You may have read this title with some trepidation. Maybe you thought sure, you could write a short book in seven days if you spent every waking hour working on that book. But, who wants to do that? No one—that’s a surefire path to burnout.
Actually, you might be surprised to learn that that’s not what I have in store for you at all. In fact, you can spend just a couple of hours each day working on writing short books and still be very successful. It all depends on how well you organize yourself, how quickly you’re able to write, and how motivated and focused you are.
I don’t want you to spend 16 hours a day writing your book. It really is not that difficult and time intensive. You don’t need to be stressed out about this. Approach your writing in a fun way. Don’t make this a chore. You can even reward yourself along the way. Meet your word count goals for the day and allow yourself to have a bowl of ice cream or something.
I’m going to give you a few different options or examples of ways you can break your word counts and time down to get your book written in a week. Consider how much time you have available to do this. Then, think about it again – can you cut out some TV time? Or whatever leisure activity you usually invest in could be spent writing a little bit of your book instead…just a little bit a day will add up to big things.
Again, it’s not about all work and no play – it’s about balance. Eliminate the excuses and find ways you can get your word counts in every day.
Writing a little bit each day really adds up. Your book will be written and published before you know it. Daily consistent action equals success.
An Example with Numbers
Let’s say you wanted to write a 10,000 word short nonfiction book to release on Kindle. First of all, get it out of your mind that you need to write 100,000 words over the course of months or years before you have a valuable book on your hands. That’s a starving artist mentality, not a business mentality. 100,000 word books can be valuable or they can be rubbish. 10,000 word books can be valuable or they can be rubbish.
It’s especially not true that longer equals better these days – Kindle readers often want shorter reads that will help them get to the bottom of their very specific problem more quickly and without fluff. You absolutely can write and publish extremely valuable content that falls between 5,000 to 25,000 words.
That’s actually one of the beautiful things about Amazon Kindle. There are no gatekeepers – people vote with their dollars. Short nonfiction sells and it sells well. Write a book that focuses on helping people fix a single problem and you could have a hot seller on your hands.
So, for the purposes of illustration, we’re going to play with the numbers it will take to write a 10,000-word book to release on Kindle. Does writing that kind of a word count in 7 days sound daunting? It does for most people who are just starting out, but it doesn’t have to be.
Even though 10,000 words is on the relatively low end of the word count for books, it still seems scary when you’re not used to writing that length consistently. As long as you practice, you will get used to writing consistently. You’re no longer going to be scared of writing. “10,000 words” is going to seem easy to you… because it is easy.
You could write this length extremely easily in under 20 days. In order to write a 10,000-word book, you’d just have to write 500 words a day. If you do that, you would have the book finished in 20 days – that’s less than a month. That’s also the very bottom limit of what I recommend. You absolutely do not need or want to take any longer than that to write an easy flowing, helpful nonfiction book for Kindle.
But, let’s get back to the current example. Absolutely anyone can write 500 words in a day no matter how busy you are, how out of practice you are, or how new to this you are. Once you get practice and you gain your confidence, you can even write 500 words within minutes.
Now, I’m not talking about all the research and organization that comes beforehand. We’re going to do that as well as the first step in this process. I’m talking about sitting down at the computer, looking at your well organized and well researched outline, and writing.
When you break it down to that level, you can see why I say this is so easy to do. You’re probably kicking yourself wondering why you haven’t been writing at least 500 words a day all these years Kindle and other platforms have been available because you could have had a lot of content up and earning for you already. Well, now’s the time to start.
All you have to do is play with the numbers. How big is the book you want to write? Break it down day by day – figure out how much you’ll write every day this week to get it done.
Maybe you absolutely can’t swallow the idea that shorter books can be extremely valuable – that’s fine. You can write a 50,000 word book or an 80,000 word book if you want to and your topic warrants it. Just break your word counts down day by day and figure out how much you need to type each day to make it happen.
It can be really helpful to go on Amazon’s Kindle search pages and look at the typical length for books that are similar to the one you want to write. Pay especially close attention to the books that were self-published. Remember that you aren’t trying to write a book that covers everything there is to know about a broad topic—you’re writing a book that deftly tackles a single problem or interest people have. Go narrow with your topic to find an audience more quickly.
Are there self-published books up on Kindle on your topic in the 50 to 150 page range? That’s the kind of length we’re talking about in these pages. Those shorter-length but still-valuable books, published by other self-published authors, are selling well (if you’ve chosen a good topic) and were probably a snap to write.
I’m going to assume that you’re going to write 10,000 words. I’m going to have you aim for the stars when it comes to your daily word count. I’m going to advise you to write more than 500 words a day to get this done in 7 days. However, if that’s all you think you can handle, then do that. This is all about breaking down the barriers and developing a new mindset that will help you write incredible nonfiction books much more quickly. Do it however you need to do it to get it done.
Remember – this is going to take daily consistent effort on your part. You’re going to skip TV, or games, or reading and consuming non-related material, or whatever it is that tends to steal your time away. You’re not just an author, this is a business for you. You’re going to carve out time in your schedule, no matter how busy you are, to write a 10,000-word book in 7 days. It will happen because you’re going to make this a priority—the #1 most important thing on your schedule every day.
I hope you’re getting excited, because you can and will make this happen. For your book, target one very specific problem or passion people in your chosen niche have. You are going to offer them a very specific solution. These types of books are in high demand and are easy to write. That’s the key here – you’re really going to help people so you can feel good about what you’re doing while growing your business and Kindle catalog at the same time.
If you follow through and overcome your mindset barriers, this is going to be so much easier than you ever imagined. You’ll almost feel like you’re getting away with something by being able to write incredible, short books in such a short period of time. Most people don’t realize this is possible, but now you do.
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