The Write a Book Challenge

Plan, Draft, Publish, and Promote a Short book in Four Months

This is a three-month program to write, publish, and promote a short non-fiction Kindle book.

This course is designed for freelance writers and other solo professionals or consultants who want to publish a Kindle book in order to boost their businesses.

Here’s how the course very roughly breaks out:

Month 1: Plan and draft your book
Month 2: Edit and prep your book for publication
Month 3: Publish and promote your book

Here’s the support/structure this course provides:

A 12-week calendar with well-defined goals set every week to move you from idea to published book.

A weekly emailed check-in so you stay on schedule and remember why you wanted to write your book and what it will mean to you once it’s done.

Online lessons and “homework” each week here to help you move through each phase of creating and publishing a book.

Week By Week Schedule for the Write a Book Challenge (pdf outline)

The Write a Book Challenge Week by Week

	Plan	Research	Draft	Rewrite	Editorial review	Design & Production	Promotion
Week 1	X	X
Week 2	X	X
Week 3		X	X
Week 4		X	X
Week 5			X				X
Week 6				X
Week 7				X			X
Week 8				X
Week 9					X		X
Week 10						X	X
Week 11							X
Week 12							X

Bonus materials

How to Repurpose Your Kindle Book Draft into An Entire Writer’s Platform Worth of Content

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: How much time does the challenge require?
Answer: About ten hours per week.

Question: How am I ever going to be able to draft a whole book in three weeks?
Answer: Kindle books don’t have to be long. They can be as short as 12,000 words. Even 25,000 words is considered to be a “good enough” length for a Kindle book.
Consider this: The ideal length for a Kindle book is about the length of a plane flight or an evening’s worth of reading. So let’s say that’s about two to two and a half hours. As the average person reads 238 words per minute, the average person can read a book that’s 28,560 to 35,700 words in a plane flight or an evening.
Don’t confuse length with value, either. People do not necessarily want a long book to read. Everyone’s busy. In fact, making your book shorter may make it appear more accessible and actionable than if it’s longer.
Remember you’re writing the draft in three weeks. You’ll have another full three weeks to rewrite your draft. Take that time to flesh out your ideas and expand certain sections of your book.

Question: Can I use this challenge to write a fiction book?
Answer: No. This challenge is for nonfiction books.

Question: Can I use this challenge to write a memoir?
Answer: No. This challenge is for freelancers, solo professionals, and consultants who want to write a short book that helps boost their business.

Question: How much does it cost to publish a Kindle book?
Answer: Publishing a Kindle book is free, but people usually opt to invest in a few things like a professionally-designed cover (~$150), formatting (~$50-$200), and possibly proofreading (~$200-$800).

Question: Does it have to be a Kindle book? Can I publish on different platforms?
Answer: It does not have to be a Kindle book. Publish on whatever platform you want.

Question: Who’s in the challenge now?
Answer: There are under a dozen people in this group right now, so it’s fairly small. Most (but not all) of the people in the group are also in The Sought-After Freelance Writer course.