This is what I hear most often on discovery calls… “I know I want to write a book, but I don’t even know what that would look like.”
Or “Everyone tells me I should write a book, but I don’t even know what direction I’d take it.”
First, let’s get one thing straight. You should write a book because you want to write a book. It’s a long process that requires focus and dedication, no matter how you go about it.
The good news is: I can help with both of these statements.
First, I can help show you the impact that you can make through sharing your stories and knowledge. Writing a book is not about you. It’s about your audience. It’s about the lives you can change. The wisdom you can share. The ideas you can spark.
When you’re ready to commit to writing a book, we can work together to narrow down the focus and direction of your book. You don’t need to get an outline fully baked to be able to conceptualize and wrap your head around what your book can become. There are some simple questions that can help get you going. Here are three to get you started.
What Problem Are You Trying to Solve?
This is one of the most important questions you can start with. This will address the type of content you want to cover in your book.
Are you trying to help others gain awareness of a certain solution? The book will then be used to explain that particular solution. Are you trying to teach leaders how they can better motivate their teams? The book will be used to explain different approaches that leaders can take and why they work. Do you want to help your readers overcome mindset blocks? You may want to explain what those common blocks are, why they’re there, and what readers can do to start to heal them. You get the idea.
It’s important to keep in mind that this question can be flexible to your situation. Maybe you don’t have a problem to solve but wisdom to share. If that’s the case, what wisdom do you want to impart to your readers? This will naturally lead you to why you want to impart this wisdom, and we can start to talk about the best ways to do that.
Trying to figure out what you want to share and why you want to share it is the foundation of seeing where we’re headed with the content. This will naturally lead us into some other areas that will help start to firm up the concept of the book.
Thinking about what objections the readers might have will help to get ideas flowing of potential topics to cover and ways to address those. You’ll also want the reader to take action at the end of the book. That could be tangible action like buying a course, or it could be something softer like starting journaling practice or having a conversation with a loved one. This will help drive the direction of the content as well.
It’s overwhelming to start with the question: What do I want to talk about in my book? Starting with what problem you want to solve shifts that mindset into how you’re helping others and leads to other questions that help us to narrow the focus.
Who Are You Writing To?
I find that this question is often met with looks of skepticism. I’ll admit that this question seems a bit odd on the surface. You want as many people as possible to get their hands on your book, right?
Of course, we do. More readers means your message is reaching more people. But there’s an old phrase in marketing that if you’re talking to everyone, you’re talking to no one. The same is true for books.
You want your book to have the maximum impact possible. You want your audience to actually be acting on it, not just buying it and making it through the first couple of chapters.
The key to your book resonating with your audience (and in turn being recommended to others) is to talk to your reader like they’re right in the room with you, having a conversation.
To make a book this relatable, it’s helpful to have a persona in mind. Who exactly do you want to write this for? What challenges are they facing? What excuses did they have in the past? What do they do? Where do they hang out?
To identify this persona, it’s often helpful to think of an ideal client you’ve had or that you’d love to have. Or maybe you think of someone in particular in your life who could use the wisdom you’d like to share. Thinking of real-life examples helps make this process easier.
You might be thinking, “This is great. But you jumped ahead to the tone of the book while I’m not even sure where I’m headed with it.”
Think about it, though. When you know who you’re writing to, you’re also starting to think about the things you want to say to them and how you’d like to say it.
Mission accomplished.
How Do You Want to Share?
Sometimes people know, or at least have a vague idea of, the answer to those first two questions. The sticking point may be how they want to share that information.
To get some clarity on this, it can be helpful to think about how you want the content to feel to the reader. Are you going more for the vibe of giving a talk at a conference or sharing stories around a campfire? If you want it to seem more like you’re a guest speaker at an event you’re fired up about, we’ll head the more traditional business/leadership book route. If you want it to feel more like you’re telling stories around a campfire, we’ll go the memoir route. (Shoutout to my mentor for the idea of that awesome question to ask.)
There’s some important clarification I want to provide here, though. All books will have stories. A healthy dose of them. The key here is how we use those stories. Are the stories the primary method through which wisdom and the teaching are being imparted? Or are the stories used as examples to demonstrate what you’re teaching?
The second important point here. When I ask if you want it to feel like you’re giving a talk on stage, I’m not asking if you want to talk “at” an audience. I don’t think that’s good for a book or a stage, quite frankly. Even if you want the book to be more teaching style, we want each reader to feel seen. We don’t want them to feel they’re being lectured at.
The goal of these questions is mostly to think about the format you’d like to teach in, not the tone you’d like to strike.
If you started reading this article as the person who wants to write a book but had no idea where to take it, I hope these questions were helpful. If you’d like to dive deeper, I offer a free roadmapping session where I can help you through this. To get started with the process, book a free strategy session using the button below to learn more.
Disclaimer: This blog should not be construed as providing, or intending to provide professional financial, legal, psychological, or other professional advice. It is simply meant to share my experiences with those who may find them relatable and helpful.