Essay Online

When you do any online research about home based businesses, you will likely find thousands of results that tell you that the most successful and easiest business to start from your home is a copywriting business. You can make a great living without ever having to get dressed or leave the privacy of your own home.

Out of all the home businesses that give you the option of solely working from home, such as marketing programs and designing companies, copywriting is still touted to be the best of its kind.

The biggest reason that copywriting has been dubbed the perfect at home business is due to the extremely low startup costs. You really don’t have to have any special talent, just be able to write in good English and grammar, mix in a little creativity, and you are raring to go.

If you have had any previous writing experience at all, you simply just boot up your computer, and go to work. For those who have little to no experience, but are still interested in starting a copywriting business from home, they should check out one of the many online classes available that teach you the writing basics you will need to know in order to get started.

Another benefit of an at home copywriting business is that you have the option of working your day job, and running the business on the side, or just simply depending on your copywriting business for your sole full-time source of income.

Few people are able to just up and quit their job to try and work from home, as they don’t have the capital needed to make ends meet while waiting on the profits to start rolling in. Home copywriting is also taking off with stay at home moms who are interested in contributing to the household income while still staying at home to care for their children, they can work when their schedule allows, and care for the family as needed.

The best of both worlds all in one tidy package, especially since the money made by these moms is extra income, there is no risk involved, and their family won’t starve if it doesn’t work out.

You can start this business no matter how old you are, what gender you are, or what type of physical condition that you are in. If you can write, and are physically able to sit at the computer and type, then you can do this work.

The success of your home copywriting business is not affected by changes in the economy. There will still be work for you, even if unemployment rates rise, and the cost of living and interest rates go up. The better the economy, the more work you will probably get, but no matter how bad it is, you will still have work to keep your business afloat, unlike some other home based businesses out there.

If you want to earn some extra money, for whatever the reason, then you should consider beginning your own at home copywriting business. If you do good work, and become highly sought after, you may be able to produce enough income to be able to stay at home and work fulltime for yourself. Wouldn’t it be nice to tell your boss goodbye, and know that you would still be financially secure?

Start your writing with conflict if you want to guarantee sales, grab an agent or publisher, get paid a big advance. Your protagonist wants something and your antagonist wants to block it. If you want to be the publisher’s star-of-the-month, just hand out a strong dose of conflict right up front. Bold like. Then, they’re wrapped up in your story and it’s too late for them to escape. Trust me, readers, agents and publishers are going to consider writing with a strong dose of conflict as good fortune for their company. Readers will not want to put it down. The big boys just might pat you on the head and pay you a six-figure advance.

As conflict is so essential to good writing, whether it’s fiction, or nonfiction, children’s books or memoir, it will aid your attention-getting cause. I suggest you start practicing the art of writing conflict right now for your openings. Read the examples and write your own:

• James walked in ready to crash and that’s when he saw the monster. (Antagonist wants to take protagonist’s calm time away)

• When I walked in, Emily had on my favorite blouse I was going to wear tonight. She stood there trying to apologize for tearing it.(Antagonist has blocked protagonist from wearing her favorite blouse tonight.)

• Jimmy worked ten hours at ten dollars an hour, and now John was saying he was worthless, he wasn’t going to pay. (John wants to take Jimmy’s earning away).

The sentences are off the top of my head and I don’t consider them profound or anything. But remember, my job is to make all of the big, foreign sounding things simple. My sentences clearly show characters in conflict. You can “feel” the tension. Your protagonist wants something and your antagonist wants to take it away. Your antagonist may not even be a person. It may be a rock against the door, keeping your protagonist from escaping the bad guy.

In my novel, The Mayor’s Wife Wore Sapphires, the mayor’s young wife wants to change the image of an inner city by making it the Black Camelot; her antagonists want to destroy the incubator idea that could make that happen.

It is conflict that grabs the reader’s attention. Eighty percent of all readers continue to read because of conflict. If there is no conflict, the story lies flat on the page, it falls apart and loses the reader’s interest. It’s yawning-kind-of dull. When conflict is present, readers perk up and wade through bad syntax, misspelled words, structure flaws, and bland dialogue to find out how the conflict ends. I’m not suggesting that you neglect any part of the writing craft, though. It’s just that conflict is one of the strongest elements of good writing, and all too often we lose the reader’s attention because we neglect that writing tool.

So, when you want to grab an editor, an agent, or a publisher’s favor, just allow them to feast on gripping conflict from the very first line and see your story rises through the slush pile to increased sales.

In the Mayor’s Wife Wore Sapphires, the story opens with two unknown characters, whispering in what seems like a clandestine place. The host balls the newspaper in rage and throws it on the dark wood table. We see that it states: Council Upset Rumored. Now the guest thrust his head out of the shadows and says that “In my country, his kind disappears without a trace.” He wants to take out the mayor; his opposition wants to fix the situation before the council meeting.

In The End Justifies The Means, the protagonist, Jalen, is trying to sleep; his mother and father are having a violent argument. He wants them to stop it; they get louder.

In the Color Purple, Celie’s baby is happy for giving birth to her baby; the antagonist, her father, is taking the baby to give her away. She is screaming, “No!” The father is already gone.

Agents and publishers are trained to recognize conflict, and they look for it. So take advantage of that now. Write conflict in your first line for practice.

THE END

Copywriting is a career suitable for both the corporate and freelance worlds. So its an ideal resource for businesses &ndash from start-ups to restaurants, local shops, professional service providers and real estate agents &ndash to acquire the professional copywriting and editing they need. Hiring a freelance copywriter means you avoid hiring a permanent, full-time employee, paying for benefits, office space, a computer and equipment.

If you’re looking for as-needed copy writing or editing work for your next brochure, press release, advertisement, annual report, website, business proposal, article, technical manual, newsletter or other written piece, here’s are a few tips on finding the right one:

-Look on freelance job boards like Elance.com or Guru.com. You’ll find hundreds of providers with varying credentials and backgrounds. Providers earn feedback for their services, so you can see exactly what other clients have said.

-Check with any advertising or design agency. Typically these businesses either have copywriters on staff or work with freelancers on an as-needed basis. They should be able to recommend one or two.

-Expand your geographic view. Today, the Internet and email lets us work with service professionals at just about any locale. You might find a more qualified writer out of your geographic vicinity.

-You get what you pay for. Sure, you can probably find a writer in India offering $5 per page for writing services. But keep in mind, you do get what you pay for. Check credentials, background and previous writing samples. You could be sacrificing quality content, native language word use and familiarity with the American culture for price. You can also find yourself in a costly lawsuit should you find later that your published piece is plagiarized.

Realize you’re hiring a service provider and, as such, paying for someone’s time. So, like a plumber, lawyer or attorney, your responsible for payment whether or not you acquire the intended results. Review their previous writing samples carefully, ensure they have the background you need, then trust they’ll do the right job for your business.

I’ve had so many people approach me about how to boost traffic, increase sales, and get more leads into their businesses. I always tell them that there is a really low-cost way to make it happen for them. Frankly, articles that I wrote three years ago are still bringing me strong and consistent traffic today.

That’s why article marketing &ndash the process of “giving away” your articles &ndash is one of the best ways to get traffic today, and will be tomorrow, and several years from now.

Here’s how the process works:

1. Write an amazing article on a subject your audience is very interested in.

2. Edit the article or hire someone else to edit it for you.

3. Distribute the article in article directories &ndash a top directory is .EzineArticles.com

4. Sit back and watch the flood of traffic, leads, and sales overwhelm your merchant account.

What I’ve just outlined may seem simple, but there is a rather involved process behind the whole thing. For one, you have to write a clear, well-thought-out article. Some people hire others to do this for them.

Big mistake!

What I’m about to write may make a lot of people angry or even cringe at the thought of having to do this, but I wouldn’t be leading you on the right path if I didn’t share this one very important piece of advice with you.

** Always write your own articles.**

Hire someone to edit, but if you’re just starting out in this article marketing thing, always write your own articles.

Put Your Personality On Display to Rake in Higher Sales

Bottom line: You have a unique voice and that’s what your readers will fall in love with. If they don’t feel your personality, they won’t feel as if they know you. In my experience, if my readers don’t feel like they know me, they’ll won’t buy from me.

No writer can capture your personality &ndash no matter how good they are. I should know, I’ve been a professional writer for 16 years now and unless I have good previous writing samples to go by, quickly capturing a person’s personality in print is nearly impossible. Now, I could always extensively interview someone to find out just what their personality is, but time is money and I charge handsomely for that kind of time &ndash and so will any other copywriter worth his or her salt. When you’re just starting out as an article marketer, paying such a hefty price may not be in your budget.

Good news: There’s an alternative. You can follow a set formula to create your very own quality, content-rich articles.

It’s good to write clear, easy-to-follow, content-rich articles.

Why? If you write an article that has great content and that’s infused with your unique voice, many ezine publishers, web designers, and others with web sites will publish your article on their web site.

That’s good for you because the bottom of your article will contain a resource box. This resource box lists why you’re an expert and then gives a link back to your web site. The more your article &ndash with the resource box &ndash gets published, the more traffic you’ll get. And traffic leads to more subscribers on your lists and more subscribers on your list leads to more sales when you launch new products and services &ndash or when you re-launch existing products and services.

One of the most thrilling moments for an author is when they are invited to participate in a book signing. This is often the stamp of approval many writers need, especially with their first book.

Most bookstores see a book signing as a means of increasing foot traffic and promoting a sense of connectedness with the writing community. Most bookstore owners are open to the idea of providing time, space and promotion for a book signing.

From a writers perspective this should be a gold mine in promotion. Bookstore owners will often post notices announcing the book signing; many will also provide announcements in regional newspapers that are designed to promote the book signing.

Bring comfortable shoes and your favorite pen. Then enjoy your moment in the sun.

However, unless you are a well-established author there are a few things that you should not expect from a book signing.

A waiting line.

The sale of a significant amount of books.

Writer’s cramp.

The truth is a book signing will likely result in a few friends, family and an assortment of curious others who have come to have you personally sign their purchased copy of the book.

So, if that’s all there is to it, why do it?

Well, primarily because as a writer you should consider yourself a ‘word farmer’. What I mean by that is a book signing can be a wonderful time to visit with the general public about your book, its subject matter and why you chose to write the book and be willing to wait to see the seed sprout.

In many cases, positive contacts with those who do not purchase your book may ultimately find these patrons returning to purchase the book at a later date.

A book signing isn’t about ‘hawking your wares’ it is about good will and being an ambassador for the craft of writing.

If you have been invited to participate in a book signing do so with good grace and with an eye toward the long-term goals you have in writing. A book signing is simply one small step toward your ultimate destination, enjoy the step, but don’t make too much fuss over it.

There is some form of ego in every writer, but a book signing isn’t a good place to don a prima donna persona. Remember the people who come to see you want to leave with something positive to consider - not an author to avoid.

An Interview with BRIAN KONRADT,

author of Freelance Poker Writing:

How to Make Money Writing for the Gaming Industry

Q: Tell us about your book.

BRIAN: Freelance Poker Writing is the first book showing freelance writers how to make money writing for the gaming industry.

Q: So it’s not just writing about poker?

BRIAN: No, it’s writing for the gaming industry in general. This includes all types of casino-style games. I focus more on poker in my book because it is the most popular game and writers make more money covering poker and the influences of poker.

Q: Tell us about your writing career.

BRIAN: I’ve been a professional freelance writer since 1992. I’ve written for many publications and companies in several industries. I am mainly skilled as a copywriter, since most of my clients were corporations and ad agencies who hired me to write their marketing materials. I’ve been reporting on new trends in freelance writing since 1998. I don’t do much freelance writing for clients anymore because in the last ten years I have branched out into other areas. You can read about my writing career at my website, .BusyEntrepreneur.com.

Q: How did you come up with the idea for your book?

BRIAN: I became addicted to Texas Hold’em when The Travel Channel began airing poker tournaments on TV. I then started playing poker for fun and became even more addicted. My poker addiction led me to research more about poker and the gaming industry. During my research I met freelance writers who were making money in this growth industry. I was interested in how they broke in and what it was like freelancing in this industry. I wanted to tell their story. This is what gave me the idea for my book.

Q: What was the writing process like?

BRIAN: It took me close to seven months to complete my book. I spent a lot of time researching the industry and interviewing writers and poker players. Because I run my own business during the day, I wrote this book in my free time.

Q: What obstacles did you face when writing your book?

BRIAN: Getting some of the information and facts correct was difficult, especially writing about the gaming laws. Interpretations of some of the gaming laws conflict with one another and don’t make sense entirely, depending on who is interpreting the law.

Q: Who designed your book cover and website at FreelancePokerWriting.com?

BRIAN: I did. I love graphic design as much as I love writing. The two skills go hand-in-hand with me. I learned a long time ago if you offer both services to corporate clients &ndash writing and graphic design &ndash you can make a lot more money. The skills I had developed from my freelance career made writing and designing my book a lot easier. I also have two negative traits that work in my favor: I am a control freak and I have a (less than) zero attention span. I enjoy controlling all aspects of a project (writing, editing, designing, publishing, and marketing) as well as juggling several other projects throughout the day. I get bored very easily, so staying busy creatively is my cure.

Q: Can you make a living writing for poker magazines?

BRIAN: You can make some money, but don’t quit your day job just yet. Poker magazines (the ones on the newsstand) don’t pay high rates. Average rates are between .10 and .15 cents per word. Established freelance poker writers earn between .35 and .65 cents per word. Unless you are a writer with many clips and lots of experience, it is very competitive writing strictly for poker magazines. Poker trade magazines, on the other hand, do pay more and are less competitive, but this requires you to know the business sides of gaming.

Many writers look outside the scope of poker magazines to other magazines that cover topics related to poker and gaming; these include magazines on women’s issues, men’s issues, lifestyle, sports, betting, gaming, technology, travel, entertainment, law and so on. Many writers do make a living writing for these magazines. Pay rates are much higher, up to $1 per word and sometimes more.

Q: What other writing gigs exist for poker and gaming writers?

BRIAN: Tournament coverage, such as WSOP and WPT; SEO writing (writing search engine optimization copy) for businesses and affiliates; copywriting (writing for casinos, ad agencies, and gaming companies); ghostwriting books and ebooks; and, of course, magazine writing (which includes writing for newspapers, special publications, websites, and blogs).

Q: Which pays the most?

BRIAN: That depends. Covering a big tournament can make you plenty of money because you can generate many articles and news pieces with exclusive content and interviews. Plus, networking at tournaments is priceless. You can almost guarantee yourself you’ll walk away with more writing gigs. However, covering a large tournament requires a lot of time &ndash or, should I say, a lot of non-billable time.

Many writers find that SEO writing pays well. A client will ask a writer to write 20 articles at 300 words each on a topic (using certain keywords) for $10 per article. A skilled SEO writer can whip out these articles in less than three hours. That’s $66 an hour. Many SEO writing gigs are not for me because I write slowly and I prefer writing articles that entertain and educate readers.

Freelance copywriting in the gaming industry pays well. The average hourly rate is between $25 and $45 per hour with three or more years of related experience. Many freelance copywriters secure copywriting gigs from ad agencies in this industry.

The most popular writing gig, I would have to say, is freelance writing for poker-related publications, both offline and online. Poker and gaming cover so many topics, and many writers sell their articles to a variety of media outlets.

Q: How do writers break into this industry?

BRIAN: I answer this question extensively in my book, so I will be brief. Some writers start their own blogs. Other writers pitch an article idea to an editor. Yes, that’s it. No real big secret. Of course, you have to know your stuff. You can’t fake it till you make it in this industry.

Q: What is the most effective marketing strategy to publicize your writing services?

BRIAN: Online and offline social networking is the least costly and produces the best results to build a loyal readership and to build relationships with prospective clients. Online and offline social networking includes blogging; networking and schmoozing at poker events and tournaments; participating in discussion forums at poker websites and writing-related websites; joining a writer’s association to network with other members; creating a personality profile at MySpace.com; posting informative articles at AssociatedContent.com to generate free publicity for your services; and so on. There are so many variations of social networking these days, I can’t list everything.

Q: What makes your book unique or what adds value?

BRIAN: That’s easy &ndash the entire premise of the book is unique. I feel what adds value is the interviews with freelance writers and poker players. Many of them are at the peak of their careers. They exemplify success in every imaginable way. I was very fortunate to pick their minds. All of the writers and poker players I interviewed were eager to share their experiences so they could help other writers to succeed.

Q: What’s next for you?

BRIAN: I am currently under contract to ghostwrite two books, one on small business funding, and the other on Internet marketing strategies. This should keep me extra busy for a while.

Thank you for your time.

Articles are a great way to make money online. If you are new to the internet, or a pro writing articles can be a great source of income.

Ace are totally several ways that writing articles can make you money. By submitting your articles to article directories, your articles can be used by webmasters who are looking for content to room on their websites.

The articles that you hold submitted to article directories may further be interpret by tribe who jewel them tour searching online. This could deed your writing fairly a bit of exposure.

You can avail the articles that you letter to generate gratis traffic to your website therefore that you can generate spare sales. You can prepare this by placing a link to your website guidance your article or fame your author bio.

You could besides applicability your articles to institute a website. If you occasion a website that consists of informative articles on a specific topic you can sell advertising on your website to related businesses. If you fix upon to initiate a website using your articles, you could again nook Google Adsense ads on your website and stir paid each eternity a visitor clicks on one of your Adsense ads.

You could turn your informative articles into your own ebook and sell them for a profit, or you could calm turn your articles into an email course.

Some internet marketers compose informative articles on topics related to an ally product. They for number among a individual ally link moment their articles to the ally product that they are promoting. When a lecturer clicks on the link and purchases the product the author makes a commission.

When you are writing articles to make money, one important point to remember is that you will be much more successful if your articles are informative and give the reader valuable information. It ‘ s important to build trust with your reader and actually offer the reader something of value in your article.

If you can give the reader valuable information that is useful to them, then you will be building a trusting relationship with that reader. This way when you recommend a product or website, to your reader, they will be much more likely to follow your advice because you have already given them something of value and you have already initiated a trusting relationship with them.

One other point to remember when writing articles is to keep them short. People are bombarded with information every day. Very few people have the time or the interest in reading lengthy articles. If you can give your reader interesting and valuable information in 500 to 700 words, you will find your articles getting read and getting results.

Writers block is one of those mysterious ailments that is blamed for late assignments, missed deadlines, and failed dreams. Some people claim it is merely a myth while others find it plagues their writing.

As someone with more than two decades of professional writing, editing and teaching experience I feel quite strongly that in 99.9 percent of reported cases of writers block are nothing more than a chimera. In my opinion, far too many would-be writers spend far too much time and energy on finding the right computer, program, paper, pen, location, mood-setting music, and the like before they can begin writing when that time and energy would be much better spent on simply getting down to the business of writing. These would-be writers treat their muse as something delicate and breakable, something as elusive and fleeting as smoke.

I know from years spent in the hurly-burly of newspaper reporting and snatching moments to write between deadlines and dinner dishes that a muse worth keeping is made of much tougher material and in fact may benefit from some abuse.

Most often writers block, or what is commonly referred to as writers block, is caused by one of three problems–lack of preparation, lack of training, and lack of development. Lack of preparation is often caused by not creating an individual writing process that can take advantage of your writing strengths and help overcome your writing weaknesses. Lack of training is similar to athletic training–you need to warm up and work out on a regular schedule to keep your writing muscles in top condition. Lack of development simply means that your particular idea may need more time to percolate or perhaps you are not ready to tackle that particular topic at the time.

I have three recommendations to help you work through writers block. First is to simply write through it. Give yourself permission to write garbage and focus on simply creating a really rough draft. Often once you stop worrying over all that is wrong with your writing the words will begin flowing again.

A second method of dealing with writers block is to get moving. Take a walk or hike. Do something physical away from your office or desk and do not let yourself return to the scene of the crime (or writers block) until several hours have passed. You might be surprised what your brain works out in the interim.

Finally, exercise and challenge your writing muscles with writing prompts and exercises. Sometimes simply changing the pace of your writing or your subject matter can be enough to help you work through your difficulty.

Remember, every writer experiences some form of writers block from time to time but you do not have to make a mountain out of a molehill. Working out an effective strategy to circumvent writers block when it strikes is one of the most important skills a real writer can develop.

The idea of writing a thesis is terrifying for many people. Not only is it quite possibly the longest paper of your college career, it’s also the most important. A good thesis will essentially sum up the skills and knowledge you’ve acquired as a student and show readers that you’re truly ready to enter your chosen field (or, perhaps, that you already have). It’s an overwhelming task, to be sure, one that almost always needs a guiding light. The following tips will help you understand the process of thesis writing before you begin work on your masterpiece.

START EARLY

This is perhaps the most crucial element. Starting early (at least eight months to a year in advance of your presentation) enables you to try possible topic ideas and dig deep with your research. Come up with several research possibilities, and get your hands dirty immediately; sift through research related to these ideas, read as much as possible, see what’s out there. In the course of this preliminary research, you may stumble upon an interesting fact or concept that you’d like to make the focus of your entire thesis, even it’s a departure from your original plan. Starting early allows you to do that.

WRITE OUT OF ORDER

Though you’ll most certainly be expected to present your thesis in a pre-determined order, there’s no law stating that you write in that same order. Start with what most interests you or with an area for which you’ve nailed down sufficient research. Write paragraph by paragraph; you can always go back and delete or change things if they don’t fit later. But do make sure that you’re always writing a little something. Even if it eventually gets trashed, you need to establish this sort of writing habit to stay productive and truly capture your voice.

UNDERSTAND YOUR AUDIENCE

Unlike other student papers, the readership of your thesis is typically far greater than one professor. In addition to at least three professors, your thesis might also be scrutinized for possible publication, so you need to consider that audience as well. Most people reading your thesis will somehow be involved in your field, so write with the understanding that they know many of the things you do. That being said, don’t expect them to know everything. If a piece of information isn’t extremely common knowledge, make sure to include its back story. And even it is common knowledge, think for a minute about how its exclusion might affect your thesis. If your story is contingent on this piece of information, include it no matter what.

USE YOUR RESEARCH

Probably the most common problem with the early stages of thesis writing is the inability to support your claims. You need to back up every idea, result or claim in a thesis with data that logically supports it; it isn’t enough to base a hypothesis on a simple hunch. If you’re having difficulty finding data to support a point in your thesis, consider deleting it; not being able to support an idea might mean the idea isn’t presently valid.

EDIT THE COPY AND CONTENT

Be prepared: you’ll probably spend almost as much time editing your thesis as you did writing it. Consider the content first: is your argument logical? Does each section make sense in relation to those before and after it? Is each bit of information relevant and backed up with supporting data? Are there repetitions? Does the style adhere with the audience? Then, move on to the copy: are there misspellings or punctuation and grammar mistakes? Run-on sentences? Are all your pronouns and antecedents crystal clear? Are the acronyms explained? Strive to make everything completely and perfectly understandable. Use a grammar program like WhiteSmokeSoftware (.WhiteSmokeSoftware.com) or StyleWriter (.StyleWriter-USA.com) to rid your paper of embarrassing writing errors.

Harry Potter. The name brings instant recognition from people all over the world. The books have sold over 350 million copies worldwide. Only the bible has more translations. The movies have gone on to grace the lists of the Top 10 grossing films of all time.

When Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published in 1997, Joanne Kathleen Rowling was a previously unpublished author. She had no publishing credits, no insider knowledge, no friends in the industry.

So how did she do it? How did she go on, in the space of ten short years, to become the first billionaire author on the planet?

The answer to that question lies not in what she did in those ten years between the publication of the first book and the publication of the seventh, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The answer actually lies in what she did in the seven years prior to the first book’s publication.

So if you’re an author who is yet to be published, you’re actually in the best possible position. Because it’s in this time, before your book hits the shelves, that you can have the greatest influence on its success.

Quite simply, JK Rowling followed a four-step writing process that you too can adopt to write your very own list of bestsellers. The question is: do you have what it takes to be the next JK Rowling?

Planning

This is by far the most underrated of the steps in the writing process. And in the final wash up it is absolutely the most important.

It was 1990 and Jo Rowling was on a train between Manchester and London. Harry literally strolled fully formed into her mind while she was gazing out the train window at a field full of cows. She spent the next four hours (the train was delayed) imagining Harry, the world he inhabited, the friends and enemies he had there and the dangers and joys he may encounter there. She had nothing to write on so had to be content to play this all out in her imagination. By the time she got off the train in London, the central cast of characters were already cemented in her mind.

But did she go home and immediately begin scribbling a story with these characters? No, she didn’t. She spent five years, yes that’s right FIVE YEARS creating and developing every last detail of the wizarding world, including government and education systems, how the wizarding world stood shoulder to shoulder with the muggle world, and she devised a highly sophisticated system of magic that would eventually form the backbone of her own special brand of writing magic. On top of this she sculpted out the entire story, planning the details and events of all the seven books, before she put pen to paper to begin writing the first.

Would you attempt to build a house without plans? Would you attempt to drive across the country without a map? Or would you set sail on the seas without a compass? Writing a book without a detailed planning stage is like attempting to build a house without plans. Miss this step and you are almost certainly destined to become lost in a forest of your own words.

Writing

When you are writing, you are just writing. You are not planning, you are not editing. You are writing. Once you have planned your story, it is time to sit down and write it.

JK Rowling planned the Harry Potter series for five years before she put pen to paper on the first book She wrote the entire first book, and felt as though she were “carving it out of this mass of notes”. All the planning was worth it. She was able to devote herself to the actual task of writing, knowing that all the story and character elements she needed were covered.

This is the best possible place for you to be in when you are writing a novel. Novels are long. Usually over 100,000 words and sometimes as many as 200,000 words and more. That is a lot of words! So if you have planned and structured your story effectively, done your research (either real or in your imagination) and collated your notes, then the writing process is an absolute joy, where you can be very certain of your ability to produce the best possible novel.

Jo Rowling said she felt she “had to do right by the book”. She really believed in the story and so when it came to writing it, she made sure she had taken care of all the necessary preparation. Once that’s done, writing is almost easy!

Rewriting

Jo Rowling rewrote the opening chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone a total of 15 times. Her own mother died just 6 months after her first attempt at Chapter One of that book, and that sent her into a frenzy of rewriting, essentially changing everything. The Potter books are about death, there is no doubt about that, and they are driven particularly by the death of Harry’s parents and his miraculous survival. When Jo Rowling experienced such a major turning point in her own life, she rewrote the story to reflect and process her own pain.

Writing and rewriting are separate processes. Writing is scribing or sculpting out the drafts of the story. Rewriting is re-looking and re-seeing. Often the rewrite will show up where the story has gone off track and where questions asked at the start haven’t been answered by the end. In JK Rowling’s case, she realised after writing the entire first book that she had given away the entire plot of the seven books. She rewrote it in this light, and held many things back.

Many successful authors say that you only write to rewrite. DH Lawrence even said that he wrote his entire first draft, threw it away and then started again from scratch.

Editing

Editing is the process of refining and polishing your manuscript. This part of the process may be done by you, or by an external editor. It is often wise to have an editor look over your work before submitting it for publication as it is extremely difficult to get the distance you need from your own work to see where it can be improved.

Not that you have to listen to what the editor says. In the end it is your name on the spine of that novel and you are entirely answerable for its contents. Having said that, a good and subtle editor can lift your novel to heights that you may not be able to achieve on your own.

It is clear from the Harry Potter series that JK Rowling was more tightly edited at the beginning (the first two novels are barely more than 200 pages and by the time we get to number five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, we are faced with a weighty tome of over 700 pages) so it is generally advisable at the beginning of your career to bear the advice of your editor heavily in mind, especially if you are new to publishing. In every event, less is more, and a distilled and focussed book is more likely to captivate and intrigue a new audience than a meandering epic that constantly loses its way.

Writing a book is a process, never forget that. Each step in the process is unique but necessary. Don’t mix them, and certainly don’t attempt to skip any steps. Do that at your own peril.

JK Rowling has shown the world what is possible if you adhere to the basic processes of the art and craft of writing a good story. So before you attempt your next novel, address the four steps in the writing process: planning, writing, rewriting and editing, and be sure you give each step its due.

And who knows? You could be the next JK Rowling.