You are a walking compendium of learned life skills; not just those skills you acquired in your career but the aggregated knowledge of a lifetime: work, hobbies, general interests, specialist interests, child bearing/raising/educating, and so on. The list is endless. And in one or more of these areas you are an expert.

You don’t believe me? Then take a test and prove it for yourself.

• 1.Make a list in random order of topics that interest you.
• 2.Identify the one topic you instinctively feel you know more about than any of the others. Start jotting down in tabular form every aspect relating to your conscious knowledge of the topic as it springs to mind; one word per aspect will suffice. Keep on adding as the thoughts tumble out.
• 3.Repeat this exercise for the next topic in order of perceived interest.
• 4.Repeat it for the next again.
• 5.Leave your lists aside and come back to them a few days later.

Unless you are brain dead something has been occurring in the interim. Your little exercise has sparked off the interest of your subconscious and it is enthused about the outcome. It has been carrying this stuff around for years and is desperate to disclose the extent of your collective intelligence, to tell you how much you really know. Given the opportunity, it could have conveyed this information a long time ago.

But you never asked – until now.

Review each of your lists again individually and at the prompting of the second level of your consciousness keep on adding until you have exhausted the deepest recesses of your memory bank. Upon completion you may be shocked to discover that the topic you thought you knew most about is in fact the one about which you know the least. One of the others may have grabbed the Number One Spot thanks to the power of your subconscious.

There’s enough information on the winning topic to write a book, right?

WRITING A BOOK ON YOUR KNOW-HOW

I’ve done it several times over; it’s fun, it’s therapeutic, and it can lead to streams of residual income if you do it correctly. The subject matter doesn’t have to be related to what you did for a living. Perhaps a hobby interest came top of your list of ‘expert’ topics; perhaps it was something else that took you completely by surprise when you realised just how much you know about the subject. It makes no difference. If you are interested, other people are too, and they will want to know what you know.

WHAT YOU MUST DO TO MAKE YOUR PROJECT A REALITY

You do 1-4 above to fire up your resolve for the next stage ...

Get set for the third stage ... the creative process

And now down to the nitty-gritty ...

Compare the writing of your book to that of the task facing an artist painting a landscape. The artist envisages in advance the composition of the picture (your list of contents), makes rough sketches of essential features (your draft copy) and arrives at a balanced decision on execution. The artist has choices on technique for implementation and so do you.

Why you should do this before you write anything

When you work away conscientiously on compiling the list of contents in advance, you open the door to choices on how you will tackle the actual writing of your book. Authors exercise preferences on execution. Some start at the beginning and continue right to the end without diversion; others tend to cherry pick, darting back and forth from one chapter or section to another. A few authors manage to combine both techniques successfully: while maintaining regular progress, they make the occasional detour as and when inspiration strikes.

Whichever route you decide to travel you’ll need a reliable road map and that is why you should always compile your list of contents before you write a single word.

Matching the sequence to your research findings

As with any list of things-to-do, you begin compilation of the list of contents at the start, progress through the middle by highlighting all of the essential elements and end up at the end; the climax; the promise of fulfilment. To do this effectively, you must match what you know with what you have discovered and merge your accumulated findings into a logical sequence of factual information. Sounds easy, but you won’t get it right first time. You just keep at it until everything clicks into place. You will know when that happens.

Now you can make a start on the first draft

Develop your own distinctive writing style. It’s easier then you may imagine. Just talk to the reader as if he/she was sitting opposite you face to face – just as I am talking to you right now. You can’t see me but you hear me just as you would if I was right there in front of you. Some experienced authors produce one draft chapter, review it, rewrite it – or discard it and start all over again. When satisfied they move on to a second chapter and repeat the process. I don’t. I write the entire book in one fell swoop and I do so with confidence because I have my thoroughly researched, sequentially structured list of definitive contents to guide me all along the way. Then and only then do I undertake rewrites as required.

Above all, look upon the creative writing process as a joyous celebration, not a painful chore. Books created under duress invariably relay the writer’s tension to the unfortunate reader.

And lastly, when you’re happy with the final text...

• Make a start on your proposal for publication. Study everything you can lay your hands on relating to this – including my tutorial Secrets to Churning Out Bestsellers (see website details below). The proposal is every bit as important as your text so treat its composition with equal diligence. It must include a synopsis, the list of contents, your target market, detailed marketplace analysis, major competitive titles, and your qualifications for writing the book.
• Choose your strongest chapter and use it as a sample to include with the proposal.
• Write your covering letter.

You might get lucky as I did with your very first proposal, or you may need to rethink your strategy, but if you follow the suggestions outlined above you will cut down considerably on the painful prospect of outright rejection.

CONSIDERING THE ELECTRONIC ALTERNATIVE

If attempting to have your book published in the traditional manner sounds like too much trouble you might want to consider the electronic alternative. Convert your know-how into a series of digital tutorials, build a website, and sell them as e-books online. This is a very fulfilling retirement pursuit which we’ll be examining in greater detail when we arrive at Chapter 23.

SO, YOU DON’T WANT TO WRITE A BOOK?

That’s okay. Use what you’ve just learned about your latent expertise to lay the foundations for a profitable retirement pursuit in the shape of a business, a product or service.

Adapting your expertise for commercial exploitation

To adapt your expertise for commercial purposes you follow a path similar to that outlined above for writing a book.

• Get it all down on paper.
• Explain the methodology.
• List the features.
• Highlight the benefits.
• Establish what you don’t know about your topic.
• Rectify the information shortfall by researching.
• Stick with the research until you’ve located all you still need to learn.
• Identify your market.
• Find out how to reach it.
• Develop your business idea, product or service.
• Test-market.
• Promote.

As for the rest of it, that’s the subject matter of the 31 chapters to follow ...