So You Wanna Write a Book?

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I’ve been writing books now for almost 3 years; hell, this year alone I’ve worked on two books simultaneously! And I’m often asked by people if they can pick my brain about the publishing world to answer the age old question: “How do I get a book published?” So, in the interest of helping everyone get a leg up, and spare you spending money to attend some Instagrammer’s class on how to do this, I figured I’d share some handy do’s and don’ts that I’ve learned in my brief time writing books.

Please note: This is all from my experience. I welcome other authors to jump in and tell me what’s worked for them.

Forming the Idea

My first book is a bit of an outlier as it was a commissioned piece; the company came to me and hired me on as a writer for an idea that already existed. But in the case of my two current books: Popcorn Disability and Welcome, Boils and Ghouls, those ideas were 100% from my head. When it comes to book writing, particularly in non-fiction, it’s imperative to have a topic that you’re comfortable living with for a year or more, and that the reason for the book’s existence is as fully formed as possible.

I learned this lesson the hard way this year. In the case of Popcorn Disability, that idea came more so out of what I knew I was good at. I had already written a ton about disability in the movies, so why not a do a whole book on it? I didn’t have a structure stronger than that which meant, when it came to actually writing it, I wasted a lot of time making connections and setting up the throughline right before sitting down to write it. I had to figure out which movies needed to place in which chapters, all of which, I confess, should have been worked out at the pitch phase. This isn’t as much of a problem with Boils and Ghouls which has a far more simple A to B structure.