In my last post, I covered the considerations around whether or not writing a book should be a part of your overall content strategy. Let’s go a little deeper and define the expectations of a “book” so that you have some parameters for establishing your project goals.

So, what exactly is a book?

The digital world has blurred the definition somewhat, but there are certain expectations of a book. It’s worth reviewing these before you set to work on your project. You can’t just start out without a set of goals and hope that it will turn out OK. You have to have a destination in your journey.

Generally, a “book length” work is expected to be about 350 pages, give or take. That’s about 90K–150K words, assuming standard industry 6×9 format.

If you’re comfortable in the blogging format like I am, let’s get comparative so that you can relate to it. Blog posts are generally short, ranging from 350 to 1,200 words. Personally, I tend to think of the ideal length as about 450-700 words. That certainly gives you enough time to convey some information or state an opinion. It’s hard to cover more than one very specific topic, though.

So, that means that a book-length work is the equivalent of about 150 to 250 medium-sized blog posts. As of this post, I’ve published about 200 blog posts, or about 70,000 words. Not all of that content would be useful to a book, but if gives you a sense of the effort involved just to get a enough content produced for your first draft.

Do you have it in you? Sure you do!

But it’s going to take commitment and consistency. A huge sustained effort. Sure, you can get it done in a short amount of time, but what’s the rush?  Use your blog as an imperfect publishing platform as you go. Use it as your first draft. Test out ideas, in real time, in front of real people. What better way to understand what works and what doesn’t? To develop your writing style? Blogs allow you to practice in front of a live audience.

Any performer will tell you that “live” practice is required in order to get better. If you are going to connect with people, it helps to get out there and perform it—BEFORE you’re ready. Practicing your technique is required, of course. Sitting at the piano running through scales over and over again. Learning the chord shapes on a guitar. Rehearsing a script until you get it right, and can deliver it with proficiency.

But that won’t tell you how an audience will respond, or how you will respond to the audience. The best performances are a conversation. How will you ever know how to navigate the conversation if you don’t involve other people?

Getting started

So how do you get started? Just like anything else. One foot in front of the other. You are an expert in your area. You know it as well—or even better—than most people.

But you have to make it manageable. A project of this scope is too vast to comprehend all at once. Working with authors for years, I always told them that no project would ever get completed if you tried to focus on the whole project, all at once, up front. You have to break it down into little elements. Things that seem achievable. Then just start knocking them down, one by one. Soon you’ll find that you have 10,000 words, then 50,000, then 150,000.

Be patient. There are going to be times when it doesn’t flow. When you can’t seem to get the ideas off the ground. When you can’t come up with a clever way to articulate something.

My advice is not to force it, but let me qualify that. There’s are a lot of different tasks required in writing. To me, they always feel like they are in two categories: creative and operational.

1. Ideating—creative
2. Drafting—creative
3. Editing—sometimes creative, sometimes operational
4. Organizing—operational
5. Refining—sometimes creative, usually operational
6. Perfecting—operational

If you are fighting writer’s block, then turn to another task. It’s not your only job to generate new content. You have to do all these other things too. If you’re feeling not so creative, then do some operational work instead. Organize scraps of ideas. Start to edit a rough draft that you started writing last week. Do something else to keep making progress on the project. I go through weeks at a time on each sometimes, but as long as I feel like I’m making some forward progress, then I feel OK about the project.

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Photo credit: “Typewriter B/W….now write the story.” by THOR (geishaboy500) is licensed under CC BY 2.0. Unchanged from original.