Hey there, new author.

Have you written your book in a vacuum?

If you have (no shame—been there, got the tshirt), you might be making an editing faux pas.

What most business-owners-turned-authors try to do is this:

They get an absolutely wonderful idea for a book that will generate leads and expand their reach. They get stars in their eyes, and they get to work all excited. They might even finish writing the entire thing.

But they are writing in a vacuum—creating in their proverbial bubble—and they wait until the book is well underway before seeking an editor’s feedback.

At this point, the new author thinks their manuscript needs a quick once-over to solve for grammar issues. But the editor discovers that before tackling the WORDS, they must overhaul the CONCEPTS. (If you read my blog post on the 4 different types of editorial passes, you know what I’m talking about.)

This is working backwards, and I’m going to show you how to fix it in 3 easy steps.

First, here’s how new authors are getting it wrong: They wrote the entire book in a stream-of-consciousness excitement because they had a really good idea.

That might not sound too bad… after all, they’re a successful personal brand or business owner, and they know what they’re talking about in the book.

But if they:

• Didn’t structure their book properly

• Didn’t ask what readers want to know about the topic

• Didn’t come up with a central idea

Their book will be disorganized, rehashed, and senseless. It definitely won’t be the powerful brand book they thought it would be to bring their message to even more people.

So how do we fix it? At the risk of oversimplifying, we:

Step 1: Follow an outline. It sounds obvious, but I’m always shocked at how many first-time authors still skip this step! Your outline is instrumental in making sense of your ideas—which ones fit together and in what order, and which ones belong in another book entirely.

Step 2: Conduct proper market research. You already do it for your products and services, so why not for your book? Pay attention to what questions potential readers (in your audience, but also outside of it) have about your topic. Browse the books that have already been published in your field and find where yours fits in.

Step 3: Identify your book’s core message. This is industry jargon, but what it basically means is that if I asked you to sum up your book in one sentence, could you do it? And would that sentence make me want to pick up your book? This is the point of having a core message. If every paragraph of your manuscript supports that core message, you’ve done your job.

When you take the time to properly plan out your book before you write it, you WILL save time and money on editing down the road because you won’t have to overhaul the entire manuscript, or worse, start from scratch!

I hate to be the bearer of bad news to a first-time author who comes to me thinking they need “just a copyedit and a proofread” when really they need help revising on a much grander scale first.

Let’s not make it harder on ourselves. Let’s not do extra work. Let’s not waste time.

Are you writing in a vacuum right now? Want to turn this ship around? Hit reply and let me know.

Happy planning,

Jessica

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