Week 2: Write an outline of your book

Create a three to five-page outline for your book: 

• What 3-7 main points should it cover? Each of these is going to become a section.
  
• What are the 3-5 secondary points that each of those main sections really needs to include? Focus on the essential pieces of information.
  
• What tidbits of information (quotes, statistics, ideas you have) do you have right now, and where do you want these to fit in the book?
  
• Are there any people you’d like to get interviews with or quotes from? (Like prospective clients or customers…like magazine editors or other influential people in your industry?) Where do you think the questions you’ll ask these people and the answers they’ll give you will fit into your book?
  
• Will you be doing any original research for this book, like a survey? If you will, what questions will you ask? How will the answers from those questions fit into the outline of your book? Sometimes, a whole book can be structured around a survey. Each question in your survey can be a chapter of your book. Structure your survey well, add an introduction and a conclusion, and boom: There’s your outline.
  
• What do you want people to know or be able to do after they’ve read this book? In other words, how will people be different once they’ve read this book?

“What tool should I use to write my outline in?”

Honestly, use whatever you’re most comfortable with. Just promise me: You will not turn finding an outlining tool into a project. You will not use finding an outline tool as a clever but undeniable procrastination method.

This is just an outline. You don’t need fancy software to write an outline.

I personally like Google docs. Here’s why:

• It’s free
• It’s easy to share your outline or draft with other people
• It’s easy to track comments, to-do items, or link to online resources from
• It’s not on a hard drive on a computer that can get fried, or stolen, or deleted

Microsoft Word is also fine for outlines and writing drafts. I have used Scrivener for one book, and while it was okay, the interface “got in the way” of my writing a bit. Scrivener also costs $60.

If you want, you could even use index cards. They’re just risky, because to use index cards to plan your book, you’ll need to lay them out on a table. One good breeze, a friendly cat, or a gleeful toddler, and you have a disaster.

Keep it simple. This is just an outline. Embrace imperfection, pick a tool, and get started.

Supplemental: This is the recording of a Zoom call I did with members of the Write a Book Challenge when a) we met weekly and b) We all started the Challenge on the same date.