NaBoBloMo

National Book Blogging Month (NaBoBloMo) is always held in April.
What is it?
It is a game, a challenge, a contest, and a battle.

1. Why a game? Because it is engaging and fun at the same time.

2. Why a challenge? Because you challenge yourself to finally finish your book. Yes, the book that you have always had in mind to write but for some reason you never started. You’ve always had something else to do instead. But now is the time to challenge yourself.

3. Why a contest? Because it has at least two participants? You and your procrastinative habits. Challenge yourself to enter this contest and see who will win… you or the other contestant?

4. Why a battle? Because… You’ll have to fight with your ego who will try to stop you from fulfilling your dream. On one side, your ego will bring you lots of procrastination… and on the other side, the same ego will not allow you to quit the challenge. You are blogging your book, and you’ve already announced the whole world that you are doing it, so now you can’t let the world know that you might lose in this contest.

Now… let me talk about the owner/host of this challenge… Nina Amir. Or… you know what? Better yet, let’s see what she has to say about it.

“I’m Nina Amir. I’m known as the Inspiration-to-Creation Coach, because I move my clients from ideas to realized dreams by combining their passion and purpose and helping them take inspired action so they positively and meaningfully impact the world. In other words, they Achieve More Inspired Results.

I primarily work with writers and non-writers, such as conscious business owners, who want to become nonfiction authors or bloggers or both. I help them create careers as nonfiction writers, bloggers, authorpreneurs, and blogpreneurs. I consider what I do a way to help my clients achieve their goals, fulfill their potential and live inspired lives.”

I know that you are busy, but I would be happy if you could read Nina’s entire bio. It is impressive, and I’m sure you will find something there for you.

I met Nina Amir last year while taking part in the NaNoFiWriMo Challenge. It was a great experience. I even won a contest during this challenge… the prize was a very useful book, The Write Nonfiction NOW! – Guide to Writing a Book in 30 days.

I followed Nina Amir closely after this… but from the distance… never involving myself too much, but always being hungry to read her articles and receiving her free advice. She is the type of coach that I admire a lot and one who taught me so many valuable things, through her articles.

If you decide to blog your book too, let me mention some advises that I compiled from Nina Amir’s websites, How to Blog a Book and Write Nonfiction Now.

Steps to follow:

1. Decide what you will write about. Analyze who is your perfect reader and which niche you will choose.

2. Decide the title of your book. Try to find the perfect hook for your readers. Don’t forget that this may be one of the most important decisions that you will take towards influencing your sales.

3. Create the outline for your book. Building a good map for your book, will save you from many struggles while you are writing it. I am always using Scrivener, and this makes things much easier for the writer in me.

4. Decide on the chapters that you will blog for your book. It’s not necessary for you to blog the entire book. Keep things smooth for the readers, so they will have a clue of what the book is about, so they can easily decide if it’s for their interest or not.

5. Decide what additional chapters your published book will have. We are referring here to the chapters that the book will include but will not be blogged. As an example, the About Author page, Acknowledgements, Preface, Foreword, etc.

6. Decide how many words your book will have and split it into 30 smaller portions so that the whole month will be covered with blog posts.

7. Plan your daily time to include the writing process also. Stick to it. Stop complaining that you don’t have time. Believe me… we have plenty of time. I am an engineer and for sure an engineer is not paid to write. So, I am doing this in my free time, and doing a pretty good job. Yes, my ego is very pleased. Not only because I am writing and blogging, but I succeed to also help and promote our fellows writers for free. Therefore… find a solution suitable to your lifestyle. If you can’t… please write to me, and I will help you with a plan. Did I mention I am an accredited project manager also?

8. Nina Amir advises us not to write directly into WordPress; better use Microsoft Word, Scrivener or Pages. I am a Scrivener fan, so I already know what I will use. 🙂

9. Start writing and blogging. Focus for one month only on your book. I have to admit… my website also promotes a lot of books/authors. Blogging my book doesn’t mean that I will be turning my back on providing the free book promotions I have been offering. But, I will concentrate only on my book, and let my Virtual Assistant take care of everything else I need.

10. After the month ends, follow these next steps, which we will not concentrate on right now but will only remind you of them:

    1. Collect all the articles.
    2. Do whatever changes you feel you need to do.
    3. Add the additional chapters that you didn’t blog.
    4. Start editing. My Editor and Grammarly is the perfect combination for me and they simply bring me lots of satisfaction with everything that I write.
    5. Hire a professional designer for your book cover.
    6. Format your book.
    7. Publish to your favorite method: Traditional or Self-Publishing.

NOW… maybe you will ask…

WHY BLOG YOUR BOOK?
What if someone else will copy YOUR idea?

I’ve also oscillated my mind between the desire to blog my book and the fear that someone will copy it and publish it before I will. More than a half a year has passed by, wondering and analyzing all the pieces of this puzzle.

Let me tell you 7 REASONS FOR BLOGGING YOUR BOOK

1. You adore challenges, and if you’re anything like me, you mostly adore a challenge with yourself.

2. You will write your book in 30 days because your ego can’t stand to let the readers know that you can fail.

3. Perhaps you were writing at least one article for your website almost daily. Why not write your next book and convert your work?

4. Writing each day, you consolidate your writer’s platform.

5. Let the readers see that they can obtain valuable information from purchasing the final product.

6. About the fear that someone would copy what you write…

   1. Anyone can take your ideas freely, and no one can be upset by this.
   2. You too are also doing this in your articles.
   3. No one invents the wheel nowadays, but anyone can come with his own idea of a more modern wheel.
   4. What you blog includes basic information about the subject that your book will focus on. The details will be included mainly in the book.
   5. Even if someone else will take the entire outline… this is nothing to be concerned about. No one will write exactly what you wrote. Finally, all will be transformed into a new competition between two writers… on the same subject. In this case, the readers will be the ones who will gain anything from it because I suppose the authors will try to come up with their best solutions for the readers. It will be a win-win situation; therefore you don’t have to worry about it. Finally, all that matters is that the reader will benefit from the writer’s knowledge. Isn’t this the main reason anyone of us writers writes for?

7. Ultimately… follow your heart. Is it telling you to blog your book? If so, DO IT!

For more details about blogging a book, you can read How to Blog a Book.

Bellow you can find my Blogged Books. 🙂 Yes, I will start with the 1st book and intend to blog as many as I can from now on. Sincerely speaking… I find this idea to be brilliant. Thank you, Nina Amir… all the credit goes to you!

April 2015
BOOK: HOW TO COACH WHEN YOU ARE too SHY TO COACH