First Book Production Mode: The Six-Month Sprint
I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.
- W. Somerset Maugham
It’s easy to be intimidated by a 100–150-page goal for a first-time business title. It can seem like an insurmountable smooth cliff face looming above you with no foreseeable handholds or traverses.
This is understandable.
You did not go to school to learn how to write books. You went to school to learn topics, to choose a major (and minor) and master a subject (or skill like accounting, research, planning or problem-solving) that would earn you an audition for the workforce, and inevitably, in a good economy, a paying job.
You’ve never received a raise, promotion or lucrative bonus for being able to write a book. You have, however, had success in a field of expertise that is possibly book-worthy.
And you won’t know for sure until you write the thing.
Writing a book is like starting from scratch for a subject matter expert. It gets put off, until next year, when you are “less busy at work” and can focus on it. Or it’s the kitchen remodel, or it’s the kids’ travelling soccer schedule that’s getting in the way.
So, another year passes, and you still have no book.
The Six-Month Sprint
I’m here to coach you on getting over the hump and high up that cliff face.
Pick a date six months out from now and overlay this timeline:
Time:Phase Main/Activity
Month 1: Planning/Ideate, Chapter Outline and Research
Month 2: Production 10 pages week/Write 40 pages (10 x 4-page chapters)
Month 3: Production 10 pages week/Write 40 pages (10 x 4-page chapters)
Month 4: Production 10 pages week/Write 40 pages (10 x 4-page chapters)
Deliverable: 120 pages (30 four-page chapters)
Month 5: Edit/Review 120-pages; Early Readers Review
Month 6: Edit/Revise and add one page to each chapter (30 additional pages)
At the end of this half-year half-marathon (full of short sprints), you will have a 150-page manuscript, at the minimum.
If you are you hiring a ghostwriter, this schedule might suffice as guidance for a contractor arrangement and the basis for a “scope of work” document.
The key is coming up with 30 chapter topics at the beginning, in that first month of planning.
Set a goal of developing 24 chapter topics up front, and know that you will naturally come up with six chapter topics more during your four-month Production Phase.
Your Weekly Cadence (10 pages)
A four-page chapter on a single topic is roughly 1,000 words, or the length of an overly-long blog.
If you can plan to spend two hours per day on uninterrupted writing, and write half a chapter per day over five days, you can take the weekend off.
Or you can write half a chapter on Tuesday and Thursday and three half-chapters over the weekend. Just have 10 pages done by the end of the week cycle.
By uninterrupted, I mean closed-door, head-down, off-the-grid, librarian-level-silence, with your smart phone on Airplane mode and all Web browser windows closed. You may feel a little jittery at first, but it is humanly possible.
This is how you scale the cliff and get your first manuscript built.
On the second time around, you will find it much easier. I can now produce a 120-page book of my own work (like the one you’re reading) in about five to six weeks, from initial idea to final draft ready for formatting.
The secret is time allocation and knowing your chapter topics ahead of time, plus understanding how books are produced.
Ernest Hemingway famously wrote all morning, took a break for lunch, and played all afternoon, whether that was sitting in a cafe in Paris, attending a bull fight in Pamplona or out on his boat in the Gulf Stream marlin fishing. When he reached his stop time at Noon, he stopped.
Hemingway didn’t keep going to finish his sentence, paragraph or chapter because he knew that his subconscious mind would work on the piece while he was off doing something else. And he knew he could always “pick up the trail” right where he left it. He understood that a thought you are only working on doesn’t vanish into the vapor, it only has a chance to get even better.
No Writer’s Block for Experts
If you are truly a subject matter expert with an important book buried inside, you should never suffer from “writer’s block.”
You should always have something to write about it, including pushing the envelope in terms of how people have thought about your topic previously. Go find, read and interview the progressives in your field. Return to the pioneers and re-cast their primal thinking in current terms.
I was helping Keno Vigil in early 2018 with his debut book on the career advantages of having your company acquired. In Keno’s thinking, M&A was not a death knell to your career, but a disruptive force shifting the immovable barriers of status quo, and helping valued performers break through to a new role on the other side of the buyout.
The problem was very few M&A books had been written since the mid 1990’s. No one was incorporating the transformative cultural thinking of Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence (1995), Seth Godin’s Linchpin (2010) Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In (2013), or Malcolm Gladwell books like The Tipping Point (2000), Blink (2005) or Outliers (2008).
My point here is there is always more to research on a topic, more YouTube clips or more influencers and practitioners to survey and interview, if you ever get stuck.
If anything, a subject matter expert author will have too much material, will over-write and have to spend more effort on editorial focus, and pruning less-compelling prose.
Communicate Intent with Family, Friends and Co-Workers
With over a decade coaching first-time business authors, or editing and ghostwriting their debut books, I find that many of them have not made their book-creation intent a matter of public record. It’s still a private aspiration.
We are social creatures, so we feel guilty spending ten hours a week in complete solitude (my RX for you). Writing ten hours a week over three months will give you a 120-page first draft manuscript, by my calculation.
The critical issue is communicating your intent to spouses, children, friends and co-workers. You might also miss out on that golf junket to Scotland or a standing Saturday morning golf game.
I’m a huge fan of English Premier League football and regular American SEC football, plus NFL games on Sundays. But I became a cord cutter and now have at least 16 hours on the weekend free for writing if I need it, because I don’t have the tube on for sports or political talk shows. I’m a sixty-year-old author, an empty nester and realistically, my time is running out so I devote my calendar to endless two-hour writing blocks.
The Vacation Hack
I once heard a presentation in North Carolina from the founders of Ganymede Software. They four founders all worked at IBM in the Research Triangle Park. In order to get their new software company off the ground, the four executives all took the same vacation week and rented a beach house. IBM was big enough and didn’t miss them, and that week each year was an invaluable planning session for the year ahead.
A seven-day week has 168 hours in it. You can spend that any way you want to, including sleeping and eating and watching Netflix. But what if you took a one-week “staycation” (costs you nothing extra), and spent five hours per day (9am — 2pm) on your book? That would mean you could produce, at a healthy grind, 10 pages per day, and a total of 60 pages over a six-day period. You could knock out half your first draft manuscript. Take that last day off as a reward
Chunk Thinking for Chapters
The secret is thinking of your topics as modular “chunks” that fit into an overall flow and narrative structure that will guide the reader along.
Here are some of the chapter topics we tackled for Keno’s M&A Book:
1. M&A statistics/prevalence/likelihood it will eventually happen to you.
2. Assessing Your Survival Chances Under New Owners
3. Am I in a vulnerable spot, and redundant, likely to be fired?
4. Or, am in a valuable spot and essential to the new owners?
5. What do I tell my spouse, who’s probably worried?
6. How do I deal with my old boss, who might still be around?
7. How should I relate with my new bosses and co-workers?
8. Dealing with direct reports, subordinates and valued contractors
9. Dealing with customers, suppliers and key partners
10. What if the new owners want to transfer/relocate me?
11. When should I update my resume or plan to leave?
12. How can I make myself less vulnerable and more valuable next time?
So, there you have a dozen topics (we had 30 altogether). Each topic was either an obvious part of an M&A event, or it was a unique perspective that Keno had as a veteran of six buyouts in a twenty-year career.
If you can come up with your compelling chapter topics, half the battle is won. You just have to write and tease out the topic.
One of the most enjoyable books I ghost-wrote was Troy Knauss’ Get In, Get Out: 100 Rules for Start- Up Deals (2012), a venture guide for angel investors. Even thought I am not an accredited angel investor, I happen to be a subject matter expert on that topic based on six years coaching and partially funding start-ups. At the very least I can navigate the “shallow end of the pool.”
I could turn to Troy when I got on a subject that was beyond my knowledge and articulation. We devoted a two-page spread to each investing “rule” with a small “key takeaway” excerpt for each spread. My production unit as a writer was a two-page chapter (100 of them). We had a loose structure for organizing the rules, so each chapter got to stand on its own. I didn’t have to worry so much about narrative flow.
A final piece of guidance. Don’t close this blog/chapter until you have come up with your six-month timeline/window for writing your first book. Commit now and get started.
Note: This is a chapter from the forthcoming book:“Big Splash: Creating Your First Business Book” (November, 2018)
Photo Credit Mario Verch, 100 meter sprinters, London, UK
