13 Steps: How to Write A Best Selling Book

Think of this as a challenge. If you’ve been struggling to write for a long time and want to know how to write a best selling book, because you know you have that caliber within you, know that you can be that published author, here’s my challenge: can you write a book—a bestselling book—within 6 months?

You know the weird thing about writers is that they might get a story idea out of—hey, what if I write a story about a murderer who loses his memory and starts a new life, but then his past soon catches up to him in the form of his next door neighbor?—yeah, as I said, out of nowhere.

So, since writers get the bestselling book ideas out of nowhere, and want to write the bestselling book ideas quickly enough, it’s only fair to say that they need some mechanism to make time for writing that bestseller book.

I’m guessing you’ve got some idea like this too, and you want to bring it to life. Great going until now, we’ll need that optimism.

You want to learn how to write a best selling book, maybe not just for fame or money but because you want more and more people to read it and know the story, and maybe relate to the story, maybe heal themselves through the story.

Now, I’m not saying that there’s a pre-set mechanism on how to write a best selling novel that guarantees its success. In the end, it always comes down to the skills of the author, the work put into it, the market conditions, the level or promotional efforts, the audience base, and obviously, the story itself, everything that makes a bestselling book. Though that last point might be controversial as we see plenty of books around us that have got everything in public sentiment and marketing but nothing in the storyline itself. Let’s not take names, okay?

But following a consistent routine for writing your book within a limited time and perfecting it again and again will surely get you ahead of more people than you might think. Maybe people don’t even make efforts to properly rewrite their books, and the first draft is rarely good enough.

In this blog post I’ll take you through the 13 steps that usually precede the success of any book. Learn how to write best selling fiction, by challenging yourself to write and publish your book within 6 months.

Writing a bestselling book requires focus on three areas, mainly,

1. Plot/Ideas/Powerful Storyline
2. The Actual Writing
3. Publishing and Promotion

Let’s cut to the chase.

How to Write A Best Selling Book?

#1 Research What the Audience Wants

To know how to write a best selling book you need to know what your audience actually wants. There’s three ways you could take this advice: you could either from your own heart and not worry about anything else. Or you could write for the market. Or, you could find a way to soothe both the audience and what the writer within wants to say.

It’s obvious what I believe the right path is. What exactly would research encompass, though?

Now, I know you want to start writing. You want to just skip past all these boring research and plotting part and you want to just get it down on the page.

But in order to write a bestselling book, you really need to research because only then will you be able to find out what your audience prefers and wants to read.

Ways you can research: You can go on online forums, social media sites and blogs and find out what the target audience of yours prefers to read. It’s necessary to gain an insight into their thinking and interests.

You can also check out some writing sites and look at stories that perform well, and you can indulge with the community. You could look at the existing tropes in the market and then add your own new and unique ideas to them to create something truly masterful.

Research is accompanied by plotting. Writing a book without plotting it first has never worked for me. I prefer to spend weeks first in plotting the whole novel, scene-by-scene, character-by-character.

Maybe it will work for you, if you are a pantser, but if you don’t want to write down the complete plot, I’d still suggest having a pretty clear and solid idea of what the overall theme of the book will be and where will you take the story to, i.e. the end.

In addition to this, you need to keep the story compelling. The characters should be unique, the plot line should be unique, no clichés, please, everyone hates them. And they look awful. Just try to bring more flavor into your plot too, not just your writing.

The app I use for plotting is amazing and detailed and so easy to use. God bless whoever made it. Check it here: Story Plotter.

Once you are done with research and plotting, it’s time to get writing.

#2 Write the First Draft

I’m usually a very impatient person, by nature. Needless to say, if I want something, I want it now. I once had a winter break going on in school and I finished the first draft of a 50k words novel, in 10 days.

Yeah, impatient. Just signing off my name at the end of the doc and then walking to the bathroom to take my first shower in ten days. (Hah! Got you! Just kidding! … or am I? *cue evil laughter*)

I’m not asking you to write the book in 10 days, since usually books are far longer than 50k, but I am asking you to finish the first draft within 45 days.

It was a challenge, remember?

The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to be done. To be there on the paper.

The best time I’d suggest to write your first draft is 5:00 a.m. every morning without break. Maybe it’s just the early bird attitude, and influence of the book The 5 A.M. Club, by Robin Sharma, but I love the hour of 5 a.m.

I think it’s the best time to enhance your creativity and focus when there’s no outside noise from the world and you can begin to listen to yourself and find out what your story is really speaking to you.

#3 Put it Away for 7 Days and Give Yourself a Break

Writing a book in 45 days, along with living your life and fulfilling your responsibilities and doing your job is bound to take a toll on you.

Once you finish writing the first draft, put it away for 7 days and give yourself some rest.

You don’t need to listen to this, but I see rest as not something regarding non-stop TV. But ah, I love Navillera, which is a kdrama, I don’t know how many people have watched it but they should, it is good.

Coming back to the point, you need to recharge after writing your book. You can do whatever you love.

An empty tank won’t get you nowhere. You’ve got to bring your mental energy back in at some point so that you could dedicate hours fully to writing the second draft, which is the real devil… (*cue evil, ominous laughter this time* — no, wait, MC, you played the violin tunes!)

#4 Write your Second Draft

You have to write your second draft now. There’s no deadline, because second draft is where the real magic happens, you know. But this is your time to challenge yourself, take your first draft and convert it into a wild story that breaks the bounds.

Reduce any inconsistencies in writing, look for plot holes, develop the characters more, and check any other errors in styling. In this draft you have to maintain a consistent theme throughout the book, make sure all the pieces in the puzzle fit.

#5 Put Away for Seven Days and Search Marketing Methods

You have to start the marketing soon enough, though not now. So start building your online presence, a fan base that is going to await your book with bated breath. (Imagine how awesome that’s going to be!)

Post pictures about your writing process, writing desk, build a teaser for your book (I like this step), give the viewers a glance of your book. Post quotes. Design a booklet that’s going to contain the book cover and quotes, author biography, the USP of you book. That’s your media kit. If you’ve got a website, put it up as the freebie to collect emails.

Just make the readers anticipate for something that’s coming. Your book. Be consistent on social media, schedule stuff for when you’ll be away writing your third draft.

#6 Finish Third Draft in 30 Days

I’m going to call this the last draft. Write accordingly. I’ve heard that people need to write eight drafts before the book achieves perfection, but I don’t believe in perfection and I don’t believe in eight drafts.

If you wish, since we’re writing a bestselling book, you can definitely write more drafts, write as many as you want until you’re satisfied with what you’ve got in your hands.

For me, I’m going to stick to the third as the last.

#7 Start Revising for 30 Days

This is the final step you’re going to perform in the editing of the book, to be done after you’ve finished writing all your drafts, however much they may be. Check for any spelling mistakes, edit edit edit, cut unnecessary stuff, hire an editor if you want, look at all the steps of editing and perform every single one of them. Just don’t stop with your rigorous editing until you’re absolutely confident about your book—your bestselling book, mind you.

Second guess every word. Spend time reading your book aloud and noting how it sounds, the rhythm, the beat of the words. Does it flow magically? It’s not boring and dull, is it? It shouldn’t be.

Does it sound like music to your ears?

Good job. You’ve done a good job.

#8 Get a Beta Reader

You, as a writer, need someone who will act as your reader. And they’ll read your final draft, tell you how it is, maybe they can suggest some corrections if they want, and the whole point of this step is to make sure that the book looks attractive not just to you as a writer but also to others as readers.

So get the beta reader who will offer you constructive criticism. Friends. Family. Anyone.

#9 Prepare Book Cover, Blurb, Acknowledgment, and All

Now that you’ve edited the final draft of your book, please just don’t overthink it and start designing the book cover, the blurb, the acknowledgment, the dedication and the copyright.

Hire a professional book cover designer, or maybe if you don’t want to or you haven’t got the budget to spend on a book cover designer in addition to all the other promotional efforts, you can design a professional looking book cover by yourself if you’ve got the skills and you think you can create an eye-catching cover. Canva all the way!!!

But remember that the first impression is the last impression. And even if we don’t want to judge a book by its cover, we frequently end up doing so. I suggest just getting someone to design it for you.

#10 Announce the Book to the World

Professionally, this time. With a date. A countdown.

On all your social profiles, announce the book to your people and run social media campaigns and ads to all relevant platforms to inform and reach maximum audience.

Write a blog post about your book. Tell the people why they need it. Again, reinforce your USP. Your USP, USP, USP. There are millions of books out there and people need to know why they need yours in their lives.

The best books are the ones that change your life. I’ve read some which have changed mine. People always need ones that change theirs.

#11 Check All Grammar.

Again. Grammar. It’s too easy to lose goodwill and fans because of even just one grammatical error. Check it again. All the way. Everything. Not even a comma should be in the wrong place. Some people are grammar freaks, some of your readers will be grammar freaks. If I get to read your book, I’ll probbaly be one too.

It all matters. Even the smallest things matter.

#12 Check Publishing Platforms

So, what had you decided, self-publishing or traditional all the way? I, for one, published my first book myself with the help of KDP, and I think that’s a really nice option if you’re looking for a start. Only a start. I was sixteen when I did that, so…guess I just couldn’t adopt traditional publishing, then.

But really, you should take the time to review the publishing platforms and which one you wanna choose.

#13 Promotion

Probably the most important step, I guess. What makes a book a bestseller is—majorly—promotion.

There are thousands of amazing books that I would love, if I ever come across them, that is. And that’s the thing, promotion of your book matters. It’s not that all your readers will come across it by chance, by pure luck and will love it and tell their friends about it and the friends will love it too and tell their friends about it and you’ll make a million dollars overnight.

Not so fast, okay?

You have to promote yourself. You have to work hard on that part. You have to tell the people that your book exists and you have to give it to them, hand it to them and make it convincing enough that they decide to buy it.

Promotion, okay? I can’t stress this enough. If you want to know how to write a best selling novel, learn how to promote. You might’ve written an amazing, worthy-of-becoming-a-bestselling book, I know that you have, but promotion is the most important step for becoming the success your book deserves to be.

With this final step, I’ve concluded the process of writing a bestselling book. Hope it helped you. Good luck for your writing journey.

Are you a poet? Longing to write something? I’m also a poet, who’s trying to say something. Check out my book Say Something, guess what, buy for just $1 or read for free if you’ve got Kindle Unlimited (I know you have, you sneaky little bookworm). Maybe after reading it you might want to write your own poetry book. Here’s how to write your first poetry book.

If you liked this post or want to share your own experience on writing your own bestselling book, go ahead and drop a comment below. I’d love hearing from you!

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Let’s write a bestselling book!