How to Write Your First Book

If you have never written a book before, the hardest part is usually not typing the first sentence. It is knowing what to write, what to leave out, how to organize your ideas, and how to keep going when the excitement wears off.

The simplest way to write your first book is to start with one clear subject, decide exactly what you want the reader to get from it, break that subject into chapters, and then write the manuscript one section at a time. You do not need to know everything about writing before you begin. You need a workable idea and a process that gets you from the first page to the last.

I know this from experience. My journey into publishing did not begin with a successful publishing deal or a perfect understanding of the industry. I had to learn by doing. In 2017, after struggling to find a publisher for my own completed manuscript, I eventually decided to learn how to publish books myself. That decision changed the direction of my work.

Since then, I have written and worked on many books, and one lesson has remained constant: a first-time author does not need to write a perfect book. The first job is to write a complete book.

That is what this guide focuses on.

Not publishing.

Not book marketing.

Not building an author website.

Writing the book.

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Start With One Book Idea, Not Ten

Most people who tell me they want to write a book do not actually have an idea problem.

They have a focus problem.

They have ten things they want to say, several experiences they want to share, and perhaps years of knowledge they want to put into one book.

That is too much for a first book.

Your first task is to decide:

What is this particular book about?

Not everything you know.

Not everything you have experienced.

One subject.

For example, “Christian living” is too broad for a focused first book.

But:

How to Develop a Consistent Prayer Life as a New Christian

is a book idea.

“Business” is too broad.

How to Start a Small Service Business With Skills You Already Have

is much more focused.

The narrower idea gives you something to work with.

A simple test I use

Write your proposed book idea in one sentence.

Then complete this:

This book will help ________ understand, solve, achieve, or experience ________.

If you cannot complete that sentence clearly, don’t rush into Chapter One.

Spend some more time defining the book.

A vague idea usually produces a wandering manuscript.

A clear idea gives you boundaries.

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Decide What You Want the Reader to Leave With

Before writing the chapters, decide what should change for the reader by the time they reach the final page.

For a practical nonfiction book, ask:

• What should the reader understand?
• What problem should the book help solve?
• What should the reader be able to do afterward?
• What mistake should the reader avoid?
• What knowledge am I trying to transfer?

You don’t need a complicated mission statement.

One paragraph is enough.

For example:

“This book will help someone who has never written a book understand how to choose a manageable idea, organize it into chapters, write the first draft, revise it and prepare the manuscript for the next stage.”

Now you have a standard against which you can measure every chapter.

If you write something that does not help fulfil that purpose, ask yourself whether it belongs in the book.

This one habit can remove a surprising amount of unnecessary material.

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Choose the Reader Before You Start Writing

Your book may eventually be read by thousands of people.

But you should not try to write for thousands of people at the same time.

Picture one reader.

Who are you actually trying to help?

A first-time author?

A pastor with years of sermon notes?

A business owner with practical experience?

A parent writing a family story?

A young person writing a devotional?

A beginner writing fiction?

The answer affects the language you use, the examples you give and even the order in which you explain things.

When I write practical beginner material, I try to explain the subject to someone who is genuinely starting from zero.

That means I don’t assume the reader knows publishing terminology or already understands the process.

If a term needs explanation, I explain it.

If a step is commonly misunderstood, I slow down and explain it.

That is much more useful than trying to sound sophisticated.

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Don’t Begin With Chapter One Until You Know the Chapters

This is one of the lessons I would strongly recommend to a first-time author.

Don’t open Microsoft Word, type your title, and immediately start writing Chapter One without knowing where the book is going.

You don’t need a 30-page professional book proposal.

You need a working outline.

Start with your main sections.

For example:

Book title

How to Write Your First Book

Possible structure

Introduction
Why writing the first book feels difficult

Chapter 1
Choosing the right idea

Chapter 2
Defining your reader and purpose

Chapter 3
Turning the idea into an outline

Chapter 4
Writing the first draft

Chapter 5
Getting past difficult sections

Chapter 6
Revising the manuscript

Chapter 7
Preparing the completed manuscript

Conclusion
What to do after finishing the book

That’s enough to start.

You can expand each chapter with smaller points.

If you need more help creating an outline, I have also put together book outline templates for beginners.

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Give Every Chapter One Job

A common beginner mistake is making every chapter responsible for everything.

One chapter talks about the history of the subject.

Then it gives advice.

Then it tells a story.

Then it introduces another subject.

Then it repeats something from an earlier chapter.

By the time the reader reaches the end, the book feels longer but not necessarily better.

Give each chapter a job.

Ask:

What is this chapter supposed to accomplish?

If Chapter Three is about creating an outline, don’t spend half of it explaining book marketing.

If Chapter Four is about writing the first draft, don’t turn it into a complete guide to Amazon publishing.

Keep the chapter doing its job.

This also makes writing easier because you don’t have to think about the entire book every time you sit down.

You only have to solve the problem in front of you.

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Break Each Chapter Into Questions

This is one of the easiest ways to move from an outline to actual writing.

Suppose your chapter is:

How to Choose Your First Book Idea

Don’t stare at that heading and wonder what to write.

Turn it into questions:

• What makes a book idea workable?
• What makes an idea too broad?
• How can a beginner narrow an idea?
• How do you know whether you have enough to say?
• What should you do if you have several ideas?
• How do you choose the idea to write first?

Now answer those questions one at a time.

Your chapter begins to write itself.

I have found this particularly useful when working from teaching notes, sermons and ideas that already exist in rough form.

Instead of asking, “How do I write a 50-page book?”

I ask:

What does the reader need to understand next?

That is a much easier question to answer.

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Write From What You Know, Not What You Think an Author Should Sound Like

Your first book does not need to sound like a university textbook.

It needs to sound like you communicating clearly.

If you have personal experience with the subject, use it.

If you made mistakes, explain what they taught you.

If something worked for you, explain how you approached it.

That is where a book begins to develop an authentic voice.

My own publishing journey taught me this early.

When I was trying to get my first completed manuscript published, I discovered that having a finished manuscript did not automatically mean someone would publish it. That experience pushed me toward learning the publishing process myself.

I did not learn publishing by reading about it alone.

I had to make decisions, encounter problems, find solutions and keep learning.

That experience eventually influenced the way I write about publishing today.

The same principle applies to your book.

If you have actually done the thing you are teaching, don’t hide that experience behind generic language.

Tell the reader:

This is what I did.

This is what happened.

This is what I learned.

This is what I would do differently now.

That is far more useful than simply repeating information the reader could find anywhere.

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Don’t Try to Write the Whole Book in Your Head

This sounds obvious, but it causes a lot of unfinished manuscripts.

Someone decides to write a 50,000-word book and then starts thinking about all 50,000 words.

That is mentally exhausting.

Forget the whole book while you are writing.

Write the next section.

Then the next one.

Then the next.

If your introduction is 1,000 words, don’t worry about the remaining 49,000.

Write the introduction.

When Chapter One is ready, write Chapter One.

When Chapter One is finished, move to Chapter Two.

A manuscript is built one section at a time.

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Set a Writing Target You Can Actually Maintain

You don’t need to write 5,000 words every day.

In fact, setting an impressive target that you cannot maintain can make you abandon the project.

Choose a target that fits your real life.

It could be:

• 300 words a day
• 500 words a day
• 1,000 words a day
• One section every writing session
• One chapter each week

The exact number matters less than whether you can keep doing it.

For example, if you write 500 words on five days each week, that’s 2,500 words a week.

At that pace, you are still producing a substantial amount of material over several months.

Don’t underestimate small progress.

A book is not usually completed because the author had one extraordinary weekend.

It is completed because the author kept returning to the manuscript.

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Separate Writing From Editing

This is one of the most important lessons I would give a first-time author.

Do not try to make every paragraph perfect while writing the first draft.

You will slow yourself down.

You write one paragraph.

Then you notice a sentence you don’t like.

You rewrite it.

Then you change the previous paragraph.

Then you question the chapter heading.

Then you start thinking about the introduction again.

Three hours later, you have written very little.

The first draft has a different job.

Its job is to get the ideas out.

You can return later and improve them.

When you write the first draft, allow yourself to write badly.

Write the thought down.

Leave a note if necessary.

Move forward.

You cannot properly revise a chapter that does not exist.

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Don’t Keep Rewriting Chapter One

This deserves its own section because I have seen it repeatedly with new writers.

Chapter One feels important.

So the writer keeps polishing it.

Then polishing it again.

Then changing the opening.

Then changing it back.

Meanwhile, Chapter Two has never been written.

Stop.

Your first chapter does not have to be perfect before you continue.

In fact, once you have written the rest of the book, you may discover that Chapter One needs to change anyway.

You understand the book better after writing it.

So keep moving.

Finish the manuscript first.

Then return to the beginning with the knowledge you gained while writing the rest.

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When You Get Stuck, Find Out What the Problem Actually Is

“Writer’s block” can mean several different things.

Sometimes you don’t know what comes next.

Sometimes the chapter is poorly planned.

Sometimes you are trying to explain something you haven’t understood clearly yourself.

Sometimes you have simply become tired.

Don’t automatically assume that you have lost your ability to write.

Ask:

What exactly am I stuck on?

If you don’t know what comes next, look at your outline.

If the outline doesn’t help, ask a question about the section.

If the section itself is unclear, simplify it.

If you are tired, take a break and return later.

And if a section is genuinely difficult, move to another section and come back.

You are writing a book, not taking an examination.

You are allowed to leave Chapter Five temporarily and work on Chapter Seven.

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Use Your Existing Knowledge as Raw Material

You may already have more material than you realise.

Look at what you have accumulated over the years:

• Notes
• Sermons
• Bible studies
• Lectures
• Articles
• Research notes
• Personal experiences
• Workshop materials
• Questions people repeatedly ask you
• Old manuscripts
• Teaching outlines

These can become raw material for a book.

I have personally worked with this kind of material in writing and developing books.

The mistake is assuming that you can simply copy your notes into a book and call the work finished.

A book needs structure.

A sermon may be designed to teach people for 45 minutes.

A book chapter needs to carry the reader through a longer reading experience.

So take the underlying idea and develop it.

Explain the background.

Add examples.

Connect the sections.

Remove repetition.

Answer questions.

Give the reader a clear progression.

If you are a pastor or teacher, this can be especially useful because years of teaching may already contain the substance of several books.

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Don’t Force the Book to Become Longer Than It Needs to Be

A first-time author sometimes believes a book must be a certain number of pages to be a “real book.”

That can lead to padding.

Repeating the same idea three different ways does not automatically make the book more valuable.

Adding ten pages of unnecessary introduction does not make the book more authoritative.

A useful book should be as long as it needs to be to deliver what it promised.

If your idea can be properly explained in 20,000 words, don’t turn it into 50,000 words simply because you think readers expect a bigger book.

Likewise, don’t cut important material merely because you want to reach a particular word count.

Let the subject determine the length.

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Write the Way Your Reader Needs to Read

Good writing is not about using the biggest words you know.

It is about making the idea easy to understand.

When explaining something complicated, break it into smaller parts.

Instead of writing:

“The implementation of a comprehensive manuscript development methodology facilitates…”

say what you actually mean:

“A simple writing plan helps you know what to write next.”

Clear writing is not inferior writing.

If anything, clear writing requires you to understand your subject well enough to explain it simply.

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Use Stories Where They Actually Help

A personal story can make an explanation stronger.

But don’t insert stories simply because someone said every article needs a story.

Use your experience when it helps the reader understand the lesson.

For example, my own move toward self-publishing is relevant when explaining why authors should take ownership of understanding their publishing process.

It would be unnecessary to spend several paragraphs describing unrelated parts of my life in a chapter about outlining.

The story should serve the lesson.

That keeps the book focused.

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Finish the First Draft Before You Judge the Book

There is a particular temptation that comes after several chapters.

You read what you have written and think:

“This isn’t good enough.”

Then you begin comparing your unfinished manuscript with published books.

Don’t.

A published book has already passed through editing, proofreading, formatting, design and often several rounds of revision.

Your first draft is not supposed to look like that.

Compare the first draft with the blank page you started with.

You now have something to work with.

That is progress.

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What Should You Do After Writing the Last Chapter?

When you type the final sentence, resist the temptation to immediately upload the book for publication.

Finished is not the same as ready.

Once the first draft is complete, the manuscript needs another stage of work.

At minimum, you should go back through the book and look for:

• Missing information
• Repetition
• Weak explanations
• Contradictions
• Unclear sections
• Poor chapter order
• Grammar and spelling problems
• Incorrect names and references
• Inconsistent terminology

Give yourself some distance from the manuscript before doing the serious revision.

Your complete self-publishing guide covers the stages that come after the manuscript is written.

I also recommend using a structured first-time author publishing checklist once you move from writing into the preparation and publishing stage.

If you intend to publish through Amazon, don’t confuse writing the manuscript with formatting the final book. The two jobs are different. My Amazon KDP formatting guide deals specifically with preparing the finished manuscript for publication.

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A Simple First-Book Writing Plan

If everything above feels like too much, reduce the process to this:

Day 1: Define the idea

Write one sentence explaining what your book is about.

Day 2: Define the reader

Decide exactly who you are trying to help.

Day 3: Write the promise

Complete:

“After reading this book, my reader will be able to…”

Day 4: Create the chapter list

Write down the major chapters.

Day 5: Break each chapter into questions

These questions become your writing prompts.

From Day 6 onward: Write

Work through the questions one at a time.

Don’t edit every sentence.

Don’t redesign the book halfway through.

Don’t keep returning to Chapter One.

Keep moving.

After the final chapter: Revise

Now you can read the entire manuscript as one book.

That is when you start seeing what is missing, what is repeated and what needs to change.

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The Biggest Lesson I Learned From Writing and Publishing Books

When I started this journey, I did not know everything I know now.

My first experiences taught me that becoming an author is not one decision.

It is a series of decisions.

You learn how to develop an idea.

You learn how to write.

You learn how to revise.

You learn how to prepare a manuscript.

Then you learn how to publish it.

My experience trying to get my own work published in 2017 eventually pushed me to learn the publishing process for myself. What began as a problem became an education.

That experience has shaped the way I approach books today.

I no longer look at writing a book as one enormous task.

I look at it as a series of smaller tasks:

idea → outline → chapter → section → paragraph → revision → finished manuscript.

That is a much less intimidating way to write.

And after working on many books, I have learned something else that is perhaps even more important:

You don’t become a writer by waiting until you feel like an author. You become one by doing the work of writing.

Your first book may not be your best book.

Mine wasn’t.

It doesn’t have to be.

Your first book is where you learn how to turn an idea in your head into something another person can actually read.

So don’t wait until you know everything.

Choose the idea.

Write the outline.

Open the document.

Write the first section.

Then keep going until you reach the end.

That is how your first book gets written.

By Olayinka Joseph

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