Here we are almost at the end of 2007 - did you write your book this year?

If you didn’t manage it in 2007, decide that you’ll write your book in 2008, and start writing it, in 20 minutes a day, on January 1, 2008.

There’s an enormous amount of help available for you at every stage of writing your book, but YOU need to put pen to paper, and put one word after another.

Here’s someone who did it. The Advocate - www.newarkadvocate.com - Newark, Ohio reports that when she started writing her book: “The characters soon came to life on the computer. My advice to aspiring writers would be to write about something you know and to thoroughly research the subject. If you are writing a memoir, search your own memories, and ask family members to contribute theirs. My best resource was my 90-year-old aunt, who shared stories with me. I also researched history of the times so I could weave it throughout the story.”

Everyone can manage 20 minutes a day: in your lunch hour, on the train, before you go to bed - just start writing.

Start anywhere, write anything. All creative work seems like chaos, but you’ll be surprised that if you persevere, your book will take shape.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Many authors have touted the effects of publishing your book on the Web as a promotional tool for bookstore sales.

This New York Times article Crossover Dreams: Turning Free Web Work Into Real Book Sales reports regarding the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which was published free online: “Mr. Kinney, a design director at Family Education Network, a unit of Pearson that operates Funbrain, where ‘Wimpy Kid’ first appeared, spent 10 years writing the book and always intended to publish it in print form. But after discussing it with his boss, Jess Brallier, the publisher of the Family Education Network, Mr. Kinney decided to serialize his book on Funbrain.com in part to attract children to the site during the summer. As an unknown author, he figured he might gain more exposure if he published the book — which looks as if it could be a hand-written diary of a mischievous middle-school boy — on a Web site with thousands of daily visitors in his target market.”

However, PublishersLunch Deluxe, from PublishersMarketplace says:

The NYT cites the illustrated children’s novel DIARY OF A WIMPY KID as the latest example that material available for free on the internet can still have value in traditional book form. In this case, Abrams has sold 147,000 copies tracked via Bookscan, and a larger version of what became the book (1,300 online pages in all) remains posted at Funbrain.com, where it has been a popular feature. But at least one retailer says the sales are due to good word-of-mouth for the book rather than viral attention driven by the web version.

So what’s best? Should you publish your book online free as a promotional tool as you write the book?

My gut feeling, if you’re a new writer, and don’t know much about selling your book is - yes.

You get these benefits:

* a readership

* publisher interest once the readership is big enough

* confidence in yourself - readers tend to give you confidence

* motivation to continue writing, because of the interaction with readers.

Serial other-woman Sarah Symonds learned to write, and self-published a sensational book, Having An Affair? A Handbook For The Other Woman, which was snatched up by Random House

The mistress of self-delusion: Lord Archer’s ex-lover’s guide to the virtues of being the ‘other woman’ reports: “In the end, she spent £1,500 publishing it herself. But following her appearance on Oprah in October - her book was picked up by Random House. ‘The best form of revenge is success,’ she says. ‘I really hope Mr X sees me doing well.’”

The takeaway from this article (questions of morality to one side) is if you’re handed a lemon, you can make lemonade when you write about it.

Appearing on Oprah sets the “bestseller” seal on a book.

Your life experiences may not be as sensational as those of Sarah Symonds, but whatever they are, you can write about them. Who knows? You may end up appearing on Oprah too.