I often get asked how long it takes to write a non-fiction book. It’s a bit like asking how long is a piece of string – naturally it depends on the book, the size, the amount of research or collaboration required and how much time you can devote to it. So rather than fob off the response I have put together a quick cookie cutter book profile that will hopefully help first time authors.
Book Profile
Your book profile covers the scope of the book, ascertaining whether there is a market for it, and the general outline of the book chapters.
Once you have completed this and you feel your efforts will be sufficiently rewarded, you are now ready to get writing.
Scheduling
If you can write full time – great! But most of us have a job or family commitments that mean we are part time writers. So break your book into chunks by:
- Estimating the total word count – Find a book the same size, and with a font size aligned to your proposed book, and count the words per page.
- Using your chapter outline – [approximate 2000 – 4000 words per chapter]. You can design your writing sessions. I prefer to think of writing sessions rather than days, as some days I can do more than one session, and other days none at all.
- Calculate how long it will take you. You an also do this in reverse, and determine your end date and work back to estimate how many words you need to complete per week, then per writing session.
This might mean that you plan to finish one chapter a week. Or if you want to get more aggressive – plan for 1000 words per session and 2 sessions a day, 3 days a week. If you can’t get a daily break to write, plan to commit 2 sessions every week to write a minimum of 2000 words.
Allowing that books generally take 16-30 weeks from start to finish, this should result in at least 2 books a year.
Keep going until you finish your first draft. At this point you are now around 50% of the way through finishing your book.
For example:
A 6” x 9” book of 200 pages
Using an 11pt font with 1.15 line spacing and good margins means you have around 200 words per page [average 8 words per line]
That’s at total of 40,000 words per book
At 4000 words a week – it will take you 10 weeks to do the first draft.
Second Draft
The second draft is focused on cutting the book down to the target size, and checking that the organization of the chapters creates a natural flow through the book. Often what you designed in your chapter outline doesn’t always make the most sense once you start writing, so use this first edit to move things around to keep the reader more engaged and interested.
Editing Your Book
The first edit looks more closely at sentence construction and grammar. The book needs to read well at a sentence by sentence level.
The second edit focuses on formatting, punctuation and a final proof on spelling and grammar.
The final proof [third edit] should include an independent review.
At the end of this phase you are ready to move into the pre-press phase where you focus on front pages, index, notes, author profile etc.
This is a very rough guide, but serves as a reasonable benchmark.
Happy Writing
Esmart
