Write to your strengths

As a company director you’ve no doubt written your share of short and long reports and read hundreds if not thousands of them.

With this ‘elevation’ comes a significant raft of expectations, personal and professional responsibilities and a significant range of legal obligations.

And yet?

If you are a board director who has 10 years+ experience, knowledge and insight to share, you might be cogitating about writing a book to share your knowledge to a wider audience. However, unless you have recently conducted a Royal Commission you’ve probably not written a document of more than 5,000 words in a long time. Given a ‘standard business book’ is approx. 30,000 words writing a book can seem like a daunting task.

When discussing this very thing with directors there are three common questions I am asked. I’m sharing them here so you can see that you're not alone in thinking these.

1. I’d like to write a book but I don’t know where to start?

2. I’m not sure what to write…there’s so much (or not enough)?

3. How will I know if it will be good enough?

The answer to all these questions is that you should write to your strengths. What you are most knowledgeable about?

What does your direct experience provide to inform unique or different insights into the real challenges your target audiences face every day.

While this might seem obvious, it’s harder than it sounds.

And the real challenge is to work out what to write and what to leave out. And you can only do that if you spend some time and effort working out just who you are writing for and what their main challenges are. Once you’ve worked this out you can then match up your specific knowledge and insights to their key challenges. This will help you focus on what to write and provide you with a starting point.

From here you can create a content outline, and it might take you several iterations to finalise this. Once you’ve worked out what you’re going to write you can then start. The content outline will also help you stay on track and prompt you when you are struggling to write.

Will it be good enough?

As to whether what you’ve written will be good enough, that’s a common fear for all writers, including me and I’ve been writing now for over 30 years. I still get a bit nervous when I send the first draft of a book I’ve written to a client. Will they like it or not, is it good enough, have I missed something out?

And, the first draft I send to the client will be my 3rd or 4th draft. I’ll then probably work on 2 or 3 more versions in liaison with the client after they have reviewed it.

Have your manuscript reviewed in draft form

For business book writers I recommend that they select 3-4 of their peer group to review the draft of the manuscript and provide feedback. It’s critically important that you provide clear instructions to your reviewers about what you are seeking from them. The response of ‘Yes, I thought it was good’, is not what you’re after. You want constructive feedback within a specific timeframe. I provide my reviewers with a written brief as to the sort of elements/feedback I am looking for.

And, once you’ve received the feedback you need to listen to it and decide what you are going to act on or not. It does not help to have a big ego at this point as this will get in the way of crafting a well-written book.

Don’t worry too much about typos and grammar…this will be picked up by a proofreader.

The next step – an editor/proofreader

Once you have taken on board all the feedback and you’re happy with the manuscript, it’s then time to have it professionally edited and/or proofread. This is yet another round of checking and it’s absolutely essential. Again you need to select a editor/proofreader with knowledge of your sector and provide them a clear, written brief.

And, don’t be shocked when you get your final draft back and it’s covered in red track changes. That’s normal and usually it’s not as bad as it looks. If you have developed a style guide for your writing before you started and applied it, this is when you’ll see the benefit. Inconsistency in punctuation, referencing people, titles, companies, job titles, numerals, acronyms are common so the more you can eliminate these the cleaner your writing will be.

If you follow this approach and process your book will be relevant, well written and well-received.

And my last word? Your book will only be as good as the effort you put into it. Writing a book is a commitment and it takes time to write a high-quality book. Don’t be tempted by the ‘write your book in 48 hours/60 hours’ approach. These are short and sweet marketing books for small businesses designed to ‘sell’ their product or service.

As a director with significant experience and knowledge you should be focused on creating a book that captures and shares specific knowledge that helps others in your sector with their specific challenges. This requires intellect, considered thought, synthesising sometimes complex inter-relationships and concepts in a clear, concise and methodical way that’s also engaging.