6 Creative Ideas for Getting Your Book (or project) DONE

Today is a Hit Splits episode for Author Audience.

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

It's time to get it done. Whether it's your book or a project that's been sitting on your desk or sitting on your to do list or on your calendar, it is time to get it done. Hi, my name is Shelley Hitz. I'm the best selling author of over 40 books. The list keeps growing. I'm the creator of authoraudienceacademy.com and I am on a mission to help you reach more people with your message and it's time to let your light shine. And in today's training, I'm going to share with you six ideas that you can implement. Depending on your personality, your season of life, what project or book you're working on. You can pick from these six different ideas on ways to finally get your book done. I just finished a live webinar and it was getting me thinking of so many authors and business owners get stuck, stuck in the process of a project, a book project or a marketing project. Whatever project you're working on, sometimes you get stuck in the middle. I was running, I took a two mile run before my live webinar and all of a sudden the idea for this training came to me. So I want to share with you these ideas. I'm here in Colorado Springs. It's actually a nice sunny day out today. And I was running and I got this idea. I was like, I want to share this with you because. Because my live webinar today was three book writing formulas. Every nonfiction author needs to know. If you haven't gone through that live webinar with me, sign up. You can sign up at shellyhitz.com livewebinar or sign up at shellyhitz.Com formulas and you can join me in my next live webinar. But let me share with you a few ideas. Idea number one to get your book or your project done is just to mix it up. Sometimes we just need to have some variety. We need to mix it up. We need to have something different coming in. If you're always writing or typing on your computer, consider dictating. Did you know you can actually dictate into Google Documents now? I have a tutorial on my Facebook page or you can find it on my YouTube channel on how to do this. Awesome. You don't have to buy Dragon. Naturally speaking, you don't have to buy different. I mean, you can just do it for free through Google Docs. Awesome sauce. But if you always type, consider dictating or speaking it. Record it into an app on your phone or record it on your computer using the free software Audacity, your built in microphone and have it transcribed@rev.com let's just get this done right. Or maybe you need to actually write with paper and pen. And when I came home from my run, I had three pages of notes from ideas I got on that run. So, you know, I love, you know, just writing things down sometimes. And so if you're stuck, if you need to move forward, sometimes you just need to mix it up. That's idea number one. Idea number two is if you are a speaker and you're used to speaking at events or presentations, consider packaging your book into speeches that you can deliver and then have those speeches transcribed. So I have a one on one client right now, VIP coaching client. And she speaks all the time in Toastmasters. And so she was getting stuck. She outlined her book, has not written anything. So I just was talking to her on Monday. I said, you know how to do speeches, you know how to do. Why don't you take like maybe each chapter and create it into a short speech you can give at Toastmasters, record it on your iPhone while you're giving it and then send it to rev.com, have it transcribed. You know, we can edit it and use what works best for you. You know, you could maybe even arrange a little presentation with a few people because you know what happens when you're live. You tend to be on your best behavior, so to speak. You know, you're just, you're at your best. Like I love live video because I just wrote an outline for this video. You can see my outline right here. I wrote an outline for this video and now I'm just giving this content to you. It will now be transcribed onto my blog. I'll use that transcript for Twitter and Facebook and all these things. But I'm doing it through speaking to you live. So that's idea number two. Idea number three is maybe meet with a friend and have them interview you on your topic so you, so you could meet together and they could like interview you on Skype. You know, I use call recorder on Mac. There's tons and tons of different ways you can record calls on Skype. I've done it through Camtasia and I mean there's tons of things you can do, but you could meet on Skype or you can Meet in person and record it, you know, on an app, on your phone, and just have them interview you. You know, something like not pressure, you know, maybe you're not a speaker and that pressure freaks you out. So maybe just something like real laid back. And then you speak it out and you take that audio, you get it transcribed, and that becomes a good bulk of your book. Or maybe it's just that chapter you just can't get done, you know, and you meet with somebody and you do it, you know, as a kind of interview style. And you can edit out the interview stuff, but just to get this stuff out of your head onto paper. I was just doing this webinar and I said, okay, we picked the book topic. You outlined your book, you chose how you're going to write it. Now what do you have to do next? What is the next step? Your first draft. And so you have to get this stuff out of your head onto paper, whatever project you're working on. So that is idea number three. Idea number four is not really a new idea. It's an accountability partner. But I want to give you a couple twists on the accountability partner idea. So the first thing is you could actually meet with this accountability partner online. Maybe you form a private Facebook group that's just the two of you, and you say, okay, we're going to have a writing session, 3pm Eastern on this day, 3 to 5. You know, you work it out with your schedules, whatever works best for the two of you. You meet in this Facebook group and you do the pomodoro technique. You write. You Both write for 25 minutes and then you take a five minute break. You check in with each other. How did you do? How many words did you get done? What did you get done on that project? Whatever you're working on. And then you write another 25 minutes and then you check in with each other. We do this every month in Author Audience Academy in the writer's block party. Isn't that a cool name? My husband CJ came up with that. Writer's block party. We meet for two hours. We use the pomodoro technique. People get so much done. You guys, this works. It really, really works. So you could just reach out to somebody and say, hey, you want to do this? And then you would have to coordinate your schedules. You meet together and you write. That's one idea. Another idea is to actually meet in person to do your own little writer's block party. And you meet like at the library or at a coffee shop and the same thing. Use The Pomodoro technique. There's power in setting a timer. Like nine out of ten authors will tell me using the Pomodoro technique helps them to be more productive, to get more. Now, if you're that one out of 10 and it doesn't work for you, don't use it, don't use the timer. But typically it helps you. So you meet together in person and you do the same thing and you take a five minute break, chat for a few minutes. You know what mistake most authors make? The mistake most authors make is they meet together and then they just end up talking and never getting any writing done. Right. However, if you do it the way I'm telling you to do it and you meet together with the understanding we're going to write, this is not a chat session. This is not like a brainstorming session where, you know, I'm coaching you or anything. You know, we're going to write, we're going to set the timer for 25 minutes, then we'll chat for 5 minutes, set the timer for 5 minutes, then we'll go back to writing. You'll get stuff done. Believe me, you will. And then another idea. I heard another author say, she does this, but she has a person that keeps her accountable, but they commit to writing every morning and then they check in with each other later in the day through text. So that's another idea. You don't have to actually meet together at the same time, but you just know you're committed, say, okay, I need to get this book done. So for the next 30 days, I'm going to do X amount of writing every day. You ask somebody to be your accountability partner, Maybe they're committing to write for the next 30 days too. It doesn't have to be for forever and ever. It's just until you can get this first draft done. I'm so excited for you. Can you tell? Because when you do these things, whatever is going to work best for you, try them, try, try different things. Once you get that first draft done, game changer. Because you can then have so many other options until you get that first draft done, nada, zilch. You can't reach people with your message until that first draft is done. All right, that's the fourth idea. Accountability partner. The fifth idea is to actually deliver your book in incremental quantities in a Facebook group. So it's kind of like, have you guys heard of wattpad? And you actually can publish your book, like, you know, little bits of a time. It's like kind of serialized. And it's more for fiction authors. Well, there was a book at one point I knew I was supposed to write. I knew it. And it's really been an impactful book. It's 21 Days of Faith challenge. If you guys are struggling right now in your relationship with God and trusting him and in faith, it's actually a really great book. And what I did is I created a private Facebook group. This particular book lended well to this idea. So your book may or may not lend well to this idea, but what I did is I created a private Facebook group and I invited people. I said, I'm going to be writing my book over the next 21 days. It's a 21 day challenge. So each day was not that long. And if I could commit to just writing that chunk every day. And then what I did is I posted a picture. You can get free pictures@pixabay.com, freeimages.com I posted a picture. In the description of the picture, the comments, you know how you can do that on Facebook. I posted the text for that day of the challenge. So basically it was accountability because they were expecting something from me every day. It was a small group at first, and then I delivered my book content to them one day at a time once I got through all the 21 days. And then at the same time, I was typing it into my document. At the end of the 21 days, I deleted all those pictures from the Facebook group. So my book content was no longer in the group, but I kept the group open. And what I decided to do is I published the book. And now when you buy that book, you get access to that very same Facebook group and you can go through the challenge. You can post in there and interact with. Brilliant, right? I mean, it's a way to have built in accountability. People are expecting you to deliver the next day's content. So that's another idea. And then the final idea is to hire a coach. When you hire a coach, you have skin in the game. You know you're making an investment. You know you have something there, and that coach can help to keep you accountable. I went at it alone in the beginning. I did it the hard way. I spent a lot of time on Google and YouTube and figuring everything out myself. Now when I need to learn something, I hire someone, obviously make sure I have the money to do that. And so your situation, you may have to wait until you have the income to be able to do it, but you can hire a coach. I'd love to serve you as your coach within authoraudienceacademy.com you can join me at any time just by going to authoraudienceacademy.com, signing up. And we have accountability in there. So every Monday I have a, I think it's motivation Monday post and you can post on there what your goal is, what your take action plan is for this week. Guess what? I post my plan on there too. If you want to get an insider's look to what I'm doing in my business, join my academy because you'll see every week what my personal action steps are too. I don't ask you guys to do stuff unless I do it myself. I want to practice what I teach or practice what I preach. And so I'm in there. And then with live video now in groups, I've been getting onto live video once a week for a live Q and A live accountability. And you know, I say, okay, what is it you want to get done this week for writing or for marketing? And then hold you accountable. So I love strategy. I love helping you guys think through these things and what's going to work best for you. Let me recap idea number one. Mix it up. So try dictating. Google Docs offers that for free now. Dictating, recording the audio and having it transcribed on Rev.com writing it longhand. Mix it up. Do something different. Change up your routine. Go somewhere different. Change your environment. Mix it up. So that's one, two, Deliver it as a speech and have it transcribed. So be in front of a live audience. Join a toastmasters group or create, you know, ask a few people to get together in your home and deliver your content as a speech. Record it, have it transcribed. 3. Meet a friend and have them interview you. Just something, you know, just more laid back but just to get it out of your head onto paper. Have it transcribed. 4. Accountability partners. Multiple ideas for accountability partners. You can meet online. You can like in a Facebook group, you can meet in person. Kind of like the idea of what I gave you for the writer's block party. Or you can actually do it separate but check in with each other. Number five, you could deliver your content incrementally in a Facebook group and then use that Facebook group as a way to engage with your customers later. Awesome, awesome idea. And then six, you could hire a coach. And that is built in accountability. You have skin in the game. You have, you're investing into this project, into this book and you're saying, I'm all in. And so everyone is motivated differently. That motivated me because I knew I'm a very heart centered person and I knew that people were waiting for that content and I didn't want to let them down. There's different things that will motivate each one of us. You have to know who you are, what's going to motivate you, what's going to help you, what's going to get you to move to that next step. Let's get that first draft done. Ready? Okay, let's do it. You can do this. I believe in you. I know you have it. It's not a matter of having enough time or having enough money or having this. We prioritize the things that are important to us. If this is important to you, if this is something that you are called to do, you can find a way. You can find the time, you can find the money. I know, I know, I know, I know it's hard. You can do this. I believe in you. Thanks again. My name is Shelly Hitz. If you'd like to join me on my next live webinar, come over to shellyhits.com formulas love to work with you and coach with you live to help you choose your book topic, outline your book, and choose how you will write your book. This is fun stuff, so I will talk to you guys later. Make sure you're subscribed to my live videos on Facebook. The pinned post right now will tell you how to do that on desktop and mobile and I'll see you next time.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.