Newspaper Writing vs. Book Writing

I'm not new to the industry. I've been in the same newspaper news/sports department for just under eight years in various roles. I mixed and matched my way to get journalism education in college, but I've mostly picked things up along the way on the job.

I was approached recently about an opportunity to help write a book. This is obviously new territory. It's something I've had on my mind for years, but I wouldn't mind getting advice from people like you on how book writing differs from writing for the daily newspaper. In the past I have also reached out to other published authors in my region to get their advice. There are a few obvious differences I know, but any advice you can offer up would be welcomed.

 

Cool subject ... and one close to my heart having researched and written a book myself.

Regarding research, I took the same approach as newspapering. At times, it was a lot of fun. However, I spent a ton of time trying to track down relatively obscure 1970s-era NHL players. It was hit and miss, ran into a lot of dead-ends. But... when I made contact and that person agreed to be interviewed, I felt like I struck gold. In addition, several of the main characters in the book are deceased. I used the memories of former players and beat writers to help form a narrative about them. Two of my best sources were a team trainer and a club's general counsel. Two terrific people.

I received mixed reviews on my writing, probably deservedly so. I approached the subject as a historian, in addition to a reporter. So, at times, I can see where a reader might think my writing was too dry. However, I picked up many funny stories along with some sad ones. That seems to be what the reviewers, and readers I've made contact with, enjoyed the most.

Prior to taking a swing of my own, I had read authors' book acknowledgements and/or prefaces in which they indicated writing a book was one of the most difficult things they had ever done. I can now attest to that.

Don't know if any of the above is helpful or not. I don't have much time this morning before heading off to work. But I sincerely wish you all the best.

 

The biggest adjustment, to me, is going from 750 words means you're done to 750 words means you've poured an 8 oz bottle of water into an empty pool. It can be jarring to feel pretty good about a story-length piece of work and then realize it's a sliver of a fraction of the final product. But if your deadline is far out enough, you can also make 1,000 words a pretty good day's worth of work. That's always my goal, but given that I have the attention span of a gnat and tend to prefer writing in the middle of the night, it often turns into writing 2,000 words every other day.

Another adjustment: If you're used to making one semi-decent quote fit into a story or used to turning a little bit of one-time-only research (i.e. you never cover field hockey, but you wrote a feature on a local player headed to a national powerhouse) into a pretty good story, it can be a shock to the system to know how many interviews you need and how there's no such thing as too much research. The real shock comes later, when you sift thru quotes and research and start slicing stuff you thought was absolute gold during the interviewing/research process. But those are good problems to have. Good luck and hopefully we can chip in with some more advice along the way!

 

This is a great idea for a thread, and could probably be very helpful and informative.

Comparatively speaking, newspaper/online writing/blogging, seems, now, to be so much easier than writing a book. That may not be true, but that's how it seems to me that it would be. But that's because my career was in newspapers, and, although I've long thought about book writing, I'm at a loss, not so much about the writing, but just about the nuts and bolts of it.

Like, I've haven't a clue how to build contacts with publishing companies, agents, and the like. How do you get started with things like that? Do you have to know someone, or, is it all just a matter of Googling, or what? And what do they expect of the writer/author? Are you under a contract from the start, or do you do some work before the publisher commits to you? How much contact is there between you and editors/publisher contacts, etc. These are all things I feel like I'd get in a college program geared toward book writing/publishing, but that's not what I went for, and isn't the information/knowledge base that I have.

I feel like maybe I should have it, but I don't, and I'm uncertain of how to go about it. I'd love to hear/read about people's experiences with the authoring/book publishing process, from book idea, to pitch, to whatever comes after that, with time frames, maybe, too. I feel like a bit of a dummy asking about it, but any first-hand insight would be welcome and appreciated.

 

This is the thing that scares me the most going into this project. I know the subject I'd be writing on is worth a lengthy amount of writing, but it's still a daunting task to figure out how to draw things out longer than if I were writing for print.

 

I'm a little lucky because I've previously reached out to a few people in my region who are published authors. One was a former professor of mine while the other was actually once the editor at my current newspaper. I was able to ask them some questions about the publishing process. There is also a smaller publishing house in the area where I think I could get my foot in the door.

 

I’ve ghost written a couple of books for lawyers, so it’s not exactly analogous to what you’re talking about.

But here’s what I know: Treat it like a regular 8-5 job, even if you don’t work those exact hours. Don’t let one day off turn into four because those empty pages will start haunting you.

Good luck.

 

I've written three books and countless blog posts. There's a learning curve to writing a book, but if you know how to write you'll probably get the hang of it. Preparation has always helped me a lot -- I personally use a 3 or 5 subject notebook for each book to kind of divide bits of info into sections -- I'll handwrite notes. That way you're kind of getting an outline for things and you can play around with it and you're not just typing into (or staring at) the word processor. Index cards have also been very helpful. I use colored index cards -- each color represents a theme or a thread if you will. Each of those index cards has a couple of sentences about a story or quote I want in the book. You can easily play around with the order using the index cards rather than after you've typed things out. Last bit of advice -- writing is 90 percent editing. I always spend a lot more time editing the manuscript than I do writing it. Hope that helps you some.

 

An author friend of mine said finding a great editor is crucial. They will help you see the forest from the trees and vice-versa. Never realized how crucial chapters are in helping focus a narrative or argument. The key is letting the research guide you. You may go in thinking one thing and come out with something completely different.