Writing a craft book

In April 2013 I signed a book deal with Search Press to write a book about building and marketing a successful creative business.  My passion is writing and I've always wanted to write a book.  After 5 years of running a The Sewing Directory and writing business guides for my site, other websites and magazines I've decided it's time to write a whole book on the subject.  Luckily Search Press liked my ideas and have signed me up so now the dream is a reality.

This is a picture of all the beautiful books on display in the reception of Search Press's offices, hopefully mine has now joined their ranks!

I thought it would be interesting to blog about the whole book writing process and share my journey with you all.  So if you've ever wondered how a craft book gets made, how long it takes and what steps are involved then bookmark this page or follow the blog.  When I first starting thinking about writing a book I found the whole process so secretive and struggled to get much information so hopefully this will bring things into the open a bit. If you have any questions about any of it please do ask.

I'll put links to all the relevant posts below as I write them: 

Book deal announcement

Why I decided to write a book 

The proposal and contract  

The planning meeting 

Starting writing 

Writing software 

First draft finished 

Naming the book 

Editing

Promoting the book

Book Contributors 

The emotional side of writing a book 

An interview on the Search Press website about writing my book 

How I promoted my book - Part 1 

Book promotion - Part 2

A couple of my friends are also writing craft books and blogging about the process so do take a read of Tilly's experience and Susan's.  They are both writing for different publishers to me, and are writing project based books so their experiences are a little different to mine.

There's also a great couple of posts on craft book publishing on the Sew McCool blog.

Plus you'd probably enjoy this post called 'Is it worth writing a craft book'