Bob Started

The title is a bit of a teaser because I have not yet written a book, but I am in the process, and I plan on becoming a published author before my 25th birthday in November.

Here are a few steps that I suggest taking if you want to become an author by the age of 25.

1.)  Pick a Subject that You are passionate about which has relatively little competition

I am passionate about fraternity recruiting.  I was a great recruiter for my fraternity in college and loved reading all about different strategies from other national fraternities’ website while in school.

Fraternity recruiting also has little competition in the book market.  There is only one other book written on the subject and I met the authors personally and have exchanged emails in the past.  In this niche, I am reasonably certain that my book will not be competition to the existing authors, but a companion or partner.  My hope is that readers will want to buy both books and maybe we can even collaborate on a project in the future.

2.)  Make sure you can show others that you have expertise in your chosen subject

There are numerous ways to do this.  I had success recruiting for my fraternity when I was in college.  My fraternity increased its membership by 400% when I was president.  This, among other helped me win a chair in the Order of the Diamond Circle, (Phi Sigma Kappa’s highest award for an undergraduate member) and become runner in the Distinguished Man of the Year Competition (2008) at Rutgers University.

This has helped give me credibility in the field.  But, I was also able to achieve credibility by writing a guest blogpost for the blog of the others of the existing fraternity recruiting book.  If you don’t have awards, you can still show your expertise by creating your own blog.  You can write useful knowledge and facts on your blog to help show your expertise.

It is imperative to have expertise in your topic.  If you don’t, then no one will tell their friends on how great your book is.  However, the initial obstacle is showing others that you have expertise in the subject.  If no one thinks you know what you’re talking about, then no one will buy your book.

3.)  Write until your hands fall off.

This is the most important part.  You want to exhaust all of your personal resources.  You want to tell your story and get your hands wet.  Sometimes, you will only get to 1,5,10, or 20 pages.  But if you don’t start writing, you do not know how much information you have flowing through your head.

I was only able to write between 10 and 20 pages when I first started my project.  But this is only the first stage and you want to put down every thought of the subject matter on paper or in Microsoft Word.

4.)  Proofread what you wrote

Read what you wrote after putting it down for a day or two.  You want to read it and make sure it makes sense to you.  You are doing this because in the next step, you are going to send what you wrote to your friends.  You want your friends to think you can write well and that your book will be a success.

5.)  Have 5 of your friends read what you wrote

Maybe 5 is too many, but you want a few people to read it besides you.  See what they say.  Do you think you’re writing is interesting?  Did they fall asleep on the first page?  Make sure they are honest.  This is the only way you will know if your book can succeed.

6.)  Find a way to outsource part of the writing

Find people online who also have expertise or experience in your subject.  Ask them to write in your book.  Maybe you can put a link to their website in their book.  Often, the biggest incentive for someone to write a section of your book is to see their name in print.

For my book, I sent an email to many different national fraternities asking for recruiting success stories.  I want to include case studies where fraternity brothers had success in recruiting.  I want to use these stories to highlight what works and what dosen’t in real world situations.  I think you can talk to a college student about theory all day long, but it won’t matter as long as they don’t think what you are saying doesn’t work in the real world.

7.)  Find a publisher

It doesn’t have to cost you a fortune to have your book printed.  There are many websites that will print as few as one copy of your book on demand.  In a few scenarios, you don’t have to pay an on demand publisher until your book is sold either on your website or on Amazon.com.

The service I plan on using for my book is Lulu.com.

In Closing

It’s possible to publish your own book before you  turn 25.  This is a goal of mine… and I am going to achieve this goal sometime in the next few months.  My goal is to publish before January 31st.  I will let you know if I am able to achieve this goal.

Best,

Robert M. Cavezza