All books begin with a problem and end with a resolution.
- Knowing the problem you’re helping to solve also helps you figure out who needs your solution.
- Your resolution is what will set you apart from other books solving the same problem.
- Using a problem you already know how to solve gives you credibility with your readers.
- The problem-resolution roadmap will ensure your book delivers everything your readers are hoping to find and more.
Writing a Book Is Like Taking a Road Trip
Decide the destination before you begin
If you want to travel to a place you’ve never been, it’s usually not wise to just hop in the car with a tank full of gas and drive until you run out of gasoline. You’ll get somewhere, but is it where you want to be? Is it going to be someplace that you actually are happy to have found? Probably not.
You might end up stuck in the middle of nowhere with no gas stations for miles in any direction. You could even have your life threatened by choosing to do this!
While I don’t expect that your life will be threatened by writing a book – even one that seems to wander aimlessly and has no real ending to it – you can waste plenty of time and resources writing this way. That’s why I recommend deciding your destination before you begin writing. That way, you’ll know for sure when you’ve arrived.
How To Choose The Destination
Think about a problem that you’ve solved for yourself at some point in time. This should be a problem that was causing your life to be miserable – one you would gladly have paid money for the right solution, and maybe you even had already spent money trying to solve it. In fact, you may have spent thousands of dollars on solutions that didn’t really produce the results you were hoping to receive.
That is the perfect topic for a book because 1) you aren’t the only person trying to solve that problem, otherwise there wouldn’t be other products on the market for you to buy; 2) you know that you have found a solution that actually does work; 3) you know that your solution is different from the others and you know why it is better than what is already on the market.
With the problem in mind, your solution is the destination for your readers. You are going to take them on a road trip that leads them from where you were (and where they are at the same time) to where they want to be by showing them how you got where you are. You’re also going to show them what’s waiting on the other side if they make it to the destination you’re showing them.
11 Questions To Get Your Readers From Where They Are To Where They Want To Be
These are the 11 questions I recommend to help you build that roadmap that will lead your readers from where they are to where they want to be.
1. What was your life like with the big problem?
2. What was the big problem you were facing?
3. How did that problem make you feel?
4. What were you doing to try and solve the problem?
5. What were your results and why weren’t you satisfied with those results?
6. What did you believe was causing the problem?
7. What was really causing the problem?
8. What was the real solution to your problem?
9. When you first encountered the truth about what the real problem was, what were your doubts about that answer?
10. What did you learn that helped you overcome those doubts?
11. What was your life like after you found this solution?
With these 11 questions, you’ll be able to help steer your readers along the right path and help them avoid the pitfalls that can cause them to fail to achieve the results they desire.
Begin Getting To Know Your Prospective Readers
Don’t wait until the book is done to start putting yourself out there and developing your following. Marketing should begin the minute you know who you want to serve and how you’re going to serve them. I recommend getting involved in Facebook groups of 5,000 members or more who are likely to be facing the problem your book helps to solve.
Listen to their questions. Do your best to answer those. See how they respond to the answers you provide. This will give you ideas for things you need to be discussing in the chapters of your book.
Now That You Have a Concept, Learn How To Get To Publication
You can download our guide, Concept to Publication, that will teach you the steps you need to take to get your book from concept to publication – and beyond. Just visit https://writeyourbook.today/product/concept-to-publication/