Many people want to write a book. Indeed, a survey found that ten per cent of the population want to do it. Few people accomplish it, but you can.

I wrote my first book at the age of eight. From memory, it had 270 pages and the story involved ghosts, intrepid kids, and horses. Everything I wrote up to the age of 14 involved horses.

Sadly, none of my early stories survive; I wish I’d kept them. But here’s what they taught me: they taught me to get started, and to keep going until I finished.

Most importantly of all, those early stories taught me that writing a book is easy when you have the attitude that you CAN do it. Somehow I knew that writing was simple: you sat down, and you wrote whatever came to mind.

Here are three tips which will help you to start writing your book today. It really is easier than you think.

1. Sit Down and Write

This is key. Write anything at all; don’t stop to think. Keep going. If you try to impose logic on this process, you won’t write much, and writing will be difficult for you.

Think of your writing self as someone else. Let that other self write. You can sort out the mess later (all writing is messy.)

2. (Nonfiction or Fiction) Create an Outline Before or After You Write

Some writers swear by outlines. Other writers swear at outlines.

It doesn’t matter which kind of writer you are. I use outlines for nonfiction; I don’t start the book until the outline is done.

For novels, I outline after I’ve written anywhere from 20 to 100 pages. The “outline” is just a collection of scene notes, each scene written on an index card.

When I’ve completed the first draft of a novel, I outline the whole thing, just to see what I’ve got. It makes it easier to cut scenes, and create needed scenes before I write the second draft.

3. Realize That You Can Write Any Scene or Chapter in Any Order You Like

Let’s say you’re writing a mystery. A promiscuous heiress has been murdered. Her husband and her lover are both suspects. Your protagonist, an ambitious, over-worked, and under-appreciated female detective, who has a lover of her own, and a suspicious, violent spouse, is emotionally involved in the case.

Just get started. Write the scene where the gardener, one of the heiress’s former lovers, finds the body. Or write the scene where the detective interviews the husband, and gets nowhere.

On the other hand, perhaps all you know is that you want to write a novel. You have no clue what kind of novel, nor do you have a single glimmer of a plot.

Again, just get started. Write something, anything. Describe your favorite coffee shop or bar in four sentences. The door opens. Your protagonist enters. Her white silk blouse is torn, she’s lost a shoe, and has skinned knees and ripped stockings.

Just start writing and keep writing. Describe the images in your mind.

So there you have it — three tips to help you to write a book. Sit down, right now, and write a sentence. Then another one… See? It’s easier than you think.

The Write A Book Collection — the ultimate toolbox for writing and selling your books

These days it’s crazy to spend years writing a book, without having any idea as to whether or not you can make money from it. If you want to write, you can – you have a global market, which is hungry for information and entertainment. And YOU can provide it… even if you’re a brand new author.

As you may know, I write and sell many writing guides. I also sell information products in many other areas than writing.

I want to show you how you can do the same, if you wish. Your dreams of writing a book can be the spark which changes your life.

I’ve collected everything I know about writing and selling your books into my brand new Write A Book Collection: it’s the ultimate toolbox for anyone who wants to write and sell books in 2010 and beyond.

Read this article: Why Online Retailers Will Squeeze Out Publishers In The Book Business | paidContent. It suggests:

“With those 100 million billing and messaging relationships, Apple and Amazon would only need to achieve a reasonable 1 percent conversion rate to help an author sell 1 million books, a level few authors today reach.”

Yep — Apple and Amazon can help you to make sales. And you’ll keep more money too.

Want to write a book? You can. Someone once said that if you’ve survived your own childhood, you have more than enough material to write all the books you want.

You can turn your life into fiction, or nonfiction. Your choice. Your thoughts, your ideas, and your emotions, come together as creative inspiration. All you need to do is allow it.

If you want to write fiction — a novel or short stories — your emotions are key. Readers read novels to feel, rather than to think. They also read in order to make sense of their own lives. Novels are not real, they’re constructed. However, they can feel intensely real to readers, and this is what readers what — an emotional experience.

You may feel that you have the world’s most boring existence, and that nothing exciting has ever happened to you, but you can use everything you are in your fiction. It’s the only way to write novels which touch others.

One point: you’re not using your life as it is. Real inspiration lies deeper than your thoughts and even your memories. You’ll explore your life, and use your emotions as the basis of your fiction.

The best way to get started writing your novel is just to start. Let’s look at three easy ways you can fictionalize your life.

1. Uncover Evocative Childhood Emotional Experiences

Ready to write? Think of a childhood experience — a pleasant one. Perhaps you remember a holiday, or a special family event. Recall the experience. Allow yourself to be there.

Allow the emotion to come back to you. Now start to write.

Write whatever comes: don’t control your writing.

At this stage, you’re just aiming to touch the experience. When you keep writing and allow yourself to feel your emotions, sooner or later a story will come to you. When it does, go with it.

2. Use Triggering Images from a Photo Album

Take out an old family album. Leaf through it slowly. Allow emotions to arise. Remember the day each photo was taken.

Now, choose one photo to which you have an intense emotional reaction, and start writing.

Again, don’t try to control your writing. Let your writing take you where it wants you to go.

By the way, once you start writing your novel, if you get blocked, take out your photo album again.

3. Let Music Inspire You

Music is inspirational for many people, especially music which was around in their childhood. When you listen to music which you heard in your youth, you’ll find that you’re taken right back to those long-ago days.

Sit down to write. Then close your eyes and listen to the music. Images — memories — will arise. Start writing.

You now have three ways in which you can access your emotions. These emotions trigger your imagination, and deepest inspiration.

Not only will writing your novel be fun, it will be meaningful to you, and to your readers.

Turn Your Words Into Gold: Write and Sell An Ebook In Just Eight Hours

Here’s what I love about writing ebooks: you write them once, and they keep on selling forever.

I know several writers who’ve taken to the Kindle platform like the proverbial ducks to water. One writer friend turns out a new Kindle ebook every month, like clockwork. The last time we spoke, she had 11 ebooks selling — and her income is rising month by month.

Another writer friend mixes writing her own ebooks, with writing ebooks for others. Currently she’s been commissioned to write a biography, and a family history, for the same client. She’s finding it huge fun, and she’s making more money than she’s ever made.

The benefit of writing and selling ebooks is that once written, they can keep on selling forever. Would you trade eight hours for an income stream?

Working on a novel?

If you are, take great care when naming your characters. You also need to take care with phone numbers, email addresses, business names…

You’re writing FICTION. This means that the names in your novel, and assorted info, like phone numbers, must be fictional too.

If they’re not, you could be in deep trouble.

It takes just moments to check that you’re not deliberately using the name of a real person or an organization.

Angela Hoy gives you a basic plan to follow, in this article Does that “Fictitious” Business Name in Your Novel Already Belong to Somebody Else? By Angela Hoy:

“1. Search Google for names you plan to use in your novel

2. If you plan to use email addresses in your book, register for those email addresses to ensure they aren’t already being used and so nobody else can acquire them in the future.

3. Search the U.S. trademark website for business names or fictional products you plan to mention in your novel.”

You should also include a disclaimer in your front matter, along the lines that any names, titles, organizations mentioned in your book do not refer to anyone. Include a disclaimer in your afterword too, if you have one.

Are you writing a book? Books are information products, and I’ve been creating them for a decade.

I’m transitioning my own products into the Kindle/ ereader future. If you’d like to join me, you can.

Subscribe to Info Products Publisher, Info Products Publisher: Build Your Info Products Business with Angela Booth — Tips, Tools, and Resources, and receive a couple of valuable guides, including:

“Write and Sell an Ebook… TODAY

Just getting started? You’ll love this. It’s one of my top-selling ebook products for beginners, and you receive it completely free.”