We (Theodora and Kate) are work colleagues and sisters-in-law. We have a background in Human Resources, Change Management and Organisation Development and have worked together at a couple of organisations. Both of us have always wanted to write a book individually and we both have a lot of experience in writing, but it wasn't until we experienced a joint challenge when we started to discuss the idea of writing a book together.
In our book one of the core principles we talk about is the importance of 'teamwork' as teamwork divides the task and multiples success and we are evidence that teaming up helps you to succeed - we are now both published authors!
Since the release of our book we often get asked "Was it easy to co-author the book?" and "How did we go about co-authoring the book together?". So here are our top 5 tips if you are thinking about co-authoring a book:
1) Work with someone you know well and trust, you need to be open and transparent. Writing is a very personal experience and you need to be able to share your stories and your thinking with each other. We know it sounds obvious but you need to work well together as you are business partners in your writing venture.
2) Set expectations on writing timeframes. This is very practical but essential to a good working relationship. It is important to hold each other accountable.
3) Communicate, communicate, communicate. You need to keep the communication channel open between the two of you. If you are struggling, unmotivated etc, communicate this to your co-author. Also, don't be afraid to make suggestions/improvements to the book as we found that we would build on each other's suggestions until we came up with an idea that we both liked.
4) Take time off to focus on writing together. We both took 3-6 months off our corporate careers to focus on writing. I know this might not sound ideal to a lot of people as you still need an income however it really got us into a writing rhythm where we would take turns writing and reviewing each others work.
5) Set values or principles for your working relationship. We focused on being equals, this was important as we both have different strengths that we were bringing to the book. We also focused on honesty, respect and trust. This helped as we didn't always agree and these values would help us come to a solution that we were both happy with.
Good luck in your writing journey!
By Theodora Zourkas and Kate Zourkas, authors of Finding Your Inner Resilience. www.zourkasgroup.com.au
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