how to write a book about my life

One of the functions that I perform in my work with helping people achieve their highest and best is to assist them in documenting their life’s journey. This is a service that I provide, though my assistance is not necessary for you to write a book about your life.

I believe every person has many books within themselves, hidden away. There is no reason for you to not share your life and stories with the world. I help people write books about all kinds of things, but writing a book about your life is often the launching point exercise to begin your writing career. In most cases, once you see the basic story of your life in print, all the stories begin to bubble up within your soul begging to be released in your next book.

When I work with someone on their book about their life, we usually (depending on the client’s availability, participation and schedule) get this written and published within one week. Just by modeling what I do with my clients, you can do the same thing and follow along with my process.

Now, you, too, will know

How to Write a Book about My Life

The Process

Don’t Have a Process.

I have learned over time, that being organized (or too organized) can deal the death-blow to writing the story of your life.

All I do is to get you, the burgeoning author, on the phone and talk to you at length about your life. The entire interview is recorded. No pattern, no process, just rambling on in free-flowing style, recording everything.

It’s no different than talking to a friend about your life.

Step #1: Tell the Stories about My Life

Simply talk it out and record it on any voice recording device you have… No notes, no agenda, just ramble on. If something is out of order, no worries, just keep recording and mention, “Oh, yeah, I forgot that before we went to Disneyland, we stopped by this restaurant to eat and we all left without paying for our food. Not that we did it on purpose, we were just so exciting about going to Disneyland that nobody thought about it. The only time I ever did a ‘dine and dash,’ though unintentionally.” Just keep going.

Step #2: Transcribe the Stories about My Life

Next you’ve got to get your spoken word into an electronic text format. There are many methods for transcribing voice recordings to text, use any one you want. It is likely there is a transcriptionist you can hire locally, or you can find these services easily online.

Step #3: Sort the Stories about My Life

With all your stories separated into individual pieces, now you can go about putting them in the proper sequence.

Step #4: I Almost Forgot

This can go on forever, so forget endless editing. Step four is for light editing just to fill in any of the missing pieces that might seem apparent to the reader.

Commit to getting this project completed. You can always go back and change it later, if you have to… Or (better yet) come out with a Volume 2, because more often than not, there is much more about your life to be told, which will continue to occur to you along the way. Record it for the next one.

Step #5: Create My Manuscript

Create a single electronic document, with title page, etc… There are free templates that can be downloaded online for you to use, though they are not expressly necessary, as the most progressive publishers of the day, like Amazon, have made it very easy for you to get this done, as they do much of the heavy lifting.

Step #6: Publish the Book about My Life

Now, thanks to Amazon, publishing the book about your life is easier than ever, making the story of your life instantly available to anyone in the world (with access to Amazon, or any major bookseller). Simply create an account and upload your manuscript to Amazon’s instant printed book division at www.createspace.com.

Don’t worry about cover art for your book unless you have already had someone create individual art for your book cover because Create Space provides many templates for you to choose from and you can easily upload and have placed into the existing template a cover photo and/or author’s photo.