Writing and self-publishing a book: Part 2

"This is Part 2 about writing a book or perhaps more correctly, self-publishing a book, and I do hope you will find it interesting, as well as potentially useful as Part 1.?Again, if it encourages you to write your own book then maybe, just maybe, I've even had a hand in that decision."

Generating content

You might not be that interested, but this is a little bit more how I actually went about creating content for my first book. Since this was a business book, and closely related to my 'day job', I already had a lot of material in my head. But this is basically how I wrote it:

1. First, I used any material already existing on my own website as initial ideas, either from the main pages of the site or from the blog.
2. Second, I had already reworked some of that website material into a series of Articles for use here on LinkedIn. That material became the core content for the book, but I then added in any new material that I considered would be helpful (and of interest) to potential readers.
3. The third step was to repurpose all those different Articles into a number of discrete chapters, but I also 'topped and tailed' them with new introductory text or linking paragraphs, since most needed some additional content. Whilst others in contrast perhaps needed cutting down in length.
4. Next, I had to decide on a broadly logical order and, where necessary, write some brand new content based on my own know-how, as well as my real working life experiences. This was perhaps where I felt that some key topic was missing, but where I didn't already have an existing Article available to use for the purpose. Note: The order wasn't that important, since it's possible to dip and out of the different chapters, but it still needed some thought.
5. Then I wrote the introduction, a short section about 'how to use' the book and that was pretty much it.
6. Of course, now that having written the book, using those previously written Articles, I'm now writing this new Article about the process of self-publishing that book. So content begets more content. I may even release some parts of the book either in brand new Articles on LinkedIn, or via other media, in order to promote the book....

Pricing

Pricing was a bit of an issue. We see 'homemade' downloadable books available here on LinkedIn for anything from under ￡5 to over ￡20. Some of those have a lot of information, but others are really quite short, and are more like PDF pamphlets. So, how much to charge for an actual, real 250-page book? We were still debating this right up until launch...

Self-publishing software

I'm sure there is some easy-to-use self-publishing software, however making corrections in a draft can take hours, not minutes. We're all so used to making amends in long Word documents, you know the ones that we can do ourselves, in a matter of seconds. Often we use nothing more than the 'spelling and grammar' button, and we can whip through a huge document extremely quickly. Sadly, that process has spoilt us, such that making amends to a proper book can almost seem like returning to the times of Gutenberg and his moveable type.

However at the 11th hour we discovered that other self-publishing software could be the solution... And thankfully it was.

Late amends

As a result of swapping to different publishing software, this actually changed all the fonts in the book, as well as the pagination. Hence the book 'shrank' to such an extent that I decided at the very last minute that I wanted to add in another chapter. This came at a point where we had re-checked the book for the umpteenth time - I'd lost count, but it must have been at least into double figures! By mid afternoon I'd decided I needed to add some more content, and within the hour I worked out where that content could come from. (I had a draft LinkedIn Article, that I'd not yet published, and so I reworked that 1,200-word piece by adding a introductory section about my own experience, and so by eight o'clock that evening I had another 2,000-word chapter ready to go.)

That was duly sent to the proofreader that same evening, and was corrected by mid afternoon the next day. Note that the extra chapter added the best part of yet another week to the whole proofing and checking process! But on reflection we all felt it was content that was worthwhile adding.

Approval of proof

Signing-off of the proof finally happened, and the book was then submitted to Amazon for their own approval. Next steps as far as I can tell are now:

1. Receive sample print copies (these have been ordered - due in a matter of days now).
2. Check the printed book for any other errors.
3. Republish, if any serious errors are found, and then...
4. Launching the book and getting on with promoting it!

Exciting times.

(And now, we can finally focus on Book 2, just three chapters of 50 left to nail down).

About the Author

Paul Latimer is an experienced market researcher, having held a number of marketing roles in a wide variety of industries he moved over to focus on market research from the agency side in 2004, before setting up his own market research consultancy,?Latimer Appleby, in 2012. He is a graduate of the University of Birmingham, and holds several diplomas including those from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), the Market Research Society (MRS) and the Institute of Data & Marketing. He is a Certified Member of the MRS, and a Fellow of the CIM.

He is the author of the book 'A Better Decision': Market research in the real world.