How does it work?
a BOOK IN TWENTY HOURS
If you can spare 20 hours, we can write a book together that will help your readers and change your life…
You’re busy, otherwise you’d write your book yourself. But anyone can invest 20 hours in what is, ultimately, a tool that will raise your profile, build trust with others, and generate business leads, speaking opportunities, or other benefits.
The process can be spread over a few weeks, or it can take place in three intense days. This usually happens remotely, but could also be face to face, geography permitting.
Here’s how it works…
-
We talk about what you want to achieve with your book: who you want to read it, how it will help them, and why you’re the person to help them.
-
We figure out the high-level contents and break them down into rough chapters.
-
We add detail and structure to the chapters.
-
We work through each chapter in detail, and the transcripts of our conversations give me the material to write the book.
That’s it for you! Then you go back to doing what really matters while I write a sample chapter and then, once you’re happy, the whole book. Then it’s on to the revisions process, where we work through the book together, throwing out whatever doesn’t sound right, and making changes and additions until you’re happy.
The interview process
The process is simple – but that doesn’t mean you get a free ride. I can bring the writing but you have to show up with the content. But we share that content in the most natural way: by having a relaxed conversation that I record so I don’t have to take notes and can listen closely to everything you say.
-
We start by talking about what you want to achieve with your book.
Do you want to drive business or generate leads? Do you want to establish yourself as an authority? Do you want to get on the speaking circuit? Do you want to kickstart a new phase of your career. Or do you just want to record your own story for your clients, your family … or yourself?
We think about who you want to read the book and how you think it will help them. (And really, no-one will read it if it won’t help them.)
-
Now we can move on to the content. What do you have to say? Do you even realize the full extent of your expertise? Some authors are very clear about what they want to say, which is great; with others, we have a great discussion where we explore possible directions and sometimes come up with something a bit surprising.
-
We talk about the kind of high-level ideas the book will include. We think about how we can organize them and what order they’ll appear in until we have a simple list of chapters.
Then we work through the contents, discussing each chapter and what it might contain. This gives us a script for the content part of the process.
-
We work through the chapters one by one, following the script. We might talk weekly, or more or less often, depending on what suits you. I record everything we say, then I go away and write down what you said, using a combination of your words and my writing.
-
You read it and think, ‘Wow. That sounds really good. I wish I could write like that.’
The whole point is that you just did. That’s what ghostwriting is all about.
It sounds like you – only more so.