Book Part 1: Getting a publishing contract and my writing routine

In this article I cover how I’ve come to be writing a book on financial independence for Penguin Random House (PRH) and what my writing routine looks like so far, but first an ask:

Fancy providing feedback on my initial manuscript?

Before you leap in, please note: this is a big ask.

Accepting requires reading and providing feedback on the 65,000-word manuscript in 3.5 weeks. You’ll receive it on 1 April and I’ll need the completed feedback by 26 April. It may require a signed non-disclosure agreement (to be confirmed with my editor).

The feedback I’m after is broad rather than specific (e.g. grammatical) feedback, such as:

• Did I miss anything? Are there burning questions about financial independence and being time rich you wish I'd answered?
• Was anything confusing/illogical? Did I lose you anywhere? Was anything too maths-y or engineering-y?
• Was there too much? Did I wax lyrical about a topic too often and/or for too long?
• Any good opportunities for jokes that I’ve missed? Care to share suggested jokes that I may steal? I will credit you in the acknowledgements – nobody reads those, right? :)

Keen? Please send an email to [email protected] with the subject ‘Advance Reader’ and I’ll send you a survey link to get you on the advance reader list with much gratitude.

I find the stories behind how authors first get published fascinating, so thought I’d share my story in case you’re similarly inclined.

How did I get here?

How on Earth has a chemical engineer ended up writing a book on financial independence for a major publisher?

From the outside, this will look like an overnight success story. I deliver a TEDx talk, a couple of months later I’m writing a book for PRH.

From the inside (of my head, mostly): this is the result of nine years work.

I wrote and self-published my first book, a children’s story about saving, in 2010. It was my first foray as Money School. I dabbled with the business intermittently for four years, then became focused on it full-time from mid 2014. Since then I’ve had over 3,000 people around the world through my courses, I’ve delivered training and speeches for private and government organisations, and I’ve had an offer of purchase for my business from perhaps my most similar competitor, the Barefoot Investor. 

All of this has been the result of thousands of hours spent on ideas – writing them down, turning them into pictures, testing them on students, refining them based on student feedback, repeated ad infinitum – and honing the craft of written and spoken communication.

In mid 2018, the day after my 36th birthday, I got two emails:

1. An invitation to an interview with the TEDxUWA team to discuss an application I’d submitted a week prior to speak at their October conference.
2. A query from a commissioning editor at PRH wondering if a book was something I’d consider. Because it came from my website, I thought it was spam until I called the number provided.

Talk about an awesome birthday present.

There began the process of getting from email to a signed contract, and now I'm writing a book. But first, how did that commissioning editor find me? 

She read an article on the FIRE Movement quoting me because I responded to a Source Bottle call-out. From the article, she found my website, read some of my blogs, signed up for my free eBook, then reached out. 

This is extremely lucky. 

A more typical process is you approach the publisher – yourself or via an agent – with a book proposal and proceed from there if they decide they like your proposal. Many famous authors have experienced dozens of rejections before getting their first book offer following this process.

I still had to write a book proposal, but it’s a much easier thing to do when you know they’re interested. Fortunately I’d attended a publishing conference in 2011 and received some helpful templates and examples of book proposals to follow, so it wasn’t as daunting a task as it could have been. 

The book proposal got through the Pre-Acquisition team with a few requests for more info, then onto the Acquisition team. A commercial offer arrived in September, which we went back-and-forth on for a bit. Once commercial terms were agreed, a full contract arrived in late October with subsequent back-and-forth to arrive at the final point of my signing on in mid January 2019. 

That’s six months from initial email to signing on. 

(Even though I hadn't officially signed, my awesome editor still send me a lovely welcome gift, pictured below, for Christmas. Both books were outstanding, if you're wondering)

I opted to represent myself, against excellent advice from respected authors everywhere. I’m stubborn, greedy, and I wanted to see how the process worked as well as understand every nut and bolt in the contract. I compromised by using the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) brilliant contract assessment process, which I can highly recommend – what a wonderful service! Bravo to whoever subsidises the work, and the team who deliver it.

Having now seen the process, and based on how much time I’ve spent understanding the contracts and negotiating, I’m inclined to go with an agent in future. Learning the hard way is one of my specialties and I'm sure I've made this harder than it needed to be.

How am I approaching writing?

I’ve loved writing since I could put pencil to paper. In Year Six (11 years old) I was accepted to the Meanjin Writers Camp, where I met Laurie Keim and Gary Crew. I became convinced I would be a writer when I grew up.

Then maths and physics caught my attention.

I became a chemical engineer and worked in the mining industry. For nearly two decades, most of my writing was dot points and formulae, aside from the occasional economics essay (I studied Economics in high school as an elective and as part of undergraduate business management studies completed alongside my engineering).

Aside from blogging (there are over 60 articles on my blog, some running to 5,000 words) my writing experience is limited. I find talking easier. 

I’m fortunate to be connected to some fabulous writers – including a few prominent ones – through the publishing conference I mentioned attending in 2011. I’ve drawn on their advice to develop a routine that works for me. So far it’s yielding 1,500 to 4,000 words a day.

Here’s what I do: 

1. The night before: I pick the topic I’ll write about tomorrow. I’ve created a detailed plan using a template for online course development provided by Maria Doyle, my go-to curriculum developer. I’ve adapted it for my purposes with a couple of renamed columns. It took me a couple of days to populate, but it was well worth it. Thank you Maria, you rock!
2. Write as soon as I can post wake-up. This is usually within 15 minutes of getting out of bed. That’s the time it takes me to get dressed, grab food I prepared last night (porridge, yoghurt, boiled eggs, sushi, meat, fruit, carrots etc) out of fridge, drive to my office, pull out my computer and drink some water. I leave before kids wake if I can – the less distraction, the higher my output.
3. Drugs. I rarely drink coffee (perhaps once every three months) and until recently I hadn’t had an energy drink since I stopped drinking Chambulls in my mid 20’s, so I don’t need much caffeine/taurine/guarana/sugar to become more alert. If I’ve slept well, I’ll have a green tea. If my sleep was crap (see aforementioned kids) I’ll go with something harder, like an energy drink. This is a short-term approach for writing only. I don't consider it sustainable.
4. Drinking lots of water. I knock back around three litres in a writing session. Lots of toilet breaks is a welcome by-product as it gets me out of my chair regularly.
5. Music. To reduce distraction, I put albums on repeat. Yes, for the entire time. Like Pavlov’s dogs, I’ve trained myself to respond to Cat Empire’s ‘Rising with the Sun’ and Florence + The Machine’s ‘Ceremonials’ with an irresistible urge to write.

1. No phone or social media till I need a mental break. The internet stays off till I want a break, usually one to two hours into writing. Then I indulge in lots of scrolling, random likes and such for anything from five to thirty minutes before I’m back to writing.
2. When I get stuck, I take a break. A cup of tea, food, walking, distractions like social media and email (per point 6) for a limited time, then back into it.
3. Listing distractions. If non-writing thoughts/to-do items pop up, I write them on a list next to me to deal with after writing steam runs out. I run two businesses and I have a young family, so there are lots of these – usually 10 to 20 in a given writing session. I do them when I run out of writing steam.
4. Printing to edit by hand the first time. Making changes based on the mark-ups is another ‘do when writing steam runs out’ job. I find marking up a printed copy far easier than editing on the screen. Sorry trees – I am using both sides of the paper and recycling.
5. Knock off around lunchtime. By 11am I’m generally fluffing around and starting to pick off items from my distractions list so the last hour isn’t as productive, but if I’m nearly at the end of a topic, I’ll press on.
6. If I wake up and don’t feel like it, I don’t write. Especially on weekends now that school's going back - Saturdays and Sundays have become precious again.

So, here I am. A signed book contract, a deadline for the first version of the manuscript a mere 57 days away. It’s the end of the school holidays and so far I’ve spent five of the seven holiday weeks not writing. In the two weeks I did write, I’ve got around 22,000 (unedited) words down. So, I’m feeling OK about that 29 March deadline.

Around half of those remaining 57 days will be writing days per my above list – my husband works five days in ten, and I rely on him to look after the morning routine while I’m working and he's not. When he’s working, I’ll write when I can – mostly when my mother and/or mother-in-law are available to watch the kids.

Wish me luck!

'So, ummmm, why are you writing a LinkedIn article?'

'Shouldn't you be writing the book instead? Isn't this wasting precious writing time and energy?'

Fair point. But: no.

This my first day back on the computer after a bunch of holidays and my head isn't in the game - yet. Book writing starts again tomorrow morning.

Also, I've found writing begets writing. The more I write, the better my productivity. I'm not worried that I'm using up a finite store of writing capacity by authoring this article. I think - hope - it will help me be more productive tomorrow when I get back to the manuscript.

Time will tell I guess :)