{"id":386,"date":"2026-05-05T00:46:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T00:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/how-do-you-write-a-book-together-you-just-do-it\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T09:00:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T09:00:57","slug":"how-do-you-write-a-book-together-you-just-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/how-do-you-write-a-book-together-you-just-do-it\/","title":{"rendered":"How do you write a book together? You just do it\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='full_slider_1'  class='avia-fullwidth-slider main_color avia-shadow   avia-builder-el-0  el_before_av_one_fifth  avia-builder-el-first   container_wrap fullsize'  ><div  class='avia-slideshow av-mn0bww2r-62f8ef099d3a9420d702b0b89bbbf2a7 avia-slideshow-featured av_slideshow_full avia-slide-slider av-slideshow-ui av-control-default av-slideshow-manual av-loop-once av-loop-manual-endless av-default-height-applied   avia-slideshow-1' data-slideshow-options=\"{&quot;animation&quot;:&quot;slide&quot;,&quot;autoplay&quot;:false,&quot;loop_autoplay&quot;:&quot;once&quot;,&quot;interval&quot;:5,&quot;loop_manual&quot;:&quot;manual-endless&quot;,&quot;autoplay_stopper&quot;:false,&quot;noNavigation&quot;:false,&quot;bg_slider&quot;:false,&quot;keep_padding&quot;:false,&quot;hoverpause&quot;:false,&quot;show_slide_delay&quot;:0}\"  itemprop=\"image\" itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\" ><ul class='avia-slideshow-inner ' style='padding-bottom: 28.666666666667%;'><li  class='avia-slideshow-slide av-mn0bww2r-62f8ef099d3a9420d702b0b89bbbf2a7__0  av-single-slide slide-1 slide-odd'><div data-rel='slideshow-1' class='avia-slide-wrap '   ><img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" class=\"wp-image-385 avia-img-lazy-loading-not-385\"  src=\"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/read1-1500x430.jpg\" width=\"1500\" height=\"430\" title='Just do it' alt=''  itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\"   \/><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><div id='after_full_slider_1'  class='main_color av_default_container_wrap container_wrap fullsize'  ><div class='container av-section-cont-open' ><div class='template-page content  av-content-full alpha units'><div class='post-entry post-entry-type-page post-entry-386'><div class='entry-content-wrapper clearfix'>\n<div  class='flex_column av-av_one_fifth-4236371e50272b4ec399280bbf76d6bf av_one_fifth  avia-builder-el-1  el_after_av_slideshow_full  el_before_av_three_fifth  avia-builder-el-first  first flex_column_div  '     ><\/div>\n<div  class='flex_column av-av_three_fifth-d9d4235c4dc5477e29570d3b99e2b500 av_three_fifth  avia-builder-el-2  el_after_av_one_fifth  el_before_av_one_fifth  flex_column_div  '     ><section  class='av_textblock_section av-mn0bwjiv-9892adee8670be54fd7bd8e0e5cc7e6f '   itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='avia_textblock'  itemprop=\"text\" ><h1><strong>How do you write a book together? <\/strong> You just do it\u2026<\/h1>\n<p>How do you write a book together? You just do it\u2026 And that&#8217;s how you arrive at an expression that keeps coming back throughout the book: you just do things. Quite a lot of things, actually. You just do them.<\/p>\n<p>Which is actually the opposite of what it sounds like.<\/p>\n<p>When we say something &#8216;we just did it,&#8217; we usually mean something that is actually not ordinary at all, even quite extraordinary. It may be part of everyday life, but we&#8217;re often not aware of it and we never really talk about it. And more often than not, we don&#8217;t have the words to describe it properly. &#8216;We just do it&#8217; becomes a kind of expression for something we can&#8217;t quite explain. When you work together in a good way magic can happen. But we don\u2019t talk about it.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m writing a short piece here about how you write a book together, but it definitely overlaps with other stories that will appear on this website &#8211; about intuition and collaboration, for example. And about how I knew I had to write a book. But for now, specifically: how do you write a book together?<\/p>\n<p>It started with the moment I felt &#8211; really felt &#8211; that I was going to write a book. I had been playing with the idea for years. Twenty years or so.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of 2023, Ellen Kleinlangevelsloo interviewed me. It was quite a challenging interview, covering two subjects at once. She interviewed me for two hours and out of that came a perfect article. Truly perfect. I didn&#8217;t need to change a thing. She understood me completely &#8211; and I know I don&#8217;t always speak in neat, coherent sentences.<\/p>\n<p>And there it was, the first thought about collaboration: what if I asked Ellen to write the book for me?<\/p>\n<p>After that first intuitive impulse, I let some time pass. I needed to be sure I really wanted to do it. Writing a book is not something you do lightly. It&#8217;s a lot of work. In May 2024 I sent her an email, asking if she&#8217;d like to do it.<\/p>\n<p>Ellen said yes, and that was the start of it all. The conversation immediately turned to: how are we going to do this?<\/p>\n<p>That was step one. There was a foundation for a book: I had the experience and ideas on the subject, and Ellen is a true professional &#8211; a writer, content manager and an independent creative thinker.<\/p>\n<p>My second thought was: I need Piet on board. Piet Roodenburg is a friend, a former colleague and above all someone with whom I have always been able to work, think and puzzle things out in a remarkably productive way. In the process I&#8217;m describing here, he is my sounding board &#8211; the person who always brings structure &#8211; and working with him I know I won&#8217;t miss anything in a line of reasoning. That is indispensable to me, and gives me a great sense of security. It&#8217;s telling that I didn&#8217;t doubt for a second that he would say yes.<\/p>\n<p>I think it is also important that Piet and I both have an in depth knowledge of both intuition and leadership but on the other hand we have complementary characters and complementary areas of expertise around leadership and personal develoment, so that between us, we cover a lot of ground. We work well together and have proved this time and time again.<\/p>\n<p>Step two: the team was complete. And somehow, it had all just fallen into place. I&#8217;ve always trusted that when your team is right, things more or less take care of themselves after that. I imagine that will resonate with other leaders.<\/p>\n<p>That doesn&#8217;t mean there&#8217;s nothing left to do &#8211; quite the opposite. That&#8217;s when the real work begins! But it does mean you&#8217;ve created the conditions to do the work you&#8217;ve chosen to do.<\/p>\n<p>So how does it go from there? Did we already know everything that will be in the book?<\/p>\n<p>The answer is a very clear no. Of course I knew some things: that it would be about leadership and intuition, about leading with your heart and about personal development. But how exactly those themes fitted together, we didn&#8217;t yet know.<\/p>\n<p>We also had a foundation in research that Piet and I had done for De Baak at the turn of the millennium, on how leaders learn. That told us a great deal about the importance of intuition &#8211; in your everyday leadership as well as the bigger picture &#8211; and about the different dimensions of leadership, ultimately captured in the Three Dimensions model.<\/p>\n<p>And so we got to work. We met in person once, but mostly worked through Teams. Which, somehow, worked perfectly.<\/p>\n<p>In the early sessions, Ellen always came well prepared with questions. We exchanged documents and experiences from the first study. Ellen recorded everything so she could listen again later. That continued until, I think, all the factual material had been shared.<\/p>\n<p>We were also honest about the things we didn&#8217;t know, and it didn&#8217;t take long before we had the idea of interviewing leaders of today as well &#8211; people we knew for certain were highly intuitive &#8211; and to really grill them about \u00a0how that worked for them.<\/p>\n<p>So together we began drawing up a list of people and a set of questions, to eventually conduct and work out the interviews properly. All three of us were involved. It was an enormous amount of work.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, Ellen had also developed a method for working out together what kind of book it should be &#8211; the BingeMarketing methodology. That turned out to be enormously useful. It led directly to the concept for the book as it now stands: a kind of detective story, searching for the truth. With informal fragments in which &#8216;Benita tells,&#8217; frameworks for the personal stories, and plenty of quotes from the interviews.<\/p>\n<p>On the content side, there were a few real puzzles to solve. But you get there in the end. You can push them aside for a while &#8211; some somehow resolve themselves, and some you have to grab hold of and chew on until the answer comes. It&#8217;s a fairly mysterious process, and everyone does it in their own way.<\/p>\n<p>Each time, Ellen would write a section. Piet and I would read it and give feedback.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually we felt we had roughly two thirds of the book written, and I decided it was time to find a publisher. We had been thinking about it for a while, but it was time to make some decisions.<\/p>\n<p>As it turned out, you can start looking for a publisher much earlier in the process. We didn&#8217;t know that.<\/p>\n<p>With the help of good friends and advisors, we eventually found our way to Santasado. Definitely the right choice. From that point on, Laurens Molegraaf joined as a full member of the team, alongside his role as publisher and de facto project manager.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>And that, dear friends, is how we wrote a book together. Somehow, we just did it!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div><div  class='flex_column av-av_one_fifth-d9d4235c4dc5477e29570d3b99e2b500 av_one_fifth  avia-builder-el-4  el_after_av_three_fifth  el_before_av_section  avia-builder-el-last  flex_column_div  '     ><\/div><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><!-- close content main div --><\/div><\/div><div id='av_section_1'  class='avia-section av-mniaa8fo-095a8084ff412e0973d411f2a85e9225 alternate_color avia-section-default avia-no-border-styling  avia-builder-el-5  el_after_av_one_fifth  avia-builder-el-last  avia-bg-style-scroll container_wrap fullsize'  ><div class='container av-section-cont-open' ><div class='template-page content  av-content-full alpha units'><div class='post-entry post-entry-type-page post-entry-386'><div class='entry-content-wrapper clearfix'>\n<div  class='flex_column av-prt-cd22cdd0c6a62e1a66c3f489252220e1 av_one_fifth  avia-builder-el-6  el_before_av_three_fifth  avia-builder-el-first  first flex_column_div  '     ><\/div><div  class='flex_column av-5o43-5a6cdb5f36e9708768fb007469c66ad9 av_three_fifth  avia-builder-el-7  el_after_av_one_fifth  el_before_av_one_fifth  flex_column_div  '     ><p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\" data-created_by=\"avia_inline_auto\" id=\"style-css-av-mnia8lse-785e4c2532683a1f8c06741be270c551\">\n#top .av-special-heading.av-mnia8lse-785e4c2532683a1f8c06741be270c551{\npadding-bottom:10px;\n}\nbody .av-special-heading.av-mnia8lse-785e4c2532683a1f8c06741be270c551 .av-special-heading-tag .heading-char{\nfont-size:25px;\n}\n.av-special-heading.av-mnia8lse-785e4c2532683a1f8c06741be270c551 .av-subheading{\nfont-size:15px;\n}\n<\/style>\n<div  class='av-special-heading av-mnia8lse-785e4c2532683a1f8c06741be270c551 av-special-heading-h3 blockquote modern-quote  avia-builder-el-8  el_before_av_magazine  avia-builder-el-first '><h3 class='av-special-heading-tag '  itemprop=\"headline\"  >Read our other stories:<\/h3><div class=\"special-heading-border\"><div class=\"special-heading-inner-border\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><br \/>\n<div  id=\"avia-magazine-1\"  class='av-magazine av-mn0bxr23-6f1ccb05ca7fd148dc250c6396651646  avia-builder-el-9  el_after_av_heading  avia-builder-el-last   avia-builder-el-9  el_after_av_heading  avia-builder-el-last ' ><div class='av-magazine-group sort_all'><article class='av-magazine-entry av-magazine-entry-id-448 av-magazine-format-standard av-magazine-type-post av-magazine-entry-1 av-magazine-entry-small '  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class=\"av-magazine-thumbnail\"><a href='https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/what-were-the-surprises-during-your-research-for-the-book\/' title='Link to: What were the surprises during your research for the book??' class='av-magazine-thumbnail-link'><img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"80\" height=\"80\" src=\"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/read3-80x80.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-447 avia-img-lazy-loading-not-447 attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/read3-80x80.jpg 80w, https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/read3-36x36.jpg 36w, https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/read3-180x180.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 80px) 100vw, 80px\" \/><\/a><\/div><div class=\"av-magazine-content-wrap\"><header class=\"entry-content-header\" aria-label=\"Post: What were the surprises during your research for the book??\"><time class='av-magazine-time updated'  itemprop=\"datePublished\" datetime=\"2026-05-15T12:55:39+00:00\" >May 15, 2026<\/time><h3 class='av-magazine-title entry-title '  itemprop=\"headline\" ><a href='https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/what-were-the-surprises-during-your-research-for-the-book\/' title='Link to: What were the surprises during your research for the book??'>What were the surprises during your research for the book??<\/a><\/h3><\/header><\/div><footer class=\"entry-footer\"><\/footer><\/article><article class='av-magazine-entry av-magazine-entry-id-419 av-magazine-format-standard av-magazine-type-post av-magazine-entry-2 av-magazine-entry-small '  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class=\"av-magazine-thumbnail\"><a href='https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/can-your-intuition-be-wrong-and-how-do-you-prevent-that\/' title='Link to: Can your intuition be wrong? And how do you prevent that?' class='av-magazine-thumbnail-link'><img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"80\" height=\"80\" src=\"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/read2-80x80.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-418 avia-img-lazy-loading-not-418 attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/read2-80x80.jpg 80w, https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/read2-36x36.jpg 36w, https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/read2-180x180.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 80px) 100vw, 80px\" \/><\/a><\/div><div class=\"av-magazine-content-wrap\"><header class=\"entry-content-header\" aria-label=\"Post: Can your intuition be wrong? And how do you prevent that?\"><time class='av-magazine-time updated'  itemprop=\"datePublished\" datetime=\"2026-05-10T12:55:07+00:00\" >May 10, 2026<\/time><h3 class='av-magazine-title entry-title '  itemprop=\"headline\" ><a href='https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/can-your-intuition-be-wrong-and-how-do-you-prevent-that\/' title='Link to: Can your intuition be wrong? And how do you prevent that?'>Can your intuition be wrong? And how do you prevent that?<\/a><\/h3><\/header><\/div><footer class=\"entry-footer\"><\/footer><\/article><article class='av-magazine-entry av-magazine-entry-id-386 av-magazine-format-standard av-magazine-type-post av-magazine-entry-3 av-magazine-entry-small '  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class=\"av-magazine-thumbnail\"><a href='https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/how-do-you-write-a-book-together-you-just-do-it\/' title='Link to: How do you write a book together? You just do it\u2026' class='av-magazine-thumbnail-link'><img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"80\" height=\"80\" src=\"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/read1-80x80.jpg\" class=\"wp-image-385 avia-img-lazy-loading-not-385 attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/read1-80x80.jpg 80w, https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/read1-36x36.jpg 36w, https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/read1-180x180.jpg 180w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 80px) 100vw, 80px\" \/><\/a><\/div><div class=\"av-magazine-content-wrap\"><header class=\"entry-content-header\" aria-label=\"Post: How do you write a book together? You just do it\u2026\"><time class='av-magazine-time updated'  itemprop=\"datePublished\" datetime=\"2026-05-05T00:46:37+00:00\" >May 5, 2026<\/time><h3 class='av-magazine-title entry-title '  itemprop=\"headline\" ><a href='https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/how-do-you-write-a-book-together-you-just-do-it\/' title='Link to: How do you write a book together? You just do it\u2026'>How do you write a book together? You just do it\u2026<\/a><\/h3><\/header><\/div><footer class=\"entry-footer\"><\/footer><\/article><\/div><\/div><\/p><\/div><div  class='flex_column av-33cn-05688c98b0dde8c52b5b55eef9798ed2 av_one_fifth  avia-builder-el-10  el_after_av_three_fifth  avia-builder-el-last  flex_column_div  '     ><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":385,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580,"href":"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions\/580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benitaplesch.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}