Don’t Just Start to Write Your Book – Do This

As the subject matter expert you already are—you could probably just start to write your book, pouring your years of experience, success stories, and wisdom into your manuscript and writing enough words to have a book. For a better outcome, don’t just start to write your book.

I don’t recommend you do this. Instead, let’s look at the process all New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today traditionally published best-selling authors go through – they first create a book proposal.

If you are considering self-publishing your book, you’ll also want to create an equivalent version—what we call The Book Blueprint.

Why is this so important? I could simply say that success leaves clues, and it leave it at that. Behind 99.9% of bestsellers is a book proposal or a book blueprint.

It’s important to understand why book proposals and book blueprints are integral to author success and how they can help make your author journey smoother and less stressful.

What is a book proposal or a book blueprint?

It’s the well-done research, well-thought-out concept, and well-written proposal that helps an author get the book deal from a big publishing house.

It also creates the clarity, vision, and roadmap for writing and publishing a great book, and that’s what we want for you as well.

Before diving into the sections of your self-publishing book blueprint we start with exploring your big vision for your book. This includes:

defining your ideal audience
identifying your big author why
identifying and articulating your author goals
outlining and identifying the transformation and experience you want your reader to have
mapping out a solid book outline in the form of your table of contents

And last but not least, your book marketing strategy and a high-level view of your marketing plan.

In the case of your book proposal or book blueprint, it is the actual process of brainstorming, defining and clarifying every aspect of your book that is truly valuable.

Holding your feet to the fire, and getting you to answer all the required questions in advance of writing your book, gives you, the author total clarity on the book they want to write with clear guidance on the form it should take to meet all your stated goals.

Working through the various aspects of your book proposal or blueprint, requires you to view your book from an object vantage point, and consider what is in it for the publishing house and the reader, and be able to articulate that clearly and compellingly.

Clarity is power. The more clear you are about exactly what you want, the more likely you are to achieve it.”– Billy Cox

The beauty of this process is that it gives authors total clarity about their books. By creating a thoughtful, well-fleshed-out table of contents, you now have a writing roadmap to follow.

Goodbye to writer’s block, wondering what to write, and wondering who your book is for. This will help your book flow more easily and effectively.

🎙🎙🎙This is an excerpt from my podcast, The Self Publishing Blueprint Podcast.