Visualizing goals is one of the most important foundations of human achievement. By using your imagination, and envisioning life after your dreams have come true, you can actually attract what you want into your life. And just like athletes are trained to visualize victory, aspiring authors can use this powerful technique to get them excited and motivated about writing their book, and to help ensure it actually gets done.

Creative visualization works because powerful thoughts that are specific and clear can change your mindset, behaviors, and actions to align with what you want. If you want to be a published author, you can spend time thinking about and visualizing what your life will be like after that dream has become a reality. You can picture yourself giving a reading or talk in front of a large group. You can picture yourself shopping in a bookstore and seeing your book on the shelf. And you can picture yourself being interviewed on national television.

Whatever scenario you associate with being a successful author, creating it in your mind is the first step to making it happen. So no matter how long you’ve been struggling to write and no matter where you are with your book right now, you can change your situation for the better with visualization.

So how can you use this technique to make your book a reality? Here are the steps.

1. Think Big
Take a few minutes away from distractions, and allow yourself to daydream. You can even close your eyes, if that helps. Then let your mind wander. Think about how great you will feel to hold your book in your hands. Think about how your life will be different—better—as an author.

And let your imagination run wild. Don’t allow yourself to limit your abilities by thinking negative thoughts like, “Oh, that could never happen to me,” or, “My book won’t be that great.” There are no limits in your daydreams!

Really paint a picture for yourself, so your goal is clear and well-defined. And spend a few minutes living in that daydream, experiencing and enjoying the success you want.

2. Put it in Writing
Like any goal, putting your visualization in writing is important because you can’t just think about it and forget when it exists on paper in the physical world. You can write your visualization as a scene in your journal, but tearing it out and posting it in front of your desk where you can read it every day will help your goals stay at the top of your mind.

Even better: dig out some old magazines and make a vision board of pictures and words that represent your vision. For example, you could have a picture of a person reading in front of a large group, a picture of someone signing a book, or even a picture of Oprah holding your book. Whatever gets you excited and feels good to you. You can even draw some pictures if you’re artistically inclined. Then post that vision board in a place where you’ll see it every day.

Now, if this sounds like bologna to you, I encourage you to try it anyway. Why? First, successful people swear by visualization. So there must be something to it, right? Second, how can you possibly achieve anything you can’t first imagine? And third, if you’ve been struggling to get your book done for far too long, then why not try it? What have you got to lose? Plus, it will be fun—I promise. And before you know it, your dream of being a published author will come true!

Comments? Have you ever tried creative visualization?

About the Author: Melinda Copp helps aspiring self-help, business, and nonfiction authors write and publish books that establish expertise, achieve their goals, and share their message in a meaningful way. Get a free copy of her Write Your Book Quick-Start Mini E-course when you sign up for her weekly e-zine.

Tweet This Post

Developing the writing habit is one of the hardest parts about being a writer. I know, because although I write for a living, I still don’t always spend enough time on the writing that I most want to do. Work, kids, vacuuming all get in the way. And for those people who aren’t writers by trade, but need or want to write for professional or business reasons, then you may need a little help developing your writing habit.

The following simple steps can help you write more often and with better results.

1. Write Every Day
Developing a habit means doing something regularly. Therefore you should do your best to find time to write every day. It doesn’t have to be a long period of time, even fifteen minutes will do if that’s all you can spare. The key is to practice every day!

2. Set Manageable Writing Goals
Books are written one sentence at a time, so don’t fall into the trap of only sitting down to write when you have several hours at a time to devote to your work. Even if you only have time to put down a paragraph, that’s progress.

3. Don’t Stress About Writing
When you over-think your writing projects, they can seem bigger and more important . . . and much more intimidating than they really should be. Just sit down and write; don’t make a big deal out of it. The true beauty of a manuscript doesn’t appear until a few revisions, anyways. Just put your words on paper.

4. When You’re Writing, Write Without Your Inner Critic
Another part of letting loose and approaching writing with confidence is allowing yourself to write terrible sentences and paragraphs just to put something on the page and get through blocks. Don’t rework sentences until you’ve completed an entire draft—it will only slow you down and make writing more difficult.

5. Get Feedback on Your Writing
At some point, you have to start sharing what you’re working on with people who can provide encouragement and insight into how to improve. Try to aim for a balance of supporters, like best friends and parents, with professional opinions, which won’t always be as easy to swallow as a big cheer from mom.

Anyone who wants to write can do it. Discipline is the key, and catching the writing habit doesn’t hurt, either. With these tips, you can write better and faster than you ever imagined.

Comments? How did you build your writing habits?

Tweet This Post

Sharing what you know in a book helps everyone. But if you have a business to run, a job to do, or a household to maintain, then putting off writing a book is easy—even if you really want to become a published author. Writing a book takes time, plus there are costs involved in getting it done right. Sometimes it’s easier just to keep doing what you’re doing. But that’s no fun—and it’s no way to grow as a person and professional, either.

If you’ve been procrastinating writing your book, consider the following benefits of getting it done.

1. Your Information Can Help Others
There’s no better way to share your story and experiences with a huge amount of people than by writing a book. It allows you to reach audiences unlimited by geography and economic status. The number of people who can read your book is completely unlimited as well. And books are different from any other type of media because readers spend more time with them, allowing them to absorb your ideas and material in a different way than they might a movie or article or blog. Books are influential, and they are a powerful way to change people’s lives for the better.

2. A Book Establishes Credibility and Expertise
After you’ve done the work to research and write a book, then your expertise is immediately more credible. Wouldn’t you be more likely to buy investments from someone who wrote a book on investing? And wouldn’t you be more likely to recommend an organizer who’d written a book on organization to all your friends? Of course! Being an author means more respect from colleagues, more interest from your market, and customers more likely to buy from you.

3. You Can Make More Money with a Book
Once you get your book written and published, you can make money with it in numerous ways. Most people think of passive income from book sales first. But as an author you can increase your fees for the services you offer because your level of expertise will be perceived as higher. You can use the book to sell more people into higher-priced programs. And you can attract more clients and leads with the book.

4. Books Make it Easier to Get Publicity and Media Attention
Many people find getting media attention difficult, whether they’re just trying to share their story, or they’re trying to get their business mentioned. A book tends to attract media attention. Journalists are always looking for experts to interview. Books can be reviewed in newspapers and magazines. And authors make great guests to radio and television shows.

5. A Book Can Lead to New Opportunities
If you’re not already working as a speaker or consultant, getting your book done can lead to opportunities for both. Authors are often booked as guest speakers by associations and other organizations, and paid handsomely for it. And a book gives potential consulting clients a taste of the solutions you can provide for them, which can lead them to hire you.

Getting Your Book DONE!
If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, share your message with the world, and step into all the benefits of becoming a published author, then find a way to do it. Take a class; hire a coach; join a writing group—make the commitment and do what it takes to get your book out there. The world will thank you, and you’ll thank yourself too!

Comments? Please share your thoughts!

(c) 2010 The Writer’s Sherpa, LLC

About the Author: Melinda Copp helps aspiring self-help, business, and nonfiction authors write and publish books that establish expertise, achieve their goals, and share their message in a meaningful way. Get a free copy of her Write Your Book Quick-Start Mini E-course when you sign up for her weekly e-zine.

Tweet This Post

Tweet This Post

Social media marketing without a blog is like a fish without water, or a dog without a bone. Without it, things just aren’t right. Authors who want to use social media sites, like Twitter and Facebook, to market their books should use a blog as the centerpiece. Not only are blogs easier to find online because search engines love them, they are more casual and engaging than a regular web site and they naturally lend themselves to conversations, which is what social media is all about.

The casual, conversational feel of a blog helps build relationships with people in a way that a regular web site can’t. Plus, readers perceive blogs differently than web sites. While web sites are less personal and often sales-oriented, blogs are casual and more focused on cementing those relationships with helpful, interesting content. They allow you to be more than just a guy or gal with a book to sell. This means you can talk about your book without people seeing it as pushy or overly self-promotional.

To get your blog up and running, use the following tips.

Where and When to Start
Because it takes time to build up content and a community of readers, most experts suggest starting to blog at least six months before your book is released. Starting sooner rather than later means you can start growing your following and establishing important contacts before your book is done. If your book has already been published and your blog hasn’t, what are you waiting for? Get going as soon as you can.

Most blogging platforms offer free and paid options. The free ones are hosted by the blogging company, like Wordpress or Blogger. The paid ones require outside hosting, which is often less than $5 a month. I recommend paying for outside hosting, which will give you more flexibility and freedom to promote your book. Either way, you’ll get step-by-step instructions for getting everything set up. This process will involve choosing a domain name. If possible, choose your name or your book title.

Writing Your Blog
Once you get your site up, you need to start blogging. So what should you write? Just like writing a book, a good blog post is engaging, informative, unique, and entertaining. You can break news, share your thoughts and opinions, or teach your readers something they want to know.

Don’t be afraid to be personal and more casual than you may have been in your book. You don’t have to share all the details of your personal life–what you ate for breakfast, whether or not you went to the gym (unless that relates to your book topic, of course)–but you should share your thoughts on the topics you post about.

Get Traffic with Social Media
As I mentioned before, because a blog works so well as a relationship builder, it’s the perfect centerpiece of your social media marketing efforts. And you can set your blog up to automatically update your Twitter and Facebook accounts every time you update it.

So, for example, every time you publish a new blog post, you can post the link on Twitter, which will bring new readers and keep them coming back. As you’re building this audience of readers, you can make your blog the hub of all your book marketing activities, including social media, book signings, speaking engagements, publicity, and anything else you do.

What’s the Downside?
Well, a blog does take some work. Setting it up is pretty easy, even if you aren’t technology savvy, but the work comes in posts and maintenance. You need to update your blog regularly to get traffic and keep your readers interested. The posts don’t need to be long, and there are ways to simplify the process, but it still takes time.

However if you think about how powerful a blog can be for your book, writing a 250-word post a few times a week is definitely worth it. And as I mentioned before, it can be the hub of everything you do to promote your book–a place where you can promote everything you do. Plus the blog itself can lead to publicity, speaking engagements, and other really exciting opportunities for selling more books. So if you’ve got a book to market, you can’t go wrong with a blog.

Your Book Blog
Social media sites are too big for any author to ignore, and without a blog, you might as well be a fish on a bicycle. So even if your book isn’t quite finished (or if it’s been in print for months), get your blog going and start attracting readers and followers. You’ll be amazed at how quickly this one piece of your marketing strategy will become the most critical part of your author platform.

Comments?

About the Author: Melinda Copp helps aspiring self-help, business, and nonfiction authors write and publish books that establish expertise, achieve their goals, and share their message in a meaningful way. Get a free copy of her Write Your Book Quick-Start Mini E-course when you sign up for her weekly e-zine.

Tweet This Post

Millions of people visit Facebook every day, making it one of the best viral marketing opportunities for authors online. It’s easy to set up and maintain pages specifically for your book, you can find lots of traffic for your blog or web site, and it’s free, at least for now. (I’ve heard they’re thinking about charging.) Plus, Facebook pages get ranked in search engine results, making it an ideal tool to add to your book marketing strategy.

Consider the following tips to establish your book’s Facebook presence.

1. Complete Your Profile Page
If you already have a personal profile on Facebook, you can create a fan page just for your book. (If you don’t already have a profile, you’ll need to create one to get the page.) Why the fan page? Facebook limits the number of friends you can have to 5,000. But you can have an unlimited number of fans. Plus, you can use an image of your book cover, write a blurb about the book, track visitors, and add other features that you might not want to do on a personal profile. You can extra tabs and add testimonials from readers, links to sales pages on Amazon and other online bookstores, and even offer your fans a free downloadable sample of your book. Make sure you take advantage of everything the fan page has to offer.

2. Get Some Fans
Once your fan page is set up, you need to get fans. Unlike the personal profile page, you can’t just search for people and ask them to become your fan. But you can ask your friends from your personal page to become a fan and ask them to help you get the word out by suggesting their friends become fans as well. You’ll also want to promote your fan page as much as possible, adding a link to your e-mail signature, putting a badge on your blog and web site, and placing a link on all your book-marketing pieces. One other way to get fans is with Facebook ads. These are the small ads that show up on the right-hand side of the site, and although they aren’t free, you only have to pay when someone clicks.

3. Use Your Fan Page to Promote Book Signings, Readings, and Events
Facebook can help you find fans across the globe, but it’s also a great way to promote book signings, readings, speaking engagements, and any other events that you’re holding in your local area. Within your fan page administration panel, you can create events and invite all your fans. Then when they reply that they’re attending, all their friends will see it, which means viral exposure for your events.

4. Start Conversations
The beauty of social media is the ability to interact, and Facebook is no different. It makes you more accessible and allows your readers to connect with you on a personal level. So in addition to promoting your book and events, start conversations, show your readers what you’re really like, and give them information that interests them. And make sure you respond to comments and wall posts from fans. They’ll love hearing from you just as much as you’ll love hearing from them.

Your Facebook
Facebook is a powerful marketing tool for authors, and it’s a lot of fun. So if you haven’t already, give it a try. Put up a page for your book, and start attracting readers!

Comments? Have you had book-marketing success on Facebook?

About the Author: Melinda Copp helps aspiring self-help, business, and nonfiction authors write and publish books that establish expertise, achieve their goals, and share their message in a meaningful way. Get a free copy of her Write Your Book Quick-Start Mini E-course when you sign up for her weekly e-zine.

Tweet This Post

If you’re marketing your books online, then you’ve probably heard of Twitter. It was all the rage last year in social media, and millions of people have joined this micro-blogging community. Maybe you even started a profile page and sent out a tweet or two. If so, that’s great. And if you’ve been avoiding it for one reason or another, it might be time to try it out.

Why? With millions of people tweeting every day, it’s a huge source of potential readers for your book. It’s easy to get followers and it’s a great way to interact with your reading audience. But one of the main excuses I hear about why people aren’t on Twitter—or they aren’t using it fully—is that it’s so time consuming.  Well, it can be. But not if you try the following tips.

Automate Your Tweets
With so many people on Twitter, you need a lot of tweets per day to really maximize your exposure. But you don’t want to spend all day tweeting. Automation is the answer. You can use the following tools to tweet on your behalf.

Hoot Suite: This program allows you to schedule tweets ahead of time. So once a month, you can go into your Hoot Suite account and set it up to tweet several times a day for you. You have to enter each tweet and schedule them one at a time, which can be tedious, but it’s worth getting several days of tweets out of the way at one time. I use this tool especially when I’m announcing a teleseminar or other event that’s scheduled on my calendar.

Social Oomph: This tool also allows you to schedule tweets for later, but the true beauty of Social Oomph is that you can set it to send all your new followers a welcome message. This saves time contacting everyone who follows you, and allows you to start building a relationship with them right away.

Twitter Feed: This tool allows you to link your blog or any other RSS feed to your Twitter account. This means any time you update your blog, a tweet is automatically sent out. You only have to set this up once, and then it works automatically. And it’s a great way to get new eyes on your blog posts.

Make Tweeting Easy
You can only automate so much of your Twitter activity. You’ll also have to check in periodically through the day to communicate with people and send out the more personal tweets, like what you’re working on that day or what you’re excited about. The key to getting it down to ten minutes or less is making it super easy to tweet. Here are a few tips.

Link Your Twitter Account to Your Cell Phone: When your cell phone is linked to your Twitter account, you can take advantage of spare minutes in your day, like when you’re waiting in line or stuck in traffic, to post updates. When you sign up for a Twitter account, you’ll be asked if you want to use your phone with it. And they’ll give you the steps for setting everything up.

Use a Desktop Twitter Manager, Like Tweet Deck: Tweet Deck is a free program that you can download to your computer and use to see everything that’s happening on Twitter in one place. It has a column for the live feed, a column that shows everyone who’s mentioned you, and a column for all the direct messages you receive. This makes the all-important social interaction easy.

Send Quality Tweets
If you want people to respond to you and follow you, then you need to keep them interested. Plus quality tweets will maximize the time you do spend on this social media site. I’ve heard a few different formulas from different Twitter experts, but basically you want a daily mix of tweets that include:

• Giving away good information that will interest people in your target audience, such as links to your blog posts, tips, interesting quotes, links to other people’s blog posts, links to articles, etc. This should be the bulk of your Twitter activity—and these are the easiest types of tweets to automate, by the way.
• Being nice to people by complimenting them, retweeting their tweets, engaging in conversation, responding to their questions, etc. This is what you do when you check in with your mentions and direct messages.
• Being real. Social media is all about being approachable. So once or twice a day, check in with what you’re working on, what’s bugging you, what delicious restaurant you ate lunch at, something funny you found on the web, or what’s going on in your life. Let your followers know the real you, even if you don’t think it’s interesting.
• Asking for a sale. The whole point of your Twitter participation is selling books, right? Well, then, at some point you need to ask folks to buy your book. However, you can’t blatantly promote your book all the time (maybe once or twice a day if you have ten-fifteen other tweets going out), and you can’t just come right out and ask people to buy. Try tweeting about some tip from your book and link to a sales page, making it informational as well as subtly promotional.

Tweeting Your Way to Book Sales
Twitter is too big to ignore—especially if you’re marketing your book online. It’s a great, free way to get traffic to your site and find a reading audience. But no one wants to spend all day tweeting. When you use these tips for automating, simplifying, and maximizing your Twitter time, you can reap all the benefits from this using this social media site in ten minutes a day or less!

Comments? What are your favorite Twitter tricks?

About the Author: Melinda Copp helps aspiring self-help, business, and nonfiction authors write and publish books that establish expertise, attract clients, and share their message in a powerful way. Get a free copy of her Write Your Book Quick-Start Mini E-course and start writing your book now!

Tweet This Post

All aspiring authors look forward to publishing their book…until it actually goes to press. Then all these fears start showing up. What if no one likes the book? What if I never sell a copy? What if it comes from the printer riddled with errors? Tears, depression, horror—these are common reactions to such a profound moment in life, and even experienced authors feel queasy on publication day.

I’ve seen many of my clients in this situation, and all I can say is that it’s completely normal to question everything you’ve done when you’re on the verge of something so big. But you’ve worked really hard for this, and there’s no reason to let your fears stop you now.

Here are my best suggestions for dealing with some of the most common what-ifs new authors experience.

What if no one buys my book?

Of all the fears an author can have, this is the most unfounded. Why? Because books don’t sell themselves. You have to take action to get the word out about your book and make sales happen. Although you may lie awake at night thinking that your garage will stay packed with boxes of books for eternity, there are ways to move those copies into the hands of readers.

Make sure you have a solid marketing plan in place, with a few different ways to reach potential readers. And make sure you market your book consistently and regularly. Blog two or three times a week; send out your e-zine; book those speaking engagements. Do your best to get in front of as many readers as possible, and your books will sell.

What if I get a negative review?

Whether it’s a critic in Publishers Weekly or some anonymous reader on Amazon, negative reviews sting. But they happen to everyone, and you shouldn’t let them get to you. Think about it this way: negative reviews mean people are reading your book, and they care enough to voice their opinions. And not everyone bases their book buying decisions on reviews.

When a review upsets you, consider the reviewer. Are they the kind of critic who hates everything they read? What have they written about other books? And keep in mind that maybe the reader was just having a bad day and decided to take it out on you. See if you can solicit a few positive reviews from readers you trust (this works best on sites like Amazon where anyone and everyone can post). And if you’re sensitive, then just try to avoid reading reviews altogether.

What if I find a typo?

This is a tough one—we all want our books to be perfect. Unfortunately, mistakes and typos sometimes slip through, in both self-published and traditionally published books. I’ve found misspellings and typos in books that were undoubtedly read by four or five different professionals. It’s just one of those things that happens every once in a while.

All you can do is your best. Hire an editor and a proofreader. Read through the manuscript (before and after it’s been laid out by the interior designer). Ask anyone who owes you a favor to read it too. And if you’re really worried, consider printing a short run of the first edition, or publishing your book by print-on-demand at first, so you can catch any errors that may have slipped through the proofreading stage before investing in thousands of copies.

Managing the What-Ifs

Publishing a book is scary! It’s like sending your baby out into the world, and it always feels premature. But every big step toward success involves some risk. And as painful as it will feel at first, you just have to learn how to put the what-ifs aside. Onward and upward!

Comments? When it comes to publishing your book, what are you most afraid of?

About the Author: Melinda Copp helps aspiring self-help, business, and nonfiction authors write and publish books that establish expertise, achieve their goals, and share their message in a meaningful way. Get a free copy of her Write Your Book Quick-Start Mini E-course when you sign up for her weekly e-zine.

Tweet This Post

If you’re writing a business, self-help, or other instructional book, then it may not seem important to share information about your personal experiences. The purpose of your book is to give people strategies and tips they can use, right? Well, yes, but sharing your background is a powerful way to connect with your readers and show them how your material can help them when they apply it.

For example, if you’re writing a book about how a person can use yoga to overcome stress, you’re obviously going to include historical research about yoga, background about how stress affects a person mentally and physically, and different yoga practices a stressed-out person can incorporate into their daily life. That will be the bulk of the material in your book.

But what compels a person to write a book like that, anyways? Perhaps the author once suffered from stress and eventually found yoga as a solution. This isn’t always the case, but oftentimes an author’s desire to write a book that will help others comes from their own personal experience. They’ve been in the same situation as the reader, and they want to give those folks the resource that they so desperately needed.

Including this story, if you have one, in your book not only makes it more powerful and personal, but it also makes the book unique because it comes directly from you. Here are a few ways to include your story in your book.

1. Your Defining Moment

Think back to before you ever heard about the topic of your book and what your life was like then. What situation were you in? What problem were you facing? For many people, this is a low point, but it doesn’t have to be. Your defining moment is a realization that something in your life needs to change, whether in your health or personal satisfaction or career. And most likely, it’s a situation that your ideal reader has found himself in at one time or another.

For example, if you’re writing a book about how to establish a better relationship with your teenager, then your defining moment could have been a time when you felt farther from your own child than you ever had before. Or if you’re writing about how to crate train a new puppy, your defining moment may have been a day when you came home and found your house destroyed. Or maybe your defining moment was an encounter with someone who changed the way you see the world. Whatever it was, your defining moment inspired you to take action and seek the solutions you now want to share.

2. Your First Introduction

What was your first experience with the topic of your book? How were you first introduced? What was your situation before you learned about the topic? What problem were you facing? And what made you look for a solution? Let’s look again at the yoga example mentioned previously. If you were stressed out, maybe your doctor or a friend suggested you take a yoga class. Maybe you had some preconceptions about yoga before you tried it—maybe you were skeptical. Did you have this type of experience with the material you teach in your book? If so, write it down as clearly and honestly as you can. Your readers, who find themselves in a similar situation, will relate.

3. Your Steps in the Process

If your relationship to your material can’t be traced back to a single, specific event, then look for a series of events or realizations that brought you to where you are today. For example, if you’ve developed a process for starting any business on a shoestring, then think about the steps you went through when you were getting your business ideas off the ground. What didn’t work? What would you have done differently? What worked better than you expected? Think about how the steps and strategies you’re writing in your book are similar to the steps you took in your own life, and write about how you connected all the dots to develop the process you’re sharing with your readers.

Sharing the Story of Your Material

As you’re writing your how-to nonfiction book, think about these three different ways to incorporate your personal experiences. Doing so not only makes your book more interesting, but it also builds rapport with your readers and shows them the benefits of following your experience-earned instruction!

Comments?

About the Author: Melinda Copp helps aspiring self-help, business, and nonfiction authors write and publish books that establish expertise, achieve their goals, and share their message in a meaningful way. Get a free copy of her Write Your Book Quick-Start Mini E-course when you sign up for her weekly e-zine.

Tweet This Post

When a person with little or no writing experience decides they want to write a book, their first instinct is often to find someone with writing skills to do it for them. It sounds easy enough, right? You can’t write, so you just get someone who can. However, a lot more goes into finding and working with a ghostwriter than most people think. It’s not just a matter of finding a writer who needs something to do.

So if you’re considering hiring a ghostwriter to write your book, here are the basics of what you need to know.

A Ghostwriter Can Make Your Book a Reality

For some, the only way to really get their book done, and done well, is to hire someone to do it. They either don’t have the time, they don’t have the talent and skills, or for whatever reason, they just can’t do it on their own. In this case, hiring someone to do the actual writing for you is a great solution.

If you’ve tried writing your book on your own and either got stuck or were unhappy with it, a ghostwriter can help. And sometimes you need an objective professional to help you see what your book is really about. For example, some of my ghostwriting clients have felt they had an important story inside them, but they weren’t sure how to get it out in a way that would also entertain and educate others. I was able to help them see connections, get to the heart of what they wanted to say, and put everything together in a more meaningful way than they could do on their own.

Ghostwriters Don’t Work for Free

The biggest hurdle to working with a ghostwriter is the cost involved. Most people think getting a ghostwriter sounds like the perfect solution, until they see the price tag. Ghostwriting services aren’t cheap—depending on the project, anywhere from $10,000 for a beginner to $30,000 (or much more) for someone with experience.

Why does it cost so much? Because writing a book is a huge job that takes months of research, writing, and revising. And professional writers need to make a living. One alternative to paying for ghostwriting yourself would be finding a publishing company willing to pay the bill, which is how many books are ghostwritten. But unless you have a publishing contract, most ghostwriters won’t be willing to work on your book in exchange for a cut of future profits.

Is Hiring a Ghostwriter Right for You?

Even though I’m a ghostwriter, I’m going to say no; in most cases hiring a ghostwriter is probably not for you. I’ve talked to hundreds of people over the years about this, and for 99 percent of them, it just didn’t make sense. Why? Well, first, most don’t believe they can afford it—or perhaps realize that paying for it means it’s not such an easy solution after all. And second, most people, I think, are better served writing their own book themselves.

Writing a book is a process of discovery and discipline that yields great rewards. I like to tell people that if they have even the slightest inkling to write it themselves, they should definitely do it. If they need help with the process, they can work with a coach or editor. And if they need help improving their writing skills, they can take a class. But writing is a craft that will serve you well; not only for your first book, but for all the books you can write after that. So go ahead, get writing!

Comments?

About the Author: Melinda Copp helps aspiring self-help, business, and nonfiction authors write and publish books that establish expertise, achieve their goals, and share their message in a meaningful way. Get a free copy of her Write Your Book Quick-Start Mini E-course when you sign up for her weekly e-zine.

Tweet This Post