as you know, that's a blog post for a lot of people.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: So we can say 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 words, that can be a decent book size.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: And you can definitely get that done.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: You can do 50,000 words within 12 weeks.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: NanoRimo is 50,000 words within 30 days, and a lot of people accomplish that.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: If you sit down and you really focus in on it and you do it, you can you can totally get it done.
25:09
unknown: Yeah.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: It is possible.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: You may have to curb your Netflix time or some other things, but you can actually do it.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, give us some details uh as we kind of wrap this up, Jennifer, on how can people find out more about the book bakery and also about you and your editing services and all the cool things that you're doing.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: They can find it all of that at harshman services.com.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: That's my main website.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: And I have a page on there.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: So harshman services.com slash your book bakery, and there are hypens between those your book bakery.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay, very cool.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: Well, this has been a blast.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for being on the show today.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: This has been immensely helpful, and I hope that it's given people a vision for what you can actually do with your book in in just 12 weeks.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: It is again, it's totally doable.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: You really can do it.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh if you put the pedal to the metal and you're focused and you follow the pathway that Jennifer has laid out here.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: And of course, I want to encourage people to check out the book bakery as well, which is an awesome program.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: So thanks again.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: Hey, wasn't that a fun conversation with Jennifer?
26:10
SPEAKER_00: She shared some really great tips for getting organized, for getting productive, and also a system for actually getting a book written in 12 weeks.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: Now, I know that people who are listening to this, and maybe you're one of them, I don't want to make any assumptions, but my guess is that most people who hear this kind of a concept would think, oh my gosh, how can you possibly write a book in just three months?
26:30
SPEAKER_00: It's just not doable.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: But I want to tell you that if you put Jennifer's words into practice and if you get focused and organized, you really can't do this.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: And I will tell you that I've actually done this twice in the last uh three to four months or so.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me give you two examples.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, in the month of February, I actually wrote a whole book just in the month of February.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but now I know that you would probably think, okay, Kent, you're a full-time writer, you know, you're you're a ghostwriter, you have clients, you've got your own stuff that you're working on, and you have time to do all this.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, the truth is that I didn't.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: So I wrote a little book that I'll be that I'll be sharing in the next few weeks.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a little secret project that you'll hear more about later on.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: But I wrote this book, uh, it's about 27 or 28,000 words, something like that.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: I wrote this entirely in the month of February.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: And I did this in the margins.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I went to a retreat a couple weeks ago, and at that point I had about two-thirds of the book drafted.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: And the book consists of um 15 to 20 or so short chapters.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: So each chapter is like 1,200 to 1,500 words long, something like that.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: And I went to this retreat in Florida uh two or three weeks ago, and I'd only have like I only had like two-thirds of the book drafted.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: So I just had to stay up late at night, two, two or three of those nights while I was in Florida getting this book drafted.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: And I was so determined to get this done that lit, and this is no exaggeration, literally on the way home, because the Wi-Fi on the plane coming back from Florida was kind of jacked up.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I had to just do it on my phone.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: So I knew what the outline for a couple chapters was, and I just had to sit there, you know, on the plane, and you know how cramped those plane seats are.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: I just had to do it, typing on my phone.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: And I did one or two chapters that way.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: I did a pretty clean draft just on my phone.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: And I was there in the airport just typing, typing, typing, getting these things done.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: So if you're determined you really truly can do this.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: And uh, let me give you another, another example.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Back around, I would say, mid-October or so, I don't remember exactly, I was contacted by a book agent, asked if I'd be interested in doing a memoir, a biography, sort of a book for a major publisher.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: And I agreed because I thought the project would be a lot of fun.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: And it was kind of like a no-brainer project.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes these things come into your life and you go, oh my gosh, I would be really stupid not to do this project.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: So it was an amazing opportunity.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: So I sent up for it.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: We started mid-November or so.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: I remember it was, I think, a week before Thanksgiving when I really started talking with the client, doing the interviews and so forth.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: And over the next 10 weeks or so, I was able to do all the conversations with the client.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: We outlined the book.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: We uh went through several rounds of edits uh before it actually went to the editor.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: And I turned in, my deadline was actually February the 14th, Valentine's Day, oddly enough, to turn the book into uh the editor at the publisher.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: And I actually turned it in, I think it was the very last day of January.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I emailed it to her on January the 31st.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: That was the final draft ready for edits, uh, or ready ready for her revisions, then it goes back to me.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: I make my edits, then it goes back to them for the final edits.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: So I did this book in about 10 weeks.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Now the catch was that I already had several client books that I was working on.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: So I couldn't just put pause.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't just push pause for all this project.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: So what I did was I actually had to work on this book on the weekends.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: So I would spend literally all day Saturdays, and I would spend typically from late morning, early afternoon on Sundays, uh, up until Sunday evenings working on this book.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, I didn't really work on it during the week because I didn't have time because I had other commitments and responsibilities.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: So you can definitely do this.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: I wrote this book in the margins.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: I really, truly did.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: So even those of us who are full-time riders, we have jobs that are that are connected with riding full-time.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, sometimes we have to do these projects in the margins that are fun projects that just kind of come along at the last minute.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: So you can truly do this.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, if you get motivated and you really want to do something, you will find a way to get it done.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it involves early mornings, weekends, late nights, lunch breaks, airplanes, airports, whatever the heck it takes to get it done, you can absolutely do it.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: So I just want you to know, you can do way more than you think you can do.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: You can do things you haven't even thought are possible because you really haven't pushed yourself yet.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: So I hope that this episode with Jennifer has encouraged you that you can get a book done pretty quickly.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to take two or three years to write a book and all the stuff that you hear about.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: You can do a book pretty quickly for the most part.
31:03
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, hopefully hopefully you take this to heart and hope that this is encouraging to you to contact Jennifer and to sign up to receive a stack of goodies that she has for you that'll help with your nonfiction content creation or repurposing.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: Make sure to visit Harshman Services.com.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: There will be a link in the show notes.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: And Jennifer would also love to talk with you and share resources with you about writing, about editing, and so forth.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: She's got lots of cool things happening.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: So again, go to Harshmanservices.com for those free goodies, as well as to learn about the book bakery, which starts in April.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: The book bakery is her 12-week program where she takes you from start to finish with getting your book done.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: Exactly what she's talking about in this episode.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: Except that with her, it's a guided process.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: This is a really, really affordable deal, so I highly encourage you to check this out.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: Jennifer's amazing, she's awesome, and she's a wonderful book coach.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: So, hey, thanks so much for tuning into this episode.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: As always, I appreciate you.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening, and I will see you in the next episode.