How to get a book started: How to Write Your First Book with author Neil Mach

Have you ever contemplated writing a book?

Which comes first? The core idea? Or the storyline? Or the characters, perhaps?

How do you organise your project so that it doesn't go "flat in the middle" and take "forever" to complete?

How will you maintain your motivation for months on end, particularly when it feels like the process is turning into a laborious uphill battle?

How do professional authors 'knock out' two or three books in a year?

English author Neil Mach explains how to get a book started in his 2025 illustrated talk, titled: How to Write Your First Book.

With over 20 books (fiction and non-fiction) to his name, Neil Mach frequently addresses large crowds, lecturing on topics such as literary perspectives, writing traditions, and creative development.

It’s common knowledge that finishing a book is a difficult task, with most aspiring authors failing to achieve publication.

With humour and instruction, Neil’s slideshow talk leads his audience through the early stages of writing a book, explaining how to tackle those important first steps that will help your book get jump-started.

With over twelve years of publishing experience, Neil shares his best writing techniques and the closely guarded trade-secrets of the authoring profession.

Neil's 45-minute illustrated presentation, How to Write Your First Book, provides useful advice on:

• Developing a theme for your book

• What constitutes a good idea for a book?

• Generating ideas: using plot, character, or theme as inspiration

• Researching for your book: tips and tricks

• Methods for spanning chapters across a whole book

• Beginning and ending techniques

• How to develop a daily writing schedule that works for you

• Tips on improving and editing your writing

• Tips on how to market + promote your book as you “go along”

• Tips on how to stay focused for the ‘long haul’

The toughest part about writing any book is the idea generation phase. In a helpful and amusing way, Neil describes and gives advice on this phase of composition, which he calls the ‘ideation’ element.

Neil also details how new authors can weave personal experiences—desires, anxieties, fears, sorrows, regrets, and aversions—into compelling themes.

Neil claims that powerful & meaningful writing requires commitment—and it's this commitment to making amends, confronting anxieties, fulfilling fantasies, exploring possibilities, facing uncomfortable truths, or improving an audience’s understanding of issues, concepts, or possibilities that makes the writing process a cathartic and enjoyable experience for any writer.

You should consider inviting Neil to deliver his entertaining & very educational presentation to aspiring writers, new authors, or anyone interested in the creative processes behind the most successful books.

This 45 minute slideshow presentation would be ideal for book clubs, locally run writing groups, community centres, U3A groups, Probus Clubs, literature circles, creative writing groups etc.