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Start Writing Today: Your First (or Next) Book · 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 DailyWriterLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: In this week's shorter episodes, we've been talking about a few ways that you can start writing today.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: So far in this series, we've talked about journaling, social media, blog posts, and articles.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And today we're going to wrap up this series by talking about how you can start your first or your next book.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I know when I mention books, you're probably thinking, well, that's not something I can get started on today.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's way too big of a project.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my friend, to the contrary, all you need to do is sit down and start working on a couple of things.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: So let me walk you through this.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, calm down.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, uh, this is totally doable.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: People oftentimes just get freaked out when I start talking about writing a book because it seems like this big, overwhelming, supermassive thing.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: But let me tell you how to get started so you can take action and finally get that first book out there, or you can start working on your next one if you already have a book or multiple books out there.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, here we go.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, I want you to determine the main idea of your book.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's item number one on the list.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Second is figure out who your ideal reader is.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, who are you writing to?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, you're not writing to everybody.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Don't ever, ever, ever, did I mention ever?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Don't ever write a book for everybody.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Your book is not for everybody.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Your thing, your business, your podcast, whatever it is that you're doing, it's not for everybody.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's only for a certain type of person.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it might be a broad audience, it might be for there might be a lot of people in that group of people that you're you're writing or you're creating for, but it's not for everybody.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: So decide who your book is for.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And third, start working on a book outline.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me give you a simple way to do this.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you're doing a nonfiction book that's of standard length, I recommend about 35,000 to 40,000 words divided into 12 to 15 chapters.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm suggesting here is not that you're gonna sit down and write the whole book in one shot.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: I just want you to start working on your outline.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do that, that's gonna help you get excited and want to move forward.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: The sheer act of developing a book outline will be a huge motivating factor for you.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to tell you, you can get your book written faster than you think.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you only write 200 words a day, which is an average page length, you can write a book of 120 pages in four months.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can write three of those books a year if you just write one single page per day.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can put that book or put those books, plural, on Amazon and you can make them available to the world.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you need to go back and listen to this episode again, because I've just given you a system, a very simple and very doable system, by the way, for getting that first or next book out there.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Don't write a 75,000-word book unless you have a really, really good reason to do so.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can do a shortish or medium-sized book that's only 35,000 to 40,000 words, or even, you know, I'm gonna tell you a little secret here.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can write a 25,000-word book and it is gonna be full length, and people will love it because they don't have to read this big long book.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So keep that in mind.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's a little secret between you and me.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Don't share that with anybody.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Just kidding.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is a public podcast.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But don't make a book longer than it has to be.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Don't make some big 250-page book unless you have a super compelling reason to do so.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: A book should only be as short as it needs to be.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as you can tell, I'm a little wound up about this topic because most books, in my opinion, are longer than they need to be.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So write a book that's short and punchy.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: People can get in, people can get out, and they can move on with their lives.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: The book doesn't need to be some big massive 400-page um, you know, brick that you prop your door open with, because that's all it's going to be good for most of the time if you write a book that long.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Again, unless you have a really compelling reason to have a longer book.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do, that's fantastic, that's great.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: But my default these days is that you should write a shortish book.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Short meaning something under 40,000 words, preferably uh under 35,000 or even under 30,000 words if you can get away with it.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So in this episode, I've given you a way to do that, and I want you to take action.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: We make the process of writing a book way more stressful and complicated than it needs to be.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So take some time today to do what I've mentioned here, which is determine your main idea, figure out who your ideal reader is, and start working on an outline.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: It is totally doable.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if you take some time today to get started on that process, it's really going to motivate you and inspire you to keep on going.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: You will be amazed at what can happen when you take action and get moving.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my question today for you.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: How could writing a book impact your life or your business?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And most of all, get moving.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is an excerpt from our ebook, Start Writing Today: Five Simple Ways to Begin Changing Lives With Your Words.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, actually, that's not true.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I put a lot of extra stuff in this episode that's actually not in the ebook.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of only partly true.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Be that as it may, you can get this ebook for free, along with six other ebooks on writing, as part of our free Daily Writer Starter Kit.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Just go to dailywriterlife.com slash free.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And seriously, if you don't have those, what are you waiting for?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're six awesome ebooks.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, seven awesome ebooks.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: We worked really hard on these books for months.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: So if you don't have these, you're seriously missing out.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one more thing before we close up shop today on this episode.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is sponsored by my friend Honore Corter and her indie author university featuring the book marketing mastery course.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you're tired of being disappointed by your book sales and you want to sell more books faster, easier, and with more fun than ever, sign up for this course today.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Book Marketing Mastery is created by Honoree Corter, who is my friend, business coach, and mentor, and she has sold over four million books.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: That, my friend, is a lot of books.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, needless to say, she knows her stuff.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: This brand new course is fantastic, and I've taken it myself and I've started to apply what I'm learning.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: To sign up for Book Marketing Mastery, visit dailywriterlife.comslash bookmarketingmastery and use the code daily writer, that's all one word, daily writer, to get 10% off.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great course.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna love it, and it's really, really gonna help you.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So check it out.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, my friend, thanks for listening, and I'll see you tomorrow.