This week’s episode is part of a series of replays while I’m on vacation (or “holiday,” as they say in Europe!). Rita and I pulled together some of our favorites—and yours—to share while I’m away. With over 250 episodes to choose from, there’s a good chance you haven’t heard this one, and if you have, maybe it’s just the reminder you need this week. Enjoy, and I’ll be back with you before you know it!
Writing a book as an entrepreneur isn’t just about authorship—it’s about amplifying your vision, expanding your reach, and building your business. In this episode, I walk you through my proven step-by-step system—used by 100+ successful authors—for writing a nonfiction book that aligns with your entrepreneurial goals.
You’ll learn:
- How to clarify your author vision and align it with your business strategy
- What goes into creating a powerful book concept and outline
- How to calendar your writing time for consistent, productive output
- Why editing is a team effort (and what kind of editor you really need)
- How to choose between self, hybrid, or traditional publishing
- The marketing strategies that turn your book into a long-term growth asset
If you’re ready to add “author” to your title and scale your brand with purpose, this episode is your roadmap.
Watch the full YouTube video here.
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Step by step guide to writing a book for entrepreneurs | Replay Episode 266 Transcript
These transcripts were generated by robots, not writers.
Stacy: Hello and welcome. As you are listening to my voice right now, I am on vacation or as they say in Europe, holiday. And so I am taking some time away. But of course I didn’t want to leave you hanging. So what Rita the producer and I have done is we’ve put together some of our favorites and your favorites as replays. Now, I have done over 250 episodes, so surely there are episodes of the podcast you haven’t heard. And even if you have heard it, maybe this will be exactly the refresher or reminder that you need this week. So with that, I’ll turn this over to our replay and I will be back with you after my holiday.
Stacy: If you’re an entrepreneur, you probably know that writing a book is one of the most important things you can do to grow your business and your brand. And yet a lot of entrepreneurs get this process wrong. They tend to think that they can write any book on their topic and that will contribute to their business growth. But the truth is you need to clarify and write a book that aligns with your big vision. The good news is you’re an entrepreneur, so you’re probably already good at setting a vision and creating a strategy.
Stacy: We’re going to talk about how that fits in the world of book writing. In this video, I’m going to walk you through the exact process that I use to help founders, thought leaders and experts write books that help them achieve their big vision. So if you have ever thought I want to write a book but I don’t know where to start, or I I wanna write a book to grow my business or brand, but I don’t know how. Well, you’re in exactly the right place and we’re gonna talk through six steps to help you get from where you are today to published author status. But before we jump in, be sure to hit that like button. Subscribe to this channel so you can get even more content to help you achieve your author and business dreams. First is step one, Clarify your vision.
Stacy: Now, as I mentioned, you are an entrepreneur, which means you’re probably really good at creating a vision. And yet so few of us take the time to really get crystal clear on what our vision is on a regular basis. Because the thing is, we are humans, we’re dynamic, we change. And so that vision may change as well. Personally, I like to set aside time every single year to get crystal clear on my vision, to reconsider things that I thought I wanted to achieve but have maybe shifted. And in this case, you need to get really crystal clear about your author vision. You also need to understand where you are today and where you want to go in the future as a business owner, as a brand. So taking the time to get super crystal clear about that is very important.
Stacy: Now, in the description of this video, I have included a link to my life visioning guide. This is something that I use with my clients and it is so helpful to help you get clear on your vision. And once you have that vision clarified, you can use it as anchor as you build your book. Next is step two, which is to create your book concept and your outline. Your book concept is a high level document that captures your book at a bird’s eye view and your outline is a detailed roadmap that helps you write the book. It’s the map that you follow as you are writing. Now. The book concept should include a number of elements. Those include your core message, your book overview, your one reader that’s representative of your larger reader groups. Often this includes secondary and tertiary readers as well.
Stacy: It should also include any important considerations such as jargon you want to avoid or research you want to include, or a tone that’s really important to you while writing the book. Your chapter outline should include your high level chapter descriptions which are generally pretty short. Short, anywhere from a few sentences to a couple paragraphs and then a detailed outline that walks through the detail that you plan to write in that chapter. Now my clients, my coaching clients generally create outlines that are somewhere in the range of 15 to 30 pages, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more. The length of this and the detail really depends on you as a writer and the complexity of your book.
Stacy: Many of my clients will spend about one to one and a half months on this as well, which is which might surprise you because maybe you’re thinking, wow, this seems like a lot of time to plan. And actually it’s not really because you are doing so much of the heavy lifting during this period that it saves you a ton of time while you’re writing. And it also ensures that you are writing a book that is a true catalyst. It’s that book that will help you get from where you are today to where you want to go in your business, your brand, and your impact. So step three is to calendar some writing time and write your book. I know, obvious you do have to write the book, so that’s kind of the point of this video.
Stacy: But it is a step in this process, and it’s a very important step. I like to remind my clients that nothing else can happen without the first draft. It is the minimum viable product in your author journey. You have to get that draft done. To get that draft done, you need to make sure that you have protected time to write the draft. So that’s why I recommend you calendar time. You put it on your calendar, you protect that like a mama bear, and you show up for that writing time that you have blocked and that you show up for yourself, really. And it’s such a crucial thing to be consistent, because neuroscientific research shows that when you’re consistent, your brain recognizes this pattern of consistency, whether it’s good or bad, in this case, good.
Stacy: And it starts to form new neural pathways that help you get into that thing faster. So in this case, into writing flow. The great thing about this is that in the first week, you might find that you’re spending, you know, a week trying to get 500 words down, but five weeks later, you’re sitting down and writing 1500 words in one writing session. It is that consistency that really matters. And. And it’s also what will help you achieve this big goal of writing a book. The authors that I work with spend about four months writing their drafts. Of course, this could go a little faster, a little slower, depending on the complexity of the book, how busy the author is, and a number of factors, but that’s a pretty good range.
Stacy: And generally, you can budget about two weeks per chapter if you are showing up consistently to write. Step three is to edit your book from good to great. Now, I love the editing process, and. And I think that’s because I was a book editor. I spent the first seven or eight years of my career in book editing. I have a master’s degree in writing and editing, professional editing. And so I love this stage. I think it’s such a beautiful opportunity for you to take this raw manuscript and create something that is beautiful and wonderful and that you are so proud to share. On the other side, there are four main steps to the editing process. First, we have developmental editing. This is where your editor gets her hands dirty. She gets in, she moves a lot of things around.
Stacy: Oftentimes, this is happening while you’re writing the draft while you’re developing it. Hence the name developmental editing. Next is substantive editing, often known as content editing. And this is where your editor comes in after that first draft is complete. And she is moving things around often. Sometimes she’s moving entire chapters, sometimes sections, sometimes she’s cutting things, sometimes she’s asking for more. So it’s that really hands on editing round. Next is copy editing. This is at the word level, this is that finesse at the sentence level to really make your book sing. And finally we have proofreading. And this is simply fixing typos. Generally a book will have two to three rounds of proofreading. I like to do four because it’s the final thing and I just like two before the book goes into design and two after to make sure it’s perfectly clean.
Stacy: But two proofreads is industry standard. With very few exceptions. You will need to go through substantive editing, copy editing and a couple rounds of proofreading. And this can generally take a couple few months. So anywhere from two to four months, usually in the two to three month range, depending on the status of your manuscript. So if it’s, if it needs more work, of course it’s going to take more time. And if it’s a lot cleaner, of course it will take less time. Next is step five. This is publish and launch. I could do a bunch endless videos on this stage. So I’m going to keep this very simple and high level. There are three main types of publishing. First is traditional publishing. This is what you often think of when you think of publishing a book. You find an agent.
Stacy: Well, you write a book proposal, you find an agent shops it, publisher buys it. So that is the typical process for traditional publishing. You don’t typically invest money on the outset, but publishers do expect that you will invest in the marketing. Next is self publishing. This is where you are the manager, the creator, the driver of all of the things. This is usually with support of professionals such as a self publishing project manager and other people who will support you through this process. And then the in between of that is hybrid publishing. And hybrid publishing is where you essentially hire a publisher to produce the book for you and get it to market. The idea here is that there’s a partnership where you’re investing financially. They’re also investing as well through whatever their business model dictates.
Stacy: Depending on the publishing company, they usually keep a pretty small percentage of the book royalties, whereas traditional publishers will keep a much larger percentage of the book royalties. And in self publishing you keep all of the royalties. There are so many factors to think about when it comes to your publishing pathway. There is not time to talk about all of it. Today in my course, in my program, in my coaching, we talk about this a lot. I help people think through this, but just know that there is no one correct pathway. There is no perfect range answer that is applicable to every single person. It’s very unique to you and your goals. A lot of my coaching clients will end up going the hybrid or self route simply because of the time to market.
Stacy: Because within 18 months you can get a beautifully done book to market that is produced with really high quality. You can push that to 12 months. That’s about the fastest timeframe that I recommend. But it’s important to know that you can and should start tapping into the marketing power of that book well before its launch. From the pre sale of the book all the way through the launch of the book and well beyond, which takes us to step six which is to market for long term business growth. Here’s what I want you to know. This book is a long term effort. This is a marathon, not a sprint. If you execute this well, if you clarify your vision and write a book that will help you get to that vision, this book will sustain and help you grow your business for years to come.
Stacy: This is important to know because it’s not like you just launch it and you’re like, okay, my business is growing. No, you actually have to keep showing up. You have to keep marketing it. You have to keep integrating it into your business. A lot of authors will find that they now integrate this book into their business in a really profound way, such as into coaching programs, into lead generation, and into so many other ways that they can grow their business and generate leads. And in their business, writing a book is a big undertaking, but so is being an entrepreneur. And this big undertaking truly is one of the most profound ways that you can grow your business. Not just in the short term when the book is launched, but for years and years to come.
Stacy: It truly can become a shelf stable business sustainability tool. We haven’t even dug into the ways the writing a book transformation informs you. Helps you show up more confidently, helps you uncover new frameworks, helps you clarify language. There’s so much depth there that enriches you as an entrepreneur. That’s another video. I hope this video has given you the information you need to understand this process at a high level. If you want to make this happen and you want help. I guide authors through this process step by step. I have a self study course, I have a group coaching program and I work one one with clients and I am so honored to get to do this work every day and help get entrepreneurs like you to get their books written and out in the world and growing their business and their impact.
Stacy: Thanks for being with me and I truly hope you write your book.
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