My Tips for Writing a Book

I’ve been writing a book on my pregnancy and now I’m in the final stages of editing it so that I can get it ready to publish. It’s been a lot of hard work especially since Felix was born but ultimately I had to wait until he had been born to share that final part of the story.

I’m writing about having a high risk pregnancy because of my BMI and after doing some research found lots of other women felt guilty and that they were forced into making decisions they didn’t fully want to commit to. This lead me to writing a book on how BMI really affects pregnancy and the fact that just because you are high risk does not mean your maternal rights are relinquished to the powers that be.

7 Tips For Writing a Book

Writing a book about this experience has involved a lot of time, research, edits, tears and doing this all the time whilst pregnant and having a newborn baby. Most of the work was done pre baby but there’s still a lot to do before I’m ready to publish. However I wanted to share some top tips on things for those that also want to write a book and I hope that these help you.

1. Set yourself a publishing deadline. This will make you work for it. I have mine set for 30th November as I felt that was enough time to research, write and edit. I knew I would have to finalise my book with a newborn and that pushed me to getting most of the work done before he was here.
2.  Do your research and make sure your sources are credible if you’re writing non fiction. I’ve made it very clear in my book that it’s all about sharing my own personal experience having a high risk pregnancy. The book is more about the importance of I individualised care and I in no way recommend any medical procedure as I am not qualified to do so. I do however reinforce the fact that women have rights and can accept or decline any decision based on informed consent and discussion.
3.  Set yourself a daily word count. This will ensure that the content gets done and the hard work can be done during editing.
4.  Edit a chapter at a time. I found editing a whole book a bit intimidating and overwhelming so I am going through a chapter at a time, sometimes a couple in one day but making sure I take breaks away from the words so that I’m editing in the best way possible.
5.  Get a proof reader. This is next on my to do list and I’m hoping to have a couple of people proof read what I have to help me further the editing process.
6.  Print and read. Before I do my final draft ready for publishing I will be printing and reading the book myself so that I know it makes sense. I always find its easier to spot mistakes on paper than on the screen although I intend to only make a ebook and kindle version of my book. I still want it to be right.
7. Next up I need to learn all I can about self publishing so that I can officially launch and hopefully at least one person will buy it! I’m excited about being an author even if it’s in a different direction than I ever thought but still, an author all the same, it’s a bit of a dream come true really!