| Once you are a recognized authority in your field, | | | | e-book of 50 pages, guess 15,000 words. Since |
| people come asking to hire you. Unfortunately, to | | | | most people speak in about a hundred words per |
| be a recognized authority, you must have written | | | | minute, that gives you 150 minutes or two hours |
| one or more books. People don't care if you | | | | 30 minutes. A 200 page book of 60,000 words |
| self-publish books as long as you have them. | | | | will take four times as long, 10 hours. That doesn't |
| "But," you say, "I don't know how to write | | | | count rewriting, editing, and revisions. |
| books." Actually, you can do it as easily as you | | | | If you don't feel comfortable just reading |
| can talk. | | | | questions and answering them in the privacy of |
| You'll need to get your speech transcribed into | | | | your office, have somebody come in and read |
| text, of course. You can have that done cheaply. | | | | the questions to you. Then you get to talk to an |
| But you also have to speak the material, and that | | | | actual person. |
| can be awkward. It is not something that most of | | | | If you're a public speaker, you can record your |
| us have experience with. | | | | speeches and seminars. If their content doesn't |
| If you're comfortable giving speeches, you can | | | | include all you want in the book, you can enhance |
| just say the things that you would want in your | | | | your business while writing your book by holding |
| book, working from your outline. | | | | tele-seminars. Just have the tele-seminar recorded |
| Most people, however, are not that comfortable | | | | and send out to the recording to be transcribed. |
| just talking from an outline. It's much easier to | | | | To summarize, you can record yourself talking |
| write a book by answering questions. Write out a | | | | and convert that into a book. It can be a bit |
| list of questions, and go through the list answering | | | | awkward, but talking to other people, or |
| them. The questions can become the chapter | | | | answering questions can overcome that. It costs |
| titles, and the answers, the contents of the | | | | a bit to get your recording transcribed, but not a |
| chapter. | | | | huge amount. You still have all the editing and |
| How do you get this into written form? The | | | | revising to do, so writing a book isn't utterly |
| easiest way is to hire somebody to transcribe it | | | | painless. Nevertheless, you can produce a |
| for you. You can go to a freelancers' web site | | | | manuscript a lot more comfortably and a lot |
| and put up the transcription for bids. There are | | | | faster than by typing, and you have to have a |
| plenty of college graduates in India who will do it | | | | book in order to be the go-to person, the person |
| for $5 an hour. | | | | other people seek out to hire. |
| How long will it take to dictate the book? For an | | | | |