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The First Step to Writing Your Self-Help Book: Get Organized! Advice from Thomas Hauck, Ghostwriter and Book Editor

Let’s say you’re a professional in practice, or you’re someone who has a message to share with your audience. You may be in marketing, sales, finance, healthcare, public safety, or nutrition; or perhaps your message is spiritual in nature. And you’ve wisely decided to write a book. What you’re going to write is called a self-help book because you’re going to provide your readers with information that will help them to lead better lives: to make more money, to get a better job, to be happier.

You want your book to be useful and to reflect your special way of solving the problem. So where do you begin? You start by getting organized!

The first step is to write your outline. You probably had to do this in school! Your outline can be as simple as a list of chapter titles and some bullet points. The bullet points need to reflect the most important information you want your readers to know. For example, let’s say you’re writing a book about nutrition. Your system uses macros to help the reader keep track of what they’re eating. Here’s what you might create for the first chapter:

1. The Four Macros Explained

  • Protein
  • Carbohydrates
  • Fat
  • Alcohol

Very simple! You don’t have to be a great writer to make an outline. It’s no more complicated than a grocery list, and you can always add to it and move things around.

The second step is to search your existing files for text that you own that can become part of your book. Most people in business write a blog or have a website, and they often have more text written than they imagine. This is material that you own that you can use “as-is.”

You may also search the Internet for material that might fit your book. To avoid copyright problems, sourced material must be re-written. You can use someone else’s ideas, but you cannot copy their words!

Then, when you’ve got file folders of your own material plus source material, you can figure out:

1. How much of your own text can be used.

2. How much source text can be rewritten and adapted for use.

3. How much needs to be written from scratch, either by you or by a ghostwriter.

That’s it! Getting organized to write your self-help book is easy when you take it step by step.

Thomas Hauck ghostwriter, book editor, author

 

 

 

 

 

– Author, ghostwriter, and book editor Thomas Hauck can help you write your book. Do you want to write a book? For your free consultation, contact Thomas today.

Posted in Advice on Hiring a Ghostwriter, Essays, Grammar and Writing Skills, Self-Help Books | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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