5 Surprising Discoveries Writing my 4th NonFiction Book

I finished writing my next book and there were some surprises considering this is my fourth book that I've written. So if you're curious about writing a nonfiction book or what may surprise an author who's already written three books, well then this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the book broad. I'm founder of Book Launchers and I'm also the author of four books. This fourth book is going to be published sometimes in late second half of 2023. And while I have done this before and I've coached authors on writing their book and my company has helped more than 400 authors with their books, I still found myself surprised by some of the things during this writing process. Surprise number one. My first surprise discovery was that I had way, way, way, way, way, way too much content for a book. So my fourth book is a bit of a continuation from Self Publish and Succeed, which is the hashtag noboringbooksway to write a nonfiction book that is set up to sell. If you haven't already read it, you should head to selfpublishandsucceed.com right now to get your copy or start attending our livestreams every other Tuesday so you can win a copy. Which means you really should be subscribed to the channel. So you know when those are happening. Go ahead, I'll wait. Okay, cool. So this book is all about selling that no boring book you've now written. When I started writing it, I had a 15 chapter book planned to cover the strategy behind your book marketing and then how you would pair the tactics with the strategy to reach your bigger picture goal. As I started writing, I realized there was so much more that I had to at least touch on to give the reader the big picture and match it with the the right tactics. And the book just got bigger and bigger and bigger. At one point it was nearly 110,000 words, which is almost double the size of my previous three books, which were all around the 65,000 word mark. So I spent days and days going through the book and cutting and cutting and I got it down to about 80,000 words and I sent it to Sarah Bean, our book marketing manager, and she made some great suggestions and notes and added 5,000 words back in. It's still a beast of a book and there's still so much more to say. There are sections in the book that I feel like are too light and I'm sure there's going to be a reviewer saying, well, she barely talked about X or Y, but conversely, I bet nobody's gonna say the book was too short. Surprise number two. I have tons of fears. I am absolutely human. There are people who comment on these videos or write reviews who forget that that I am a flawed human with feelings and fears, but it's ridiculously true. And as I wrote this book and have gone through the editing, I noticed a ton of useless self talk. Or as one of our authors wrote a book about head trash. Go ready. It's so real. And here's the thing. Book marketing is a huge subject. I'm not an expert in every single thing that there is to do with book marketing. Heck, I'm not an expert in all things books. I was talking to a guy at NSA National Speakers association, and he's like, so where are book covers trending in 2023 and what are you seeing in fonts? And I smiled and I said, oh, I have an amazing team who would swoon over this question, but me? I got scolded for only having three font packages on my computer, and I still don't know what that means. And I only really learned what a serif font is when my team taught me. And I'm fine with not being an expert in all things, but still, when I was writing the book, I felt insecurity because I have to write about BookBub because it's effective for some authors. But I've not been able to master BookBub ads. I've never made a major periodical bestseller list. I've also never tried to, but that's not the point. It still made me fearful. And, you know, even as a company, some of the books we've worked on haven't sold as well as we would have expected or we would have liked. And sometimes that's because the author hasn't done the things that would have helped. But sometimes the author is doing the things and we just haven't cracked the code. What I'm saying is not everything works every time. And I had to remind myself of that while I was writing the book. But there is an element of feeling like I'm a bit of an imposter because 100% of the time I can't say everything that I'm recommending works. But this is an opportunity. And I realized part of the message of the book is that not everything works for everyone, and you have to be willing to try different things, and you also won't be able to do everything all at once. So for me, I channeled my fears into the core messages of the book, but they were there and they were Real number three, writing got tiring and having a writer take over was a game changer. If you're new to book Launchers, tv, welcome. But if you've been here for a while, like Mojo, Allen West, Efren Delgado, Rachel Robertson, and my other longtime YouTube besties, you know, 2022 was a bit of a butt kicker of a year for me, personally and professionally. I had a lot of dark days and deep challenges, and some are still unresolved as we move into 2023. But my biggest beast, which was my expired visa, is now resolved, so hooray for that. But the weight of handling all my issues and writing the book got to be too much for me. I was three quarters of the way through writing the book and I would carve out time and then something would hit with lawyers or stress. And even if I had physical space, my mind needed to be cared for more than the book. And so one day it just hit me. I have a team of writers. It doesn't have to be me that writes the rest of the book. And it kind of seems obvious now, but I enjoy writing and I've developed a style of writing that most people like to read, and I've written all of my other books, so it just didn't occur to me that someone else could finish my book. But I asked my team to get me a writer and boom, a month later the book was done. Kind of wish I would have done it much sooner. And the best part is I can't tell where she picks up and where I left off. She took video scripts, she talked to me on the phone twice and had a call with someone on my team and voila, it was done. So lesson learned. Next time I'm going to get help much sooner. Surprise. 4 what stories should I share? One of the insecurities I have about this book is that there isn't enough storytelling, case studies, or examples to really make the material connect with you. My dear reader, I feel like it's a little bit textbooky compared to the other books that I've written, and it might even be a little boring, which, you know, is really against what I do. But I've written so much content and sometimes I cut out the stories to reduce the content, and I'm worried that there isn't enough there to craft a compelling read for you. But at the same time, it was already so long. Storytelling is the foundation of a great nonfiction read, and it creates a connection and it's the one thing AI can't do is tell your personal stories and give the why behind what you do and why you think what you think. My urge to go back through the book and add more stories is strong. And that leads me to the final surprise discovery, which isn't a big discovery really, but I've never felt it as strongly as I feel with this book. And that is surprise. 5. A book never feels done. You as an author feel done. Like, oh, so done with that book that you never want to see it again. But the book doesn't feel done. And that is something you have to come to terms with because there's always something you could add and there's always something that you could change. At some point you do have to say, okay, it might not feel done, but it's due. And I've struggled with this, with this book because it's so big and so in depth on so many subjects and it doesn't really feel done, but I don't think it ever will. So I finally just need to hit publish and I can always go back and add material later and have a second edition or write out new versions going deeper into other subjects. What's been a surprising discovery for you as you've written your book? I'd love to chat with you about it in the comments below. And if you're writing a book and you need help, please reach out to us. We have a great interactive course and we have writing coaches and a team of really wonderful writers who can make your experience so much more enjoyable and efficient, as I discovered. Check out our services on book launchers.com and set up a call with me or someone on my team@book launchers.com apply now if you are just getting started, this video right here is a fun one on the ABCs of writing a nonfiction book. And this one is on four Book writing myths. Both are guaranteed good video watching. So click on over and say hello when you get there. I'm waiting.