If you want to write a successful — perhaps even best-selling — business book, here’s something you may find surprising: 

Writing the book itself is about 20% of the work, possibly less. In reality there are seven phases.

1. Building your platform. 
Publishers don’t publish books from authors who don’t have anyone to sell to. Readers don’t buy books they don’t know exist. Building your platform is a long-term activity that should start years in advance ideally. I should know, I messed this up big-time early on.

2. Developing the big idea.
What new insight do you have to give, and why should people learn it from you? What makes it worthy of being a book vs a blog post, tweet, or white paper? Without a big, important idea you’re going nowhere. This can take a loooong time to crystalize.

3. Background research.
To be a trusted, credible expert you need supporting evidence. This could be primary or secondary research but it pays to be thorough, and this takes a lot of effort. 

4. Proposal writing and deal making.
The point of the proposal is to express the book in miniature. This helps you get clarity on the structure, readership and overall shape of the book which saves months of effort down the line. It is also essential to securing an agent and publisher. The proposal for the grid took me over a year and over ten iterations - time consuming!

5. Writing the book.
Line by line, chapter by chapter until it’s done. This will be much easier than you think having done 2,3 and 4.

6. Editing and production.
This is a huge task and hugely draining because you’re tired by this point, but a professional editing team is worth their weight in gold and have transformed all three of my books. This typically takes as long as writing the thing in the first place.

7. Promotion and marketing.
Woo hoo! We’ve got a book, now the work begins. Without effective marketing and promotion the book will not get critical mass and might die on the vine. This requires extensive up front planning. Again, I know, because I’ve bungled it in the past.

Hope this helps any aspiring authors! It’s a lot of work but it’s totally worth it

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