Writing a Book in 50 Easy Steps

Just one week until the publishing of Misspelled Paradise! What did that process look like for me? Here are the 50 easy steps to publishing your own book.

Making of a (Travel) Book:

Go to some cool place (in this case Colombia)
Keep a weekly blog about said cool place
Keep a daily journal about said cool place and what I did for a year
Say goodbye to said cool place
Enjoy hot showers, fast internet, and salads again. Stop blogging
Decide that I should organize old blogs
Realize how bad the writing was on the blog and start rewriting
Rewriting turns into reorganizing into a narrative
Realize I could write a book on this stuff
Start writing book
Realize I still don’t know enough about Colombia to write a book
Do copious amounts of research, including but not limited to Wikipedia and scholarly articles
Write some more.
Edit
Write some more
Go drink more coffee
Research self-publishing and realize this might take over my free time for the next year(s)
Start website and blog
Write and edit some more
Find an editor and send book to him
Wait for editor
Blog some more
Start thinking about a title
Get edits back from editor and rework seemingly every other sentence
Edit
Keep blogging
Get a Facebook page
Work on cover ideas
Keep working on title
Scrap all old covers and start over
Scrap all titles and start over
Edit
Decide on title
Decide on cover
Join Twitter
Go back to Colombia for “research” (and lots of fried street food)
Drink lots more coffee
“Finish” writing
Edit
Finish cover
Send away for proof for book
Put book on Goodreads
Send to proofreader
Decide on release date
Have Goodreads giveaway
Send away for another proof
Figure out formatting for ebook
Figure out sales channels and pricing
Decide that proof is final
Take a deep breath and press the “publish” button on Amazon.