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Authorship: Sources of Inspiration

Connie Ragen Green
7 min readAug 30, 2019
Connie Ragen Green — Authorship: Sources of Inspiration

It’s not unusual to get stuck during in the outline or mind mapping phases of your book. This happens because you’ve exhausted your own idea well and need additional sources of inspiration. Fortunately, you can refill this well at any time. Here are a few techniques to help you with that…

Google Books as Sources of Inspiration

Google has taken the time to index millions of books around the world. These include both digital books and physical ones, too. The beauty of their design is that you can easily search within a book to find a certain keyword. This can be helpful if you’re feeling overwhelmed with your outline and not sure what else to say on your topic.

Just go to Google Books and do a search. You can look for books by title, author, or publisher. Once you begin your search, you’ll see the title of books that match your criteria as well as the author’s name and a picture of the book cover.

If one book catches your eye, click the blue “preview” link under the title. This will open up Google’s reader and allow you to read the first few pages. If you look on the left side of the reader, you’ll see a search bar. This is where you can add a keyword and see what the author has to say about it.

For example, let’s say you’re writing about digital photography so you open up the book…

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Connie Ragen Green
Connie Ragen Green

Written by Connie Ragen Green

Online marketing strategist, author, speaker, and publisher working with entrepreneurs on six continents. https://Linktr.ee/ConnieRagenGreen

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