It’s been maybe three weeks since I’ve posted on my blog, but I have a good excuse. For the past several months I’ve spent a fair bit of my free time working on a book. The book is coming along well and has been exactly as hard to write it as I thought it would be (and then some).

The subject of the book pertains to what it takes to start and raise money for a venture capital fund. I’m not going to go into much detail about the book on this post, other than to say I’ve written a total of 11 chapters so far, including an introduction, glossary of terms, and an appendix. At the present moment, I am working on edits to Chapter 5 titled Getting Investor Buy-In. I didn’t plan on this chapter being extensively long, but as I continue to go back to make revisions I keep thinking of other helpful ideas to add to it. Although I’m probably letting a little bit of scope-creep happen in this chapter, I’m okay with it because getting investor buy-in is critical for a first-time venture fund. In the context of this chapter, ‘investor buy-in’ means “who are the anchor investors.” Anchor investors are usually the largest and most influential investors in a fund. They make you seem more credible to other investors and will sometimes serve as advisors. I’ve been pleased with the progress I’m making on this chapter and am looking forward to finishing it off this week.

The most difficult aspect of writing a book isn’t the content; it’s working through all the edits and recommendations from the editor and my peers. Writing about something you know about is entirely different than setting down and having a conversation about it. In-person conversations are generally looser and grammatical correctness and flow isn’t as highly criticized as it is in text.

One of the challenges of writing is being succinct without leaving out too much information. I’m a ‘matter-of-fact’ type of person so I usually like to keep things brief and to the point. However, what I’ve learned in writing is that it’s often helpful to explain the backstory of certain events or topics before making the final point. Doing so gives readers context and makes the text seem more relatable.

I was fortunate enough to meet with a gentleman in San Francisco who has developed and self-published over 45 books. He has developed a highly streamlined process for publishing books through Amazon and a few online sources. The goal of the meeting was to learn the process of taking a book to market and what channels I need to use to make it happen. I certainly feel a lot less in the dark about the process, but I’m sure there will be much more I will learn when I actually get to this point in the process.

Upon conclusion of finishing the main content in the book, I’ll transition to working on cover art and other in-chapter, visual illustrations. I expected the process of writing a book to be difficult, and so far it’s been okay. What I’m learning more than anything is that writing takes a lot more grit and patience than anything else. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the process and I look forward to sharing the book with all of you when it’s finished. I’ll keep you posted! Cheers – KM