Bonjour from France!

How is writing coming along? Whether you’re writing a book for the first time or you’re a seasoned author, nobody gets to skip the editing stage.

My last email was about the importance of setting yourself up for success in the very beginning stages of writing your book.

To illustrate my point, think of writing like having friends over for dinner. This happened to me the other day, in fact. For our friend Christophe, I wanted to make a beef bourgignon. I’ve made it before, but it’s a somewhat involved recipe. I decided that I’d just grab the ingredients at the store from memory. When I got to cooking, I decided I’d do that from memory, too. You can see where I’m going with this. I was missing some key ingredients (bacon and garlic) and messed up the proportions (1 part broth to 2 parts wine, which I inversed). I wound up with a sort of beef stew which was nice, but not as tasty as it could have been, and it definitely didn’t qualify as a beef bourgignon.

Had I served it to Julia Child, she would have had a few edits to make!!

But my sad cooking story is EXACTLY what you’re doing when you don’t start your book by editing.

Yes. START your book with editing.

Raise your hand if any of this sounds like you:

• You’ve read all the books on how to write a book, but in reality you’re just following the hodgepodge plan in your brain.
• You skimp on conducting market research, assuming your book idea will someday magically just validate itself.
• You “pants” it—without following an outline, you just write on stream-of-consciousness.

I hear this from my clients all the time.

If you’re not starting with the key issues we editors look for in a first draft, then you’re writing without a plan. You are essentially wasting time writing the wrong book and setting yourself up for endless revisions—all costing you time and money.

(And trust me when I say, as an editor, I don’t want to be doing extra work either!)

There are 3 items you must address before writing your book. I described these in my last email, but in case you missed it, here they are again:

Step 1: Follow an outline so your ideas flow together in the right order, making it easy for your reader to follow along.

Step 2: Conduct proper market research to make sure your book fills a gap in the market and addresses a need from your target readers.

Step 3: Identify your book’s core message so your writing has a common thread that every paragraph of your manuscript supports.

This is the editor’s code. It really, truly comes down to this. Taking those 3 simple steps in the planning stages of your book will help you:

• save time and frustration during the writing process
• invest less time and money during the editing stage
• feel GREAT that you’re on the right track and creating the best possible book

So what are your next steps?

First, by all means, begin on your own with those 3 items above. They’re so important!

Second, if you need support in that process, and want to do it faster and easier, I have something that will help.

It’s called the Macro Editorial VIP Day.

As part of my one-day service dedicated to getting your book properly planned, I’ll support you through each of those 3 steps with guided exercises, a strategy call, and one entire day dedicated to creating the outline for your book. I even include a 30-day support period if you need guidance as you begin to write the first chapters.

We can work on:

• Developing your concept for the brand book

• Organizing your ideas into an outline

• Setting the goal of the book (the action you want readers to take)

• Lead generation ideas to incorporate into the book

• Organizing your readers’ transformational journey into key takeaways

• Current market analysis

• Completeness

• Strengths and weaknesses

• Structure/organization/flow

• Writing style/voice/tone

• Engagement and readability

• Chapter-by-chapter feedback (inline comments)

• Recommendations and next steps

I’ll go over everything that’s included so you can decide if this is the right fit for you:

• Kick-off call so we can take stock of where you’re at now in your brand book journey and where you want to be at the end of our VIP day
• A full day (7-8 hours) of implementation
• A wrap-up call so we can go through my recommendations together in real time
• 30 days of post-implementation support

​Why is a VIP day awesome for authors? ​

Most editors take on multiple projects at a time. Not only is it harder for editors who do that to keep their clients’ individual writing styles clear in their heads, but it drags out the delivery time, meaning you wait longer to get feedback.

No more!

I was frustrated with that old way of doing things, so now I take on only one project at a time. I can devote all my attention to YOUR writing style with YOUR unique voice and YOUR original ideas. You’ll feel confident, in control, and excited about the potential we are bringing out in your brand book—in as little as a day!

I can’t wait to partner with you to bring your book to life!

Ready to join me? Hit reply, and we’ll have an easeful conversation about your book plans.

Jessica

P.S. The VIP day is currently offered at $1000—which could potentially save you, quite seriously, thousands of dollars down the line with extensive revisions, made unnecessary with the awesome book planning we are going to do on our VIP day! To get started, all you have to do is reply directly to this email, and I will personally respond within 1 business day.

P.P.S. I’m no Julia Child, but if you want the recipe for beef bourgignon, reply to this email, and I’ll hook you up with that too.

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