Let me tell you about Michael.
Michael is a talented veteran of the aerospace industry.
He is a pioneer of several manufacturing techniques that minimize waste and cut costs, leading to higher revenues and more jobs.
Yet Michael is frustrated with his work.
Or rather, Michael is frustrated by his workspace, work culture, and work relationships.
Everywhere he looks, he believes things could be better.
He wants to do something about it. He wants to make his voice heard.
So Michael decides to write a book.
When Writing Goes Wrong
Michael gets up earlier than usual, makes his coffee, and sits down to write.
This shouldn’t be too hard. After all, Michael has written numerous articles about his industry. Several are still highlighted on the websites of respected publications.
He also writes some of the better (in his opinion) email communications in the company. When his leaders send jumbled, confused, or out-of-touch messages, Michael often sends a blind reply clarifying the key points. His colleagues always thank him.
So Michael sits down, sips his coffee, and starts to write.
At first, things go well. He parrots some of the main ideas of his best article.
He knows it by heart, thanks to sharing it during a conference keynote last year.
But after 30 minutes or so, Michael stops typing.
The ideas have stopped flowing.
He’s reiterated the main ideas of the keynote, and now there is nothing left.
What the heck?
Michael stares at the screen, his cursor blinking mockingly.
Does he need more coffee?
Or is there something wrong with him?
Suddenly Michael’s confidence has been splintered like a windshield struck by a rock.
I thought I was a good writer! he laments.
Here’s the catch: Michael is a good writer.
But writing a book is a whole different thing than composing strong articles, emails, and keynotes.
And if he doesn’t adjust to those differences, his book idea is going to go up in disappointing smoke.
Why Books Are Hard to Start
Growing up, I assumed all writers sat down, started typing out “Once upon a time,” and worked their way to the conclusion.
As far as I guessed, they didn’t plan, outline, or strategize. Great writers could simply sit down and make magic.
What a fool I was.
While some great artists can create by the seat of their pants, most of us mere mortals need a plan.
Yet you’d be surprised to hear how many aspiring writers hate the idea of plans.
It’s intimidating, some say.
Dry and boring, others claim.
How can I know where the whole book is going?
These are all valid concerns about planning, but they miss one of the most crucial aspects of book writing:
The point of doing it at all.
You aren’t writing your book as a vanity project.
You’re not doing it just for personal fulfillment (though that’s nice, too).
You’re not doing this for fun.
You’re writing a book to bring about redemptive transformation in individuals and organizations.
You’re a visionary for a better world, and your book is the manifesto that will lay out the process for your crowds of fans, followers, and customers.
So where should you start?
Start with the ultimate point: The One Big Thing that achieves transformation more than anything else.
Should you start writing this ultimate point?
Not necessarily.
But you should start your planning with it.
Every aspect of a book plan hinges on its One Big Thing.
At The Workshop, we spend a great deal of time helping authors identify their book’s One Big Thing and building the entire structure around it.
If your book doesn’t work toward this key, singular concept, then it will feel lost, meandering, and pointless.
If it does, however, your book will be a weapon for change that makes the world an infinitely better place.
To make your writing time matter, start by planning your One Big Thing and going from there.
Why Books Are Hard to Frame
When we sit down to write a book about our knowledge and beliefs, it’s easy to fall into a dangerous trap.
What is the trap?
Thinking we’re the hero of the story.
But we have to remember that we aren’t the consumers of our books.
That is why we need to adopt a much different role: The Mentor.
Like Gandalf and Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Fairy Godmother, you are the wise, older teacher passing on knowledge to the new, young hero.
If this offends you, I apologize, but it’s the psychological reality that underpins the B2C relationship.
Your customers are the heroes of their own lives. You may be heroic, but you are NOT the protagonist of your customer’s life.
Only when you understand your archetypal role will you be able to design and write a book that teaches, transforms, and converts like nothing else.
Since you are writing nonfiction for a target customer who is the hero of their own journey, you are not writing beautiful poetry.
You are building trust.
If your book fails to grab readers, make promises and keep them, and deliver on the stated transformation, then your book will fail.
It doesn’t matter how beautiful, prosaic, or advanced your writing is.
In fact, this is often a problem for entrepreneur-authors.
Marketing experts will tell you to write at a 5th-grade level. Don’t use any words a 12-year-old doesn’t understand.
People don’t like being talked down to or lectured to.
They love being taken on a journey that respects them and calls them to actions they can immediately take.
Why Books Are Hard to Structure
If you’re sitting down to write an Impact Book about your own experiences and how they can benefit your prospect (and eventually sell them on your product/service/program), it’s important to remember another key fact:
You’re not writing fiction, so don’t trap yourself in fiction rules.
In a fiction story, the characters almost always move forward in time. Events are described beginning-to-end unless short flashbacks need to take place.
But in a nonfiction Impact Book, you aren’t beholden to this structure.
Instead, you should focus on the structure of your reader’s journey of growth, healing, or redemption.
In other words, if you sell an A to B transformation, your book should roughly follow the sequence.
More importantly, an Impact Book should follow the marketing principle of “Give the WHAT, sell the HOW.”
That means your book is 90% about the WHAT. It studies the problem, agitates the reader’s pain (often by telling your own painful stories), and counters any and all objections you anticipate from prospects.
That said, it does teach the HOW.
But the core point is that the HOW isn’t easy without support from you.
There’s debate about how much of the HOW you should include. Some entrepreneurs include 1% of it; others give away 99 or even 100%, trusting in their case studies, reviews, and reputation to send them plentiful leads nonetheless.
When you’re stuck in your writing, it’s probably because you’re trying to emulate your favorite books rather than your prospect’s mental and emotional journey through their painful experience.
They need your guidance.
They need to be shepherded to the help that is out there.
So take them to the best source of help you know of: Yourself.
Why Books Are Hard to Conclude
The ending of any book ultimately has to do with 2 crucial storytelling elements: Needs and Dilemmas.
Needs are all about what your protagonist can’t live without. In fiction, we call this a “goal.”
In nonfiction, it is a “Core Need.”
We use Abraham Maslow’s famous “Hierarchy of Needs” to identify this. By aligning your business and its target customer with your vision and values, we identify at least two needs that live at the core of your business.
– A “low” or physiological level need
– A “high” emotional, mental, or spiritual need
After all, your business ultimately seeks to make something whole again. Not in an “I need milk and bread from Walmart” sense, but an “I want to regain control of my life” sense.
You’re in the business of empowering people to solve their problems in meaningful ways.
This is why we look at multiple layers of the Hierarchy of Needs and identify two needs that your prospect is seeking simultaneously.
If this seems confusing, it is. Human beings are complicated.
But in books (and all manner of storytelling) we can reconcile our inherent contradictions.
That leads us to the second crucial element: A Dilemma.
Dilemmas are the crossroads between our practical needs and moral rules.
The starving man has to steal to survive. The soldier refuses to kill in the face of death. The addict continually destroys himself despite knowing he can do so much better.
Dilemmas are the most human moments of our lives. They are as hot as the sun and as intense as a hostage crisis.
Fiction is the easier medium with which to bring this reality to life.
But in nonfiction, doing so can be easy as long as your core ideas are perfectly aligned.
There is a real danger to improperly designing your Core Need and Dilemma.
Misjudge your reader and their pain—inaccurately diagnose their problem—misunderstand the impossible decision they face every day—and you and your book are toast.
However, nail these details with beautiful, exacting precision, and you’ll have a book on your hands that does 90% of the marketing and trust-building work for you.
So how do you end your book?
By showing your prospect the precise way in which their excruciating Dilemma is resolved and they can acquire the things they deeply Need.
And that way—that means, of course—had darned well better be YOU and YOUR OFFER.
Why Books Are Hard to Finish
As you can see, this is complicated. A lot goes into planning, drafting, and finishing a tight and focused Impact Book.
Many people will start a book like this.
But they won’t finish it.
You could fill every landfill on Earth with the started but unfinished books in the world.
It’s difficult.
It takes a long time.
It requires consistent daily sacrifice.
And it requires a deep investment in something bigger than yourself: A vision for your brand and business.
Do you have the vision to make it happen?
Do you believe an Impact Book will make a powerful difference in your reach, relevance, and revenues?
I’d love to talk more with you to see if YOUR book idea is a good fit for my coaching and community, The Workshop.
I’m building a community of entrepreneurs writing impact books to escalate and scale their brands and businesses.
We plan together, write together, test together, and successfully publish together.
Every member synergizes their book into their business’s enterprise ecosystem, using the content to form:
– Sales Funnels
– Customer Journeys
– Consistent Messaging
– Content marketing
– Networking and Platforming
If this sounds like your next step, would you consider being a part of The Workshop’s next cohort?