One of my memoir students recently asked me what she needed to do to get her story to the point when was ready to be printed. I thought I’d share my answer with you too.
This month our theme is ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ (feel free to share 100 words about that subject with me by the way) and often for a writer, the completion of their story is that shimmering light in the far off distance.
Hopefully this list of steps will tell you where you’re at in that process. Twenty five books in I’m still learning, but here’s my take on what you need to do before your text is ready to be turned into a book.
- Write your first story draft (she said breezily).
- Go back over your draft and check if you need to rearrange the structure of your story – is everything where you want it to be?
- Insert any notes about where you want photos throughout your text. Check your spelling, especially of names.
- Go back over your story, edit it and rework it so it’s as polished as you can get it. Check for the usual spelling and punctuation mistakes but also try to get your message across in the least amount of words – check for repetition.
- Put it down for a week or two.
- Print it out and read over it one more time, word for word, with a fresh perspective.
- Ask at least one more person to look over it (we can proof read it for you if you want professional support). Ask them to keep a look out for any potentially embarrassing mistakes, but also for anything else they think you might need to be aware of, such as repetition, lack of clarity, and readability.
- Very carefully incorporate their changes, taking care not to add more mistakes.
- Write your introduction and back cover blurb – applying the same process – check them very carefully.
- Settle on the name of your book.
Congratulations, you are now ready to either send your text to a book designer (we can help with that), or, if you’re going to do this on a shoe string budget, to pop your photos (not too many) into your word document and either print out it at your local print shop, or (and this is 100% free) just share the file digitally.
Whew! It’s a bit of a process isn’t it? I think one of my life lessons is ‘one step at a time’ because towards the end of each book I get all excited and need to reign myself in and be patient. Luckily my book designer Britta is fantastic at patiently wrangling the final details into a beautiful book.
I hope this helps you on your book journey,
Charlotte x
PS email me if you’d like help with your book – charlottesquirecoms@gmail.com
