From Ideas to Fruition: The Challenge of Choosing a Direction for Your Book
If you’ve ever thought about putting pen to paper—or more aptly, fingers to keyboard—to share your success, your story, or your strategies, you might know that the biggest challenge begins before you write a single word.
Every great book begins with an idea. But even before that one idea, countless others never came to fruition. Determining which book ideas are the right choice is complicated, especially when it comes to writing a successful business book.
As an industry expert or business owner looking to share your knowledge, you undoubtedly have endless ideas that you’ve thought of putting into your future book. How do you decide which is the right choice to pursue, and which would fail to garner your book success? The Book Screening Canvas can help.
The Basics of The Book Screening Canvas
The Book Screening Canvas is a groundbreaking tool designed to help you break down your ideas, narrow your focus, and identify a solid concept for your book. While the process may be in-depth, it isn’t complicated. The Canvas is a single page designed to be completed in 15 minutes or less.
We’ve developed this tool to help business owners like yourself get past the brainstorming stage, articulate your ideas, and refine your book concept.
9 Pillars of a Great Book
The Book Screening Canvas features nine essential elements your book idea needs to measure against. You’ll use these elements to brainstorm and analyze ideas and narrow them down to choose the best concept for your business book.
Whether you already have a specific idea or are just starting the brainstorming process, you’ll need to consider each idea against the following nine pillars to determine the right concept for your future book.
1. Purpose
Why do you want to pursue THIS specific idea?
If this idea isn’t getting you excited to write your book, it won’t get future readers excited either. The purpose behind an idea should be more than just your belief that it will make for a successful book. If you’re enthusiastic about your concept, it will show in your writing, and help you continue pursuing it even when times get tough.
2. Positioning
What makes you qualified to write about this particular concept? Is it an exceptional strategy you developed, or an idea you’ve had success with in your own business? You don’t need to be an expert in your field, but you do need niche skills or knowledge that will make others to want to learn from you.
Sometimes just being an expert in your field won’t help you feel qualified to write a book based on your knowledge. That’s where Cassandra Goodman found herself. Despite three decades of work in senior leadership roles, when she tried to share her ideas with others, she found herself stalled.
While Cassandra later overcame these struggles with help from the Expert Author Community, keeping your expertise in mind from the start can help to equip you with the confidence you need to pursue your book concept.
3. Audience
Your future book might have a wide potential audience. But it’s important to consider what your target reader is like. Are they an individual or an organization? What types of positions do they hold in a company, and with that, what kinds of roles might they play within an organization? What are their priorities when engaging with content?
4. Problem/Need
By considering your target demographic, you will discover the obstacles that they face in their daily lives. The knowledge you glean from this exercise will lay the foundation for your business book, geared towards helping them overcome those challenges.
5. Market Fit
Even the most exceptional book ideas have some competition. Knowing what’s been published can help you determine whether there is a need for a book on the concept you’re considering.
What competition would your book have if you pursued the concept? What topics in your niche still haven’t been covered? If you aren’t sure, you can take sometime to browse similar titles online.
6. Unique Value
Whether there are dozens of books on the topic you’re pursuing or just a handful, it’s important to consider what will make your framework different.
Perhaps you have an original set of steps to share that can help them overcome a challenge faster. Or you could have a signature system for streamlining a common process in your industry. Narrowing down what makes your expertise special will help you visualize the framework of your future book.
7. Platform
While social media is a great tool for connecting with readers, other methods––like email lists and in-person sales––can go a long way toward helping your business book find success. Consider which outlets you already have access to, and what methods you could use to build a larger readership once your book is complete.
8. Objective
While everyone hopes to make money from book sales, having a broader objective can help you find greater value in the work you’ll put into bringing your book to life.
Maybe you’re like Denise Padin Collazo, whose desire to communicate with emerging Latina and leading women of colour, fighting for justice and social change, drove her to write a book to help Latina community organizers.
9. Strategy
Writing a book is an extensive investment of your time and energy. Considering how you will leverage your book in the future can help you find even greater value in your investment.
For instance, you can use your book content to create online courses, deliver a keynote speech, launch a blog, or simply to leave a legacy of your work and knowledge. Your book should be the first step—or the next step—in a greater business strategy.
Take the Next Step and Start Your Business Book
When the Book Screening Canvas is complete, you’ll be equipped with an exceptional and exciting concept for your book that will help to guide you through the rest of the writing process.
If you’re ready to stop tossing ideas around in your head and start turning them into real concepts that you can use, it’s time to take the next step. Request your copy of The Book Screening Canvas today!
