There has never been a better time to write a book to boost your business. The barriers to publishing are lower than ever with more professionals than ever before offering to transform a computer document into a paperback.
But there’s a catch…
Simply having a book isn’t enough to transform your business. It needs to be a good one.
In Book Blueprint, discover how to write a book that cements your authority and leads to the media, speaking and partnership opportunities you’ve always dreamed of. You’ll learn:
• The three keys to a bestselling book idea
• The five entrepreneurial book types, and which is right for you
• Three simple questions that form the backbone of every chapter
• The right content to bulk up your book
• How to engage your readers by putting your personality on the page
Based on a decade of professional writing and editing experience and work with over 100 entrepreneurs, Book Blueprint will teach you the ultimate formula to writing an awesome book.
Targeted Age Group:: Adult
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
After working for over a year as a freelance editor, editing how-to books by small business owners, I kept seeing the same mistakes, time and time again. Their content was often repetitive, disorganised, and didn't include key bits of information that would give their readers value and establish the authors as authorities in their fields. This meant I found myself cutting up to 50% of their content, overhauling their structure and recommending they add several thousand words of new content. The saddest part was that I knew all of this could be avoided if they had a good plan for their book up front. Book Blueprint teaches them how to create that plan.
Book Sample
Introduction: How to become the author-ity in your industry
In every industry there are two types of people.
The first are the industry authorities. These people are widely recognised and respected. They are able to pick and choose their work. They get paid more for their services. They book out well in advance. They are the first ones journalists contact for commentary. They are sought-after keynote speakers, and charge premium rates for engagements.
Ultimately, they are the most well-known and well-connected players in their industry. Because of this they are highly valued and they do business on their own terms. While business still has its challenges, it’s never a struggle.
The second group are the wannabes. The wannabes want to get paid more. They want speaking gigs and media appearances. They want to turn down undesirable projects so they can focus on doing the work they love for the clients they love.
Unfortunately, the wannabes rarely get what they want. Their days are consumed by client work, enquiries, quotes and prospecting. If they have a team, they also run meetings, coach, answer questions and review their work, hoping that one day – someday – their team will grow up and be independent.
They still hold the dream of being an industry authority, so if they get a spare moment they turn to marketing – they update their Facebook status, upload a photo to Instagram, tweak their website or write a blog post… but none of it seems to make a difference. In the end, every attempt they make to establish themselves as an authority just adds to their to-do list, and suddenly it’s 2am, and they realise they haven’t eaten. And the only thing left in the fridge is a wedge of cheese turning a suspicious shade of green.
So, how do you make the transition from being a wannabe to being an industry authority?
From wannabe to author-ity
As an editor who has helped over 100 entrepreneurs turn their knowledge and experience into published books, I’ve seen entrepreneurs become Amazon bestselling authors, land highly paid speaking gigs, get featured on national TV and double their rates, all because they published a book.
Why does this happen?
Because being a published author makes you stand out from the crowd. With the number of small business owners around the globe expected to hit one billion by 2020 , there are probably thousands, if not millions, of people offering similar services to you and marketing them in similar ways to you. In a world where there are more competitors in the market than ever before, what better way to stand out than becoming a published author?
A published book earns you instant credibility and establishes you as a leader in your industry. While anyone can bluff their way through a blog post, the media, potential clients and potential partners all recognise that you need knowledge and real-world experience to write a book, and will consider you an expert once you’re published.
Once you achieve this status, you can expect the opportunities and advantages that come with being an expert…
• 34% of published entrepreneurs double their rates, regardless of whether they have start-ups or mature businesses when they publish.
• 81% of them are featured in the media, including 10% who appear on national TV!
• 72% of published entrepreneurs get paid speaking engagements, even if they have never been paid to speak before.
• 74% of them find new referral partners.
• 26% of them forge partnerships with the big brands in their industries.
While all of this sounds impressive, did these opportunities make a tangible difference to their businesses? When I reached out to my network of published entrepreneurs, the answer was a resounding ‘yes!’ Eighty-six per cent of entrepreneurs-turned-authors reported that their businesses had grown since launching their book.
But I couldn’t write a book…
While all of this sounds great in theory, you’re not a writer. You don’t have the time. You’re not even sure you know enough to fill a book. Could you really write a book?
Absolutely.
You don’t need to be a professional writer. Of the many entrepreneurs I’ve worked with, only three of them had a writing background. (And those three books needed just as much reorganising and cutting as the non-writer books I’ve edited!)
My clients have come from a wide range of industries, including financial planning, accounting, travel, real estate, marketing, law, life coaching, human resources, natural health, personal training, business coaching, architecture, fashion and more. Writing experience is not a prerequisite to writing a great book. Planning and motivation are. If you have these, then you can write one too.
You also don’t need a lot of time. We entrepreneurs are busy people. Between client work, quotes, enquiries, marketing and managing a team, it’s not unusual to get to the end of the month and realise we haven’t had a day off.
Writing a book doesn’t have to take as long as you think. You don’t need to spend months or years penning your masterpiece. Instead, if you have the right system in place, it will guide you through every step of the writing process so you never have to worry about having enough time, having writer’s block or drawing a blank. With a system at your fingertips, you will have all the information you need to draft your book in weeks, not months.
But what if I fail?
So you’re warming up to the idea of writing a book… at the very least, you can see some of the benefits it might have for your business. But what if you invest hundreds of hours, thousands of dollars and buckets of energy into writing a book, and it isn’t any good? This is a concern I hear all the time.
If you’ve seen some of the books being self-published by entrepreneurs today, you might have noticed something. It’s a thinly veiled fact that nobody dares mention…
Many books self-published by entrepreneurs aren’t very good.
Sure, the cover might look pretty swish and it feels satisfyingly heavy in your hands, but just wait until you get to the first page. Then Chapter 2. By Chapter 3, if you’re like most people, you’ve probably given up.
Why?
Because the content wasn’t credible, wasn’t compelling or wasn’t even coherent.
This isn’t to say that the physical packaging of your book isn’t important. It is. In fact, design is your first impression. But your content is the relationship, and if you want your book to lead to ongoing relationships with clients and partners then it needs to be good.
So why do most entrepreneurs’ words fail to live up to their covers?
I believe it comes down to a failure to plan.
A blueprint so detailed your book will write itself
Having worked as a professional writer and editor for the last eight years, and having worked with many entrepreneurs on their books since I launched my editing company, Grammar Factory, I’ve found that not having a detailed plan is the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make when writing their books.
Most people assume that an editor only looks at spelling, grammar and punctuation, but correcting language is actually the smallest part of the job. The real work is in developing the idea, the structure and the content of the book. I’ve moved chapters from the middle of books to the beginning. I’ve turned three-part processes into six sequential steps. I’ve split one book into two, added brand new content, and told clients to start again. I’ve turned drafts that were just a jumble of ideas into books that make a clear, compelling case for my clients’ businesses.
Then the author receives a document marked up with a few thousand insertions, deletions and corrections, and suggestions to add new case studies, evidence and even chapters. And back to their keyboard they go.
Much of this could have been avoided if they’d started with a clear plan.
Now I know that planning isn’t ‘sexy’. As entrepreneurs we appreciate impulse, spontaneity, inspiration and leaps of faith. You don’t have time for planning.
However, more often than not it’s the books written on impulse with spontaneity as their muse that end up unfinished or forgotten in a file on a computer, or published but languishing in boxes in a garage, being eaten by cockroaches because no one wants to buy them.
These are the books that should have had a quarter of their content cut in the editing process because it’s repetitive or irrelevant. They are the ones that can end up with a completely different structure. In the worst-case scenario, they are the books where you have to go back to the drawing board. Not very sexy, when you think about it.
So what is sexy?
Sexy is getting a box of 100 of your printed books and feeling confident, excited and proud about sending them out into the world. Sexy is when a reader calls or emails you to tell you how much they loved your book, and the difference it made to their life. Sexy is when a journalist runs a story on your industry and contacts you as an author to comment.
And sexy starts with planning.
What to expect from this book
This book is going to teach you how to write a book that will boost your business. The goal is that by the time you finish all of the exercises you will have a blueprint that’s so detailed your book will write itself.
How do I know this?
This is the same formula I teach in book planning workshops. The strategies are the same ones I use to reorganise manuscripts and figure out what’s missing. It’s also the same process I used to write the book you have in your hands. And using this process, I finished my first draft in three days.
I’m not sharing this with you to brag. I’m sharing this because what I’ve learnt after working with so many entrepreneurs on their books is that you don’t need to be an experienced writer to write a great book. You don’t need to be inspired to find the right idea. You don’t need to set aside months of your hard-earned time. All you need is the right formula, and putting your fingers to the keyboard.
So how do you do it? By addressing four key areas:
1. The right idea
What is the difference between entrepreneurs who push through the hurdles of writing and self-publishing and those who don’t? How can some books from a particular industry be filled with practical, relevant and engaging content, while others from the same industry are filled with fluff, tangents and repetition? And why will readers pick up one book while ignoring another on the same topic?
It all comes down to choosing the right idea. In this section you’ll figure out how to find an idea that hits the sweet spot, along with the right book type for that idea, which is the foundation for everything that follows.
2. The right structure
While most of my clients are genuinely experts in their fields and have the experience and qualifications to prove it, their books often need a lot of reworking to bring them to a publishable standard.
Why? Because the right idea won’t stick if it isn’t presented in a way that’s clear, coherent and compelling. Likewise, the right content will fall flat (or will be missed entirely) if it isn’t supported by a strong structure. Here you’ll learn how to organise your knowledge, including the key questions that need to be answered in every chapter of your book.
3. The right content
While you might have a lot of great ideas, simply listing them in bullet-point form isn’t enough to fill a book. To write a substantial piece of work, you need content.
By including explanations, evidence and exercises throughout your writing, you’ll publish a book that is not only a credible representation of your business but one that will persuade your readers of your ideas and convince them to implement your advice.
4. The right language
A lot of entrepreneurs worry that there are already thousands of books out there on their area of expertise. I always counter with, ‘You’re the only you in your area of expertise.’ And by being the only you, you can make your book stand out from all the others.
How do you do this? With your language. Your language is what will take your book from being a rambling diatribe written in dreary corporate speak to being a text that engages your readers and invites them to learn more about your business.
By the end of this book, you will have drafted a 3,000 to 5,000 word blueprint for your book.
With this blueprint, you won’t have to worry about writer’s block, rambling, or forgetting key information. In fact, then the only thing you’ll have to do is expand your bullet points into sentences, add a paragraph here and there, and drop in your relevant blog posts and articles.
In a matter of weeks, you can easily write a great book that will make you the authority you want to be.
Don’t believe me?
Then keep reading.
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