Eric Siu breaks down how he wrote his book Leveling Up over three years without burning out. Start by chunking your theme into chapters, then do multiple drafts before hiring an editor. He's self-publishing via Kickstarter and used a system of weekend writing blocks, audio recording, and color-coded Post-its to stay organized.
In this clip, we're going to talk about how to start and finish your book without burning out. And before we do, whatever platform you're on, don't forget to subscribe and share if you like clips like this around business marketing and productivity. So let's go into it. I've been working on this book called Leveling Up for the past 2 and a half, 3 years or so on my life journey. It's basically how I play the game of life. Like right now I feel like I'm playing a game. You know, this is all fun cause I enjoy teaching. You know, my book, I was working on it 3 years ago and I learned a lot of different things. I listened to a lot of book podcasts. I talked to a lot of book people, people that launch books, bestselling authors as well. And I actually ended up even getting a book agent as well. The thing that you need to do when you're thinking about writing a book is you need to chunk it out. What is the theme of your book? And then what is each chapter going to talk about? When you start to think about the book being broken up, you got to think about the structure of each chapter as well. A good book actually takes 4 or 5 different passes, sometimes even more than that, meaning you can have your first draft. It is probably going to suck. You're going to go through your second one, your third one, your fourth one, your fifth one, and you're gonna go through these different passes. Okay? And then once you're done with your 5th and 6th pass, guess what? You can probably send it to an editor, get it edited, and then you can move on and decide what you wanna do next. One of the biggest mistakes I made with the book was being hands-off. So you have 2 options. You can go to a big publisher, or you can go self-publishing, and you can do like a hybrid model too. And I actually read this post. This is from Tucker Max over here. I have it pulled up on the screen. He has a company called Scribe, and they're actually helping me with my book right now in terms of the editing process. I'm probably gonna go through self-publishing. I'm not gonna go too much into it, But I will say that you either, you really have 2 options. Don't do the hybrid is what he's saying. You either do publish with a large publisher like Penguin or Wiley, for example, or you go self-publishing. I'm gonna go self-publishing now, and I'm actually gonna try something where I put it on a Kickstarter, okay? So that's what I'm doing. I'm actually taking more control of my book now, but what I'm doing now is I'm tightening it up. I'm just, when I say I'm tightening it up, I'm going through another pass right now and adding to it, right? 'Cause I had my first draft, my second draft, Now, you know, third, fourth, and now we're gonna send it to an editor, get it self-published. I'm, you know, working on the covers right now, the logos, all that stuff's being done, right? It is an ordeal. You just gotta think to yourself, like, if you really think you have something to say, do it. But you gotta block out time. Like, right now I'm blocking 3 to 6 hours of my time on the weekend to just continue to write. Initially what I was doing, I was spending like 2 hours, 1 to 2 hours a day just writing, and then I would first audio record it as well. I use something called Rev, R-E-V, and then I would basically have it transcribed, And then I just basically wrote it out. My first pass was, well, I made it audio and then, then I started writing it out on my own. So that was the second pass. Now I'm on my third and fourth pass. What I did in the beginning too was I was thinking about all the core themes around, um, the book and mine's more, more focused around gaming, right? So I was thinking about, okay, like what, what did I learn from this game that kind of relate to, um, real life? What did I learn from this game? What did I learn from this game? So then I made a bunch of Post-it notes that were colored. And then for this game, I would put it in yellow. This one I put in purple. This one be in red. This one be in blue. And then I would theme around it. And then that way I could basically chunk my chapters together. That made it way easier to put together. So you just got to think when you're doing a book, sure, it might be 400 or 500 pages, 300 pages or so, but if you chunk it out, it's going to become much more manageable just like anything else in life. So let me know what book you're planning to publish in the comments. And don't forget, whatever platform you're on, don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe because it helps us grow and We'll see you tomorrow.
