Think of this as a challenge. If you’ve been struggling to write since a long time and want to know how to write a best selling book, because you know you have that caliber within you, here’s my challenge: Can you write a book—a bestselling book—within 6 months?
You know the weird thing about the 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 neighbour—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, 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.
You want to learn how to write a bestselling book, maybe, not just for fame or money but because you want more and more people to read it and understand the concept.
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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, everything that makes a bestselling book.
But following a consistent routine for writing your bok within limited time and perfecting it again and again will surely get you ahead of more people than you might think.
In this blog post I’ll take you through the 13 steps that usually precede the success of nay 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,
- Plot/Ideas/Powerful Storyline
- The Actual Writing
- Publishing and Promotion
Let’s cut to the chase.
Table of Contents
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 wants.
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.
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.
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 flavour into your plot too, not just your writing.
Once you are done with research and plotting, it’s time to get writing.
#2 write the first draft
Now 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 word novel, in 10 days.
Yeah, impatient.
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 what your story is speaking to you.
#3 put it away for 7 days and give yourself a rest
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 a 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 dang, is it 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, ominuous laughter)
#4 write your second draft
You have to write your second draft within 30 days. This is your time to challenge yourself.
Since the first draft took 45 days, the second might take lesser. So for the next 30 days after taking your rest, dedicate yourself to finishing your second draft.
Reduce any inconsistencies in writing, look for plot holes, develop the characters if it’s needed, 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 baited breath. (Imagine how awesome that’s gonna 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 bookcover and quotes, author biography, the USP of you book. If you’ve got a website, put it up for 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 final step your going to do in the editing of the book, to be done after you’ve finished writing all your drafts. Check for any spelling mistakes, edit edit edit, cut necessarily, 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.
Second guess every word. Spend time reading your book aloud and noting how it sound, 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 the other 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 acknowledgement, 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 adiditon to all the other promotional efforts, you can design a professional looking book cover yourself if you’ve got the skills and you think you can create an eye-catching cover. Canva all the way!!!
But remember first impression is last impression. And even we don’t want to judge a book by its cover, we frequently end up doing. 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 fans 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 poeple 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 your life.
The best books are the ones who change your life. I’ve read some which have changed mine. People always need ones that change theirs.
#11 check all grammatical editing.
Again. Grammar. It’s too easy to lose goodwill and fans because of just one grammatical error. Check it again. All the way. Everything. Not even a comma should be in the wrong place. It all matters. Even the smallest things matter.
#12 check publishing platform
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 wa sixteen when I did that, so…guess I just couldn’t adopt traditional publishing, then.
But really, you should take time out 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 read, 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 in 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.
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