This module focuses your attention on the foundation of your blogged book: content. You learn how to brainstorm content for fiction and nonfiction blogged books primarily with a mind map, but other techniques are offered as well. You then organize your ideas into a table of contents. Creating a table of contents for your book gives you the starting point from which to expand your book structure into a full blog plan consisting of many post-sized bits of your manuscript. Each chapter gets broken down into many blog posts. In this module you also determine how long it will take you to blog your book, and if the content and plan you have created will produce the marketable book you described in module one.
The premise behind blogging a book lies in writing and publishing your manuscript over time in post-sized bits. If you finish the manuscript in three months and stop blogging, you won’t develop a platform. Thus, you need to brainstorm your entire book—as many ideas for each chapter as possible. This allows you to create an elaborate plan that details blog posts for an entire manuscript spanning 6-12 months. You then can calculate how many posts to write per week for how a certain number of months. At this point you know how long it will take to write your book and how many words you will to compose.
With this information, you can also adjust your content. You don’t want too short a book, or you will finish blogging your book too quickly. That means your promotion efforts won’t amount to much of an author’s platform or prove convincing to an acquisitions editor. For this reason, you want to plan out your content carefully so you drip it out, post by post, in an effective manner.
Once your plan is complete, take a close look at whether you have created the marketable book you researched in module one. If not, tweak your content plan before beginning to blog your book. If your content is marketable and you have a plan that involves blogging your manuscript in post-sized bits (300-500 words—500-800 words for fiction) over the course of 6-12 months, you are in good shape to go on to the next module.
Module Two Video
Module Two Audio
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Module 2 Video PDF
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Blog Schedule and Duration
PDF of the slide deck from the module video.
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Additional Video: Book Blogging Time Frame
Exercises
Create Your Content and TOC
- Use one of the previously described methods and brainstorm your content. Then organize it into a table of contents (TOC).
- Compare your book to other books in your genre or category to see if you have enough chapters.
- Determine if you have enough content for each chapter and for your book.
- See the resource section for mind map instructions.
- Choose a deadline (when you will complete the blogged book). Figure out how many posts you need to write to complete your book by your deadline.
- Here are the two ways to calculate this:
- If you have a deadline set: Multiple the number of months or weeks you have available for writing by the number of posts you will write per week. This tells you how many posts you need to write. Now multiply the average number of words per post by the number of posts you need to write and you will know the length of your book and the number of words you need to write (minus the content you have chosen to leave off the blog). Ex. Deadline of 9 months = 36 weeks x 3 posts/week = 108 posts x 500 words/post = 54,000 words.
- If you have an estimated word count for your book: Divide the number of words (excluding any content you don’t plan to publish on the blog) by the average number of words you plan to write in a post. This tells you how many blog posts you need to write to blog your whole book. Now determine how many posts you will write per week. Divide this into the total number of posts you need to blog. You now know how many weeks it will take you to blog your book. (Divide by 4 to get an approximate count on the number of months it will take.) Ex. 50,000 words ÷ 500 words/post = 100 post; 100 posts ÷ 2 posts/week = 50 weeks = 12.5 months.
What Stays on and Off the Blog?
- You attract readers to your printed book or ebook or publishers to your proposed book by providing “bonus” material.
- Determine what material, for instance two chapters, tips, special features, you will add to your finished book but not publish on the blog.
- This material should be in your table of contents and full book content plan, but your blogged book should stand firmly without it.
Create Your Post Plan
- Create a full blog post plan— as many post titles as you need to complete your book or to blog it by your deadline. Each post should have a working title. Your table of contents should include chapters that will not be blogged, but these do not need to be broken into post-sized bits.
Is Your Content Marketable?
- Now that you have a blog plan, evaluate it in light of the work you did in Lesson 1. Answer these questions:
- Does this content add value to my readers’ lives?
- Is this content unique and necessary in my category (online and offline)?
- Is there a market for my book?
- Does this book address the needs and wants of my ideal reader?
Resources
Mind mapping software (free and paid):
- xmind.net
- mindmeister.com
- freemind.sourceforge.net
- mindjet.com
Mind mapping instructions:
1. Mind map your nonfiction or fiction book using poster board and Post It Notes. Put a larger Post It note in the middle of the board and write your topic, book title or story line on it. Then start writing related topics, events, memories, or characters on the smaller sticky notes. If you are writing fiction, brainstorm all the things that might happen in your story, elements of your character development or story development. When done, organize the notes into related topic areas, time periods or story lines on the board. Pick up the sticky notes and move them around. The new groupings become chapters. Use a different colored Post It Note at the top of each grouping to indicate the chapter name or topic. Type each chapter name, category or subject into a TOC. Each of the sticky notes in the groupings below the chapter becomes a topic, event or issue to write about in the chapter. You might also use them as subheadings if you are writing nonfiction.
2. Mind map using a poster board and colored pens or pencils for a nonfiction book; you can do this on a white board using these same basic instructions. Get a large, blank piece of paper. In the center of the paper, print your book’s topic. Draw a circle around the keyword or phrase. (For example, if you are writing a book on the topic of how to train dogs, you might use the key-phrase “dog training.”) Draw a line from your key word and write down the first word or phrase that pops into your mind. (For example, “stay.”) Circle the word or phrase. This is a sub-topic that may become a chapter in your book. Now draw a line from that word and jot down the next word that comes to mind (For example, “tips.”) This represents a sub-sub topic, or a subhead in your chapter. Repeat step four until you’ve run out of word associations. Now, return to your key word or key phrase and repeat the exercise. Come up with another sub-topic, then as many word associations (sub-sub topics) with that sub-topic as possible, and then move on to another. Continue until you have created 10 to 15 sub-topics, each with several sub-sub-topics.
Bonuses!
10-Chapter Blogged-Book Content Plan
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Blogged Book Content Plan
Mind-Mapping for Authors Course
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Mind-mapping for Authors Course
