When I ran my first beta test for the ‘Write Your Inspirational Book YOUR Way and Go From Idea to Manuscript in Only 90 Days”, one of the students asked me, “Hey Cheryl, is it possible to plan this book in a weekend?”
This student was on a deadline, and only had two months to write her book, get it to her editor, and get it printed, before she was due to be a speaker at a convention, and she wanted very much to be able to sell the book at the back of the room.
So, I said, “Well, why don’t we find out? If everybody’s game, let’s make this our first experiment, shall we?” And since everybody agreed, we decided to give it a try.
I spent a couple of days going through my normal information for planning a book (which takes between one or two weeks). And I narrowed it down until I just had the essentials, and I set up a meeting date, sending everybody the new and improved material.
So, this is what we did, and also, how it turned out. Feel free to try this yourself, if you’re planning on writing a book, and please do me a favor, and let me know how it turns out for you!
Step 1: I had created a 90-day journal and planner for everyone in the group, and they already had this. It includes pages for journaling, for recording information – like the number of pages written every day, a place for intentions, goals, and more.
They also decided on what type of book they wanted to write, and completed a brain dump, to determine the information they have and what they still needed to gather, and how many basic chapters the book would have.
Please feel free to get a blank journal, or open a document on your computer.
There were two full weeks of pre-planning, which happened before the group coaching program started.
This was to figure out their core values, their mission statement, how to find an accountability partner, create a vision board and write an intention statement for the next 90 days, as well as goals and mini-milestones. (You can read here: why I believe mini-milestones are so vital to keep you motivated and working towards your goal of writing your book.)
So, the first step in planning your book in a weekend is to do some journaling: (Answer the questions in detail and with as much description as possible. You will need at least one page for each question.)
Why do you want to write an inspirational book? Is it for your business, for personal reasons, or a combination of the two?
Why are you excited about writing and publishing your book? (What are you hoping to do, get or be?)
Describe how you will feel after you’ve written and published your book?
Describe how your life will change when your book is written and published?
Describe how your business will change after your book is written and published?
Ideally, who are you writing your book for?
What do you want your readers to feel after reading your book?
What is the first action you want your readers to take after reading your book?
What do you want them to do next?
The next step for my beta group was to fill out their ideal reader avatar worksheet. (For you, think about your ideal reader, and create a picture of them – write who they are, where they live, what they do for a living, and other demographics about them. You can also include the psychographics (for example, what their limiting beliefs are, what problem they want to solve, what the one thing they don’t believe is possible for them, etc.)
What is the main problem your book will solve?
Look for Part 2 of this article: Planning your book in a weekend. Part 2.