#44: What To Do Before You Start Writing Your Nonfiction Book

If you’re thinking about writing a nonfiction book, you might believe that there’s a lot of preparation involved. What should you be doing before you start to ensure that the writing process goes smoothly? How can you set yourself up for success? 

In today’s episode, Jane shares some tips for experts who aspire to start writing a nonfiction book sometime in the next year. You’ll learn what you can do right now, what can wait, and how to make sure that your preparation doesn’t become a form of procrastination. 

From the episode: 

Take It From Me: An Agent's Guide to Building a Nonfiction Career by Alia Hanna Habib

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, Jane Juan Jones, and today I am going to answer a question that a lot of people have been asking me about book writing. What should I do before I start writing my book? In the six to 12 months before I get started, how should I be preparing? How can I make sure that when I start, I start in the strongest way possible? I'm going to answer that question for you today, along with a caveat. So let's get into it. Welcome to Academic Book Writing Simplified. I'm your host, Jane Joanne Jones, a writing coach and developmental editor who's here to give you some tough love about the way you write. This podcast is for women and non-binary scholars in academia who are writing academic books, but feel as if the process is a little or a lot like a mystery. If you're ready to trade your confusion and frustration for ease, clarity, and purpose, you're in the right place. Let's get into today's episode. Okay, so I did a little poll on Instagram and asked people what they want to hear about in the podcast. And the most popular response was, what should I be doing before I start writing my book? How do I prepare? And I think that's a good question. I'm going to give you some tips for what to do. And I'm also going to give you some coaching about thinking that there's some type of perfect on-ramp to book writing, because there isn't. The way you prepare for writing a book is by writing a book. Like you start writing. So with that being said, there are some things you could do to make the process more easeful. But in my mind, as a coach, all of these are part of the process. There are some practices you can build that will make writing in general easier for you or more accessible. Some of the things I share with you are not going to be things that you should do before you start writing. They can be things that you do as you're writing your book, as you're working on it. Okay? So just keep that in mind. Don't use prep as an excuse for not actually writing the book, like doing all of this preparatory work that you think has to be like, don't let the perfectionism of preparation prevent you from writing. Okay? So with that in mind, I still do have some ideas. So I know a lot of people who listen to this podcast are academic writers, and we also have some folks who are writing nonfiction more broadly. And this advice is going to be for everybody. Okay? So get your notebook because you're going to want to take notes. And let's talk about it. The first thing you can do that's really important is look at your calendar. If you're going to start writing a book, you're going to need time to write that book, which means that you want to start clearing some time now. Now, if you listen to the episode from last week that I did with Dr. Kemi Dole, she talked about how she cleared her calendar before she started writing her book. Like she changed some commitments she had. She said no to things so that she can make sure there was time in her schedule to focus on writing the book. And I want you to do something similar. So we are in July now. Suppose you were like, I'm starting a book in January, like new year, I'm going to write. Think about how you're using your time. What does your average day look like? If you wanted to carve out an hour every day to work on your book, what would that take? Would you have to stop doing something? Would you have to reschedule something? Would you have to slack somewhere? Because slacking is not always bad. Maybe you're going to decide that I'm not going to have a perfectly clean house while I write this book, or I'm not going to be making these elaborate meals while I'm writing this book, whatever it is for you. So assess your calendar. Figure out how you're using your time. Figure out how you're going to block time to work on your book. And you can start blocking it now. You don't have to wait until you start writing your book. Start scheduling that time into your calendar now. And what you can do with it are the things I'm going to recommend next, right? So get into this practice of putting time on your calendar for a project and saying no to opportunities that are going to infringe or interrupt that time. Okay, so that's number one. Number two, research. Research agents and publishers. So if you are publishing or intend to publish your book with a non-academic press with a big press like a penguin or basic books or, you know, a traditional publisher, you are likely going to need an agent. And you are going to have to find one, which means you're going to have to do research. This might mean asking people you know who have published books, looking at the introduction to books you like, and seeing where the author thinks their agent, and not the introduction, the acknowledgments, excuse me. Look at where they think their agent. That's a good place to find agents. Looking at publishing websites like Publishers Weekly, for instance, publishers Marketplace, where you'll see the names of agents or agencies. Start doing that research on agents and on publishers. Where do you want to publish your book? And this goes for academics too. What press do you want to publish with? Why do you want to publish with them? Find out what types of books they publish, find out their turnaround, like how long does it take to get a book published with them? What do you need to submit for them to review your materials? Right? How much of the book should be done? What does the proposal need to look like? Get all of that information so that you have it when you start working on your book. Okay. You can find some of this on social media. Every publisher has a website. If there's a publisher without a website, run. Right? Like, don't work with them. So go to their websites, look at the books that are published. Again, ask people if you know authors, if you're on social media, look at the authors who have published there. You know, get as much information as you can. There are good books out there about submitting. There's a new one that just came out called Take It From Me. I'll put it in the show notes. Do that due diligence now because it could potentially impact like how you write your book, the type of book you write. If you are really eager to publish with a specific press, and that press has some sort of identity, then it's up to you to decide if you want to write a book that is going to appeal to that press. But the more information you have, the better decision you'll be able to make. Okay. So we've had assess your calendar, research agents and publishers. Next, read. Read broadly. Read books that are relevant to your topic. Read books that are published where you want to publish. To learn styles, to learn trends with publishers, right? Read books written in a style you admire. And that you may want to emulate, not copy, but emulate. So you want to use this time to read broadly, because that number one, it makes you a better writer. Good writers read. And number two, to go back to the theme, it gives you more information. Publishing, you know, if you intend to publish a book, which I assume you do because you're listening to this, it is a commercial enterprise, right? Like publishers want to sell books, which means they want your book to have a style and a format and an identity that is going to work for readers. So the more you know about what's popular, about what's selling, about what people are reviewing, right? Like what's getting reviewed favorably, the more information you have, again, the better equipped you will be to make good decisions about your book. And this is not to say that you have to copy what is trendy, quote unquote, or what is best selling. What I am saying is that you should know it. So that when you make your decision, you have all the information you need. You can decide you don't want to write a book like that that emulates, you know, the number one bestseller or what have you. That's completely fine because at the end of the day, it's your book. And of course, not all books are the same. Like not every bestseller, it's not cookie cutter templates. But having that information is important. And number two, because seeing different styles of books will help you become a better writer. Like I said before, you're absorbing, you're learning from the best, right? The best who are published, who have books that are popular, who have books that evoke a reaction from people, even from you as a reader. So do that broad reading again of books relevant to your topic, published where you're interested in publishing, and written in a style you admire, like books you like. What is it about them that you like? What is it about them that makes you read them the entire way through when there are so many books out there available to you? What made you pick this one? Because that's what a reader is going to be thinking when they pick up your book. I have all of these options. Why should I pick up this particular book? So if you know how to answer that for yourself, it will help you think of how your future reader might answer that question. Okay, so to review what we're doing here, to get ready to write your book. Assess your calendar. Figure out how you can organize your time so that you can prioritize book writing. This might mean saying no to things. It might be streamlining some commitments in your schedule. It might mean not doing some things to the highest standard, right? So that you can focus your energies on writing. Number two, do your research. Research agents, research publishers. And I would say even if you go a non-traditional publishing route, still research the process of publishing. Okay, what does it look like? What are the time commitments? What are the monetary commitments if there are any? Learn all of that. And then finally, read. Read broadly. Read books relevant to your topic. Read books published where you want to publish. And read books that you like. Read books that are well written, because obviously you want to write a book that is well written. So read the best examples. Okay. Now, again, I'm gonna repeat the warning that I gave you at the beginning. Doing all of this is great, but these are all things you can do while you're writing your book. You do not have to complete any of the three steps that I gave you in order to start writing. You could start writing at any time. Okay? So don't say, oh, I need to read 25 books written by that are published by the press I'm interested in before I can put a word to the page. No, no. You can read them as you're writing. You can research publishers as you're writing. The best way to protect your writing time is to use it for writing because then you'll be like, oh, I'm making some progress. I want to protect this time. Right? So all of these can be in tandem with writing the book. They do not have to be a prerequisite. All right. I hope this was helpful. Go off and get started. Pick one of these, get started on it. All all you need for all you need for them is your calendar and the internet. So they're easy. All right. You take good care, and I will see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Remember, writing an academic book is challenging, but that doesn't mean you have to overcomplicate it. If you liked what you heard in today's episode, please leave a like. This helps get the word out about the podcast so more people will listen and we can continue the conversation. Take care and tune in for our next episode.