The No Bullsh*t Guide To A Happier Life went on sale this week via my website, and I am so excited to be able to share it with you all! The book has grown out of my podcast of the same name, and I have self-published it, so I’ve had to figure out everything as I go. If you are thinking of self-publishing a book, here is how I went about it…

There are no doubt numerous ways to approach writing a book and of course all I can tell you is what I did. For me it was important to start with my chapter structure. Partly because it’s really good to have structure, but also because that way I knew what “done” looked like.

Your chapter structure probably starts with an introduction (assuming you’re writing non-fiction) then chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, all the way through to conclusion or summary. What will be your chapter headings? What will each chapter be about? Once you know that you know how much work you’ve got ahead of you. You’ve already chunked it down into manageable sections, and you have a plan.

Once you know what the topics are, you can tackle each one as the inspiration strikes you. For me it was far easier to write a topic when I was in the mood for that section. If you know what all the topics are it doesn’t matter what order you tackle them in. If you have got them all listed out, you can tackle them in whatever order works for you.

To actually get the thoughts out of my head, I have found it so much easier to speak rather than write. If you have listened to my podcast you know I can happily chat about a subject, but starting to write on a blank page is daunting. This is where a wonderful app called Otter comes in. I have no idea why it is called Otter, but what it does is it records your voice, so you get a voicenote, but it also transcribes what you are saying as you are speaking. You therefore end up with a transcription of what you have said, which you can edit and drop into your book draft.

It’s not perfect, it gets loads of stuff wrong and if you’ve got a strong accent I’m sure it would be even worse, but it’s a useful starting point. The great thing about having it on an app on your phone is that you can “write” whilst walking or driving (it is hands free) so if like me that is when you get your most inspiration, Otter or something like it is perfect.

When it came to pulling everything together and smoothing out the topics into a coherent book, as ever, I like to make hard things easier. When I was at that stage I took myself to some really lovely places in order to do it. I did the first big chunk of work at Carden Park hotel, then I did some at the café at Southport beach, some in one of my favourite local restaurants… just anywhere that felt pleasant and that had good coffee and nice food. Make it easier for yourself when you’re doing the hard work. I would say that about any project, but particularly when it comes to pulling a book together.

Once I had my first draft I sent it to my best friend, the lovely Jenny Cooper, and to my mum. The reason I chose those people is that Jenny used to work for a major book store and knows everything there is to know about books, and my mum is pernickety about grammar and punctuation and spelling. I asked them both to read it through, Jenny from the point of view of “is this book even worth doing? Please tell me if it’s terrible!” and my mum did the initial proofread to make sure that I wasn’t completely embarrassing myself when I sent it to the professionals. So pick your people, you will have people in your life who will willingly read your first draft. You probably only want a couple, you don’t need lots of opinions. You just want a couple of people that you really trust to do the job. Send it to them and they can have a look through it, reassure you that it’s not total tripe and you can carry on from there.

After that, though, I really recommend using the professionals. I sent my mum-proofed draft to Melanie Cotton of Argentum Proofreading and she has done an incredible proofreading job for me. I asked Vicky Murray of VCM Graphic Design to do the cover art because she already does all of my branding, and I think she has done a fabulous job. Melanie then referred me to Catherine Williams of Chapter One Book Production, who is a typesetter and who has made the book into a book. It’s no good just having a beautifully proof-read Word document. It has to be typeset so it can actually be a book!

Using those people has been invaluable, and of course they’ve been able to advise me on all the other little bits and pieces like buying my ISBN numbers and just all kinds of bits that you just wouldn’t know if you’ve never published a book before. Catherine in particular has been very patient with my endless stream of questions!

I will tell you, it’s not cheap to self-publish a book, but I’m not one to try and do things on the cheap because I like to know it’s been done properly. Every professional I have used has been so worth it, and the final part of getting the books printed was also handled by Vicky Murray whose printing house got the first physical copies of the books to me last week. I would have been lost without Team Book as I think of them, they have made this process a pleasure.

I am selling the book through my website to begin with because I already have WooCommerce set up on my WordPress site for selling digitial products, and I have a client whose books I help to sell via her website so I have experience of how that all works. You don’t have to do it that way though – Amazon does a print-on-demand service so you just send it all to Amazon and then when people buy your book through their website Amazon prints it and sends it to them. You don’t ever have to get copies printed if you don’t want to I don’t think, but we all want some to just hold in our hands and put on our bookshelves don’t we?

If you have any questions about the process of self-publishing please do put them in the comments, or please do comment if you have a book of your own that we need to know about! Very best of luck to anyone just starting out on the writing process – remember to be excessively kind to yourself while you are doing it!

Helen Calvert
October 2022