Self-help book writing services

Transform your knowledge into a self-help book with ease.

Step one: Outlining

Step two: Writing

With the outline done, we will then meet periodically, usually once a week, to write your book, using the outline as a guide.

During each meeting, I'll interview you and take notes, which will form the basis of your book.

Step three: Revising

If you're like many people, the last time you wrote an outline was probably in English class in grade school, where the outline you put together probably used Roman numerals, letters, and numbers, which is called a Harvard outline.

The outline we write won't likely be as formal as that, but it will contain topics and subtopics you might want you want to cover in your book. Going forward, it will serve as a roadmap as we write your book. While our outline can change a little along the way, it provides guidance and is a great way to start your book writing journey.

After we write a chapter, we will revise it, taking it through two revisions. We will do this for every chapter as we progress forward.

Step four: Finishing

After we've written the book and made our major revisions, we'll put the finishing touches on it, and I will proofread the book and get it ready to be submitted to a publisher.

Each step in this process obviously involves more work than I've described here, but this is the basic gist of my book-writing process: It works because it's simple, and it simply works.

My simple book writing process

Publishing: You're done writing, now what?

Once we're done writing your book, you still have some decisions to make. But it's okay, I am here to help you progress to the next step.

One of the first decisions you need to make is what kind of publishing to pursue for your book. You have two basic options (with some variances), which I explain below:

Option one: Self-publishing

The majority of people who write nonfiction books today opt to self-publish or at the very least engage with a publisher who charges a fee to help you publish and distribute your book.

The reason is simple: when you self-publish, you don't need to convince a literary agent or a publisher to take on your book. You merely front the costs to have your book printed and distributed, and you are off to the races.

Advantages: the advantages to self-publishing are speed, control of your book's look and content, and a greater share of any sales.

Disadvantages: you are totally on your own to market and distribute your book, so turning it into a national bestseller is a much harder task.

But again if you want a crazy title and cover for your book, no one is going to tell you no—it's your book!

Option two: Traditional publishing

Some people want to know that their book has national exposure, and if they have the audience, the platform, and/or a famous name to put on the cover as author, they have a great chance of finding success with traditional publishing.

Traditional publishing means that a book publishing company, whether it's one of the "Big Five" or a regional imprint, will pay to print and distribute your book. And if your book takes off and becomes a bestseller, you can reap financial gain from it.

But, pursuing traditional publishing is no walk in the park. As with self-publishing, there are advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages: First, you don't need to front any of your own money to get your book printed. Your traditional publisher has decided that your book is worth the risk, and so they print copies of your book and distribute them, hoping that they will sell. And because of their national reach and ability to print large numbers of books, traditional publishers have the infrastructure and bandwidth to support your book's sales if they skyrocket.

Disadvantages: When someone else is footing the bill for something, they also want control of the outcome. So, if your book gets picked up by a traditional publisher, you can forget about choosing your cover design or title. You can give them your input, but they will make the final call. You also need to be chosen by a publisher, which first means getting your book's manuscript in front of them, and the best way to do that is to have a literary agent represent you. This means that you must first find a literary agent who likes your book and thinks it will sell. This is no easy task. I've helped clients get this far, and to go the rest of the way takes a very good agent. Getting published traditionally also takes a lot more time, up to two years, to finally get your book on the shelf. This process includes finding an agent, the agent finding the publisher, the publisher tweaking your book to their liking, and then launching the book.

In the end, which path you choose is up to you. Just know that there are advantages and disadvantages for either route.