Ideas to keep from being overwhelmed by writing your own book and getting it done in out of the box methods!
#1 Talk Your Book
If the thought of typing out a book manuscript totally turns you off you might consider talking your book. Just get a decent USB microphone you can plug into your computer like the Audio-technica AT2020 or similar brand. Just plug your microphone in, power up your recording software such as Sound Forge, Adobe Audition, or Garage Band and start talking.
Then have someone transcribe your audio and provide you with a written document to work from. It beats starting with a blank sheet of paper for many people. Of course, you’ll need to edit it and clean it up in some way, but it’s easier for you to modify existing copy rather than create from scratch talking your book is a viable alternative.
#2 Repurpose Articles You’ve Written or Blog Posts Into a Book
Maybe you’re already a writer. Do you have articles you’ve written that have been distributed? Or maybe you’re a long time blogger and have been sharing your wisdom via blog for many years. Can you combine articles or blog posts you’ve already written to make up the chapters of a book? Yes you can. And even if you don’t have
all the parts for an entire book you may well have a good chunk of it in content you’ve already created. Repurposing is powerful, use it.
#3 Have Someone Interview You
Essentially another form of “talking your book”. If you need interaction with another person to really get your juices flowing rather than talking into a microphone by yourself have someone conduct an interview of you. Give them a number of questions in advance you want them to ask you and then just turn on your recorder and let it roll. Take your recorded interview (or interviews) to a transcriber and have them turn it into a written document that’s ready for your final touches.
#4 Hire a Ghostwriter
Maybe time is the biggest thing you battle to get your book done. You may want to consider flat out just paying someone else to write your book for you. That’s fine, because you want to be an author and not a writer. And there is a big difference. Some of the most popular books in history were not written by the authors – they were ghostwritten. Just be aware that good ghostwriters are not easy to find and can be very expensive. So make sure you have a significant budget available for the writing process if you want to go the ghostwriter route.
So there are four different ways you can write a book without actually writing a book. And there are some other ways we haven’t even mentioned that might also work. Do you have a live presentation from an event or TV appearance that someone can transcribe for you and you can use that to form the basis of a book?
Being the author of a book in your niche gives you tremendous credibility. You’re the expert because you wrote the book!
