Let’s talk about getting your book written. Because sometimes in life, it feels like you’re bobbing along with the current…
And sometimes you’re on a speedboat, hellbent on a single destination and fueled by a fire in your soul.
Ladies, that’s how I feel about helping women get heard by ghostwriting their business books.
There aren’t enough of them, you know — business books by women.
But I believe being heard as a professional and a woman is so important that I built a business around it.
Because everyone has a story to tell and wisdom to share.
But women tend to postpone the delivery. They sit on their stories. Discount their knowledge.
And wait to write their books.
Why, ladies, whyyyyyyyyy?
Actually, there are a hundred reasons why. Some of them are good reasons. Some are sad. Most are unfair. We’ll cover that soon.
In the meantime, if you’ve had that inkling, heard that rumbling, felt that urge to be heard…
Here’s an easy way to get started.
The Blank-Page Disappearing Trick
First, let’s machete the blank-page problem.
It might feel daunting, but how much of that is because everyone talks about the blank page as daunting? How would it be to view it as just the place you start, like going into the kitchen before baking a pie?
You can karate-chop the blank page in one fell swoop just by writing your name on the page. Ideally, with a great, fake headline. I’ve been known to start books like this:
The Most Amazing Book of ALL TIME
By Mindy McHorse
Aaaaaand done. There’s no longer a blank page.
Other great titles to start with:
Something Fabulous Will Go Here
Future Witty Book Title
I Hate This Part of Getting Started But Now I’ve Done It So HA!
All followed by your byline, which feels great.
And if writing “By [Your Name]” makes you feel like an imposter, try this on for size: We are all writers.
Really! In today’s social and digital world, everyone is a publisher and a writer. Ann Handley says this best in her book, Everybody Writes. She points out how essentially anyone who communicates online is creating public-facing content.
She also teaches that your words — what you say and how you say it — are your most important, though tragically undervalued, business and personal assets.
So just put that fun title-placeholder up there and slap your name on it. Then you can truthfully tell yourself, “I’m writing a book.”
Like Confetti After a Parade
The next biggest problem clients bring me, after the blank-page conundrum, is the what-to-write mystery.
My advice: Look everywhere!
That is, everywhere you’ve written anything. Look in your emails, your text messages, the reminders on your phone, the sticky notes on your monitor.
You’ll find that raw material for your book is scattered throughout your day-to-day like confetti at the end of a parade.
As you’re looking at all the things you’ve written, note the patterns.
Is there advice you’ve typed more than once?
A similar explanation you’ve given to three very different clients?
Instructions you keep sharing because people keep asking?
Right there, that’s a chapter for you. Maybe the through-line of the whole book.
Or maybe it’s just a starting point. But that’s cool, too. Grab it and write it down under your stellar title-placeholder.
The gold in this exercise is that it highlights the expertise you already have and that others benefit from.
Keep doing this until you have a handful of ideas/advice/wisdom/instruction to write about. I’d aim for at least five.
From there, you make your outline.
What’s the Cost?
This is one of my all-time favorite questions:
What is it costing you to not go forward with this book?
And the follow-up, silver-medal question: What is it costing the people who need this book that you’ve yet to write?
When you ask yourself these questions, the need to put your book out into the world becomes very black and white. You’re freed from that muddied, hazy state where you lose track of the goal and get fixated on whether you’re qualified.
The truth is that you probably have more innate wisdom about your area of expertise filed in the back of your head than most people will ever know about it.
So if you can accept this as fact, the who-am-I-to-write-this worry falls flat on its face.
Please Get Off the Island
Sometimes clients tell me they can’t write a book because they don’t have time to write every word themselves.
But that excuse smells like the mushroom-rotted fallacy that books are solo projects written by candlelight while clad in all-black and steeped in mental agony.
Ladies, they are not.
Even if you choose to write the words, you’ll likely (hopefully) still work with a copyeditor, designer, editor, publisher, or a book coach. (I say hopefully because there certainly are people who write books like they live on a deserted island and the lack of input shows. Don’t write from the island!)
All to say, most books are collaborations that include the input and expertise of other professionals.
Some books are chicken-scratches that get handed over to editors. Some books stem from nothing but a conversation, as told to a writer.
Many books, including many bestselling books, are written by ghostwriters.
Here’s where the confusion starts though, because a book written by a ghostwriter (ideally me) is not the ghostwriter’s book (so, not my book). 😉
Regardless of how much assistance or outside input you get, it’s still your book. Your ideas, your stories, your voice. You bring your own ideas, examples, and judgments to the table.
What a ghostwriter brings is the ability to whip all that brilliance up into
something readable that communicates your core message.
In my case, I have nineteen years of direct-response copywriting, magazine editing, and ghostwriting under my belt. I like to think of myself as the baker who can meld together an incredible pie based on nothing but the favorite ingredients brought to her by a client.
(Note: I am not a baker, nor can I pretend to be one. I prefer to eat the pies, not make the pies.)
But books are a whole other world in which to get high, and without the calories. I don’t mind that my name isn’t on the cover. The rush for me is in the creation.
Whether you write your book yourself or get assistance from a book coach or ghostwriter, I really hope you write your book. The world needs more business books by women because we remain underrepresented in the business book world.
Disadvantaged business book world aside, a book will help you in multitudes of ways:
It makes you easier to refer.
It showcases your professional knowledge in a tangible, permanent-feeling kind of way.
It boosts your credibility thanks to the long-held and not-going-anywhere belief that smart people write books.
It generates new leads for your business.
It precedes you when you want to participate in a business event.
It gives people a reason to contact you with relevant questions.
If there’s a book currently living in your head that you’d like very much to get out onto the page, email me and let’s chat about it. I’m happy to walk through the advantages of writing it yourself versus having a ghostwriter (me🙋🏻♀️) write it for you.
Thank you Mindy.