How To Start Writing A Book
‘’Where do I start? — that’s the question so many people have when wanting to write a book. This short article will answer that question and give you huge clarity — that’s the goal.
Do I start with my book title? With the content I want to teach my audience? Do I just start writing right from the get-go?
Actually, it’s none of those. You start with something that, initially, is far more important.
START WITH PURPOSE
Just like with anything else, you need to know where you are going before you start the journey. In other words…
‘If you don’t know where you are heading, you’ll get frickin’ lost’
You need to start with the purpose of your book. What do you want the book to help you, and your audience, achieve? Then, once you figure out your purpose, you start to reverse-engineer the goal.
So, what do I mean by book purpose?
Purpose, in the context of book writing, is divided into 2 things; educational purpose & commercial purpose.
And, once you figure out what these 2 purposes are for your book, your book planning process with become indefinitely easier.
EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE
Your educational purpose is where you want to help take your audience, your customers and your clients. What’s the ultimate goal?
Imagine a bridge for a moment. On one side of the bridge are your target customers (the people that will buy your book). On the other side of the bridge is you (yes, YOU).
Your on the other side of the bridge because you have figured something out in your life. Maybe you’ve figured out your health — you super healthy, super ripped, you never get sick, you are full of energy and you know that ‘’if only others could experience the level of health, energy & vitality I feel everyday, their lives would change forever’’
Maybe you have figured out ‘leadership’ — you are a master at leading people and you are writing a book to teach others what you have figured out. Whatever it is, your on one side of the bridge, because you have figured it out.
Your audience, your customers, they are on the other side of the bridge because they haven’t. They haven’t figured out health. Or leadership. Or business. And they are looking to you to help them cross this ‘’metaphorical’’ bridge to figure this thing out in their lives. They have the desire — that’s why they are buying your book — and your book is the tool that helps them bridge that gap between ‘desire’ and ‘achievement’.
But, as I said before, you need to know your destination before you can start leading your tribe.
So, right now, it’s time for you to identify the ‘educational purpose’ for your book.
Here’s an example of what an educational purpose looks like:
At the beginning of the book (before reading) the customer will, either, have written books already (and wants to accelerate the progress) or will have never written a book before (and wants to).
The educational purpose of this book, is to take people from either of those scenarios and show them, in a step-by-step actionable way, that it is possible to get a book written and published in 6 days, or less. In other words, this book will share EVERYTHING someone must know to get a book written and published in 6 days or less, from pre-work, to scheduling 6 days into their calendar, to writing, to getting it published. Everything.
That’s an example of the ‘’educational purpose’’ from my latest book called:
6 Day Publish: How To Turn Your Idea Into A Published Book In 6 Days, Or Less — you can pick up a copy for FREE (you just pay for shipping) clicking HERE
Educational purpose — see how it works? It’s about identifying the destination for your book — where you are helping take your customers — so that you can then do everything to meet that purpose. But, it’s important you are crystal clear on where you are helping your customers get to before you start planning and writing your book.
Which leads us to the second type of ‘’purpose’’ you need to identify…
COMMERCIAL PURPOSE
What’s the commercial purpose of your book?
Too many people start writing their book with no idea about where the book fits into their business, career or life.
Is your book going to become your front end & help people discover more about you and your other products?
Is the commercial purpose, that you stick your book on Amazon, hope you become a bestseller, and use that new credibility to close new business?
Is your commercial purpose that you hand your book out to all your potential business partners to help get more partnerships?
How are you monetizing the book? And are you, or not?
There’s no right or wrong, it’s up to you.
There are no one-size-fits-all solutions
But, you do need to get super clear on both the educational & commercial purposes of your book.
Then, everything that you write in the book, every idea you have about your book, it all gets filtered through; does this help me achieve my book purposes?
If you have a book idea, and you want to turn it into a published book, make sure you get clear on these those thing asap. FYI: right now is a great time :)
I hope you found this article useful. If you did, hit that heart button below to recommend it to others.
FYI: The content in this article was first talked about in this video I created.
