How to Start Writing Your First Book (Don't Start On Page 1)

Don’t start writing a book by writing a book. It’s tempting to start your book by creating a new Google Docs and throwing words into a page. You’ll doubt every step in the process. Start by writing about your book subject months or years in advance: You’ll validate your ideas even before they become your table of content. You’ll grow an audience to sell your book to. After writing Street-Smart Coding, my first coding book, I write almost all my books backwards. That’s what I learned from a book experiment I ran earlier this year when I wrote 10 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life And Could Change Yours Too. I start by validating ideas as posts, emails, or social media posts. The top performing ideas will eventually become book chapters, and the ones with less performance become supporting ideas. Once I have enough validated ideas, I come up with a book promise, title, subtitle, 1-line summary, an outline, and Amazon sales page. It sounds counterintuitive, but it forces you…