What do you think is the ultimate decider of your book’s success? Setting the right price on the book, promoting your book through an influencer’s list, having a swanky cover, or something else?
What if I told you that your book’s potential for success is decided much earlier in your publishing journey. In fact, it starts with choosing the right idea.
Admittedly, the right idea doesn’t guarantee bestseller status – you still need to write great content, produce your book to a professional standard and market the hell out of it once it’s done. However, if you choose the wrong idea to begin with, it makes everything else so much harder.
By the same token, choosing the right idea upfront will pave the way for everything that follows.
So what makes a great book idea? Great book ideas reside at the intersection of these three factors:
- Your passion
- Your readers’ needs
- Your knowledge
The mistake most entrepreneurs make is choosing an idea that only addresses one of these criteria. This is a recipe for disaster. Your cake won’t rise if you just put flour in it. It needs eggs, sugar, and baking powder to make it fat, generous and delicious. The same goes for your book.
If you aren’t passionate about your idea, you’ll quickly run out of steam. Most entrepreneurs who fail the passion test give up partway through the writing process. Those who do manage to push out 30,000 to 50,000 words often have nothing left to fuel them through the book production and marketing processes.
That said, it doesn’t matter how passionate you are if you aren’t addressing your readers’ needs. For your book to build your business, boost your reputation and attract the opportunities that are only available to industry leaders, it needs to answer the wants and needs of your market. If it doesn’t, no one will want to buy your book and you’ll be left with a very expensive paperweight.
The final piece is knowledge. Many entrepreneurs are passionate. Many have a product or service or idea that their target clients desperately desire. However, not all of these products, services and ideas can be turned into a worthwhile book. There needs to be knowledge and content to back it up. If you don’t have this knowledge or access to it, you’ll find yourself drawing a blank.
The right book at the right time is a book that hits the sweet spot – the intersection where these three factors meet.
To find your sweet spot, you need to conduct three highly unscientific tests, which you can find in chapter one of my book, Book Blueprint: How any entrepreneur can write an awesome book.
Does this mean you need to go and buy the book? Not at all (though, if you’d like to, don’t let me stop you – you can get a copy at grammarfactory.com/bookblueprint).
You can also download the first two chapters for free at grammarfactory.com/bookblueprint. In these chapters, you’ll discover:
- How writing a book can boost your business
- How to avoid the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make when writing a book
- Three simple tests to find a bestselling book idea
- How dramatically cut your writing time by mapping out your book idea
Enjoy!
– Jacqui Pretty (Jacqui @ MorganJamesPublishing . com)
Acquisitions Editor, Morgan James Australia
Head Editor at Grammar Factory
