Scribe Book School

In this episode, Hal and Charlie take questions from authors who are working on their memoirs.

Hal Clifford is the Editor in Chief at Scribe. He’s been writing and editing for over 40 years, and he’s worked on New York Times bestsellers like David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestsellers. He’s also written three books of his own.

Charlie Hoehn is the Head of Multimedia at Scribe. He has worked with several NYTimes best-selling authors, including Tim Ferriss. In 2014, he released his self-published memoir Play It Away, which went on to sell over 20,000 copies.

If you’re writing a memoir and need some guidance, this is the episode for you.

To sign up for our free memoir writing course, head over to scribebookschool.com

You know why most readers—probably including you—skip book introductions?

Because most authors think the purpose of the introduction is to explain everything they will talk about in the book.

That is boring and wrong.

The purpose of a good introduction is to engage the reader and get them to read the book.

In this episode, you'll learn how to do just that.

To learn more about book introductions, check out this post on Scribe's blog.

We see authors spend years writing, finish the manuscript, and then spend virtually no time on the rest of the book. They essentially check out of the title, book cover, book description, etc.

This is utterly baffling. It’s like they never ask themselves possibly the most important question about their book: 

How do people judge my book?

By doing this, they’re essentially saying that they think readers will not judge their book by anything except the content. That the title, cover, author bio, blurbs and other marketing materials mean nothing to potential readers.

Let us lay this out for you in the starkest terms possible:

Almost every potential reader will judge whether or not to buy and read your book BEFORE they have read a single word inside the book.

This is not a pleasant fact, but it IS a fact, and the more you understand it, the better you can signal exactly what you want to the reader, so that they'll be engaged and give your content the time it deserves.

This episode will explain the three biggest judgments a reader makes during a buying decision about a book, and how to give your book the best chance to reach its potential reader.

To learn ALL of the reader's judgments, check out our article here.

Once you know what you’ll write about in your memoir, then you can move onto the next step: Creating a basic outline.

Your memoir outline will help you stay on track as you write.

To access the Scribe Memoir Outline template, sign up for our free memoir course at Scribe Book School.

Want us to review your memoir outline?

Join Writers Room to get access to our team of professional editors.

Once you decide to write your memoir, the question of truth becomes very important–how much do you put it, and how do you even think about it.

In this episode, we will walk you through how to look at and think about truth in your memoir.

Want to access our entire Memoir course? 

Sign up for free at scribebookschool.com

Want us to review your memoir concept?

Join Writers Room to get access to our team of professional editors.

The first thing most people think about when considering a memoir is what would happen if they published it. 

In this episode, Tucker will walk you through the implications of writing and publishing your memoir, and how to deal with it.

To get access to all of our video lessons, sign up at http://scribebookschool.com

After the title and the book cover, your description is the most important book marketing material.

In this episode, we’ll walk you through how to write a book description, provide you a template (see below), and include good and bad book description examples.

Download our Scribe Book Description template, and let’s get started:

Download Book Description Template

Need more help with your book?

One of the most common questions we get from potential authors who are about to write a book is something along the lines of:

“How do I use my book to make money? How can I make sure I get an ROI on my time and money?”

The bad news is you will probably not make (substantial) money by selling copies of your book.

The good news: there are so many other ways you can make money with a book—and usually a lot more money than you’d make by focusing on selling copies.

In this episode, the co-founder of Scribe and 4-time NYTimes bestselling author, Tucker Max, will cover several different ways you can leverage to make $1M with your book.

Want to learn the 20 best ways to earn more from your book? 

Check out our video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-6mJtOWQt8

Unless you’re a household name author (Steven King, JK Rowling, Malcolm Gladwell), most people buying your book won’t know who you are.

So how will they learn about you?

The author bio!

That’s what this episode will explain: how to properly write it, and why your author bio matters.

If you want to sell more books and get more media coverage, this is a must listen!

To learn more about all the publishing decisions for your book, check out our free courses on scribebookschool.com

Congratulations! It feels amazing to get through the first draft of your book. Reward yourself with some time to rest and relax. The hardest part is over. You now have a real book in your hands, even if it’s rough.

When I say take some time to rest and relax, I’m very serious. Set the entire thing aside for at least a week, ideally two. This will give you a valuable fresh perspective when you come back and begin editing.

It’s possible to begin editing immediately, but the result won’t be as good.

When you are ready, this episode will help you with editing your non-fiction book, using the tested process we’ve used with 1,500+ authors.

For a more comprehensive guide, check out our article on How To Edit A Book.