How to Write a Book When You're Crazy Busy | Live Replay

Hello, hello and welcome. It is another Tuesday livestream and I'm one part excited, one part tiny bit disappointed. But check this out. I got something new. I had a few people come in that my wall is always white behind me, so I have something new to hang on the wall. I just haven't got it on the wall yet. It's just sitting on the printer. But yeah, so I'm really excited to put that back there. And it's featuring some of our books that we've worked on. I think it's most of our 2019 launches. So that's pretty awesome. I'm so excited to hang that on the wall back here, so probably over there so you guys can see it and stare and admire all of the wonderful, wonderful authors projects that we've worked on this year. Inspiration lives here. Welcome. So when you join in, please do say hello. There's always, always prizes for the people who are chattering away in the chat box. Lee Jones. Poetry from the heart. Latonya. Welcome, welcome. And yes, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone that is in the US I was giving the folks on my team, we have a daily meeting every day and I was giving them a little lesson because they were talking about Black Friday and I'm like, well, Black Friday isn't a Canadian thing. We now celebrate it by default in Canada because the retailers have adopted it. But, but traditionally, our kind of Black Friday special day was always the day after Christmas and it was called Boxing Day. So a little bit different. And Boxing Day in Canada is a holiday US doesn't get December 26 off unless you work for book launchers and then you get the whole week off. All right, fantastic show planned for you today. We're going to be talking about how to write a book when you're busy, which I'm sure doesn't apply to very many of you because I'm, you know, you guys don't have much going on, right? You know, working full time, family, you know, any sort of a life, it makes it really, really hard to write a book. So I've got you covered today. And not only do we have our usual draws for, you know, the fabulous hashtag no boringbooks mug and our journal, but I also have a special announcement. It is a special invitation for you and you guys are the first that are going to hear about it because you're my YouTube family and I care about you. So I wanted to tell you guys about it first. All right, so lots of people here today. Welcome. Oh, Angela and Jackson from our office here. Fanatics. Howdy from Texas. Welcome. Hello. And Ben. Hey, Ben. Melissa. Hello. Oh, Melissa from our office too. There's people in sm, Dotson, Strange Tales. I like your handle. Yes, Boxing Day, I've learned about that. All right, cool. No, not busy at all. Chris H. Hello. All right, guys, so. So, yeah, definitely say hello while you're here. If you have questions, go ahead and type them in and we will be doing prizes just to thank you for being here. So as you chat along, usually we pick a random number and draw that way and then sometimes there's a skill testing question. Okay, so I know, as somebody said, not busy at all. So yeah, so for those of you not busy, you know, just hang out with us because you're not busy. Right. For those of you who are busy, I've got tips for you to help you write your book. And the first thing is you're never going to have time to write your book. Let's be real. There's never going to be time. So you have to make it okay. You have to consciously decide that this is important and you're going to make time for your book. And part of that, I think is connecting to the greater reason why you're writing your book. And not always, but a lot of our authors that get their book done and they get over the humps that we always talk about here, the emotional challenges and the time challenges are the people who are really connected to the greater reason why. And those people are rarely doing it for money, by the way. They are usually doing it not just to help everyone, but to help a specific person or a specific type of person, or they have a very specific goal. Like they want this to be the launching pad for, you know, their, their business. Maybe they want to become a paid speaker or expand their paid speaking. Maybe they want to chisel out a little bit of a niche in the industry that they're already in. But they've got a bigger picture goal. And when you have that, you have that kind of driving reason, you're going to find more reasons to make the time Again, you're not going to ever have time to write a book because it does take a lot of time. And no matter what anybody else tells you out there, it really does take a lot of time to do it. Well, you can hammer out a mediocre book in no time in a lot of cases. But we're talking about there's some heavy thinking involved in creating a great book. What we always talk about is creating that hook, getting clear on that audience and making sure you're delivering massive benefits to each and every reader. And in order to do that, you are going to have to do some thinking. And that thinking is where the hard work comes in. It's not that hard to type away on a keyboard, but to actually have the ideas, the concepts, the way of explaining things, the. That's where the heavy lifting comes in. All right, so what? Okay, I just looked up and saw some questions here. Hello from the uk. Is it Melies? Is it Melies? Do you think Mellies or Meliss? Nia. I like that name. Now I just want to know how to say it. So what if you have the worst grammar? What free resources can I use Grammarly? I don't know. I'm sure there's a free plan we pay for Grammarly, but I think Grammarly has a free version. I love it. Hey Ron. Welcome. Okay, so that's my first tip. The other thing is to know that it is going to be probably longer or harder than you expect. And not everybody's a morning person. Not everybody is able to write in the morning. I get that. But I always say it's better. Not even always say. I just know it is better to get the things that are harder done first thing in the morning when you have more willpower. Because the thing is we all only have like, you know, if your, if your willpower was in a glass, always have full, right? If your willpower was in a glass, it's the most full in the morning. And if you're a mom and your kid was up half the night with a sickness like mine was the other night, you're already waking up with your glass half full, right? And then everything that happens from that point forward, you know, you, you forego the donuts for the morning even though they look so tasty. And you decided not to yell at spouse for something silly like all of these things get. Use your willpower. So by the end of the day when you think you're going to sit down and write, you have no willpower left. And that's why it's usually better to do those kind of things first thing in the morning. That's for me why I am at a 6:30am CrossFit class. Because by 5:30 I'm not going. I'm just not going. There's nothing left to make myself make me go. But when I wake up and I don't even have time to second guess myself, I just get up, put my workout clothes on, chug a half a cup of coffee and I go across it so you have to find time, you have to make the time, but you also have to know that you're going to have to give yourself probably more time to do this than you think. A lot of authors come to us and they're like, I want to put my book out in three months. And I'm like, it's going to take two months to edit that book. So if you can Write it in 30 days, more power to you. But it's going to take time to create a great book. All right, now, another tip is before I even get to, like, how to make the time, you know, is just knowing that accountability, so support in the form of a writing coach, a writing group, other authors, you know, that's why I do think NaNoWriMo. You know, we talked, there's been a few videos on my book launchers TV channel about NaNoWriMo. That's why I think that can be powerful. It's that social accountability, that support. And my announcement today has a little bit something to do with writing your book and getting accountability and support, too, but connecting to that reason and knowing you're going to have to make the time, knowing it's probably going to take a little bit longer than you'd like and be a little bit harder than you probably like. And then also just really trying to find some accountability and support and doing it in the form of people that, you know are going to hold you to it and put a little pressure on you. I mean, you need them to kind of make you uncomfortable about this. And so you may, you know, you don't have to choose these people wisely. Okay. But you don't want those people who are going to be like, oh, my gosh, I totally understand. You've had a bad day there. You're going to have to have people that go, you know what? Like, like everybody has bad days and you're, you know, you still have to show up. Even though it was a bad day, you still have to show up. So you need people who are going to push you and not let you ride on excuses that sound like reasons. Right? You guys know what those are, right? Okay, so I've got 1, 2, 3. Let's see. I've got four tips to help you get your book written, and I'll dive into those here, But I'm just going to check out the conversation happening here. Okay. All right. Ron. Hello. I think I said hello to you already. Kevin. Hey, welcome. You stayed up for us again. You're so kind. Chris H. Actually, I'm listening to the this while I'm writing my book. I chose to. I chose you over listening to the Spice Girls. Was it tough competition? Don't answer that. I don't want to know. Grammarly does have a free version, but it's well worth the price each year. I use it for business and my children's schoolwork. Yeah, great point. It does, and it kind of pops up wherever. Yes, a crazy person did write a book. I'm so ill. Crazy and book launchers made my book great. Thanks, Ron. I have your book right here. Let's just. Let me show people. Sorry, guys, one sec. It's here. Didn't mean to leave you guys, but I had to get it off my shelf. So there's Ron's book right there. The Green Wizard's Guide. Such a cool little book. And it'll help you grow fantastic tomatoes and a lawn that all your relatives will be relatives, all your neighbors will be jealous of. And you probably have everything you need right in your house right now to get going. Okay, so editing takes more time than writing, for sure. Hi, everybody. That self publishing with Walter Wayburn. Hey, welcome. So great to see you. Okay, so back to those tips and then we're going to do a draw. So Angela, why don't you and Jacqueline and Melissa, if the three of you are still on here, come up with two ways that people can win a number and maybe a skill testing question or something else like that. So you guys work on that while I share the tips and then we'll announce a couple of winners for the people on the live stream and then the regular YouTube commenters. So, and if you guys have tips of how you get your writing done, be sure to share those as well. Because, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't own. I don't own the content or I don't own the answers on how to get a book written. These are just things that I've seen work for others and for myself. So number one is if you commute or even if you don't, but you just don't like typing, getting a really great outline in place and then talking it out and getting it transcribed is a really great way to get a lot of content out in a very short period of time, obviously you're still gonna have to sit down and read it and edit it and turn it into something that sounds more like something that was written instead of something that was spoken. But it gets, you know, a huge material down and that, that makes a big difference for a lot of people and then how you transcribe or how you get the words out. You know, Dragon dictation is one option. You know, just doing voice notes and getting them transcribed with temi.com and some other services. There's lots of great transcript services now and lots of great. You know, the Mac even has a. I mean, I haven't used it because Siri always changes my words into the dumbest things. But the Mac has a voice to text option as well. You know, there's lots of voice to text options and apps and things like that that you could use to just talk your book out. Number two is if you really, truly hate writing and you have a budget for this, you know, so if you're a professional and you're busy and you really just want somebody who's good at this to pull out the material out of your head. So interview, you get it, look at your content, you have presentations you've given, podcasts you've done so on, like that. Hire a writer. If you, you know, you need a budget of probably 15,000 or greater to get a writer that's decent. But, you know, it is a great solution to getting your book down on paper. You know, it is a gift in many ways to have a great writer working on your team, and they'll also ask you questions that you may not have thought of. That's the value of a writing coach as well as a writer. If you get a good one that can kind of really be listening to you when you', talking, they might pick up on things that you haven't thought to share. So that's the opportunity there, too. Number three is schedule it in and stick to it. Now, this is tricky. I'm guilty, guilty of this. I finished up the first draft of my next book and I've got another book to follow on this one. So the first book's really on writing and publishing your book, and the second one's going to be on the launch, planning and marketing of your book. It was going to be a ginormous book to do it all in one. So I wrote the first half and now I have to write the second half. But writing the first half took me a long time because I would put it in my calendar and then my team would be like, ah, so and so needs to meet with you. We need to meet with you. This is happening. We need to hire somebody. And so even though it was in my calendar, it was not an appointment that I held steady to. And so this is something that is part of the announcement for Next year. But you need to do, you need to schedule it in and hold, hold yourself to that like it's a meeting with somebody else? Because you probably wouldn't ditch somebody else very eas. But it is too easy to ditch yourself and to ditch your writing project. So if you've got, if you've got, if you have people on your team or people you're working with or people in your family, let them know that this is an appointment that you need to keep. And unless somebody's sick or something extremely urgent has happened, then this should be time that is blocked and kept in your calendar. And let's see, I see there's lots of tips over here. Hello from the nymo. Yay. Hi, mom. Okay, and number four, this tip actually isn't mine, but I was, I'm on a, on a group page for business owners and one woman on there, she wrote her book. She said she wrote more than 50% of her book on her phone. She said that she spends an incredible amount of time just sitting, waiting. She goes, I wait for my kids at the doctor's office. I'm sitting there at the. Remember? Where else she said, oh, she sat on the bike at the gym, so the stationary bike. So she multitasked and she would just write her book on her phone. She said it wasn't the most efficient way, but she got her book written where she just couldn't find the time in the day to do it otherwise. And so she said more than 50% of her book was written on her phone. And I thought that was kind of a cool idea for us because everybody has their phone around with them these days. And we all find ourselves in situations where we're just sitting there killing time. And, and 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes can go a long way. When my final little tip for you is you leave yourself a point so that you don't have to reread anything when you sit down to write next time. You just sit down, look at the bullet point or the start of the next sentence and you just pick up where you left off. And that's really, really important, not rereading what you've already written to get started. You don't need a warm up. People just sit down and write. And you can write an awful lot in a very short period of time when you do that. Okay, I'm ready for a draw, you guys. So Angela, Jacqueline, whoever's here, let us know how we're gonna do our first winner. And I'm just gonna catch up on the comments. That you guys have been diligently having conversations back here while I've been giving you tips. Okay. Love that book cover. Oh, I don't know which one you're talking about. That one. The bunny. There's, I think 38 book covers behind me over here. Okay. I just published my. The irony is that YouTube is one of the biggest distractions to writing. Well, thank you for being here. I'm not sure. You kind of end up in a. In a rabbit hole, don't you? It's like one video comes up, you go on YouTube to look up something. The next thing you know, you've watched 15 videos. Jcbnoe504. Hello. Welcome. Okay, see? Oh, I think you were talking about Ron's. Right, That's. You were talking about Ron's cover. Okay, connect with me via Instagram. Story time with Ranjita. What's going on? If you've got a skill question. What is the skill question? Angela? That's what I wanted you guys to figure out. So you guys tell me what the skilled question is. Margaret, welcome. The start of the very next sentence has been a very helpful tip. Good, I'm glad to hear it. I hope the writing is going well. I can't wait to read it. Andy W. Just popping in to say hi, but can't stay. We'll catch the replay. You bet. Your name is in the draw. I saw it in here, so I know you're in the draw. Walter Wavebone. Hi, Andy W. Awesome. Okay, name three types of editing. Okay, good. We'll go with that. All right, skill testing question. To choose whether you're getting a mug or a journal, you need to name three types of editing because not all editing is the same. Good question. All right, while you guys are doing that, I'm going to pick a number and Angela can tell me who that number is. I'm going to say let's go with number 20. What's the date today? It is the 26th. Let's do 26 from the start. Okay. Angela, count to the 26 comment. And whoever that is will be our other live stream winner today. Content editing, proofreading, and copyright editing. Well, yeah, okay, we'll take it. It's not really copyright editing. It's copy editing, but we'll take it. So, Andy W. Congratulations. You let us know if you want. If you want the mug or the. So, just to reiterate, so three types of editing. There is content editing, which is really the developmental editing. It's the high level. Like, does this make sense? Does the Book flow, Is there credibility? Is there stories? Is there enough content, that kind of thing? It's really kind of a deep, deep edit. It's the hardest edit, frankly, because it's questioning what you've put in there. It's suggesting you add more. So that's content editing. It's also called developmental editing. Copy editing is the one that most people think of. It's the grammar, sentence structure, word choice, that kind of thing. And it's the kind that a lot of authors go and get a copy editor when their book really needed the content or developmental edit. And that's where you get. The situation of my book is grammatically correct, but it's actually not good. So that's why I always say there's. It's really important to get that developmental content edit first and then get your copy edit. And then, of course, a proofread is that person who's following the Chicago Manual of Style or whatever it is. Those rules, you know, of all the commas, for me, it's always removing. I put commas in the wrong place, and I don't put commas in the right place. So for me, it's like the proofreader takes out all my commas that I put in and puts about 400 in the right place. So that's those. So congratulations, Andy. Email us@teamteamooklaunchers.com with your mailing address and your choice of. I have a journal here. My office is quite messy today. I have a lot of things going on, so I have a lot of stuff. But here's the journal. All right. Or the mug. Okay, so, Jack Clark. Can I get a shout out, please? You absolutely can. Hello, Jack Clark's in the house. Everybody, welcome. And let's see, where do we go? Do we have another winner? Do we have another winner? Let's see. True story. Oh, this is Jacqueline. True story. I hired a proofreader thinking it was an editor, and my book was grammatically correct and completely terrible. Not funny. I'm sorry, Jacqueline. But now she knows, because she works here. She knows all too well all of the editing. Any tips or experience with series writing? Not me. I think there's a few folks here that have done some series writing, but not me. Here we go. Angela, are you counting? I'm just making sure you're counting from 26. Oh, there we go. I see it. Self publishing with Walter Wayburn, your commenter. Number 26. So congratulations. Email us@teamoklaunchers.com and let us know if you want the mug or you want the journal. And make sure you include your mailing address so we know where to send it. Yay. Okay, fantastic. So I'm just checking here. Let's see. I covered all my tips. Now I have a really special announcement for you guys. So as I said, I've written the first half of my book and I need. Well, not first half. I've written the first part because this book is really two different books. First one again is about writing and publishing, writing a noboringbook, of course, that is going to make you stand out from the crowd on Amazon and beyond. And the second part is going to be about marketing your book. And that's the. That's the book I have to write. And I struggled, like I said, to get this book written. With a now two year old who will soon be three in the house and the growing wonderful Book Launchers family that we have here, it was really hard to get time to write the book. So I want to write my next book with you. So if you were planning to write and publish a book in 2020 or it's been sitting on your list and you've been thinking, I just have to pick the time, find the time, have the time to do it. I'm inviting you to write with me. And we're going to hold each other accountable. We're going to have meetings to write and we're actually going to get together, share some tips and write our books and hold each other accountable. So if you are interested in this, you will have to join with Book Launchers as a platinum member so that you get access to our fabulous ed editing team. Jacqueline will. Jacqueline and the client care team will be your project managers overseeing everything all the way through. But you and I and no more than nine other authors are going to be in a group to hold each other accountable. And the goal is that we start writing February 3rd. So that doesn't mean you don't start until February 3rd. You guys, you got to start planning now, creating that hook, creating that outline, doing the research, collecting your ideas, collecting your stories. But we start writing February 3rd and 60 days. Well, it's actually technically 63 days later we're going to meet again and we need to have a draft of a book done. We're going to meet every week to kind of chide each other, and if we start slacking, push each other along. If we're missing our deadlines, push each other. And the goal is to write a book in 60 days so that we can be publishing our books in 2020. And we'll be doing this together, which is really, really cool. I don't work directly with clients, so this is a special opportunity for us to work side by side. Our team will take really, really good care of you on all of the detail stuff. But I will be there supporting you, and you guys can support me and push me along and hold me accountable to getting this book done so it doesn't take me two years to write the next book, which it may or may not have taken me to write. Okay, so let's see. I'm just checking the comments over here to see. And the details of that are at publish2020.com and of course, if you're a Book Launchers newsletter subscriber, I'll be sending an email out next week with all the details. But like I said, I wanted to tell you guys, my YouTube family first, about this really cool opportunity. And you do want to start now because you'd be working with our story expert and then a writing coach to develop your book idea, to develop your outline, to create a writing plan so that when we do start February 3rd, there, you're ready to write, and you can actually get it done in 60 days. And there's some really cool bonuses. I won't go into all the details, but there's some really cool bonuses for being a part of this special opportunity. All right, so. And can you tell me how to start a nonfiction book? Yes, I will come back to that. But for now, I want to make sure I do this draw quickly for anybody who's waiting for this before they have to go. So if you don't already know, there's a few new faces here or new names, as it were. And so if you comment the day a video is released, that's Tuesday and Friday, you'll be entered to win. And every two weeks, we gather here and I draw for that prize. And the prize, of course, usually is the hashtag, no boringbooks mug or the journal. And so inside we've got our entrance. And I'm just going to do a draw. I'll put it over here. So I'm not looking. They're stuck together today. Okay. Trying to get just one. Just one. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Hey, Benny, Welcome. Glad you can make it. Okay. Oh, Latonia, I think you just won recently. We're probably gonna have to state, like, you know, can't win more than once in 60 days or something, but I'm not sure if you did just win. I can't remember, but congratulations, you've won again. And if you haven't won before, well, then, congratulations, you've won. So you know the drill. Email us teamoklaunchers.com and let us know what you want. And I'm gonna do one other one. Yay. Great mug. Got mine right here with coffee in it. Awesome. Ron, that's tastier than paper. I recommend this for coffee, tea, hot chocolate. I think it was poetry from the heart. Said hot chocolate is definitely a winning drink in here. Yeah. Paper, not so much. Okay, so I will come back to your question. Jack, hop off now. But we'll catch the replay. Great info as always, Julie. Bye. And awesome. Okay, coffee does taste better from the book launcher's mug. All right, next winner is. Drumroll, please. I think there's two. There we go. Okay. M.L. bull. I don't think she's on here today, but I know she'll be watching the replay. So, yeah. So thank you and congratulations, you guys, and thank you for being here. Okay, so, Jack, how do you start a nonfiction book? There's a couple of videos on the YouTube channel that I highly recommend that you check out, and there's a whole playlist on how to write a book. But the first thing is really getting clear on your goals. So why are you writing the book? What do you want it to do for you? And check out the video. How not to. Are you writing the wrong book? It's recent. That will actually help you figure out goals match to the book. You really want to make sure you're clear on your goals. That will help tailor the rest of it. Then you want to figure out your ideal audience and the hook of the book. And the hook of the book is really important to know the ideal audience because the hook is specific to what's in it for that ideal reader. So what are they going to get from this? And even if you're writing a memoir, you have to think about this. A lot of people make the mistake of saying, my book is for anybody. It's for everybody, because it's going to be inspirational. But it's really, really not. You have to think about, okay, who are the kind of people who like something like this? So it might be fans of a certain kind of story or people that have a shared history to you, something like that. But you have to get clear. And you have to say, okay, so even if it is a memoir, for example, you're going to be offering them an emotional experience. So what is the hook that you're offering that they're not getting somewhere else? Right now. And so typically with nonfiction, this tends to be something that you're going to offer in terms of steps or tips or a unique approach, a strategy. But it really comes back to that. How are you going to. How are you going to benefit them? You know, make them richer, prettier, more popular, more. More respected? You know, all of those kind of things that are kind of at the core of what's in it for me. You want to make sure your entire book is geared towards something that's there for the reader. Even if it's about you, it's not for you, it's for your reader. And so that's where you start. And again, there's quite a few videos there I recommend watching. I think there actually is one called how to start writing a nonfiction book. And then there's one Are you writing the wrong book? Check those out. Those will definitely help. Okay, awesome. Well, happy Thanksgiving to all of you. You guys are really at the core of what I'm grateful for. I am so grateful for all of your support, your likes, your comments, joining me for the live stream. So I'm not sitting here talking to myself in my glass bubble. So I'm really, really grateful for you as well as my fantastic team. Thank you to those of you on the call. But even the ones that aren't here today, everybody at the Book Launchers, team and family, you know, really, truly this Thanksgiving, that's what I am super, super grateful for. So wishing you all a safe and wonderful holiday. And if you're not in the U.S. i still wish you a safe and wonderful week. And I look forward to chatting with you guys here again in two weeks. And of course there still will be a video out on Friday and next week. I have a video I'm super excited to share with you. It is all about the best time to publish a book. I put a lot into that one. I go through every month of the year and what books are best to publish at each month of the year. You guys are going to love that. So that's on Tuesday of next week, but there will be another new video on Friday. And of course, if you comment Tuesday and Friday, every video coming out on Tuesday and Friday, if you comment the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win and check out publish2020.com or if you know somebody who needs to get be held accountable that I'll have fun writing a book with next year, please send them to publish2020.com and hopefully we can write our books together in a group of 10. Supporting each other, pushing each other, and making sure we get that sucker. Done. All right, you guys take care. Thanks so much for being here. Bye.