How to Write a Book and Get it Edited

This is episode three of 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.

Welcome to Author Audience, where I'm on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. It's time to let your light shine. Today I'm rolling out the red carpet and inviting you to join me as I share two more ways to write your book. We shared the first in the last episode, so if you missed it, make sure to catch episode two. My name is Shelli Hitz. I'm the author of over 35 books and the list keeps growing. I've coached thousands of authors through my books, training programs, online events, seminars, and more. I'm best known for inspiring those around me to take action.

And so if you're an action taker, you're in the right place.

The end of this episode, I'll even have a take action tip for you. I believe God has given you a message to share with the world. The question is, are you ready to shine? It's time for this week's Center Stage Spotlight Training. This is where I share training and strategies to help you grow your business or ministry through writing and publishing books, marketing online, and creating products and services to sell on the back end. I'm not just the book lady, but I'm so much more. I'm here to help you connect with your audience in the best way possible. In fact, my secret sauce is marketing. I love marketing. But in today's podcast, this is episode three titled Strategies on How to Write youe Book and Get It Edited. This this is part three of Procrastination to Publication. And I know this is going to bring you one step closer to getting your message to more people through Kindle Publishing. So today is going to be about books. Be prepared to shine.

Option number two is to write your book in blocks of time. A lot of you will choose this option. This will be the best option for you. What I recommend is using this method if you have more time than money, if you prefer writing to speaking, or if you just are able to block off big chunks of time to get your book done. I really recommend writing in blocks of time based on your outline for several reasons. It helps you to be so much more productive. Once you get in the flow, it'll be so much easier to keep writing. It's harder to start and stop, start and stop, start and stop. When you're writing a book, I like to use the Illustration of Driving a Car when you are driving a car and you get it up on the highway and you have to go from 15 miles an hour to 60 miles per hour or whatever it is, it takes a little bit of time to get up to that speed, especially if you have an older car like we currently have right now. However, if you get on the highway and you get onto the speed that you the desired speed you want, let's say 60 miles per hour, it's really easy then just to stay at that speed, to put on your cruise control or just to keep it at that speed and keep going. But if you have to keep stopping and starting, stopping and starting, stopping and starting, it's going to take you longer to get where you need to go than if you can just stay at the same speed and just keep going. It's the same way with riding. If you can just get in the mode, get everything that you need, all your tools, all your resources, and just do it in a chunk of time, it's going to be much more productive than if you are just doing it in little bits of time. However, if you only have little bits of time, then use whatever time that you have. I really encourage you to consider a writing date. My colleague, Natalie Marie Collins has actually started a National Writing Date Day, and she also has a writing date once a month. You can go to her website and you can sign up and get information. And then if you want to virtually join a whole bunch of other people on a writing date, I think it's the first Saturday of the month you can do that. But she gives you more information and more tips on doing writing dates at her site. When you have a writing date, it's basically setting aside a specific chunk of time. So it might be three to four hours, it might be an entire day or two, or it might even be an entire weekend. I have an author friend that is very busy. She has several kids. She is a pastor's wife. She works, she writes and does the marketing and she volunteers in her community. She's just a very busy person and when she wants to finish a book, she will actually go on a writing retreat. So she'll set aside an entire weekend. She'll go to a place outside of her home and spend that entire time writing. So that's another option for you to consider. With a writing date, however, you can just do several hours in your local coffee shop or even at home if you can remove those distractions. But you want to be able to remove the distractions, I recommend turning off all incoming notifications. I know this can be really hard in our technology connected society, but that means turning off your phone. So you may just want to tell a few people, hey, I'm not going to be answering text messages or calls during this time. Not answering emails, not checking emails, turning off Skype, Facebook, anything that might be coming into you during that time, turning off those notifications and just writing. That way you can stay focused and you can get a lot done. You'll be amazed when you really focus and you spend that time and you know that that is the purpose of that time. You'll be able to get a ton done. The third option is to hire a ghostwriter. You don't have to actually write a book to write a book. You can hire a ghostwriter. You want to use this method if you want a professional product and as little time invested into that book as possible. Now, I believe not many of you are going to choose this option, but I wanted to mention it anyways. This option will definitely take longer as you'll be at the mercy of your ghostwriter and they usually take a while. And it's also going to be more expensive because ghostwriters are not cheap. I did use this option once for a book and it ended up working out well with someone I already knew, I already worked with, already knew her writing style. I was comfortable with her and so it worked out really well. You do need to be selective in who you choose to work with. This is going to be your book with your name on it. You should have some sort of contract that you, you have them sign that you will maintain the copyright for the stuff that they write, that it will be published under your name. You could also write a book as a co author and that's another topic. But with a ghostwriter, they are writing it for whatever you pay them at that moment. So they're exchanging their time for money. You're able then to make profit on it with the royalties forever. And so that's the trade off. The ghostwriter is writing and getting that, you know, that income for the moment. I personally have not used anyone at the association of ghostwriters.org but that's a place that you could check out. I also recommend checking out Elance. They have a lot of writers on there. You can do a smaller project with thumb and kind of get a taste for their writing and then go from there. So that's another option. There are a lot of ghostwriters out there that will work for you. You just have to do some research and Find out. So again, the three options to write your book is to speak your book, to write your book in blocks of time, or to hire a ghostwriter. So what you need to do at this point is decide which book option you're going to choose, which one are you going to do? And then let's do this. Third step is editing. And this is the stuff that a lot of authors don't really like, but it doesn't have to be as laborious or as dreaded as it seems. You can choose to self edit your work first, and this is what I recommend, the process that you go through. And when you self edit, there's a few things you can do. First of all, you can just use your spell check on your word processing, you know, word processing software. So sometimes you can miss things if you forget to do a spell check. I have done that before, and then I send it to an editor and I realize, oh man, I would have caught that had I just used spell check. You can read it out loud, and this is a really great option to catch mistakes. I often do this even with blog posts or blurbs that I'm writing for my book or for speaking. I want to make sure it sounds right, that it flows right, so I'll just say it out loud. And you can catch so many errors and so many things that just sound awkward by doing that. Another option is actually having your computer read it out loud to you. And there's actually a free software, it's called Natural Reader, that will read your manuscript back to you. And sometimes just hearing someone else read it can also help you catch errors as well. And then another option for self editing is to print a copy. So you can print it out. And they say many times you can catch things on a printed paper that you won't catch on a screen. So that's another consideration. The next step is to consider software. So there's a free software called the Hemingway Editor. There's a free online version. There's also an app that you can download. They do ask for a small fee if you want the desktop version. And it has a few extra features, but you can use the basic software for free. And this will catch a lot of things, like awkward sentences, things that are too long. It's just a really great tool to consider. It'll tell you the grade level that you're writing at. It will tell you if the sentences are hard to read. It will point out how many adverbs you've had. Or if a simpler word could be used, it will tell you about passive voice. So all sorts of things that can be helpful when you're editing. Another software to consider is autocrit. The autocrit is just another option that can go through your manuscript, can go through your draft of your book, and then the other software to consider is Grammarly. So those are three options that you can look into as far as software. The next step would be proofreaders. And these are other people going through your book and doing an edit. Now this is not a professional. These are normally friends and family, other authors, college students, professors or teachers. You can even hire someone to proofread your book. But this isn't necessarily a professional edit. So it's going to be cheaper to hire someone just to simply proofread your work for you. Now, for me, my husband is a really good proofreader, so I'll usually have him proofread my books for me. And that really helps me catch another layer of mistakes. And then finally, you want to consider a professional editor. There are two types of editing. And there's copy editing, which corrects the spelling, grammar, punctuation and overall consistency of your book. And then there's developmental content editing. This is where they'll do the copy editing for you and help you with the overall flow of your book. And that's more expensive. Many times I have just gotten this simple copy editing. This helps you make sure you don't have any glaring mistakes. However, if you really are struggling with writing, a developmental content editor will help you with that part of it. There are some different considerations. I recommend that you choose an editor experience with the Chicago Manual of Staff Style. Here's a couple recommendations for editors. You can also check out editors at Edit911 and these are all editors that have a PhD. They're professors of literature and or writing at a major university and they've edited over 4,000 books since 1999. So they have a pretty good track record. And then I also have a link to my trainingauthors.com website where we have a list of recommended outsourcers as well that you can look at. Now, I don't want you to feel overwhelmed at this stage. With a small ebook, you can often get away with using a quick self edit and software or maybe a proofreader that you have. However, if you're wanting to write a book that is going to be seen by a lot of people is going to be a credibility booster, you may want to consider getting a professional editor, especially if it's a showcase book. A showcase book is a book that you'll be selling at the back of the room when you're speaking and it will be in print form. So any book that will be in print format I do recommend getting professionally edited. However, with your small Kindle ebooks you can get by with the self editing. Check in with the software. At least use the free Hemingway app editor and maybe have some proofreaders go through it for you.

Lights, Camera Action. It's time for this week's Take action tip. Between last week's episode and this week's episode, we've talked about three different ways you can write your book. It's now time for you to decide. Are you going to speak your book?

Are you going to write your book.

In blocks of time or are you going to have your book ghost written? 99% of you will choose option one. Option two so take out a pen or paper or your note taking device and write down which way you will choose. Also make sure to get the show notes and all the resources from Today's episode@authoraudience.com 3 that's the number three authoraudience.com 3 Before we end, I want to give you a backstage pass in this week's Video Godly Gain segment, which is all about keeping Christ at the center of all we do. This week's scripture comes from Philippians 4:13 For I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength. Many times when I talk to authors or aspiring authors, they get overwhelmed at the process of writing a book and it feels like too much. However, as Christ followers, we not only have our own strength, but we have the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. We have Christ who can give us strength. And this is a promise from Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things, even writing a book, through Christ who gives us strength. So I encourage you to pray and ask God for His strength to do what you need to do to cross that finish line. From procrastination to publication it's my hope and my goal that these episodes are bringing you one step closer to getting your message to more people, your target audience. I believe in you and I know that you are working hard. So keep up the good work. If you're getting value from this podcast and feel the urge to leave a review, I have a gift for you and it corresponds with the training from this episode. When you post a review and send me a screenshot, I'll give you the entire $47 course procrastination to publication for free. It comes with all kinds of extras that I know will help you as.

You'Re writing your book. So all you have to do is.

Post your review and then send me an email@contactellehits.com and I'll send you this gift for free. Thank you so much for your support for subscribing and for your review of this podcast.

I appreciate you.

Don't miss next week's episode, which is Part four of Procrastination to Publication. This is where we're going to get in to cover design and more, so 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.