What is a book?

By Dennis Mellersh

As we look at the many facets of how to write a successful book, it can be helpful to realize that a book can take many forms.

Aspiring authors may tend to think of a book as one unbroken development of a storyline within a book’s covers, such as a novel, but a book of fiction could also be a collection of short stories that you have written and then published as a collection of your work.

In non-fiction, a book does not have to be restricted to a narrow-focus in its content. It could be a grouping of a variety of articles you have written on a broad topic, and then compiled into a single volume as a book on that topic.

If you write poetry, you might think of your poems as an unrelated, but actually, your book could be an anthology or collection of the best poems you have written.
 
If you enjoy writing essays on various topics, you could put a number of your favorite essays together and thereby create a book.

One way you can begin this book-making process is to start a blog, at no cost, on blogger.com or wordpress.com and then compile your posts into book form.

A further upside of this approach is that you might find yourself building an audience for your work through the reach of your blog.