A free working guide

The Book Blueprint

7 steps from “I have a book idea” to a book you can actually make.

Use this as a workbook, not a deadline. Every step ends with a small action and an optional AI prompt you can adapt.

Your ideas, judgment, facts, rights, and final words remain your responsibility. AI output should be checked before it goes in your book.

Choose the book only you can write

Start with one clear subject and one specific reader. A useful first-book concept often connects what you know or have lived through with a problem, question, or experience your reader cares about.

Your next action

Complete this sentence: This book helps [specific reader] understand or accomplish [specific outcome] because [your distinct experience or perspective].

Optional AI prompt

“Act as a thoughtful developmental editor. Ask me five questions, one at a time, to help me clarify my book's reader, purpose, and distinctive point of view. Do not invent my answers.”

Make the scope finishable

A book is easier to complete when you decide what it will not cover. Choose a practical length and format, then work backward from the time you can reliably spend writing. A focused book beats an endless one.

Your next action

Write a one-paragraph promise, three things the book will cover, and three things it will leave for another project. Estimate how many writing sessions you can protect each week.

Optional AI prompt

“Here is my book promise and available writing time. Suggest three possible scopes—short, standard, and ambitious—with likely tradeoffs. Do not promise a completion date.”

Gather your raw material

Collect the knowledge, memories, interviews, research, examples, and documents that belong in the book. Keep a simple source log so you know what comes from a verifiable source, what is your experience, and what still needs checking.

Your next action

Create folders for notes, sources, interviews, drafts, and images. Start a source log with columns for claim, source, link or location, permission status, and verification status.

Optional AI prompt

“Help me organize these notes by theme. Separate supported facts, personal recollections, unanswered questions, and potential chapter examples. Do not invent citations.”

Build your chapter blueprint

Give every chapter a job. The reader should know why it exists and how it moves the book's promise forward. Start with a working structure, then refine it once you learn more from drafting.

Your next action

For each chapter, note its question, main point, supporting material, and the action or insight the reader takes away. Remove or merge chapters that repeat the same job.

Optional AI prompt

“Based only on my book promise and notes, propose a chapter outline. For each chapter, state its purpose and flag missing evidence or overlap. Offer alternatives rather than treating your outline as final.”

Teach AI how to support your voice

Set boundaries before drafting. Give AI examples of your own writing, explain your preferred tone, and tell it not to fabricate facts, quotes, sources, or personal experiences. Use it to challenge, organize, and polish—not to impersonate you.

Your next action

Write a short project brief: audience, tone, non-negotiable themes, words you avoid, source rules, and what AI may and may not do. Save it where you can reuse it for every chapter.

Optional AI prompt

“You are my writing assistant, not my ghostwriter. Ask before filling gaps. Flag unsupported claims and generic language. Preserve my meaning and voice. Suggest edits with reasons; do not silently rewrite personal stories.”

Draft, revise, and verify

Draft a chapter at a time, then step back and revise the whole manuscript for structure, clarity, continuity, and voice. Verify important claims against original sources. Ask a trusted reader or professional editor for feedback when the stakes or complexity call for it.

Your next action

Set a repeatable chapter cycle: outline → rough draft → structural revision → sentence revision → fact check → reader feedback. Keep a list of unresolved questions rather than hiding them.

Optional AI prompt

“Review this chapter for unclear logic, repetition, weak transitions, and claims needing verification. Give me a prioritized edit list and cite the exact passage you are discussing. Do not supply fabricated facts.”

Make the book, then share it

A finished manuscript still needs a professional presentation. Review editing and cover options, format the interior, prepare front and back matter, choose publication formats, inspect a proof copy, and plan a modest launch. Platform requirements change, so verify current instructions directly before uploading.

Your next action

Make a publication checklist covering final manuscript, rights and permissions, title and description, cover, interior, ISBN decisions, proof, price, listing details, and launch outreach.

Optional AI prompt

“Turn my publishing checklist into a step-by-step project plan. Separate decisions I must make from tasks I can delegate. Mark anything that requires current platform guidance or legal advice for independent verification.”

Keep going

A blueprint is a beginning.

Book in 90 Days is designed to help you carry this plan from idea through manuscript and publication. Explore the founding group, with no obligation.

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