Recently, someone came to me asking if I thought their idea for a book was a good one. What they wanted to know was whether I thought it would sell or not. This is an important question. Sometimes writers don’t think to ask that question until after they’ve written the book already. Asking it at the beginning of the process can save you a lot of headache and heart ache.
The Value of Testing Your Ideas
If you test your idea ahead of time, and you are secure in the knowledge that there are people interested in buying what you have to offer before you’ve even gotten it finished, you remove 9/10ths of the hurdles ahead of you in getting that book written. You don’t have to wonder whether it’s a good idea or not, or whether it will be worth the work. You know ahead of time it is going to work and it is going to produce sales. You approach your writing with confidence and security rather than doubt and worry.
Testing Reassures Potential Publishers
Almost every publisher out there wants a query letter which includes information that your testing will provide. They want to know who your competitors are, who your audience is likely to be, what makes your book different from all the rest, and what evidence you can provide them that you’ll be able to help them sell the books once they make the investment in you. If you’ve tested the book idea before you started writing it, you can answer all those questions without hesitation.
The 5 Step Testing Process
If you’re in doubt about whether or not your book idea is a good one, the best thing to do is to put it through a testing process. At each step in the process you are evaluating the book idea to see whether there is anyone out there who is interested in the kind of work you are thinking of creating, to see what kind of competition you face in that market, to discover who the most likely group of people would be to buy that book, and last, to put that book’s idea out there like bait on a fishing hook to see if the premise of it gets anyone signing up to learn more.
A Step-By-Step Guide
If you read the last paragraph and thought, “That’s great, Brandy, but I don’t know how to do those things!” Don’t worry. For the next 5 Thursdays I will be publishing an article that talks about how to complete the 5-step testing process I use to decide whether or not it is worth my time and effort to pursue a book idea. I’ll be giving you homework to do, too, so I expect you to take the information I give you and put it into action.
Are You Excited?
If you’re excited about this idea, I’d love to hear from you. Let me know what questions you have, tell me what topics you’d like to cover, and we can build from there. It’s going to be a great series, and I hope you’ll show up ready to work.