Writers Teleclass: Learn to Write a Book and Operate a Freelance Writing Business

When I wrote my first book, Email Episodes I knew very little about the writing industry and even less about publishing. My experience with self-publishing was a great learning opportunity and I gained knowledge that I now share with others. My second book. More Than Meets the Eye: True Stories about Death, Dying, and Afterlife, was published by Booksurge—a POD company that I would not recommend anyone using. The print quality is poor, getting customer service is like pulling teeth and each revision of my manuscript cost $50. It took a friend of mine almost a year to get a printable version of her manuscript into book form and available through Amazon.com. We both found that getting a vanity published book into a bricks and mortar bookstore was nearly impossible. Needless to say, we learned a lot from our experience.

By the time I started writing my third manuscript Right to Recover: Winning the Political and Religious Wars over Stem Cell Research in America, I had met Valerie Connelly. Valerie is the president of Nightengale Press—an independent publisher who utilizes the best methods of both commercial press and POD technology. I contracted with Nightengale before I ever wrote the first word of my manuscript. Through Nightengale my book will be on the shelves of every major bookstore in the US through Ingram and Baker & Taylor.

So, let’s talk about your book. Do you have an idea about what you want to write? Begin by searching the market to see what else is already out there on the subject. If you find that the market is flooded with books in that genre and yours will be another needled in the proverbial haystack, you may want to select a different topic to write about. If you decide to go ahead with your idea, you will need these market comparisons in your book proposal later on, so grab the ISBN, price, binding type, publication year and place, and a short synopsis of the book. Save this information in a word processing file.

The next thing is to begin your book proposal. Yes, even before you write your book. It will give you a clear idea of how you will want to organize your thoughts and what you want to cover in the book. It can begin as an outline, but keep adding this material into the file for your book proposal. If you can get a one- to two-sentence summary of what your book is going to be about, you will have a home base for tying down all your information. Everything you write will need to support that working summary. You may want to pitch your book to a publisher before you actually finish the manuscript. This will give you an idea of the interest that agents may have in your book. Writing the book proposal is another entire matter and I will cover that later—perhaps in another article.

If you are writing a fiction work, you can let your mind begin to take you into the places and lives of the characters. As you flow with your imagination, your creative inner muse will practically write the book for you. It’s important to allow the ideas and images to flow unhindered. Don’t stop to edit or even finish a sentence if it means you will be side-tracked or lose an incoming thought. I prefer to type rather than write long-hand because my mind moves faster than I can manipulate an ink pen. I can type pretty fast so that is my preferred method. Others swear long-hand is better. You decide.

There are a lot of technical details about writing a non-fiction book especially if a lot of research is required. I’m referring to your footnotes, citing quotes and formatting your bibliography. There’s more to be discussed than I can possibly cover in one article. Therefore, I’ve decided to offer classes on how to write a book.

Writers on Call—a weekly teleseminar for writers, will be hosted by fulltime freelance writers Yvonne Perry and Suzanne Lieurance beginning January 4, 2007. The classes will cover book writing and offer information about how to start and manage a successful freelance writing business. The seminars will be recorded each Thursday night at 7 p.m. Central Time so even if you can’t make the call, you will have access to the mp3 file the next day. Our fee of $10 per month is an extremely low price for nearly four hours of coaching and interactive teaching each month.

Together we can get your book written and ready for a publisher or literary agent.

Article Source: http://www.content.onlypunjab.com

Yvonne Perry is a freelance writer and the owner of Write On! Creative Writing Services based in Nashville, Tennessee. She and her team of ghostwriters service clients all over the globe by offering quality writing on a variety of topics at an affordable price. If you need a brochure, web text, business document, resume, bio, article or book, visit www.yvonneperry.net While there sure to subscribe to the RSS podcast feed and the free monthly newsletter about writing, networking, publishing and marketing. Read more on Yvonne’s blog at yvonneperry.blogspot.com If you are interested in being part of “Writers on Call,” weekly teleseminars for writers, please email me for more information.

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