Writing my first Resource Book for Architects
For over a year, I’ve been contemplating writing a book called Starting an Architecture Firm, which would be a guide for experienced and young architects who are looking to start a business of their own. From the time that I had this thought to now, I put together a daylong seminar that brought together a successful architect who started a practice less than half a decade ago, two lawyers, two financial professionals, and a branding/strategic marketing professional to teach architects how to start an architecture firm.
As one of my 30x30 goals, I’ve decided to take action on writing the Starting an Architecture Firm Book that will elaborate and add to the list of advice from the seminar and my blog post. Here’s how the book is coming along so far.
Outlining the book
Once I made the decision to write the book, I knew it would be important to organize my thoughts and separate my writing into manageable sections. At first, I thought that breaking the book into individual text files for each chapter would allow me to focus on each area and gradually write them from beginning to end in one day.
However, knowing the way that I operate, I knew I wouldn’t be able to focus on writing a full chapter in a day because I can only work on one task for a maximum duration of time. Once I reach this point where my brain and writing slows down, I know that everything I write afterwards won’t meet my standards. So, I decided to break each chapter into sections that focus on specific topics just like the blog post that I mentioned in the introduction of this post.
With this direction, I titled each chapter and accompanying sections in a draft table of contents. Then, I created individual text files that were named 01_”Chapter name” followed by another file “01_Section name” and so on. This allowed my digital files to follow a specific order and to be organized on my computer. Although this might sound tedious, it was actually the smartest thing that I did for planning the book.
Writing the book
When the entire book structure was organized and the files were ready to go, I immediately focused on writing each sections of a specific chapter and skipped the foreword and introduction entirely. This allowed me to focus on developing the content of the book and would guide my writing of the foreword and introduction of the book.
As I wrote each section, I found myself referring back to my blog post and notes from the seminar that I led as well as my notes from other daylong seminars that I attended on starting a business. Each section took between 20 to 60 minutes to write which depended on how much I had to review my notes to refresh my memory. The sections that were quicker to write were related to what I’ve personally learned from working as an architect at the firm where I’m employed.
Be the first to know when it’s available
After three weeks of writing, I’m excited to say that I’ve just finished the rough draft of this book, which I’ll be reviewing and editing for the next month! My plan is to have the book available for purchase in April 2018 at full price and available for pre-orders in March 2018.
If you’re interested in following the progress of this book and being the first to know when it’s available for pre-order, be sure to subscribe to my newsletter using the form located at the bottom of this post. When pre-orders are about to go live, I’ll be sharing a sample of the book with everyone in my newsletter. Once the book is published, you’ll be able to find it on my Resources page.
