How I wrote my first book (non-fiction)
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- čas přidán 25. 06. 2024
- I recently wrote my first book, a life-long dream of mine! In this video I talk about how this opportunity came up, and how I actually wrote the manuscript.
PRE-ORDER firmament here! geni.us/firmament
You can support the channel by becoming a support at / simonoxfphys
In this video I talk about how to write your first book! It's a piece of non-fiction called Firmament, about the development of atmospheric science, bridging the gap between meteorology and climate change. I recognise that I was very lucky to be given this opportunity, so I wanted to show how the process worked for the benefit of anyone else who is interested in writing non-fiction. I talk about how I set writing goals, organised my research, and how the editing process works.
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Music by Epidemic Sound: epidemicsound.com
How I wrote my first book, Firmament, talking about writing techniques, setting daily goals, researching, studying, motivation, and how I got a writing contract. If you like videos by Matt D'Avella, Ali Abdaal, and Thomas Frank, you should enjoy this video about how to write your first book.
Huge thanks to my supporters on Patreon: Thines Ganeshamoorthy, Jerry Moore, Sam Harvey (soon to be PhD), Ashley Wilkins, Michael Parmenter, Samuel Baumgartner, Dan Sherman, ST0RMW1NG 1, Adrian Sand, Morten Engsvang, Josh Schiager, Farsight101, Liam Margetts, K.L, poundedjam, Felix Freiberger, Robert Connell, Jaime Stark, Kolbrandr, , Sebastain Graf, Dan Nelson, Shane O'Brien, Alex, Fujia Li, Harry Eakins, Cody VanZandt, Jesper Koed, Jonathan Craske, Albrecht Striffler, hennersfl, Jon Sjöberg, Igor Francetic, Jack Troup, SexyCaveman , James Munro, Oskar Hellström, Sean Richards, Kedar , Omar Miranda, Alastair Fortune, bitreign33 , Mat Allen, Anne Smith, Rafaela Corrêa Pereira, Colin J. Brown, Princess Andromeda, Aron Kári Ágústsson, Leighton Mackenzie, BenDent, Thusto , Andy Hartley, Lachlan Woods, Tim Boxall, Dan Hanvey, Simon Donkers, Kodzo , James Bridges, Liam , Andrea De Mezzo, Wendover Productions, Kendra Johnson.
You can pre-order the book now at geni.us/firmament !
Note that for people in the US, Canada, and India (and a couple of other territories) the pre-order isn't available just yet because of complicated publishing reasons. Keep an eye on my social media, I'll post an announcement when the pre-order is available everywhere :)
I spent longer than I want to admit googling Geni, since I've never heard of that publisher before.
I don’t use other social media platforms so please make an announcement in one of your next videos!
Heads up - link is broken for me, goes to an Amazon search with no results.
I'm hoping to get my hands on the book in South Africa soon!
Man maybe it’s about time I learn how to read.
So how's your phd?
Go learn string theory
Man maybe it’s about time I learn what reading is
Congratulations Simon, this is a huge achievement! I'm really impressed and I can't wait to read it.
Haven't really got a question about the book but just wanted to say that I've been following you since the first PhD weekly vlog and your journey is inspiring. You are very good at what you do, even though you might not always think you are! Hope the book is a smashing success!!
Thank you so much for this Matt
@@SimonClark Hey Simon, Thanks for sharing. I hope you can respond to my other comment about physics grad school when you can. I would really appreciate it. Thanks
I'VE BEEN WAITIN FOR THIS ONE
Really interesting to see the process! And so much work! Never have I been happier to NOT be writing a book right now
Been following you for years and honestly can’t wait to read this!! So happy for you 👏🏻
Pre-ordered! Can't wait to read it as ill be in my first year of uni doing physics!
Great work Simon!! Going to preorder now, really looking forward to reading this in the new year!
Well done Simon! Good luck with the book!
If there's an audiobook I want Dan to do the footnotes so it feels like I'm reading the wikicast
Now there is a suggestion! I'm meant to be narrating the audiobook, I'll ask what the plan is with footnotes hahaha
@@SimonClark Yay! I'm glad there will be an audiobook and that you'll be narrating it, would sound weird to hear your words come out of someone else's mouth
@@SimonClark Awww. I was hoping for Toddy.
@@SimonClark when will it be coming out? I’ve pre ordered but much prefer audio books
Congrats, Simon! An amazing achievement- look forward to reading.
Thanks Simon. I'm a CZcamsr who also wrote (and typeset) a book during the pandemic but it's been on "the shelf" .. this video has given me the inspiration to get it out (and/or do a publisher-bait video on it!)
I guess the third stage of editing eliminated the possibility of finding "to do calculate" in the book!
Fingers crossed!
Congratulations Simon! Thank you so much for sharing, I've found this really valuable, I've never known the editing stages or the way I would do research for a technical book if I ever were to write one. It's nice to know what to expect and it was a very fun video :)
I’m loving that the start of writing the book involved Mr Sam & the Dednutz
Congrats Simon👏👏👏you are an inspiration to me and so many. Thank you and keep it up🎁🎁🎁👌
Congratulations and ordered the book too - looking forward to getting my copy
Thank you a lot for inspiration and the valuable contnet.
And congratulations for your first book.
Congratulations!!
I already pre-ordered it. Eagerly waiting to read it😍😍😍.
Just wanted to say I've been watching your videos ever since you moved to Exeter, and I'm so pleased to hear about the book! As a bibliophile and a fan, I can't wait to get my hands on it :)
Can't wait to see this in the shops! It would be great to see how you go about scripting a video too.
I also know that feeling of being torn between popular writing and academic writing. Had to unlearn popular writing when I did the academic stuff and papers; and then had to unlearn academic writing when I wanted to return to popular writing. Theoretically, I now should be able to switch between the two, but who knows.
And, yes, I will get your book. Looking forward to it.
It's been wonderful to see how your life has evolved from the days of your PhD to now publishing your first book! I'm an avid Audible user but I will be pre-ordering a physical copy too as I'd like to support you and your future writing career.
Once pre-ordering has ended (the day up until release day I suppose) it would be very interesting to know how many pre-orders you received in total and possibly even through the different websites.
I hope this is the beginning of a new chapter for you (pun intended) and the start of a journey that younger Simon could only dream of fulfilling. Regards, Laith.
Excellent video, Simon!
Congrats! It's interesting to hear how different your editorial experience is from mine. My publisher only did a fairly superficial copy editing before we went through four (!) rounds of proofs.
Cannot wait till it's out!!
Thank you for this video, Simon. It's really good to watch this after knowing how well your book has been received. I'm doing a PhD at the University of Sheffield, and am interested in writing for a non-specialist audience. Appreciate the time and energy you put into your channel! Wishing you all the best.
Congratulation Simon. I have always got an author vibe from you. Eagerly waiting for the book.
Congrats Simon!
I just found your CZcams channel and thought I would say hello! Listening here I found we have something in common, writing books. I have finished two novels to date and am working on my third. I just wanted to say that the strength of a good habit (Say writing X-number of words a day) can be the ultimate building block that makes a thing possible in the end. I learned this to be true and found your explanation to bring this (now Fact) to the front of my mind. Thank you for your videos and best of luck to you!
thanks for sharing your experience, writing a book is a dream for me as well but there seems to be a lot less information out there about the non-fiction process than for fiction. Hope the rest of the edits go smoothly 🥳
Congrats! I’ll be adding your book to my shopping basket. Regarding the daily goal of achieving a set number of words, I’ve done the same thing since undergrad, doing minimum 200 words a day, it hasn’t failed me yet!
Congrats!!
Hell yeah! I can't wait to read it!
This is such a different topic from all the books available rn and i'm excited for it.
Being a musician with too much to say, I also have the dream of writing one day a book. I have no idea how I'd do it, but I guess I'll know better with time. Until then though, it's very inspiring to see you achieving your goals, especially with all the hard work you put into it. It's always a pleasure seeing your progress!
Awesome stuff. As more of a humanities enthusiast this will be my first foray into popular science.
In other news, if you plan to continue the book club ruse I've just finished 'Open' by Johan Norberg. Beautifully written and up there with Sapiens as a fresh perspective on history and politics.
can't wait to get my copy!
very insightful thanks man
I'm surprised you haven't written a book before, since myself have created a lot of short stories, and only recently starting writing seriously, but your videos are incredibly engaging, and enjoyable to watch!
Congrats, must be a great achievement. About the editing cycle, how did it compare with that of publishing a paper?
Can't wait for the book to release and the video on science communication! :)
Hi Simon, just saw your face on TV, in ‘Weird Earth’ xD
Anyway, great video! Breaking problems into bite-sized sub-tasks is one of my favorite tricks for staying motivated on a project^^
5:53 Love the Mr Sam & The Dednutz cameo there! 😂
I needed some motivational tunes for the big moment!
@@SimonClark I can appreciate that you wanted to stray away from LaTeX for writing it up, but is there any benefit to using something like Word versus just using a text based format like markdown or similar?
@@yerwol if it was just me on my own then no there wouldn't be, but the ability to add comments and suggest edits in Word means that the editor at the publisher can send over notes on a draft really easily. Plus word is just a nice app to use!
New subscriber. Looking forward to watching more of your videos. Just watched the IPPC 6 video. Very helpful.
Can't wait to get my copy.
Congrats Simon
Oh wow that's amazing! Im still in college but writing non-fiction is my absolte dream!
This is awesome news. And history of science is right in my interests.
Amazing!
Congrats Simon. I am working on my first book and this is inspiring.
Great. What's it gonna be about?
@@kabsantoor3251 Navigating the challenges of part-time study - the overview is on my channel :-)
The best intro of any CZcams video ever.
I ordered my copy ages ago Simon and it hasn't arrived yet. So I've cancelled it and given you a 1 star review. You're welcome buddy.
The weather is basically magic to me, so I think I needed a book like this
Congratulations Sire!
Ardently awaiting.
Sire, When it will be available in Pakistan?
This is useful! Can you show a note taking process for how u note take on notion and compress them inot pages for the book?
So there's a point you mentioned where each resource is a page and how you link them up to form points for a chapter. Would you be able to show that process perhaps with a screen sharing?
It would really help us to get organized too if we ever wanted to know how to write a chapter or so from such a vast number of resources!
Basically how can we use notion to go through the extremely tough knowledge filtering process?
Thanks so much in advance and love your videos!
Glad you enjoyed!
So when I mentioned filtering the information through to a book chapter page, I wasn't very clear. I didn't mean actually linking one database page to another (though I believe you can do that with /link page) but instead having the research page open on one screen and the chapter planning page open on another, and copying the relevant points across in the right order. So basically just the digital version of having two pieces of paper and taking notes from one to the other, though that's a process that's sped up by the search feature in Notion!
I should also mention that I probably did this process as described maybe half the time - the other half of the time was a much more disorganised scramble through the resources, copying stuff over directly to the chapter planning page! I started out with the best of intentions, trying to be super organised, but sometimes my excitement got the better of me lol
@@SimonClark that's really helpful! Thanks so much! Hahah yes will keep that in mind. I'm sure there's some messy parts as well as always, all of us do!
The author shown on Amazon seems to be another Simon Clark :D
Congratulations man!!
Looking forward to reading your book
When can we get it here in India?
Hopefully soon! Apparently the legal team at the publisher starts the outsourcing process to markets like India and the USA only once the full manuscript is complete (which it now is, yay!). So hopefully we'll have a distributor for India sorted in the next couple of months - I'll do an announcement on my socials when this happens :)
Are u doing signed ones? U r my inspiration.
Apparently this might be happening, but I don't know for sure!
My dream is to be a scientist and write sci-fi books along with it! Hope I get there someday...i am preparing for exams to get into a college of my choice and hope it happens soon! I have added all of your videos related to books into my playlist 'for the love of science' so that I could collect more information about physics and climate science!
Yess! And I would like to make this world a better place to live in.
Thank you for everything you do.... You certainly inspires me a lot.... Hoping to meet you someday. Thanks!
Cant wait till it makes to the bookstore, And do you have any ideas to your NEXT book ?
Very cool
Hey Simon, will you be making an audible book too?
Can you make a video on how you used Notion for the book?
What were your other book ideas you pitched?
Are you going to make a video about the IPCC AR6?
Is there a way to preorder the book on a site other than Amazon, which your link redirects me to?
Is there a paperback version of the book available or is it kindle only?
will there be an audio book also how much would the book cost in the UK?
where can I get a .torrent of this?
nah this will be my first book purchase in a long time, haha
Torrent available at geni.us/firmament (note some purchase may be required)
The book doesn't show up when I try to per-order it. I tried to search it and wasn't not able to find it either.
What podcasts do you listen to?
Cool
Did you use Git or version control of some kind?
You're probably the only one to write a book while listening to the sounds of Mr. Sam and the Dednutz.
The first but not the last!
With a pen and paper?
He said that he was using word.
What daily schedule software do you use, or is that something custom?
Notion! Would highly, highly recommend it (Thomas Frank and Ali Abdaal have great videos on how to customise it)
Can you share, your academic text books (from grads to PhD) in a video???
Does your book have to go through peer review?
You should read How to Take Smart Notes by Sonke Ahrens. Its an effective system for writers like you.
I love the fact everyone is writing a book these days. Lol Looks like a great book, hope to read it soon.
This guy deserves it.
So what's next?
Finalising the manuscript with the copy editor, recording the audiobook, and getting it out in shops. Ask me again after I've done all that! :P
Are the sources you used to write the book somewhere in it or would that have been too academic for the style you ended up going for?
Oh yep I insisted we have a bibliography! Though I'm not sure how the references will appear in the text, or if they'll be hidden in notes at the back. There's something like 150 sources in total, mostly books and papers but a few more esoteric things like websites and conference proceedings as well.
@@SimonClark That's one more reason for me to buy the book! It would be great if they appeared as inline references, footnotes or in any other way that would let us know the source that was used for each section/piece of information; but I can see how that might disuade readers not used to more academic texts from buying the book. Either way, I'm happy that readers will have it easier to find out more information about a specific topic they have found interesting if they want to.
It was a plan all along! Damn.
Will I be able to find this in my local Waterstones after release
I've been told so, yes!
Congratulations, keep writing books.
can I get it in India ??
Is this going to be published in hardback first?
Yep hardback first (with ebook and audiobook) and softback later
Obviously don't have to know any of the figures and actual numbers, but would be a very interesting video to go through how you get paid for the book and how that process/structure works. Because, you have spent years working on it and I doubt you are given a salary that entire time.
Yes I might actually have to make this as a video! In terms of the guaranteed income (i.e. the advances) it's definitely not commensurate to 3 years of work, but then there's always the chance of the book doing well and so earning more. Give me a couple of years and I'll report in haha
Ah I read Piano practice on Tuesdays ;)
I try to do it every day, though I'm not the most diligent student!
Hey when I click the author page on amazon it shows a picture that's very much not you. (or you aged really terribly)
What is the target audience for this book?
And more importantly, Is it suitable for me to read it without prior knowledge in the field?
Yep absolutely! It's intended to be an introduction to the subject, with no prior knowledge assumed
Hello
Why did you delete your novel?
Are you making a video on the IPCC report that basically says we're all doomed?
I am still sad about the cover design, may the other one be beautiful
you need to save drafts and not just delete. Helps your structure any future writings
I think the introduction of this video must have been affected by a white hole. I had a very odd sense of Déjà vu!
How
Edit: if someone is reading this in the future this comment was written 22 hours before the video was uploaded
@@priyanshupareek1185 is it through the patreon???is that's how it work?? just let me know anyone🤔
@@harikriz9482 I don't know myself that why I asked how he wrote a comment before the video was uploaded
@@priyanshupareek1185 This comment fell into a wormhole and appeared before it was written.
Alternatively, Patreon.
@@andyhartley 🤣🤣🤣
Damn kids with their hashtags and their Instagram quotes. They don't understand the pure motivational bliss of sniffin' on some old paper!
Maybe someday an eager young student will be sniffin' on YOUR old paper... life goals.
Hi Simon, I know this is off topic but I was wondering how you and your partner are finding your veganism? I really struggle with the necessary iron intake. And of course, I shall be reading your book.
Well pixel girl is 'vegan' - she doesn't eat animal products maybe 75% of the time. I'm closer to 99% of the time, but not militant about it. In terms of the iron I can't say I've noticed a problem. I take a supplement to be on the safe side, but I've not had any negative side effects from the change in diet at all really.
@@SimonClark I shall give the supplements a try, thank you.