Step 8: How to write winning book content quickly

IN THE LAST LESSON YOU LEARNED

In the last lesson on the Big Impact Book Writing System, you learned how to choose an excellent title (and subtitle) for your book. 

Your choice of title and subtitle is the most important book marketing decision you’ll make.

IN TODAY’S LESSON YOU’LL DISCOVER

In this lesson you’ll learn how to create the content for your non-fiction book.  

It’ll be content that delivers the promise in your book’s topic (which we covered in Step 4).

WHY IT’S SO IMPORTANT

For you to succeed with your book, you need to remember one thing. 

When your reader starts reading your book, the only thing they want to know is, “what’s in it for me?” In other words, “What will I benefit from, or gain, by reading these pages?”

I say that because most authors write books with content focused on whatever that author is enamored with regarding the topic, rather than focusing their chapter-by-chapter content on what the reader wants. 

That’s one of the main reasons most books don’t sell well.

The method I’ll teach you in this lesson will help you avoid that problem and help you stay focused on creating content that will meet your readers’ needs.

STEP #8: HOW TO WRITE WINNING BOOK CONTENT QUICKLY 

The book writing system I’m teaching you in the lessons of this series of LinkedIn articles gets a lot of its power and results because of how well-aligned the whole system is energetically.  

We started by connecting with your Higher Power (however you conceive of it). 

Then we planned your book in a special way, imagining it from the end.  

Then you chose one of three strategies to make money with your book.  

Based on the outcomes you seek from your book, you identified a profile of the ideal reader for your book, and the perfect topic and title for your book.  

Now, in this lesson and the next one you’ll learn how to structure your book and create the content for it fast – so it delivers what you’ve promised in a way your readers want.   

HOW TO IMPLEMENT THIS STEP

In the lessons on Step 4, you learned how to focus your book topic in order to best meet the needs of your ideal reader. 

This is important to do if you want your book to be relevant, engaging and sell well. And it’s also important if you want your book to attract new clients, win speaking engagements, or sell your high-end programs or products. 

I taught you to focus your book topic by answering a couple of special questions.

One of the questions is “What knowledge do you have, or have access to, about that topic that, if your ideal reader knew you put it into a book, they’d buy that book instantly and want to hire you?”

Your answer to that special question will identify a terrific topic for your book. 

Now it’s time to create content for your book that will deliver the promise in your answer. 

There are many ways we do that with clients. In this lesson, I’ll share one of my favorites with you. It works well for almost all nonfiction book topics. 

It’s an easy, time-tested method to create great content quickly by listing 10 Frequently Asked Questions about your answer to that special question, and then respond to each of them. Then list 10 Points of Distinction about your answer to that special question, and respond to each of them.

Frequently Asked Questions are, of course, commonly-asked questions (including objections). In this case, they should be about your answer to that special question. 

Most authors of nonfiction books write about topics they are very familiar with. If you are like them, then simply brainstorm a list of the FAQs you’ve heard over and over about your answer to that special question. And write-out or dictate the answers you’ve given over and over to those FAQs.

Points of Distinction are points people would want to know about your answer to that special question if they understood it as well as you do. These points add terrific value for your readers and demonstrate why they should hire you, without you even mentioning it. 

Out of the combined 20 questions, pick 10-15 of them to turn into one chapter each, and you’ll create engaging, relevant, transformational book chapters, and do it in a way that’s easy and fast for you to create.

Turn the FAQs and Points of Distinction into chapter content by either writing it or speaking it or hiring someone to do it for you. I’ll teach you more about these three methods next week in the lessons about the next Step in the Big Impact Book Writing System.

THE BENEFITS

Experts tell us that 9 out of 10 people who start writing a book never finish it.

In my 35+ years of helping people write books successfully, I’ve observed that most of those failures occur because the writers get stuck during the writing process, by going back and forth endlessly on things that should have been decided upfront, before they started writing.

Most of the steps in this book writing system up to now helped you to decide those important things upfront – the outcomes you want from your book, your ideal reader, your perfect topic, etc.  

Now you’re ready to simply outline and write that content. And thanks to the steps you did upfront, you’ll be able to get your content created about 10X faster than you’d otherwise be able to do it. 

Moreover, one of the main reasons that many authors’ books don’t end up attracting the clients they want, or win the speaking engagements they want, or sell their products or programs is because those books weren’t specifically planned to do those things.  

Step 2 of this book writing system guided you to plan those and other outcomes you wanted from your book. All the other steps -- including this important step -- help you create a book that achieves those outcomes.

PROOF IT WORKS

Here are two examples of how well this works.

Top Executive Coach Jamie Broughton credits his book to quickly tripling his business revenues. But he emphasizes, “I would have gone down an entirely inappropriate path with my book content if it wasn’t for John’s guidance.”

Author and speaker Jo Ann Rotermund is co-founder and Executive Director of the non-profit World Forgiveness Initiative. She said, “I wrote my book within 30 days of joining the program. I know with absolute certainty that without John’s program I would still be trying to write Chapter 1.” 

By using the method described in this lesson, Jamie and Jo Ann were able to write their book fast and create content that was valuable and sought-after.  

ABOUT YOUR NEXT LESSON

To help you implement this particular lesson, I’ll post an article next week that will help you use it successfully.

Your next lesson in this series about the Big Impact Book Writing System will arrive on Tuesday, May 26. 

In it, I’ll teach you to turn your FAQs and Points of Distinction into chapter content by either writing it or speaking it or hiring someone to do it for you. The latter two methods are typically the fastest for most people. 

I’ll teach you more about these methods next week in lessons on your next step in the Big Impact Book Writing System.

WE’RE HERE TO HELP YOUAs you read this series of lessons, you may find yourself desiring to have some support in implementing what we’re teaching, so you can get your book written and out into the world – about 10x faster than you would otherwise do it.

If so, I’ve set some time aside to personally talk with you and help you with your book. You can read more about how this works here.

And, of course, if you have any questions or comments about any of these articles, simply message me on LinkedIn.

Kindly,

John

 John Eggen

Transformational Publishing and Marketing Mentor

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