You’re ready to write your first book. Hooray! The idea of writing an entire book can be overwhelming, so many first-time authors wonder if they should work with a co-author to split the workload.
With the right relationship, co-authoring can be a great solution to book-writing. It can also be a huge hassle and cause lots of problems. It depends on your book and your relationship.
If you’re considering whether or not you should find a co-author for your book, you’ll want to keep your relationship in mind when it comes both to co-authoring and co-writing the book.
What’s the difference between co-authoring and co-writing?
As co-authors, you’ll make decisions about the book together. These decisions will include design, layout, and structure of the book. What will the title be? How will you pursue publishing?
As co-writers, you’ll work together for months, weeks, and hours on end to craft your story. You’ll send drafts back and forth, make suggestions to each other, serve as each other’s initial editors, and help each other meet deadlines. Just as not everyone you like makes a good roommate, not everyone you respect makes a good writing partner!
Is co-authoring right for you?
If you’re considering co-authoring, you want to know if it’s the right decision to make. First, consider if there’s room in your life for another intimate relationship at the moment. While you won’t (probably) be romantically involved with your co-author, you will be dependent on them to make decisions together that both of you can be content with. You’ll have to compromise, and you’ll see each other on good days and on bad days.
Before you can know if co-authoring is right for you, you have to decide what book you’re writing. In order to determine if a co-author relationship will work, you’ll have to compare your ideas and goals for your book to know if they’ll truly fit together.
A good co-authoring relationship is one in which each author shares a target audience and similar goals for the book as a whole. Complementary outlines are also important for this relationship.
In order to determine if co-authoring is right for you, consider your who, your what, and your why.
WHO is your book for? Who will read it? Who will benefit from it? Are you speaking to those who are already experts, your peers? Those who are starting in your industry? The general public? Potential clients?
WHAT will your book give your audience. What will you teach? How will you convince them to come back for more? How will you relate to them?
WHY are you writing this book? Are you hoping to build your brand? Create interest for a product or service? Provide a solution to a popular problem?
If your who, what, and why aren’t aligned with your potential co-author, this isn’t the book to work on together. It doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to work together, or that you’ll have to write alone forever! This book just isn’t the book for that kind of symbiotic relationship.
We’re aligned. Now what?
If your who, what, and why are aligned, it’s time to move on to your book’s outline. Outline the book by sections, by chapters, and by intention. If there’s a fundamental disconnect in the basic structure of the book, you’ll need to determine, with your co-author, whether it’s something you can work through or if it’s best to abandon ship and support each other another way.
Once you decide that your co-author is a good match for both you and your book, you’ll have to decide how to divide responsibilities. Many co-authors divide responsibilities by type or by content.
Splitting tasks by type lets authors work to their particular strengths. If one of you is a killer researcher, maybe the other is better at synthesizing that research in their own words. Maybe one author is better at marketing, while the other is better at editing. Stick to your strengths in your division of labor.
Splitting the work by content works well when each co-author is an expert in a slightly different field. If you’re writing a book about the impact of the real estate market on dance studios, for example, and one of you is a studio owner while the other is a real estate agent, you’ll want to split your work in order to focus your writing on your expertise.
You’re ready to co-author! How do you do it?
5 Simple Ways to Nurture a Successful Co-Author Relationship
- Begin With Successful Systems. Set clear expectations for yourself and your partner. These expectations might include parameters around time, deadlines, communication needs, and standards of writing. If you set up successful systems from the beginning, your relationship will flourish, and you’ll both have something to refer back to when you hit a roadblock. Setting deadlines is a huge measure of success for co-authoring relationships.
- Focus On We. When you’re working in a partnership, you have to focus on the product as a product of the unit, not as something you have sole ownership over. This book isn’t yours. It’s both of yours. Practice being assertive about your needs and opinions rather than aggressive, and your co-author will thank you.
- Keep Your Promises. If you agree to something with your co-author, honor that promise. Do not dump all of the work on one author just because you got busy or decided that you didn’t want to complete that task. There are aspects to writing a book that aren’t fun for anyone, but if you split up the work between you and your co-author, neither of you will have to do all the grunt work.
- Highlight the Reader. If ever you hit a roadblock in your work together, go back to the reader. Who is your reader? What does the reader need? Remember, it’s not about either of you as authors; it’s about your audience.
- Consolidate Your Tone. This won’t happen in the first draft, and it may not even be fully cohesive in the second. As you work on later drafts of your book, look for places where tones and voices don’t match. Work with one another to create a cohesive voice for your book, even though you’re two different experts!