How can a journalist find the time to write a book every year? Nicholas Coleridge, who has written 12 of them, has an effective 3-step formula.

Exactly 25 years ago, Nicholas Coleridge, then a hot shot manager at Conde Nast publications, wrote a fabulous book called Paper Tigers, on the foibles, fortunes, eccentricities, influence and political manoeuvring of newspaper tycoons.

In India, he met Samir Jain of The Times of India, Ramnath Goenka of The Indian Express, and Aveek Sarkar of The Telegraph, and included them in a 40-page chapter.

The following year, the internet happened and changed everything.

Twenty-five years on, Coleridge is the chairman of Condé Nast Britain, the group that publishes about 140 magazines, including Vogue, Vanity Fair, Glamour and The New Yorker.

On his 92nd visit to India, Coleridge says:

“Glossy” magazines have a good future. It is difficult to replace them. The screen cannot reproduce the pleasure of holding a glossy. But the same does not hold for “more news-based titles”.”

Coleridge, who has 12 books to his credit despite his super-busy schedule, follows this writing schedule that might appeal to working journalists as a formula.

Write on Saturdays and Sundays.

Write from 7 am to 11 am on both days.

Write 250-300 words an hour, or roughly 10,000 words a month.

At the end of the year, you have 120,000 words and a book becomes possible.