On Friday I explained the 5-Step process I used to take my second book from concept to publication in less than 7 days of contiguous personal effort and without using a ghost-writer.
If you missed that then click here for the full article.
However, to quickly recap the first four steps…
- Mind-map the table of contents and add extra ‘levels’ for sub-headings.
- Talk through the mind-map and record it all as MP3 audio
- Send the MP3 audio off for transcription.
- Choose a title and outsource cover design
If you know your subject matter well — and as a business owner I’m sure you do — then all of the above can be done very quickly. Looking back, I mind-mapped the structure (Step 1) and did the audio recording (Step 2) in less than 8 hours.
Steps 3 and 4 were mostly me finding other people to do the design (on www.Elance.com and similar sites) and coming up with a catchy title, and a friend suggested the ‘Dynamite’ theme – so I can’t take full credit for that!
So by the end of the first four steps you’ll have a typed transcription of your audio recording — which you may have quickly edited to cut out any major mistakes you made in the audio — but for the most part that transcription will be fairly ‘rough’.
And this bring us onto the mysterious “Step 5″.
5) Get your book ‘refined’.
I took advantage of what I think is pretty unique service run by Alexa Hodgson and her team at The Book Refinery.
Basically Alexa provides a tailored (or ‘bespoke’) service to help people get their book from concept to print.
In my case I had a pretty raw transcription which I gave to them, and they worked it up in to the end result you hopefully pre-ordered last week. (If not go and register here so you’re in the loop for the official launch of E-Mail Marketing Dynamite).
The Book Refinery services include proofreading, design and typographical layout in the most well known desktop publishing packages, plus procuring ISBN numbers, arranging for the book to appear on Amazon, getting it physically printed… and a lot more besides.
For E-Mail Marketing Dynamite I took advantage of pretty much all of their services – apart from writing the book, (and you know how I did that really fast using my “Mindmap to MP3 method”).
That’s the real secret of how my personal involvement on E-Mail Marketing Dynamite was less than 7 days of contiguous time.
So, if you’re wanting to become a published author sooner rather than later then I fully endorse Alexa and her team — and I’m making this endorsement without any affiliate commission or personal gain.
Alexa’s been a superstar helping me bring my new book to print, and I know she can help you too… if you really do want to become a published author.
So there you have it – my 5 step process to bring a book from concept to publication in less than 7 days, and without involving a Ghostwriter. (So the book is all in your own words, language and stamp of authority.)
Good luck becoming a published author,
Ed.
P.S. If you’re not an author yet, but want to be — I hope this article and the previous one have given you some great ideas and a maybe some motivation too?!
Leave a comment below this article – I’d love to know what you think and will answer any questions you have (or direct you to Alexa if they’re questions more suited for her to answer.)
October 13th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Ed
Seem to remember you talking about the concept of this book early July, 2009 and doing some research between that date as well as telling us about email templates and other part that where going into the book including the front cover design and the title. In fact I think I gave you some feedback on the cover but you didn’t change it!
Personally I think from concept it took a lot longer than 7 days! But I guess it makes good marketing and advertising
October 13th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Hi Ed,
Very interesting an innovative way to create a book. I wonder if you can give me and your other readers an idea of the ball park figure we should be looking at the create a book in this manner.
I signed up last week, so looking forward to receiving the book soon.
Gordon
October 13th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
This is great, concise and very supportive advise Ed. As a published author I know what a mountain this process can feel like and I’ve always found that having a process and plan in place to get from concept to publication and in fact to marketing is powerful and efective. You’ve described five very straightforward steps particularly for people who want to publish their wisdom but do not necessarily choose to take the time out to physically write the book themselves. I also use Goal Mapping to set my clear intentions around the achievement of goals like this to turbo charge my results and keep me on track. http://www.goalmapping.com
October 13th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Hi Gordon – Good question. The cost of steps 1 – 4 is very low if you use the free or inexpensive software I mentioned above. Outsourcing the cover design on Elance or similar is quite low (just a few hundred pounds or less depending on which vendor you choose. And of course there are lots of UK designers who can do that but I can’t comment on how much they charge – if there are any book cover designers reading this comment then I encourage them to contact me via the feedback form on this site and I’ll check them out and possibly recommend based on theor prices, portfolio and customer feedbacl.)
As for The Book Refinery services – Alexa quotes each job entirely on spec – I’m sure “no job’s the same” and each person requires a different level of service.
Best thing is to contact her with an idea of your book project and where you need help, and she can then give you an idea of costs involved. Her link again is http://www.thebookrefinery.com.
Best of luck with any books you’ve got planned.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
It would be interesting to see what the book refinery did to your layout and how they added value to your project.
Because their site does not give any examples at all it’s just a contact us page?
Gavin
October 13th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Thanks Ed – really informative!
October 14th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Ed,
maybe the book refinery need some e-marketing consultancy from you LOL, or maybe Alexa is so damn good she does not need it.
Gav
October 14th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
@Harry – Spot on. I got the concept for the book even further back than July, but like I say, the total amount of contiguous time I’ve spent working on getting the book off to print is less than 40 hours.
Of course I’m not adding in the time I spent writing and talking about it on my blog, replying to blog comments and such — because that was to do with marketing the book – not getting it to print. Hopefully I’ve made it clear that when I say ‘less than 7 days’ I’m talking about the solid amount of time I actually spent writing the book and getting it off to the printers.
You have raised something I missed though – surveying my own e-mail subscribers was another shortcut to knowing what needed to go in the book (although most of it was already in the mind-map it highlight one or two omissions that were added in before I recorded the audio.)
Saying that, I could have skipped the survey and the book would have been done even faster, and it would still have had the exact same effect and use as a front-end lead generator when my Joint Venture partners start promoting it to their list. (For my own satisfaction though, and benefit of my e-mail subscribers, it’s good to know the extra content is in there.)
And finally… please don’t take it personally that I didn’t take your advice on book cover design! If the cover incorporated everyone’s suggestions it would have ended up looking like a fairground attraction! (Thank you though for contributing – it was appreciated.)
@Sangeeta – of course I forgot about Goal Mapping – must give that a try sometime thanks for reminding me.
@Roberta – thanks!
@Gavin – Neither… and both! The page you saw on her site was put up in a rush immediately before my post here recommending them. It definitely needs a lot of work, but also interesting to note that Alexa’s goal isn’t to try and elicit a response from everyone – it’s only to get enquiries from serious authors-to-be… so the proper web site when it’s launched will probably a lot less ‘persuasive’ than I would normally like to see. (Also of course an endoresement like mine means the landing page doesn’t have to work as hard.) I’ve been meaning to call you for ages by the way – will call you.
——
Thanks for all your comments and feedback.
Ed.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:55 am
Thanks Ed for advice & link. Have a number of products one is a coaching resource for soccer coaching, http://www.TrainingSoccer.Org. Would like to produce coaching books or pdf for my new blog.
Have sent email to BR
Will let you know how I get on. Enjoying your Ultimate Web Marketing Strategy book, first visit to your blog.