How I wrote my first book (non-fiction)

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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My twitter - / simonoxfphys
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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.

[@SimonClark]

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 :)

[@iseriver3982]

I spent longer than I want to admit googling Geni, since I've never heard of that publisher before.

[@_buns_]

I don’t use other social media platforms so please make an announcement in one of your next videos!

[@ryantjoa]

Heads up - link is broken for me, goes to an Amazon search with no results.

[@chippeh5205]

I'm hoping to get my hands on the book in South Africa soon!

[@AndrewDotsonvideos]

Man maybe it’s about time I learn how to read.

[@havory6621]

So how's your phd?

[@maxwellsequation4887]

Go learn string theory

[@luciferspartan2129]

Man maybe it’s about time I learn what reading is

[@domainofscience]

Congratulations Simon, this is a huge achievement! I'm really impressed and I can't wait to read it.

[@matthewdaws9877]

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!!

[@SimonClark]

Thank you so much for this Matt

[@leif1075]

@@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

[@petrichor1655]

I'VE BEEN WAITIN FOR THIS ONE

[@dannyclarke6637]

Well done Simon! Good luck with the book!

[@galacticduck6429]

Great work Simon!! Going to preorder now, really looking forward to reading this in the new year!

[@MusicbyCiaran]

Congrats, Simon! An amazing achievement- look forward to reading.

[@physicstutus9851]

Been following you for years and honestly can’t wait to read this!! So happy for you 👏🏻

[@jackjolley40]

Pre-ordered! Can't wait to read it as ill be in my first year of uni doing physics!

[@danicabozin9697]

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 :)

[@patrickavis5475]

Congratulations and ordered the book too - looking forward to getting my copy

[@sohybali2696]

Thank you a lot for inspiration and the valuable contnet. And congratulations for your first book.

[@simonabunker]

Can't wait to see this in the shops! It would be great to see how you go about scripting a video too.

[@crafter118]

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 :)

[@studysparkles]

Congratulations!! I already pre-ordered it. Eagerly waiting to read it😍😍😍.

[@mrjones7222]

Congrats Simon👏👏👏you are an inspiration to me and so many. Thank you and keep it up🎁🎁🎁👌

[@infinitable]

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.

[@DylanODonnell]

Thanks Simon. I'm a KZbinr 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!)

[@inessamaria2428]

Excellent video, Simon!

[@hmss7]

Congratulation Simon. I have always got an author vibe from you. Eagerly waiting for the book.

[@WhatsSoGreatAboutThat]

Really interesting to see the process! And so much work! Never have I been happier to NOT be writing a book right now

[@tomparkinvlog]

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.

[@MrSam2450]

I’m loving that the start of writing the book involved Mr Sam & the Dednutz

[@stijnboeren3943]

Cannot wait till it's out!!

[@ketrakrelek2347]

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 🥳

[@thelastcube.]

This is such a different topic from all the books available rn and i'm excited for it.

[@skc1993]

Congrats Simon!

[@nathanielouzana]

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!

[@BC-xu8yq]

If there's an audiobook I want Dan to do the footnotes so it feels like I'm reading the wikicast

[@SimonClark]

Now there is a suggestion! I'm meant to be narrating the audiobook, I'll ask what the plan is with footnotes hahaha

[@maxinefranklin1597]

@@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

[@rasmusgrankvist4131]

@@SimonClark Awww. I was hoping for Toddy.

[@jagoosw]

@@SimonClark when will it be coming out? I’ve pre ordered but much prefer audio books

[@PatrickL.McConnell]

I just found your KZbin 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!

[@frankielolleni3103]

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!

[@PANOP123]

New subscriber. Looking forward to watching more of your videos. Just watched the IPPC 6 video. Very helpful.

[@davidlakhter]

Congrats!!

[@chrisconnors7418]

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.

[@gregorywhatley9659]

very insightful thanks man

[@edparker1143]

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.

[@bomcabedal]

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.

[@Jacker_Deluxe]

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^^

[@pavelrufceski4928]

Hell yeah! I can't wait to read it!

[@Jonnie1905Boom]

I guess the third stage of editing eliminated the possibility of finding "to do calculate" in the book!

[@SimonClark]

Fingers crossed!

[@SylvesterAshcroft88]

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!

[@w00dy778]

can't wait to get my copy!

[@PenandPaperScience]

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! :)

[@AsrifYusoff]

Congrats Simon. I am working on my first book and this is inspiring.

[@kabsantoor3251]

Great. What's it gonna be about?

[@AsrifYusoff]

@@kabsantoor3251 Navigating the challenges of part-time study - the overview is on my channel :-)

[@yerwol]

5:53 Love the Mr Sam & The Dednutz cameo there! 😂

[@SimonClark]

I needed some motivational tunes for the big moment!

[@yerwol]

@@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?

[@SimonClark]

@@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!

[@pradip913]

Congrats Simon

[@gabrielabtomasi]

Oh wow that's amazing! Im still in college but writing non-fiction is my absolte dream!

[@tadhgtwo]

Can't wait to get my copy.

[@Alex.Shalda]

Amazing!

[@qwertyTRiG]

This is awesome news. And history of science is right in my interests.

[@neophara5816]

The best intro of any KZbin video ever.

[@zarasuleyman7]

Congratulations Sire! Ardently awaiting. Sire, When it will be available in Pakistan?

[@dureremu5897]

The weather is basically magic to me, so I think I needed a book like this

[@KeepSpazzing]

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!

[@SimonClark]

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

[@KeepSpazzing]

@@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!

[@brilliantfreak6101]

Congratulations man!! Looking forward to reading your book When can we get it here in India?

[@SimonClark]

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 :)

[@123kothaufen]

The author shown on Amazon seems to be another Simon Clark :D

[@Sandra-hj9mj]

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!

[@markuscwatson]

Very cool

[@chrismcgowan5180]

where can I get a .torrent of this? nah this will be my first book purchase in a long time, haha

[@SimonClark]

Torrent available at geni.us/firmament (note some purchase may be required)

[@orangeninjaMR]

Is there a way to preorder the book on a site other than Amazon, which your link redirects me to?

[@mehrollahshahbakhsh8224]

will there be an audio book also how much would the book cost in the UK?

[@sethwilloford5535]

Hey Simon, will you be making an audible book too?

[@Asrequired274]

Can you make a video on how you used Notion for the book?

[@benmc9816]

Is there a paperback version of the book available or is it kindle only?

[@LeanAndMean44]

Are you going to make a video about the IPCC AR6?

[@starshipx1282]

Are u doing signed ones? U r my inspiration.

[@SimonClark]

Apparently this might be happening, but I don't know for sure!

[@alexanerzuev3676]

Cant wait till it makes to the bookstore, And do you have any ideas to your NEXT book ?

[@tams805]

What daily schedule software do you use, or is that something custom?

[@SimonClark]

Notion! Would highly, highly recommend it (Thomas Frank and Ali Abdaal have great videos on how to customise it)

[@mikaelalewandowski1]

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.

[@musicspinner]

Did you use Git or version control of some kind?

[@PremierCCGuyMMXVI]

I love the fact everyone is writing a book these days. Lol Looks like a great book, hope to read it soon.

[@shanineedwards6894]

This guy deserves it.

[@subramanianvk8289]

Can you share, your academic text books (from grads to PhD) in a video???

[@loganrobin5079]

What podcasts do you listen to?

[@shreyasp3287]

Cool

[@obrod7080]

Will I be able to find this in my local Waterstones after release

[@SimonClark]

I've been told so, yes!

[@richarddean3154]

Does your book have to go through peer review?

[@manuelbonet]

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?

[@SimonClark]

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.

[@manuelbonet]

@@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.

[@simy608]

What were your other book ideas you pitched?

[@dylenweerasekara9533]

You should read How to Take Smart Notes by Sonke Ahrens. Its an effective system for writers like you.

[@hellaswagga2205]

It was a plan all along! Damn.

[@themanmrbijok7364]

Is this going to be published in hardback first?

[@SimonClark]

Yep hardback first (with ebook and audiobook) and softback later

[@hugo7312]

With a pen and paper?

[@ThePoshboy1]

He said that he was using word.

[@subramanianvk8289]

Congratulations, keep writing books.

[@shivinunitholi2493]

Ah I read Piano practice on Tuesdays ;)

[@SimonClark]

I try to do it every day, though I'm not the most diligent student!

[@MedlifeCrisis]

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.

[@abk072]

can I get it in India ??

[@ryanvoll7088]

Why did you delete your novel?

[@yoironfistbro8128]

Are you making a video on the IPCC report that basically says we're all doomed?

[@amitsivan7340]

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?

[@SimonClark]

Yep absolutely! It's intended to be an introduction to the subject, with no prior knowledge assumed

[@aboy_rana]

Can I get pyrated link of ur book 😜😜😜😜😜😜

[@ThePoshboy1]

So what's next?

[@SimonClark]

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

[@regulus8518]

do you have to find as editor from the same feild or does the publisher provide their own ? if so how does a non expert get to weigh in on something and expert wrote (in a meaningful way besides picking up on typos - software can do that) ? ... won't this cause miscommunication in a world full of wikipedia level experts and social media researchers 😂😂😂 funny as it is - serious question (what makes a qualified editor?)

[@rebeljesus3470]

Hello

[@Wackydude27]

You're probably the only one to write a book while listening to the sounds of Mr. Sam and the Dednutz.

[@SimonClark]

The first but not the last!

[@Ben-ig8nx]

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.

[@SimonClark]

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

[@jasper5521]

Hey when I click the author page on amazon it shows a picture that's very much not you. (or you aged really terribly)

[@PhysicsOH]

Damn kids with their hashtags and their Instagram quotes. They don't understand the pure motivational bliss of sniffin' on some old paper!

[@PhysicsOH]

Maybe someday an eager young student will be sniffin' on YOUR old paper... life goals.

[@theawantikamishra]

I am still sad about the cover design, may the other one be beautiful

[@cogitoergosum2846]

Does the book contain maths :))

[@SimonClark]

Some, but I've been told that equations scare most sensible people off :P

[@cogitoergosum2846]

@@SimonClark well I delight in those tbh :)