'Once you own your expertise and write your book, it will help your clients', writes Jennifer Jones. There's a Book in Every Expert (that's you!) encourages readers to start seeing themselves as experts and to write their credibility building books to share their expertise with the world.
First, Jennifer shows you why you need to write your book for yourself, for your business, and for your (future) clients. Writing your book will solidify your identity as an expert in your field for you and your readers. Positioning yourself this way through your book will help your business grow and help your future clients understand how you can help them and why they need to work with you. For your existing and past clients, it's the perfect way for you to keep supporting them - your book is better at communicating your practices than even their most detailed notes.
When it comes to the practicalities of writing, Jennifer uses what she has learned over almost two decades of teaching writing to help you see how you can fit writing your book in around running your business, taking care of your family, and having a life.
She shows that when you reimagine what it means to be a writer, you see that you don't need hours and hours in a quiet office to write a book. Instead, you need a few hours each week. More importantly for busy businesswomen, these hours don't need to come all at once - you can write your book in short (15 to 30 minute) blocks of time spread throughout your week once you master the art of using 'breadcrumbs'. These are notes that help you quickly pick up your train of thought when you return to your draft.
Once you accept that you have time to write your book, Jennifer's book guides you through the process. She helps you develop your topic and produce a rough working outline. She then guides you in the process of developing a writing ritual that works for you. Like your bedtime ritual, this is an easy way to signal to your brain that you're ready to shift gears.
Jennifer knows writing doesn't always go to plan, so she helps you recognise and battle writing demons so you can maintain your momentum. Also, she knows that sometimes what goes wrong is that our computers crash, or our dogs eat our drafts (so much worse than eating our homework), so she gives clear advice on keeping your work safe. Since we can't all be experts in everything, she also helps you identify what support you're going to need and get it in place to make your book a success.
Crucially, Jennifer helps you accept that your first draft needs to be very rough, and then she guides you through the revision process. This begins by looking at big picture issues and then focuses down to the sentence and word level of writing. When you follow this process you can be confident that you are making your book clearer more useful for your readers.
Jennifer then guides you through the processes of working with beta readers and sending your work to a proofreader. She helps you understand how to help your beta readers help you, as well as how to respond to constructive criticism (and how to ignore unhelpful negativity). She also helps you understand that your proofreader isn't being difficult, nor is she criticising you. Instead, she's trying to make your book the best it can possibly be. By the end of the process, you will have a ready to publish manuscript!
Finally, the afterword by Sam Pearce, owner of SWATT Books, gives you an overview of the self-publishing process. This information will help you decide whether you want to go it alone or budget for a publishing consultant to help you along the way.
