Could Your Book Idea Be the Next Bestseller?Written by Dawn Josephson
Everyone has a unique story to tell. From explaining business processes to revealing our personal history, we all have a natural desire to share our experiences with world. As a result, bookstore shelves are packed with numerous titles that promise to entertain, enlighten, and educate readers. Perhaps, then, old saying that “everyone has at least one book in them” is true. If so, how do you know whether your current idea really is book worthy or if it needs some fine-tuning to have maximum marketability? Before you put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), put your book idea to test. Use following questions as a way to hone your idea’s development and create a manuscript destined for best-seller list.•Can you state your book’s purpose in 10 words or less? Many new authors face challenge of wanting to give too much information at once. Instead of focusing on one specific idea, they try to wrap multiple concepts into one book. This approach not only makes it difficult to organize your book, but it also overwhelms your readers. With any good book, you can state book’s specific purpose in 10 words or less. Realize that your purpose is not same as your theme or plot. The book’s purpose is what you specifically want reader to do or think as a result of reading your book. Now, a statement such as “to live a better life” or “to run a better business” is not specific. A purpose is not a generalization. It’s a specific action that you motivate reader to embark upon. For example, if you’re writing a business book, your purpose should be to help your readers improve one specific business function, such as its marketing efforts, its customer service, its project management, etc. Your purpose should not be “to teach business executives how to create better marketing materials, deliver improved customer service, establish long-term customer relations, increase employee retention, and locate best new talent.” That’s simply too much for one book to cover. Keep your purpose specific so you can deliver targeted and useful information. •Does your book have a specific audience? While you certainly want a large audience to market your book to, you also want an audience that’s targeted to your topic. Simply stating that your audience is “business people” or “women” or “the general public” is not a targeted audience. Why? Not all business people have same concerns, not all women are interested in same topics, and not everyone in general public will be able to identify with your ideas. When you narrow your audience to include those with a specific tie to your theme or who fit a certain demographic, you gain a marketing edge that can position your book more effectively. So instead of stating that your audience is “business people,” perhaps you can narrow it down to “company owners,” “middle management,” or “entrepreneurs.” Rather than target broad category of “women,” you’d have better sales by focusing on “women over age 50,” “working moms,” or “single women under age 35.” All these categories consist of a large number of people, yet they are narrow enough so you can streamline your message.
| | Your Guaranteed Path to Becoming an Information Product Money MachineWritten by Andrea Susan Glass
How to Turn Your Talks or Articles into Books, eBook, CDs and MoreYou may be writing a monthly newsletter. You may have written some short articles or reports. Or you may have scripts for several speeches or talks you’ve delivered. And if you have a Web site, you’re more than halfway there. Where is there? Your destination to becoming an information product money machine or info guru. You probably know some. There’s Robert Allen, Brian Tracy, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra to name a few. They send you several e-mails a week, a monthly newsletter, have long sales pages and a product list as long as your arm—books, eBooks, tapes, CDs, videos, teleclasses, e-courses, seminars, coaching… They may be a specialist and focus on a narrow niche like how to make more money as an entrepreneur or they may be a generalist in business or self-help arena. You are a specialist in your field. You’re an expert in service you provide, whether selling real estate, personal coaching, cutting hair, nutrition and health, etc. If you give talks or have a newsletter or Web site, you have specialized knowledge or information in written form. If you were to take a year’s worth of monthly newsletters, you’d probably have enough to compile a book—at least an eBook. Producing information products is something you’ve been meaning to get around to, but frankly, who has time? Sure, your competitors have some products and you’re envious, but how did they ever find time to write those books or record those tape sets? The initial answer to that is they didn’t do it alone. And secondarily, they didn’t do it overnight. Well, you’re not alone in this anyway. You can partner with someone who loves to write and share profits. Or you can hire someone like WritersWay and have them write and produce your information product empire. And although you won’t do it overnight, you can do it quicker than you imagined. If you want to take a stab at this yourself, then here are some helpful hints to get you started NOW! 1.PLAN—create a master plan of all products you’d like to produce and possible titles or subject areas they will address.
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