FAQs

There are several different ways you can turn your life story into a book. The most obvious way is to write an autobiography or a memoir in which you write about your life in chronological order. Your story and writing style must fascinate readers. The problem with this approach is that if you are not well known, it will require a lot of book promotion to attract readers who do not know you or have never heard of you.

The other way to write about your life is to transform your story into theme-based chapters that provide readers with insights or inspiration in addition to telling your story. For example, when California entrepreneur John Shen wanted to share his fascinating life story of growing up in China, coming to the U.S. as a graduate student, and then starting multiple businesses to finally achieve the American Dream, we organized his chapters around the character traits that entrepreneurs must have to succeed. The result, Crossing the Swamp, is an inspirational and insightful book for any entrepreneur.

Contact us to discuss your life story and how it can become a book.

Having an idea for a book is exciting. But, of course, an idea is just the starting point of a longer journey. You now need to see how to extend and translate your idea into a sequence of chapters that make a book. You then need to decide if you can write the entire book yourself, or at least a portion of each chapter. And then you need to think about the time and expense you will need to promote and market the book. All these steps are our expertise. We can help you decide how to transform your idea into a book and work with you to ghostwrite or edit your manuscript and finally to promote and market your book.

If you do not have the time to write your entire book, or you believe your writing ability is not up to the quality standard you want. frankly it’s time to contact us for a no-obligation chat. We can help you in several ways, including: 1) by taking over as your ghostwriter to complete the manuscript; 2) by acting as your book coach to help you through the entire writing process; or 3) by acting as your editor to edit all that you write yourself. Many of our clients have come to us with this same dilemma, and as a result, we offer a service that might be called 20/80, where you do 20% of the writing and we do the remaining 80% as your ghostwriter/editor.

Fees for ghostwriting a book are quite variable, as it depends on the complexity of the subject matter, the amount of research that the ghostwriter may need to do, and the length of the book. The only way to answer this question is to chat with us so we can better understand your book project and writing needs.

There are several types of editors–developmental editor, line editor, and copyeditor–so the fees vary. Each type of editing has its own fee structure. You can read more about the 3 types of editors here.

The fee also varies depending on the length of the manuscript. Editing a 120-page book is, of course, less costly than editing a 200-page book. Contact us to discuss your editing needs.

Our fees depend on what services you need, which might include ghostwriting or editing, book cover and interior design, publishing, and marketing / PR support. We have several “packages” we can offer you. The most accurate way to answer this question is to contact us for a free 30-minute consultation with no obligations attached.

Glad you asked. Yes, we have a written a very comprehensive book about the 7 stages of writing and publishing your book. It is available for sale on Amazon. Click here to take a look at it.

It depends. I need to know more about your book before I determine if I know a literary agent who might be interested in your project. Literary agents usually specialize in certain topics, and my connections to literary agents are largely focused on non-fiction books in business, psychology, creativity, parenting, and social issues. Contact me to discuss your book and we can determine if I can help you. Note: you will need to write a book proposal and two sample chapters before an agent can represent you to publishing companies.

It is not easy to accomplish this. Most major publishing companies are interested only in book proposals from well-known people who already have a reputation and a large social media following. Even if your book idea feels unique and new to you, it can be difficult to get a literary agent to represent you to publishing houses if you are essentially an “unknown” quantity. But it is not impossible to attract a major publisher. You will need a strong book proposal and two sample chapters to submit to literary agents and hope that one of them will accept to represent you. Contact me for further discussion.

This question is an excellent one to answer before you write your entire manuscript — and many new authors are unfamiliar with how to assess it. So here’s a quick answer. First, book length is measured in book pages, not manuscript pages. Your MS Word manuscript page count has nothing to do with the final book page count. What authors need to think about is the word count. The standard non-fiction book today contains from 40,000 words to 70,000 words–or 80,000 at the upper end. How those translate to book pages can vary; it depends on the font size used by the book designer. Some books contain 300 words per page, while others contain 400 words per page.

Two other factors may influence your book length. First, the complexity of your topic. A more complex topic may require a longer book (more words) to explain it. Secondly, the market and competition for your book. If most books on your topic are longer tomes, you may want to write a shorter book, and vice versa.

You can find a longer, more detailed explanation in this blog.

Wow, this is a very complicated question. First of all, nothing is guaranteed in the book industry. Many factors are at play in driving a book into bestseller status. It depends on the competition in the subject area, the quality of the writing in the book, the cover design (yes, people do judge a book by its cover!), and the author’s ability to promote the book (and pay for much of that promotion). If a bestseller is your goal, let’s discuss your book project and assess how high you might be able to go.

But if you are reading this website, you might be among the authors we often work with who are not interested in spending the time, effort, and money to achieve a bestseller. Your goal may be to write and publish a book that demonstrates your expertise in order to attract clients to your business. To such authors, landing a new client may be worth far more money than selling 10,000-50,000 or more books.

Self-publishing is essentially taking the entire publishing process in your own hands, giving you more control over your own book. Self-publishing arrived and took off around 2005 when Amazon started CreateSpace which allowed authors to upload their book files (interior pages and cover design) to its website. CreateSpace would then use “digital printing” to produce one copy at a time rather than “offset printing” which usually requires printing 500 to 1000 books on a very large printing press. This allowed new authors to publish their books and sell them on Amazon, one copy at a time whenever a reader purchased the book. Today, Amazon’s company KDP and several other companies such as Ingram Spark can print books using digital printing presses.

You can self-publish on your own by forming your publishing company, hiring your own editor and book designer and getting your own ISBN number. Or you can publish with one of the publishing companies we have– New Insights Press, Over and Above Creative, or Precocity Press. We do the self-publishing for you, using our imprint, ISBNs, and editorial/design team to bring your book to market.

This is an important question to ask, as it is extremely useful to estimate your “pub date” — i.e. an approximate time when your book will be published and available for sale. There are many factors that can affect the length of time to get published. First, how long will it take you (or your ghostwriter) to write the entire manuscript? Usually, it takes 2 months up to 6 months depending on complexity of the book, amount of time you can write, and word count. Cover design can usually be done during the writing period, as long your book title / subtitle are settled. Once your manuscript is done, you may want to have a copyeditor review it for grammar, style, and consistency, which may take 2 weeks to 1 month. Then the book designer lays out the pages, chapter by chapter. That also may take 2 weeks to 1 month. Then there is proofing, to ensure that are no mistakes in the page layouts. If you are using offset printing (which you will need to do if you want your book sold in bookstores through a book distributor), that can take 2 to 3 months (or longer if printed in China). If you are using Amazon’s KDP or IngramSpark, the files can be uploaded and your book readied for sale within 1 week. All in all, the entire process can take 5-6 months at the shortest, or 1 year at the maximum. Contact us to discuss your scheduling needs, as we can recommend the best approach for your goals.

If you are running a consulting business, or you are involved in any type of independent entrepreneurial activity, authoring a book is a prestigious calling card to attract clients. A beautifully designed book with your name on the cover demonstrates to potential clients that you have substantial experience and expertise in your field. A book also signifies that you are committed to your profession and to educating others about your work. It demonstrates a high level of thinking, creativity, and expression. We have worked with many authors who have used their book to bring in new clients. Contact us to see how we can help you grow your business with a book.

Unfortunately, the answer to this question is no. There are many reasons for this that we hope you will understand. First, it takes a significant amount of effort to write a book, amounting to months of time. And since I am not an expert in your profession, I cannot truly be a co-author of the book nor take part in its marketing and promotion. I would not be able to speak for you, be interviewed on podcasts, radio, or TV. This means that I would not have any influence on its sales potential and profitability. And that means that I must rely on you to sell enough copies to compensate me properly for my many months of work to help write and publish your book. For this reason, I cannot accept an offer for some of the royalty in exchange for working on your book. However, our fees are extremely reasonable to help you write, edit, design, and publish your book. Let’s set up a free 30-minute chat to discuss your book project and see if we can make it worthwhile for you to publish with us.

This question is so popular that I actually wrote a blog on it. Click here to read a very detailed explanation.

Great question and we’re happy to explain. A book designer is a specialized profession in the design business. The book designer is not an illustrator per se. The book designer’s job is to understand your book concept, even read your manuscript, and then design your book’s front cover and back cover, as well as the interior page layouts. This requires a strong sense of book design, color, balance, and typography. Imagine: the book cover could go in many different directions, so the designer has to evaluate any competing books in your field and take into account your preferences. The book designer must also design your interior pages–what do chapter opensers look like? what font to use for headings and regular text? what trim size to use for your book? and so on. All in all, hiring an experienced, talented book designer is worth the cost. We have several exceptional book designers on our team.