Earlier this year I coached Gary Neal Hansen through the process of writing a book proposal (See here for a post that will take you to the whole series.) It was a great experience. As a way to wrap things up, I asked Gary to write a guest post on the main things he’s taking away from the process.

Gary Neal Hansen is the author of Kneeling with Giants: Learning to Pray with History’s Best Teachers (InterVarsity Press, 2012) and Associate Professor of Church History at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. He blogs at GaryNealHansen.com. You can connect with him there as well as on Facebook and Twitter.

Guest Blogger: Gary Neal Hansen

Writing a book proposal can be lonely and scary. You slave away in secret. You send it off. You wait. The rejection letter comes and you are no wiser about what would have helped.

Then came Chad’s book proposal coaching project.

Input from an industry insider before submitting it?  I had to apply.

He chose me. I rejoiced! I freaked out.

Let me be clear: my “book” consisted of two things:

First, I had a concept I absolutely loved: an exploration of historical movements with distinctive approaches to Christian community that sparked world-changing mission and service, a book to help Christians and communities rethink life together for a bigger, better impact out there.

Second, I had a bunch of random scribbling on the topic in my journal.

That was it.

I could get Chad most of the proposal in a month as he asked, but a polished sample chapter was a long way off. He agreed. I was (gulp!) over the moon.

It has been an honor and an education. I’ve learned way more than I can fit in a blog post. Here are five key lessons Chad has taught me.

1. Let generosity be your motive.

Chad’s blog shows his own generous soul. He clearly wants to help his readers on real issues. He advises writers do the same, articulating the need their book will address for their readers. I have to fan the flames of my most generous motives. If I focus on helping people, the process will be life-giving.

2. Take a risk to learn from those who know.

Chad’s post on my bio nailed key problems. That was the first of many golden opportunities to hear how my words do and don’t communicate to an expert reader. Every post helped me better understand how to tell the truth about myself and my project to convince a publisher that I really ought to write this book.

3. Plan around the shape of a marketable book.

This includes everything from the quality of the concept to the number of chapters and total word count. It is easy to get all of this wrong. When I proposed my first book I overshot on the size and had to reduce every chapter I’d written by a full third. Getting a sense of what publishers want helps me to aim at the right target.

4. Grow your platform.

Chad emphasized this from the beginning.  If nobody knows who you are it is hard to sell anyone your book. If people are already listening to you on the topic, your book has a place to land.

We took stock of my social media stats, and I went to work. He encouraged me to open a Facebook author page, so I converted my personal account.  I renamed my then-dormant blog to “GaryNealHansen.com.” I aimed for two blog posts per week and four tweets per day, linking them to Facebook.

Results so far:

• 342 Facebook friends growing to 442 “likes” on my page.
• 110 Twitter followers growing to 540.
• 20 or so blog subscribers growing to 117, and about 7000 page views.

This is not stratospheric, but it is moving in the right direction — and was enough to get my blog into the top 100 on Anita Mathias’ “Blogogcracy”!

The blog has been the most effective part of platform building, and the most fun, especially as I started blogging small sections of the project. It pushed me to keep sections short and engaging. It kept me writing during a very demanding season of my day job. And when I pasted the posts into an outline, I was suddenly editing a chapter instead of writing a rough draft.

5. Let your project live in community.

I’ve been amazed to see how friendships developed through conversations on Chad’s blog. I’m deeply grateful to those of you who joined in so encouragingly, and especially Cynthia Herron and Lisa Van Engen who interviewed me on their blogs, and Natasha Crain who gave sterling advice on Facebook issues.

Community really matters in this process. Here and on my blog the community has affirmed that when this actually becomes a book there are people eager to see it. There’s no better fuel for the process!

How can you apply any of the lessons above to your own writing project?

Tweetables

“Plan around the shape of a marketable book” and 4 other tips for #writers. <Tweet this.>

“Let your project live in community” and 4 other ways to take your #writing to the next level. <Tweet this.>