Key Learnings of the artical
Majority of the authors make the mistake of not establishing the right foundation for the book. Most of them have a mediocre reason to write a book such as:
- They want to write.
- It is part of their to-do list.
- It sounds fun.
- It will give them a challenge.
- They think people will enjoy reading their book.
However, these are not powerful or right reasons to write a book. These reasons cannot define your objective, end goals, and purpose.
1. Preparation and Foundation for Book Writing
Before writing a book, a writer must set the end goals for his book.
Your key end goal of writing a book may be the following:
- Amazon bestseller: Do you want your book to become an Amazon bestseller?
- Business leads: Do you want to get business leads through your book?
- Sell 600 copies: Do you want to sell 600 copies of your book?
- Authority figure: Do you want to become an authoritative figure of your field?
- Build network: Do you want to grow your network?
- Storytelling: Do you want to tell a good story to the people?
Now, you should set your end goals according to any of these situations. To get a clear picture of your purpose, you should ask yourself:
- Why did you set this end goal?
- Why this end goal is important for you?
To prepare your book, you should follow these steps:
i. Clarity of purpose statement
- A purpose statement helps in building a laser focus to keep the hard work.
ii. Identify your genre
A genre is basically the categorisation of your book. This helps a bookstore or book seller to put the book in a particular place on the shelf. Based upon genre, a book marketing and sale is done. There are mainly two categories of book:
- Fiction
- Non- Fiction
A. Fiction
- Fiction can be categorised into commercial, mythology, science fiction, mysteries and thriller and campus novel.
- In commercial fiction, novel or books based on romantic storyline is quite popular. Some of the popular writers of these types of books are Chetan Bhagat, Durjoy Datta, and Preeti Shenoy.
- Mythology is also a favourite topic of millions of readers. Amish Tripathi and Devdutt Pattanaik are some of the popular writers of this category.
- Ashwin Sanghi is one of the popular names in mysteries and thriller section.
- In science fiction, there are mainly two categories – fantasy and horror.
- Campus novel, crime thrillers, and college romance are quite popular these days.
B. Non-Fiction:
The non- fiction category can be further divided into:
- Self Help
- Autobiographies
- History
- Travel Writing
- Memories
- Finance
- Management
- Business
- Corporate Books
The difference between fiction and non-fiction books is that fiction book is not based upon facts. Anything based upon fact comes under the non-fiction category.
Now, you have laid the foundation of your book, it’s time to identify the target market.
iii. Find Target Reader
You should fill an author market questionnaire before looking for a target reader. This is a list of questionnaires that helps you in taking a deep dive into the demographic and psychographics of your ideal audience.
In these questionnaires, there are questions related to the reader’s gender, age, income, marital status, location, industry, and location like “What are your customer spending habits?” and “Which type of books do they like?”
These details will help in brainstorming the title, subtitle, and content of the book so that you can write a world-class book that inspires the reader.
Some authors make mistake of writing a book for a broader audience. They think that their book can appeal to all and they start having false hope of an all-round appreciation. However, this is not right; no book has ever made appeal to all. Therefore, you should avoid this mistake and focus on a target group.
To know your target audience better, you need to know about:
- Demographic of the audience
- Psychographic of the audience
Demographic tells you about the buyer of your book. Psychographic tells you about the reason to buy a book.
For example:
- Recently, Deepak Kashyap launched a book named “Junoon, Jarurat, and Jugaad.”
- This book is about customer service and tells us the importance of customer service and how to take customer service to the next level.
- The demographics of this book is:
- B2B (Business to Business )
- B2C (Business to Consumer )
- Industry – All
- Employees Number- 10 to 10,000
- Location- All over the world
- Turnover- Close to Rs 1 crore
- Income- Minimum Rs. 15 lakh ( Yearly )
- Age- 18 to 70 years
- Marital status- Single & married
- Education- Graduate
- Below are the Psychographics of this book:
- Lifestyle preferences: Achievement-oriented or sharing and caring.
- Spending habits: Training and seminar
- Hobbies : Tennis, Golf, and Travelling
- Entertainment : Online surfing in evening and use” Pinterest”
- Vacation: International vacation once a year
- Videos and Book: Motivational and inspirational & business growth
- Emotions: Health and looks
- Attitude: Quality rather than the economy
Key Outcomes of the Video
- Always set a selling target for your book
- Try to gather as much information about your reader as possible
- Research as much as possible before writing your manuscript