Latest / The Daily Writer / Write Your First Nonfiction Book with Honorée Corder: The Process, Part 1

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Write Your First Nonfiction Book with Honorée Corder: The Process, Part 1 · 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: Here this week on the Daily Rider Podcast, we're doing a five-part series celebrating the launch of the brand new book, Write Your First Nonfiction Book, A Primer for Aspiring Authors, written by my friend and business coach, Anna Recorder.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And as you probably heard me talk about in the previous couple of episodes this week, I wanted to talk about the book all this week because a lot of you tell me that you want to write a book, but a lot of people just don't know the framework to do it or they don't feel like they have a clear pathway and so forth.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a lot of resources out there for authors on how to write books.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: But this specific one is designed for first-time authors.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've always wanted to write a nonfiction book, but you don't know how to get started, and by the way, that's a lot of people.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um her book, Write Your First Nonfiction Book, is the exact resource that you must get.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And as I mentioned in the previous couple of episodes, Honore is not only just a cool person and my business coach and mentor and good friend, she's also a very, very experienced author of dozens and dozens of books, including You Must Write a Book, You Must Market Your Book, The Prosperous Writers Book Series, The Best Selling Book Formula, The Successful Single Mom Book Series, and a whole bunch of other ones.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And she's a business coach and founder of Indie Author University, as well as the Empire Builders Mastermind, which I joined a couple of years ago, and it's fantastic.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: So in today's episode, Honori is going to help us understand the process of writing that first nonfiction book, specifically the eight chapters that you really need in that book.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And she's going to do a walkthrough of the first four of those chapters.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And in tomorrow's episode, she'll dive into chapters five through eight, basically, that you need in that first nonfiction book.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can get this book on Amazon, and I also highly recommend signing up for her email list, which you can access at honorrecorder.com.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as I mentioned yesterday and also on Monday, we've got five print copies of the book available to give away.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the first five people to leave a review of this podcast on Apple Podcast will get a free print copy of the book in the mail.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So all you got to do is leave a review, take a screenshot.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: You can do that on your computer or on your phone, and send me the screenshot so I know you did it.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Send it to me at Kent at DailyWriterLife.com along with your mailing address, and I will drop the book in the mail.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Easy peasy, no sweat, and thanks in advance for doing that.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: All right, without further ado, here is part three of my series of conversations with Honore about write your first nonfiction book.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Honore, welcome back to session three.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like this is a therapy session, probably more for me than for you.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm kind of like coming into the counselor's office and and uh getting all my emotional needs met just by diving into this because it's I love it.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Happy to serve, as always.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: So just just send me a bill, you know, for the therapy session.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's really all that all that a podcast is.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's the the podcast hosts therapy sessions.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: I like it.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in some in some respect.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: So here in this uh short episode, we're gonna dive into what I consider the heartbeat of your new book, Write Your First Nonfiction Book.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what really prompted uh, I guess my my email to you months ago about hey, this would make a cool book, or I I find this really riveting, which is the eight chapters that you need in a short book, or I not necessarily even a short book, but just any book.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm wondering if we can just walk through these briefly so people can know.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Here's some here's a way that you can structure the book that's not your typical book where all the chapters are kind of parallel with each other, but you're taking the reader on a journey.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I love this.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, chapter one is, and again, this is if you're doing a shorter book with eight chapters, maybe this is even your first nonfiction book.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, chapter one is encouragement.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about why you need a chapter right up front on encouragement with whatever the topic is.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh thank you.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think that in the transformative or inspirational nonfiction space, the goal of any author is to help people to go on a journey.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the first thing that people need in order to embark on a journey, especially especially writing a book, but I think anything, if you're gonna do anything, learn a language, become a parent, be a better parent, change jobs, whatever, I think there has to be an element of this might feel too big for you, but I know you can do it.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: I did it and I know you can do it.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what chapter one is in this process is to provide encouragement for the reader, that that they need to read the whole book and that they can do whatever it is the book is promising them they can do.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if sometimes those of us who write books for a living, if sometimes we forget that we're so we're so wrapped up in the topic of the book and we know so much about it, we forget that it can feel intimidating to the reader that maybe this topic is brand new to them.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So they do need that encouragement right up front.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: That can be really helpful.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so chapter two is stories and examples.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I love how you put this really almost like right in front of the book because and I've seen you structure a lot of your books this way.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I love how you do this because you're basically before we get too deep into the journey, you're showing us here are people who have done it.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, can you tell us a little bit about what we would put in that chapter where we have stories and examples?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: So your story and example is a great one, uh helping people to understand that as the author, it gives you credibility as the writer of the book, as the author of the book.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: But as humans, we are most riveted by the stories of other people and we find ourselves in the stories of other people.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: We'll watch movies like Rudy and say, okay, well, if the the little guy could could get into Notre Dame and play Notre Dame football, and look, he had all of these trials and tribulations, then gosh, maybe I could too.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so adding in stories of people who have started where the reader is starting, which is not finished in whatever the promise is, and sharing those stories, they will find themselves most likely in one of those people or some of those people.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And they'll go, okay, well, if Honore can write a book, I mean, for the love of all that's holy, probably anyone can write a book, right?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we find ourselves in stories.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: So as the author of a book, it's helpful that, and you don't have to do a whole chapter on it, you don't have to do it in chapter two, but sprinkling the stories of other people who have applied your process or who have gotten the results that you've gotten in whatever it is you're writing about is really going to encourage the reader.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: So we start with the encouragement in chapter one and we move into stories in chapter two.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, like encouragement is Kent, you can write a book.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Kent.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: So you think that I'm crazy because I'm the author, and of course, I can write a book because it's my book.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: I wrote it, I'm the author.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So you're you're you're a bar I can't reach.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: So okay, Kent, I see you, and I'm gonna show you a half dozen people or so throughout the book or in this chapter that have also gone through these stages and come out the other side, and they've written a book.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So if they can do it, then you can do it.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, kind of a granular question when you're collecting these stories from people.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, like in this book, you have uh in in chapter two in this book, it's kind of meta because you've structured this book the same way that you're teaching people to structure a book, which I love.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: So you have uh little sections from uh people like John Stongy, um Brittany Stevens, um Lucas Marino, Karen Hunsinger.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: When you're collecting these, how did you do that?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do this by Zoom or do you just say, Hey, would you be willing to be featured in this chapter?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Can you write a few paragraphs I could put in here?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: I assume that's the way that you do it because it makes it way easier if they just write it to begin with.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I sent it, it's interesting to see if people can follow directions or not.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: So that's always interesting because I've had many different books where I've asked people to contribute and I always give very clear directions.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then sometimes people just do whatever they want.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then I have learned to just go, if you can't follow directions, you can't be in my book because I don't have time to go back and forth with someone.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I sent out an email to people who I knew had published books it within a short period of time, within a more recent time period, and asked them if they would mind being featured in the book, if they would talk about the different stages, if they recognize themselves in those stages, and if they would talk about traversing those stages and allow me to put it in the book to feature them in the book.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And there were a lot that submitted their stories.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: There were probably 40 people that submitted their stories, and there were maybe a third of those.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so out of those third, then I picked the ones that I felt would help anyone see themselves, regardless of of age or gender or any other thing, right?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to go across the map and um help anyone find a story that would resonate with them.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you do with the rest of that material that you didn't use?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: You just don't use it.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't use it.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: So and I'm I'm I'm really interested in this because like if you say, Hey, can you submit stuff and they send it to you and you decide not to use it, is there a weirdness there at all?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or like, does anybody get upset or how does that work?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't had anyone get upset and tell me.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: I do let everyone know.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: I will say, congratulations, your story's been selected.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Aha, okay.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have them sign a release, I have them sign a release that allows me to use it and to edit it for for space and those sorts of things, but I'm also again limiting the space.
• 10:28
  unknown: Yes.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: So someone says, you know, oh, 250 words, here's a thousand, like, okay, let's try again.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'll say this is fantastic.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: You need to cut out a lot of a lot of, you know, one out of every four sentences makes the cut.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: So try again.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: If it's compelling enough, if it's if it doesn't meet the criteria again, I just have to move on to the next one.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: But to the people who don't make it, I respond to them and say, thank you so much for your submission.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: I won't be using it in this book.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'll save it in case I have you have use for it another time.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I really appreciate you because it took time and courage, as writing a book does, to submit.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so I want to honor and be respectful.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't ever write someone back and go, really.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe read the directions.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just I just sometimes for whatever reason it's just not the right fit.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm always I want I want to not burn a bridge on the way out of town, right?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I always say, you know, thank you for your submission, and and um I'm gonna write more books and maybe there's a space for you in a future book.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: So let's stay in touch.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um let's do two more of these, then actually we'll do the the last four in the next episode.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because I ask a lot of questions.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: As anybody who went to college or grade school with me would tell you.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was that kid.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so in the third chapter, you're saying uh give an overview of the process.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um give us some insight about what that what we should put in there.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: What if we don't have a process?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh is it something that we should create and and give us some tips on how to to know what to put in that chapter?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you do have a process.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: If you're writing a book, you have a process.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: You have something that you do to get from point A to point B.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: It could be the journey, it could be a recipe, it could be a formula, right?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's there's something you're putting something in there, and there's a there's a place that people are starting, and there's a place they're trying to get to, and you're giving them the points along the way.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna call that a process.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you do have a process, you may just need to think through it and boil it down.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: You may just need to think through it so that you can tell people here's what we're gonna do.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, right.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: So chapter three is the stages and the process.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna go through these stages, and this is the process that I'm gonna share with you.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the process like the Bible, it's a process.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: I make it very clear that it's malleable, okay, customizable, but it's still what I used that works, and you're reading my book because you want to get a result that I have, okay, right?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what you're sharing.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: So then chapter four.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: So chapter three is the process, and chapter four is a short formula formula in the form of an acronym process or alliteration.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: How are chapter three and four different?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so the chapter three is saying you're you are gonna go through these stages and you're you want to include a process.
• 13:47
  unknown: Okay.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Chapter four is my process.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm sharing it with you as it as it relates to me, like how I did it.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's sort of like the the process in in action as you're doing it.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yes, yes, okay.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what I did.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Here's how you can do it.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I think chapter four is where I did the outline for prosperity for writers, which follows this formula, which follows this process.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And also I made one up.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: I made one up like on the spot.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay, can this work for anything?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: How about if I move to a new city and I want to get to know people?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: What happens in a new city?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I wrote an outline of eight chapters based on that to prove that it could be done just instant almost instantly.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like anyone can take this process, which is why I did it.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because I want people to stop overthinking and and getting stuck.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted them to just go, okay, I'm gonna write this in chapter one.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, she says to do this, I'm gonna do it.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: I might change it later, but I'm gonna at least get the words out of my head and on paper because you can't edit a blank page, you can't move chapters around that aren't written.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the thing that I love about this the most is you can take something that's relatively short or compact.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like you don't have to have the world's most detailed process for doing whatever.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can have the quote unquote content or the the framework for something, but then you you're not spending 12 chapters breaking down that content with all this detail and everything.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like chapter one, you're giving encouragement about it.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter two, you're giving stories and examples.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it's almost like a diamond where you're you're taking the same basic idea and you're turning it and you're looking at it from a slightly different angle.
• 15:33
  unknown: Yep.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Which I which I love that approach.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I think this is so refreshing.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: So in the next episode, uh, thank you.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is great.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we'll dive into chapters five through eight and what's included in those.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll see you in the next one.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if you did, and I sincerely hope that you did, there are a couple more episodes coming in this series this week.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll be back on our regular podcast rotation.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, I do sincerely hope that you pick up a copy of this book.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, really good.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be really, really helpful to you, especially if you're a first-time author.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before I close up shop on this episode, I want to make sure and give a huge thanks to our sponsor today, which is the new book, Monetize Your Book with a Course, your guide to quickly creating a profitable and impactful course from your book.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I've talked about this book before.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so Lucas Marino, the author of this book, is a sponsor of the show.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I met Lucas through Honor Recorder's Empire Builder's Mastermind.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And Lucas is, you know, a lot of times we throw around the word genius in society, and I think we've used it so much that it's kind of lost its meaning to it in a sense.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: But in this case, it really applies to Lucas because Lucas is a genius when it comes to teaching and curriculum and course development.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he has done us all a huge favor by taking his vast amount of knowledge and pouring it into this very helpful, and by the way, not a not a not a really, really long book.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the book is very readable and it's not even that long, which I love.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, it's harder to write a great short book than it is to write a great long book, in my opinion, because you have to really consider what goes into that book.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: So Lucas is not only a fantastic writer, a teacher, and a genius when it comes to course development and curriculum, he's also done us a huge favor by letting us access his brain and how to monetize our book with a course.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're ready to create a course that helps you build an additional stream of income and engage your readers at a level like you've never engaged them before, go to dailywriterlife.comslash monetize to grab this incredible resource.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you're gonna love it.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be really, really helpful to you, even if you've never ever created a course in your whole life.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: So check it out, dailyriderlife.comslash monetize.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, my friend, as always, thanks for listening, and I'll see you tomorrow.