How to write your own book, have you had any experience?

A friend of mine wrote his autobiography. He paid for fifty hardback copies to be printed .He gave one each to his children. With a very small extended family he sold just two. No one else was interested. So Aveline is correct…who is his market?

When writing a book think who it's for. Who would be interested in buying your book? If it's a family biography then presumably family members might want a copy but might not want to pay for it.
I wrote to be read and carefully angled my books towards likely readers rather than just for my own enjoyment. Bookselling is a business and a pretty cut throat one at that.

Another off shoot was that the art school I attended, many years ago, and use as a model in my first book, was organising a collection of memories. The librarian in the library of that city, who had my book, sent my details to the university and I have been recruited for that also. One never knows where this writing lark will take you.
I hope your DH has many, many happy hours blueblossom…and that is reward to itself.

FamilyLegacyHQ

The easiest way to write a book is to record your stories on your phone. We speak much more quickly than we write and we tend to be less formal and more engaging. That conversational tone is actually a goal for many great authors! Once you have the spoken audio can do amazing things with it using modern technology. Many years ago I recorded three casual conversations with my mother. 16 years later after she had passed I found them and thought maybe I could do something with them. I ran them through AI and was amazed at the results. When I read her stories it was her voice relating them to me. I put them into a book and made copies for the entire family using lulu.com. I was so impressed I put the whole system into a book on Amazon. Prompts I used with AI are freely available at familylegacyhq.com - just an idea if you think this system might work for you. Holding your own book is a great feeling and quite an accomplishment. My first book was published by McGraw-Hill.
All best wishes.

May I ask how much of her original way of speaking has been retained in the book? I’d be particularly interested to know this, especially regarding the recordings of your mother. In any case, I’m really looking forward to hearing her voice again after 16 years and turning it into a book. If I can give you a tip… I’d leave her distinctive storytelling style in as much as possible.

The voice recordings might be something for my husband as well. That’s because he sometimes comes up with scenes whilst thinking about something else. I’m thinking of just speaking briefly into his mobile whilst the scene is still fresh in his mind. Whole chapters written by AI? He wouldn’t want that. As I mentioned, he’s still tinkering quite a bit with his characters at the moment.

OldBookshelf

@blueblossom I think your husband has the right idea. Finishing the story should come first, especially if he's enjoying the writing itself. As JamesandJon33 has shown us, you never quite know where that might lead!

As for your question, from what I've gathered through my acquaintances in the book trade, the publishing route does make a difference within the industry. Booksellers and people working with books naturally tend to notice publishers, distribution and presentation. For ordinary readers, though, I suspect it's rather different. Most people probably care more about whether a book interests them than whether it was traditionally published, self-published or produced with the help of a publishing service. Of course, a professionally edited and well-presented book has a better chance of making a good impression, regardless of how it was published. And getting noticed in the first place is perhaps the greatest challenge for an unknown author.

These days, social media can certainly help an unknown author reach a surprisingly large number of readers. But there's a catch, of course. You need to have built up that audience in the first place, which is no small task. Having the right contacts can also open quite a few doors. If you have neither an established audience nor useful connections, then I think marketing really is the key. After all, even the most wonderful book won't find many readers if nobody knows it exists.

Well, to be honest, marketing hasn’t really been a priority for us so far. He’s now writing his novel regularly, but who’s actually going to read it later on and how people will find out about it is another matter entirely. Knowing him as I do, I find it hard to imagine him setting up a social media channel just for that. At the moment, at least, he’d rather spend his free time working on the manuscript.

But when it comes to publishers, I’m now also interested in what happens after the book is published. I’ve also read about support at book fairs – something I hadn’t even considered before. The whole bookshop aspect interests me even more, though. In the case of JamesandJon33, the publicist actually went straight to the shop that features in his novel. And she managed to organise a window display and a reading there.

butterandjam

My hairdresser showed me his "autobiography".

It was written by AI, as a birthday surprise from his wife. She provided as much of his life-history information and stories as she could secretly garner from family and friends, their life together and photographs. AI did the rest ( amazingly convincing!)

It's a normal size paperback , with chapter headings etc and a hilarious AI portrait of him on the cover .

So his wife secretly collected stories and photos from the whole family for it. I find that almost more interesting than the book itself. Did the hairdresser recognise everything whilst reading it? Because with AI, things sometimes get added that never actually happened.

In any case, I see things differently when it comes to my husband’s novel. I can see that he’s currently putting a lot of work into his characters. Just letting a programme write the dialogue – that wouldn’t really be his style. He might sort through all his notes using AI at some point, though – that’s certainly possible.

The easiest way to write a book is to record your stories on your phone. We speak much more quickly than we write and we tend to be less formal and more engaging. That conversational tone is actually a goal for many great authors! Once you have the spoken audio can do amazing things with it using modern technology. Many years ago I recorded three casual conversations with my mother. 16 years later after she had passed I found them and thought maybe I could do something with them. I ran them through AI and was amazed at the results. When I read her stories it was her voice relating them to me. I put them into a book and made copies for the entire family using lulu.com. I was so impressed I put the whole system into a book on Amazon. Prompts I used with AI are freely available at familylegacyhq.com - just an idea if you think this system might work for you. Holding your own book is a great feeling and quite an accomplishment. My first book was published by McGraw-Hill.
All best wishes.

@butterandjam What a wonderful and rather unusual birthday present! I must admit, as a former German teacher, I have mixed feelings about AI writing entire books, but for something like this I can certainly see the appeal. Especially when so much personal information and so many family memories have gone into it.

I do wonder how much of the finished story was actually based on the information his wife provided and how much the AI simply invented to fill in the gaps. Still, I imagine your hairdresser must have been quite surprised!

@blueblossom I think your husband has the right idea. Finishing the story should come first, especially if he's enjoying the writing itself. As JamesandJon33 has shown us, you never quite know where that might lead!

As for your question, from what I've gathered through my acquaintances in the book trade, the publishing route does make a difference within the industry. Booksellers and people working with books naturally tend to notice publishers, distribution and presentation. For ordinary readers, though, I suspect it's rather different. Most people probably care more about whether a book interests them than whether it was traditionally published, self-published or produced with the help of a publishing service. Of course, a professionally edited and well-presented book has a better chance of making a good impression, regardless of how it was published. And getting noticed in the first place is perhaps the greatest challenge for an unknown author.

These days, social media can certainly help an unknown author reach a surprisingly large number of readers. But there's a catch, of course. You need to have built up that audience in the first place, which is no small task. Having the right contacts can also open quite a few doors. If you have neither an established audience nor useful connections, then I think marketing really is the key. After all, even the most wonderful book won't find many readers if nobody knows it exists.

My hairdresser showed me his "autobiography".

It was written by AI, as a birthday surprise from his wife. She provided as much of his life-history information and stories as she could secretly garner from family and friends, their life together and photographs. AI did the rest ( amazingly convincing!)

It's a normal size paperback , with chapter headings etc and a hilarious AI portrait of him on the cover .

blueblossom After publication, with book I hand. A marvellous reception from the book shop owner also.

@OldBookshelf At the moment, for my husband it is actually first of all about writing the story to the end at all. What comes of it afterward is still pretty open. Making money with it would certainly be nice, but that's not why he started writing.

With your acquaintances from the book trade, however, I got stuck. Do they actually also notice books by less well-known authors that didn't come out through a traditional publisher? I would be interested in whether in everyday life one notices there at all via which path a book was published.

@JamesandJon33 That out of the first book in the binder four have meanwhile become, I really wouldn't have guessed after your first post here. Especially because your original goal, after all, was just the one own book on the shelf. Apparently the whole thing can take on a life of its own quite a bit while writing.

Now I also understand better what you meant by the work of your publicist. Simply going into exactly the bookshop that plays a role in your story and explaining the connection there is already very concrete. At a window display and a reading as a result, I wouldn't have arrived there. Did this contact actually arise only after publication or already beforehand?

Thing is you get caught up in it all. I started in lock down never have’n written before.. My ambition, just to have my book on my book shelf. I loved the writing so much , it very nearly took all of my day. Book one finished, I just printed it out, punched holes in the pages and put it in a folder. But I missed the writing and my characters…so book two . Number three is soon to be publish and I am ,possibly, half way through number four. Love it. Love it. ❤️❤️❤️

blueblossom

@OldBookshelf That's about how my husband imagines it by now as well. The beginning and end he probably knows quite well already, in between there are individual scenes that are pretty concrete, but just not a finished path from one to the next yet.

Your acquaintances from the book trade came back to mind there, too. Do they actually get to see manuscripts from people more often before a book comes out of it? Not necessarily already as editors, rather simply as readers who had nothing to do with the story beforehand.

That sounds like a good starting point for your husband. If he already knows the beginning, the ending and several important scenes in between, he has quite a bit to work with.

As for my acquaintances in the book trade, yes, some have had the opportunity to read manuscripts before publication, although not necessarily in an official editorial capacity. I think having someone read a manuscript without knowing the story beforehand can be extremely valuable. As Gwylllt pointed out, a fresh pair of eyes often notices things the author has become blind to. And I agree with your concern about friends and family perhaps being a little too kind in their feedback.

Something else that has come up several times in this discussion is what happens once the manuscript is finished. Knitter43's experience with self-publishing is encouraging, although, as JamesandJon33 mentioned, promoting a book can involve quite a bit of work.

From what I've heard, getting accepted by a traditional publisher can be rather difficult for an unknown author. Self-publishing is certainly one option, but it also means taking responsibility for much of the process yourself. There are also service publishers, such as the novum Verlag for example, which offer professional support with editing, design, publication and distribution. Unlike traditional publishers, however, they require authors to contribute financially, so it's important to look carefully at the costs and services involved.

I suppose it ultimately depends on what your husband hopes to achieve. Does he mainly want to see his story published, or would he also like to reach a wider readership and perhaps earn something from it?

@Maremia @Aveline @eazybee @JamesandJon33 @fancyflowers @Roddi3363 @Applegran @AuntieE

I think the different experiences shared here show quite nicely that there really isn't one right way to approach writing a book. Some people seem to work best with a clear structure from the beginning, while others prefer to let the story develop as they go along. I suppose it's largely a matter of personality and writing style, and perhaps the genre plays a part too. What works wonderfully for one person might not work at all for another. In the end, the important thing is finding an approach that keeps you writing.

Gwyllt

The comment get someone else to read it. Not just read through but proof read. Not the same thing but I used to type reports for husband then proof read. Had to give up in the end and get a typist. Because if you have typed you are familiar with the script and miss mistakes my proof reading skills improved tremendously when I stopped typing
Hope your husband gets his head round it and enjoyed the journey

I completely agree with you, Gwylllt. Having someone else read through a manuscript is incredibly important. As a former German teacher, I know how easy it is to overlook mistakes in a text you've been working on for a long time. You know what you meant to write, so your brain sometimes reads what should be there rather than what actually is. And of course, a fresh pair of eyes can spot not only spelling mistakes but also inconsistencies or passages that aren't quite clear to the reader.

blueblossom. Libraries a good in as much as they promote your book. They often have talks and if you are local, or write about a locality will do a display of your books. Anything to bring them to the public’s attention.
Newspapers etc are the same. Must have local interest. My publicist did this at one particular place. I write about a bookshop. This , in my head, was one particular shop I had known for years. She went into the shop and explained the connection. Result …a window display…a talk and books sold

JamesandJon33

blueblossom Most from me. I contacted local libraries, book shops etc. That was quite good. Word of mouth spread locally and I was asked to do WI, u3a and similar. There a very significant geographical areas in my books , So my publicist
contacted them. All in all, unless you have an agent to do this for you , you have to do at these a good part of it yourself.
NanKate gave me some very good advice also.

About libraries, I wouldn't have thought of them at all when it comes to marketing, to be honest. With invitations from WI and u3a, I would have expected it even less, of all things.

What did your publicist actually do specifically at the locations from the novels? Did he search for contacts there himself?

@OldBookshelf That's about how my husband imagines it by now as well. The beginning and end he probably knows quite well already, in between there are individual scenes that are pretty concrete, but just not a finished path from one to the next yet.

Your acquaintances from the book trade came back to mind there, too. Do they actually get to see manuscripts from people more often before a book comes out of it? Not necessarily already as editors, rather simply as readers who had nothing to do with the story beforehand.

@NanKate The idea with the writing group is new to us. To be honest, I wouldn't have seen my husband with his first novel as a typical candidate for such a group yet at all. Are there also ones explicitly for beginners?

20 years is also a long time, though. Especially when writing can be so stressful in between. Did your son actually get to know other authors over time through that?

@BoadiceaJones That out of sorting old family papers six books came about at some point, I really wouldn't have expected. Especially with the emigration lists, I wouldn't have thought to search there at all. With this research work, I had to think of my husband a bit.

How did you deal with the gaps for which there were no sources left whatsoever? With conversations, I imagine that to be particularly difficult.

blueblossom Most from me. I contacted local libraries, book shops etc. That was quite good. Word of mouth spread locally and I was asked to do WI, u3a and similar. There a very significant geographical areas in my books , So my publicist
contacted them. All in all, unless you have an agent to do this for you , you have to do at these a good part of it yourself.
NanKate gave me some very good advice also.

@fancyflowers Living Writer I didn't know at all yet either. Especially that thing with the characters could be practical for my husband when more and more details are added bit by bit while writing. Do you only keep track of people and the plot there, or do you also write the actual novel directly on the platform?

That you paid someone for the technical side of publishing with the first book I also find interesting. Back then, was that only for the uploading and formatting, or did the person also take care of things like the cover and book typesetting?

@JamesandJon33 Three published novels and still three boxes of notes I find interesting. I had imagined unplanned writing much more chaotic. With you, the plot seems to emerge freely, while you keep track of dates, places, and connections pretty precisely. That could suit my husband better than a finished chapter outline.

About the time after publication, we have barely spoken so far. Readings I could still imagine, constantly advertising the book myself rather less. How was that with your three books? In terms of marketing, did something come from the publisher, or was most of it on you?