Writing A Book For The First Time? How Long Does It Really Take?

by Stefanie Newell | Oct 3, 2018 | Blog

writing-a-book-for-the-first-time-300×207-1

Writing a book for the first time? If you’ve been perusing the Internet, you’ve probably seen the stories of writers who’ve written a bestseller in as little as 30 days. Because of their incredible success stories, you’re asking yourself, “Is this a realistic goal for everyone? Where do I start?”

In this video, I’ll share how long it realistically takes to write a book when writing a book for the first time. There are many steps to writing a book and many factors that beginners need to consider before embarking on a 30 day writing journey.

While there are some authors who are able to learn how to write a book within a shorter time period, the vast majority of first time authors don’t. And its perfectly normal! Learn the factors to consider when writing your first book.

[trx_call_to_action title=”Schedule a free strategy session!” subtitle=”Learn how I can help you to write your book!” style=”1″ align=”center” accent=”no” custom=”no” link=”http://thelifeofawriter.net/writing-coach” link_caption=”Schedule NOW!” top=”inherit” bottom=”inherit” left=”inherit” right=”inherit”][/trx_call_to_action]

Video Transcript for Writing A Book For The First Time? How Long Does It Really Take?

Hi YouTube! Author Stefanie Newell and this is The Life Of A Writer channel.

Today’s video – How long does it really take to write a book? So if you want to connect with readers and sell more books, make sure to subscribe and get new content to your inbox every Tuesday. But in this video, I’m going to be sharing how long it takes realistically to write your very first book?

Down in the comment section below. Share with me how long you’ve been writing your book?

So if you’re a first-time writer you’ve likely Googled the words, “How long does it take to write a book?” And it’s a great question and one that I hope to answer in today’s video, but I also want to set realistic expectations because it’s almost impossible to tell someone how long it will take for them to write a book.

So I’ve been on different websites and different blogs, I’ve seen people say that it can take 30 days, 60 days, 6 months, 1 year and obviously there are some people that are able to do it within 30 days. And some people that are able to do it within 60 days. But realistically how long does it take in order to write a book?

So as many of you guys know I’ve been a writing coach since ‘08, so I’m going on 10 years (actually I just had my anniversary so it’s been 10 years a couple of weeks ago) and I have in my experience found that it takes on average about one year in order for people to write a book. So that’s not to say that some clients weren’t able to do it quicker, because I definitely had clients that were able to write books within two months.

But let me explain how and why that happens in certain situations. So obviously we all have different responsibilities. So some of us have full-time jobs, some of us have (you know) more than one child, we have families, we have a lot going on and because of that, all those different things are going to also affect how long it takes for us to write a book.

For example, the genre that we’re writing in… So if we’re writing in a genre where it requires us to do a lot of research those people are going to spend a great deal of time doing the research for their book. And that research process may take a little bit longer than, let’s say, for someone that’s writing a romance and they have their plot all worked out. So with that being said, in my experience it takes about one year for my clients to write their first books.

Now keep in mind it does get easier! So you have to remember that initially you’re gonna learn so many different things and that learning process is going to slow down your writing a little bit. So for example, if you’re writing fiction, a fiction writer is going to have to learn how to describe their characters, they’re gonna have to learn point of view, they’re gonna have to learn how to develop their plot and all of those different things.

Because it’s your first time doing it it’s going to take time, so that’s the reason why you need to first start off with setting a realistic deadline. So if you set a deadline like six months or three months and you have to learn all these different things, you’re gonna feel discouraged and in a lot of cases when you feel discouraged like that it causes you to quit. So I would encourage you to set weekly writing goals.

So for example, let’s say that your writing goal for the week is 5,000 words… if you’re able to get that all in one day – perfect! But if you need to get it over the course of three or four days, then that’s fine as well and that way in setting (again) realistic writing goals you’re able to write without the pressure of performing.

And I find with my clients that works a lot easier.

So you first need to figure out what the word count goal is for your entire book and as I told you guys in previous videos in order to figure that out you need to do a search of your genre.

So for example ‘romance word count’ figure out what it is. I’m pretty sure that the word count is gonna come up as eighty thousand words and you need to figure out, okay if I’m writing 80,000 thousand words total and I have one year in order to hit this goal, how many words do I need to write on a weekly basis or on a monthly basis in order to hit my goal?

Now with that being said there’s other things to consider. Again there’s research that you have to consider.

There’s the fact that it’s just a first draft!

We never publish our first drafts! We only publish final drafts, so give yourself some time to be able to write the second draft or third draft if need be.

If you want to learn how to connect with readers and sell more books, make sure to subscribe! But in the meantime check out my playlist – How To Write A Book For Beginners.

As always all of my social media links will be in the description box below if you’re looking to hire me as your writing coach, you will find that information there as well and I look forward to talking with you in my next video!