Have you been thinking it will take forever to write a book?

I’ve been putting finishing touches on my book proposal workbook—the guide and worksheets that I’ve prepared for my upcoming program: Fast Track Your Book Proposal  and I’ve been struck by a number of things. One of them is how quick it was to write this baby!

I thought it might inspire you to hear a bit about how quick it can be to write a book—especially if you’re thinking it’s going to take you a long time to write your book or book proposal.

I’d developed the worksheets a few years ago for a workshop I co-teach each year at Harvard Medical School’s publishing course. I’d also put some notes around the worksheets earlier.

So, when I decided I wanted to turn it into a book, I added a few elements to make it especially useful:

• My best strategies for each section of the proposal
• The most common mistakes for each section—and how to avoid them
• A section on “What are they thinking?” —in essence, what’s going on in the acquisition editor’s or agent’s mind when they read this section of the book proposal. What are they looking for?

The structure I had already developed, the worksheets for people to fill out, plus the additional elements that made the book most useful, all made the writing easy peasy.

The takeaway? When you are an expert on your subject, with a strong outline for your book and well organized features, it can be fairly easy—and quick—to write the book. I’d put off this project for years thinking it would be a bear and I could not have been more wrong. Now, if your book requires lots of research, my model may not fit for you. But the book relies upon the knowledge, stories and examples already in your head, writing your book could be way easier than you think.

And, I should add, this is not a fluffy book. It’s chockablock with valuable information in a super-easy-to-use format. In fact, I’m so excited about this book, I plan to add a bit more to it this summer and get it published!

My invitation to you?

• If you have a course or program you teach, consider turning your handouts and class notes into a book.
• Write a solid outline (if you need help, check out my Quick Start to Kick Start Your Book)
• See if you can turn the material, such as exercises and questions, you normally teach into workbook exercises.
• Come up with some super-useful features as consistent add-ons to each chapter.
• Set aside specific dates and times to do the writing—and keep those times sacred.
• Do it.

And, by the way, if you are working on a book proposal—or you’ve always wanted to, then do look into my new program, Fast Track Your Book Proposal. You can get started right away on a great proposal—and have me guide you step by step to success.

Following up on this post, you can read more about how I tricked myself into writing a book and read about all the benefits of this particular process.