Dr. Andy Billings had written or edited 18 books. He has two coming out this year. He’s published more than 130 journal articles and book chapters.

The Director of the Alabama Program in Sports Communication and Ronald Reagan Chair of Broadcasting in the Department of Journalism and Creative Media, Andy was also a part of a wonderful panel discussion at the AEJMC conference in Washington this week, where he talked about what it takes to write a book. He joins Brian on the podcast to recap that discussion and talk about the book writing process. How do you go from “hey, I’d like to write a book some day?” to publishing?

Andy talks about the importance of de-limiting your topic, making sure it’s not too big or too small. He discusses why the table of contents is such and important part of the process, why you have to think two years out when you’re writing a book, how he learned what writing schedule worked for him and how his background as a public speech coach informs his writing.