Easy book writing for people who talk

Speakers, if you haven’t written a book yet, you’re cutting yourself off at your financial knees. The tried and true business model for speakers includes writing a book that can be sliced and diced in multiple ways, including CDs and DVDs, eBooks, articles, blog posts, even Apps. But the book lays the foundation. 

Monetary benefits aside…

• Books extend your influence beyond the podium. You can’t be in multiple places at one time, but your books can.
  
• Books market your products and services. How often have you been so captivated by a book that you immediately searched for the author’s website to investigate her other offerings?
  
• Books build your credibility as a media expert. When you’ve published a book, people believe you know what you’re talking about. Books serve as your calling card to print journalists and talk show hosts who are always on the lookout for experts on various topics.

As an editor and writing coach who has worked exclusively with speakers over the past few years, I’ve learned that some speakers trap themselves into never ending cycles of frustration when they talk about writing a book rather than actually writing one.

Try forcing the issue by taking a speaker off the stage and putting a blank piece of paper in front of him. He may get what I call “page fright.” Taken out of his comfort zone, he starts remembering his mean English teacher with the red pencil.

Never fear. Writing a book doesn’t have to be as painful as writing a research paper. Yes, it does require a lot of work, but when you use your natural speaking gifts, writing a book can be just as enjoyable as delivering a speech. 

If you’re a good writer and a good speaker, you’re one of those rare beings who was blessed by the communications angels. Most of us have one dominant mode of communication: speaking or writing. If you’re unsure of your writing ability, seek out a writer, editor, or coach. To produce a quality product, this is all-important. Even veteran writers need to be edited and proofed, so a word to the wise: don’t cut corners.

Use your voice to write your book!

1. Record and transcribe. Invest in a good recorder and keep it handy so that you can speak your book while doing solitary activities (like driving). One of my clients works this way. At the end of a few months, he sends me several microcassette tapes. I transcribe them and edit the transcription.

Before you record one word, take the time to plan your book out first. Developing a simple Table of Contents will help focus and organize your thoughts. Jotting down a few notes per chapter will also help. The structure may change in time, but for now, it’s a good way to start. 

2. Take notes. Last year I worked with a pastor who likes to take notes while studying scripture. These notes form the basis of his sermons, and he realized they could also lay the foundation for his first book. He developed his Table of Contents, used that to organize his notes, and then began to write. I edited the manuscript, and he was delighted to finally self-publish his first book after 10 years of talking about it! 

By the way, when you’re writing your first draft, don’t worry about getting every sentence grammatically perfect. This will create page fright and shut down all creativity. Just let the words and ideas flow. You and your editor can fix it later.

3. Transcribe speeches. I include this method with caution. If you are an extemporaneous speaker, your transcribed speeches should serve only as the launching pad for your book, not the actual narrative. That would be too easy! I once tried to transcribe such a speech, but I soon realized that it was an exercise in futility. All those repetitions, colloquialisms, mmm’s, and ahhh’s that are so powerful at the podium fall flat on the page. 

Take the time to plan your speeches for the sole purpose of using them to develop your book. This may go against the grain of extemporaneous speakers, but trust me, planning your speeches, even preparing a script, will help in the book writing process.

Recording, transcribing, and note taking tap into speakers’ natural mode of planning and communicating, and they will definitely help speed up the process of writing a book. Just keep in mind that a transcription is not a book. You'll still have more writing to do. 

“Write like you talk!” my mother, the English teacher, used to tell her students. And I’ll add, it may be tough but stop talking about writing a book and get to writing!

Donna Marie

5 steps to writing a book from tape

I just finished working on a manuscript for one of my speaker clients and thought it might be instructive to deconstruct the process for those who are wondering how to get their books started. 

Now there’s writing, the laborious (and sometimes inspired) process I use to put one word after another on a blank sheet of paper or screen. And then there’s speaking-writing, for lack of a much better term. This is the method I use with this particular client. Let’s call him Dr. M. 

When we first started working together 10 years ago, Dr. M would give me a hard copy of his manuscript, and I’d make changes on the copy. A very messy process.

Thankfully, Dr. M's trust in me grew over time. At one point he'd give me a floppy disc (those were the days), and I'd make my corrections on the computer.

Over the years we fine-tuned this labor of love into a 5 step process.

1. Dr. M dictates his book into a microcassette recorder.
2. I transcribe the tapes. 
3. I rewrite, research, and reorganize (if necessary) to flesh out the work. 
4. I'll edit the entire manuscript a couple of times. This is the most humbling of times for me because of all the stuff I miss on the first editing pass. That's why I take the time to edit more than once.
5. I proof. At this stage, I'm looking for typos and formatting issues. That's it. In a future post, I'll discuss proofing in depth. Technically I shouldn't even be proofing because my brain is probably decoding typos instead of seeing them, but when the client is on a budget, the editor wears many hats.

So that's the process. I think everyone should try and write at least one book, but if writing is like getting a root canal for you, then why fight it? If you're a talker, then go with the flow.

My part of the process, from transcribing to proofing, takes around 2 to 3 weeks, depending on the length and complexity of the manuscript. The benefit of having an editor or writer transcribe your speech is that I can do a couple of steps at one time. For example, a typist may give you a long paragraph of a document, including all your uh's, um's, and ya know's. As I'm transcribing, I'm paragraphing and doing minor copy editing along the way.

Speakers, make sure your equipment is working and your batteries have juice. Also, make sure you speak clearly and audibly into the recorder. There's nothing more frustrating than the McDonald's drive-thru experience where you can barely hear the person on the other end.

Dr. M and I are now a lean, mean writing team, and still, there's room for improvement. For example, he could email me MP3 files. Microcassettes are so 6 months ago. I used Express Scribe (free transcription software) to transcribe some sermons on MP3 files for a pastor friend, and I literally zoomed through the transcribing.

Our process works so well because Dr. M does a great job of planning out his books before recording. This is important: he doesn't just start recording extemporaneously. By the time he has recorded his first word, he has already sketched out his Table of Contents and the general direction of each chapter. Research and notes are at hand as he talks. 

Dr. M does his homework before he speaks one word, and that makes my job a lot easier – and his bill a lot cheaper.

Transcription is not appropriate for all speeches. For example, if you are a purely extemporaneous speaker who, like my sister, likes to meander with stories that have nothing to do with the subject but are great audience pleasers, your off-the-cuff speeches may not be good candidates for this process. I once tried to transcribe the sermon of a preacher who spoke from the Spirit. That was an exercise in futility. Powerful on the pulpit, not so on the page. But try it. You never know.

On the other hand, I once transcribed a few sermons for a pastor, and I was amazed at how well they turned out. Not a lot of repetition, uh huh's, mmmm's, and amen's?. I told him, "You speak book!"

Transcribing speeches is a wonderful way for speakers to speed up the process of writing a book. Just keep in mind that you'll still have more writing to do.

Donna Marie