The #1 Question To Ask Before You Start Writing Your Book
So, you want to write a book. Congratulations!
Writing a book should be something you want to do, not something you think is a good marketing scheme. I will hold this opinion till the grave.
There are so many people out there who are preaching that you should write a book because it’s a great way to market your business. That gives self-publishing a bad name and oversaturates the self-help section. It’s also how we end up with a multitude of books that are blegh or, as of recently, completely AI-made. I’m sorry, but if I wanted to read an AI-created book, I’d simply ask ChatGPT myself. Heaven forbid, I’m actually looking to read something that came from someone’s brain… But that’s another blog for another day.
The best books are written because people wanted to write them, they wanted to be an author, they are passionate about what they know, and they genuinely want to help people.
But, if you are passionate and inspired and ready to write your book, then what is the #1 question you need to ask before you start writing?
It’s simple… what will my readers get out of my book?
When your reader makes it to the final page of your book, what will they have learned in the rest of the book?
It’s great to have this big topic or idea. It’s great to know a lot about your subject matter, but if you are not clear on what your readers will walk away with, they might get to that last page and question why they even picked up the book.
Because here’s the thing…
You might be a trauma-informed psychologist, a business coach who helps people start their business or a quilter who runs quilting retreats, but if you don’t have a clear focus and ONE result at the end of your book, the marketability will be low. Someone will read it, and they might think, “Too vague,” and not give it a great rating. Someone going to buy your book might look at that review and put it right back on the shelf. Then, neither of those people are talking about your book online.
You might think, “But how to start a business is a clear result.”
Sure, and that topic might work if you're some well-known, multi-millionaire like Tony Robbins, but for those of us who are just average people building our businesses, no, that topic is far too big and too vague.
I have a friend who is a brilliant copywriter. She and I have sort of a two-person book club. We read the same fantasy novels, and her biggest criticism of non-fiction books is that they are too long.
And she’s right, honestly.
I still read non-fictions (and those are what I edit), and time and again, I see these giant non-fiction books, and the topics are so large and don’t always have a clear point. When you get to the end of them, you think, “Well, that could have been a blog post.”
When you don’t have one clear result, one clear transformation, your book gets longer and longer without actually adding value… And honestly, even experienced authors are doing this. I’m currently listening to Mel Robbins’ “The Let Them Theory,” and struggling to keep going. Mel is a brilliant speaker and has amazing ideas, but… Girl! You’re literally just repeating yourself over and over with different examples. But, I digress.
So, how do you narrow your topic down to just one result or transformation?
Ask: “What do I want the reader to walk away with?”
At the end of the day, what is the one thing you really want your readers to know or be able to do? If it’s something big like “Start a business,” then keep asking questions to get it smaller and smaller. What is one thing your reader needs to know right now? What is something vital (to them) that will get them closer to their goal?
Choose a before-and-after statement.
Ask yourself this: “Before reading my book, the reader feels ___. After reading it, they feel ___.”
You will know you have a topic that is clear and concise when it is small enough to fit into this statement. You need to know where your readers’ starting point is and where you want them to be after they’re done your book. This helps define the transformation your book promises—and keeps your content focused.Look at your clients or audience. What’s the biggest win they get from working with you?
If you work with clients or already have an audience, this can be a great way to get a focused topic for your book. What is your specialty? What are you already helping your people do? Look at the reviews and testimonials they have given you. What specifically did they say they got from working with you? The more you use their actual words, the more you can feel confident that your book will sell and hit their needs.
If you only had one hour to teach someone something, what would you focus on?
Seriously, think about if you were to host a one-hour webinar. There is no way you can teach someone something as broad as starting a business. Instead, you would dial in on one part of that topic. Do the same thing with your book. Think about how you could keep your book a manageable size (remember what my friend says about self-help books!), and keep it focused on that transformation. My favourite personal development books teach me something that I can walk away and implement pretty quickly.
Ditch the pressure to teach everything.
Your readers don’t need an all-in-one book. It will wind up being too long and, honestly, they’ll get bored and DNF. Set your readers (and yourself) up for success by keeping it concise and on the shorter side. Size doesn’t make a book better or worse, and even the bigwigs are out there making books that are too long. With ‘The Let Them Theory,’ if you took out all the repetition, I bet that book would be half the size. You do not need to teach everything you know in one book. Find something specific and write your heart out.
Time to get your book edited for a fall launch?
Ensure your book is flawless and ready for publishing by having an editor who provides:
✔️ Big picture editing
✔️ Line-by-line editing
✔️ Flow and concept suggestions
✔️Proofreading
Don’t let typos take away from your message and your readers’ transformation.
Let’s turn your book into a masterpiece.
