Ever Wanted to Write your own Book?
Chelsey Brooke Cole is a psychotherapist in Nashville, Tennessee and the best-selling author of If Only I’d Known! How to Outsmart Narcissists, Set Guilt-Free Boundaries, and Create Unshakeable Self-Worth.
With nearly a decade of clinical experience, Chelsey wanted to turn her knowledge & expertise into her first book.
In her words: “Writing a book can feel so overwhelming! Fortunately, it’s not as difficult as you might think.”
Anyone can write a book with the right tools, mindset and structures in place.
For Chelsey, some of those included:
Creating daily time-blocks for brainstorming, researching, and writing
Setting daily/weekly word count goals (her goal was 1,000-2,000 words every day, “knowing that the average self-help book is about 50,000-60,000 words total”, giving her 1-2 months to complete her first draft)
Setting a first draft deadline
Remembering the phrase “Don’t edit yourself!” (being as wordy as you’d like at the start, knowing that you’ll have several rounds of cropping and editing)
Finding “an editor that you vibe with (and with general subject-matter and genre experience) is key!”
Identifying your target reader and the writing voice/ style that they will need to best understand your book content
Chelsey has seen a lot of value come out of the authorship and publication process, from personal brand awareness to passive income generation.
Additionally, “Being an author is one of the best ways to position yourself as an expert in your field! When people see you’ve written a book on a niche topic, they immediately know you ‘get it’!”
But before starting, knowing your overarching goal is important - both for guidance and measuring success. Chelsey used these 4 questions as personal guardrails throughout her writing process:
Why are you writing this book?
Who are you writing this book for?
What would a successful launch look like?
What do you want your book to do for you (i.e., attract clients, lead to speaking gigs, etc.)?
We ended our conversation with the question: what do you wish you knew then that you know now about authoring a book?
Chelsey shared, “It might sound obvious, but there are a lot of steps to writing a book, especially if you’re self-publishing (which I did and highly recommend!). Although it didn’t take me an inordinate amount of time from brainstorming to publishing (about a year), I underestimated the amount of research that would go into navigating the dos and don’ts of self-publishing.”
Her final recommendation: “Give yourself at least 2-3 months to understand the pros and cons of each publishing route. Once you know which is better for you, it’s much easier to make decisions for your book (like whether you need a literary agent, want to record an audiobook, etc.).”
Some of the top resources Chelsey likes to point all new book writers to take advantage of include:
Happy writing! :)
