Tilt Publishing Authors Share 13 Lessons Learned in the Book Writing Process

Writing a quality nonfiction book doesn’t involve asking ChatGPT to turn your thoughts and notes into a tome. Writing a book that attracts an audience to buy it and prospective clients to be impressed by it requires the work of a human. 

To help you do just that, we asked some of the authors who produced their books through Tilt Publishing to share their tips, lessons, and surprises discovered in the process:

1. Do it. Don’t wait. Everyone has a topic they want the world to understand, and it is so very validating to prove to yourself that the idea has merit. – Jenny Magic, Change Fatigue: Flip Teams From Burnout to Buy-In

2. Commit to writing in small/manageable chunks of time. The first words/drafts might be rubbish. It doesn’t matter. You’ll find your groove and your voice by writing. As William Zinsser says, we write to learn. – Alexandra Howson, WriteCME Roadmap: How to Thrive in Continuing Medical Education with No Experience, No Network, and No Clue

3. Have an outline to start. – Pam Didner, The Modern AI Marketer in the GPT Era: How to Get Ahead with AI and Advance Your Digital Marketing Skills

4. Remember that you don’t know what the book will become, even if you have an outline. Don’t fall into the trap of editing for quality until you know that part of the manuscript will even survive all the cuts you’ll make. I wasted months editing bits and pieces before I had clarity on what the book needed to be. Write for that discovery first. Edit for quality second. – Austin L. Church, Free Money: Nine Counterintuitive Moves for Life-Changing Freelance Income

5. The biggest thing I found is that writing a book is simply about “time in the lab.” Even when I didn’t feel like writing, I knew that if I sat down in front of my computer and started working, I would be “good.” So, for me, it was just a matter of getting started. Flow state follows the action of starting; make it about the daily action of working on the manuscript, even for 10 minutes, if that’s all you have. – Michael Becker, Content Capitalist: How to Create a Content Business so Exclusive Customers Beg to Buy (and Never Want to Leave) 

6. Start earlier than you think you need to. – Brian Piper, Epic Content Marketing for Higher Education: How to Connect with Students, Alumni, Faculty, Staff, and Others to Build Trust and Reach Your Institutional Goals

7. Anyone can do this. I feel like a lot of people don’t have confidence in themselves to write a book, or they don’t know what to write about. Everyone is a subject matter expert in something. You just have to find your “zone of genius” and begin thinking about how a book could complement your overall personal brand or business strategy. I would not recommend using a ghostwriter if you’re SERIOUS about this. It has to come from you.  – Michael Becker

8. There’s a difference between the book you want to write and the book people will want to read. Ultimately, you have to decide which of those books is more important to you and write that one. – Austin L. Church

9. Leave more time for editing at the end. – Brian Piper 

10. Imagine the difference your book can make in people’s lives. Imagine how it can change readers and make their lives better. Let that vision of the difference it can make for them pull you forward.
    

    Let love for your readers pull you forward instead of letting the need to prove you’re smart or even “share your message” drive you. Is it about you or about them? Staying connected to my belief that my book could really help freelancers and consultants helped to get me out of a funk of insecurity, perfectionism, and procrastination and keep grinding away at a book I knew was imperfect, a book that would always be imperfect. Writing a book feels vulnerable, and it’s easy to keep polishing a single piece or chapter instead of writing a new piece or chapter. It’s easier to finish a book if you’re convinced that real people need it. Love those people, and let that love pull you forward. – Austin L. Church

11. Hire a trusted outsider for developmental editing. This is the part where whole chapters move around, and major themes get reworked. This is very hard to do on your own. You’re just too close to the material. You will waste months (years, in my case!) thinking about a book and getting stuck in this phase. – Jenny Magic

12. Get help for the tactical elements. The hardest part is not the writing or the marketing; it’s the distribution. Retailers vs. direct sales, digital formats and audiobooks, pricing, etc.  We self-published the book in 2023 before The Tilt picked up our republishing effort in 2024, and the before/after is dramatic. Get help for the tactical part! – Jenny Magic

13. Just keep writing until you are done. – Pam Didner

The post Tilt Publishing Authors Share 13 Lessons Learned in the Book Writing Process appeared first on The Tilt Publishing.