Coachamatic

I’ve been helping clients write books and e-books for three years now, and I’ve been writing my own for five. Writing and releasing a book (whether you self-publish or you work with a traditional book publisher) is probably the single best way to establish yourself as an expert in your niche.

Coming up with an outline for your book is usually the hardest part of the process. Without a strong outline, you could end up with a book that fails to connect with your audience. A strong outline shrinks the amount of time it takes to write your book dramatically, so you can continue to build your practice and serve your clients. Use these five tips — the same ones I share with my own clients — to develop an outline for a powerful book (or book proposal).

1. First, get out of your own head. When I’m starting a new book project — either my own, or one of my clients’ — I like to get out of the office and work from someplace neutral, like a Borders or a Starbucks. It’s like playing an “away game” — you don’t have the usual distractions to hide behind, and you’ve got a bit of a ticking clock to keep you focused. Buy a drink, and challenge yourself to finish your outline before you finish your beverage.

2. Next, write the sales letter. So many first-time authors get stuck on thinking about their life experiences that they forget about their audiences. Instead of pulling your outline from all of your journals, think about the results that you want a reader to get from your book (or your e-book). List five things that your clients ask from you, or five problems that you solve for your clients. You don’t need to write the whole sales letter, but you should know the five biggest results that someone would want to get from your book.
3. Think about what you know, and what you wish you knew. Once you’ve got five key results defined, map out the steps you would normally take to solve this problem for a client. If the problem’s so new or big that you haven’t tackled it before, that’s fine. You’ll use this process to learn how other people solve the problem.
4. Think of at least one great person who’s thinking about the same things. You’re not the only person thinking about the challenges in your niche. Identify someone you can interview for each of your five problems. (If you’re shy about conducting interviews on the phone, strike up a relationship via blogs or IM.)
5. Stop worrying about finding the most original idea on the planet. Remember that Stephen Covey wrote his “7 Habits” based on his review of the very best research and literature he could find on management and self-empowerment. A compelling book does not have to present completely original material. In fact, the very best books help you look at something you might already know or understand from a completely different angle.
After about an hour of brainstorming, you should have enough raw material to understand what you’re going to be writing about, who your audience is, and how you’re going to approach the subject a little differently than colleagues who have walked the same path. Best of all, you’ll have the rest of the day to treat yourself well as a reward for overcoming the biggest stumbling block that new authors face.

Posted on Oct 26th 06 by Joe Taylor.

Joe Taylor Jr. is the Creative Director for RevenFlo, a web marketing agency that helps coaches and other small business owners develop high quality events and information products. http://www.joetaylorjr.com

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