How to write a saleable book
By Nick Boothman
Book review.
I heard Mr. Boothman interviewed on Mitch Joel’s podcast “Six Pixels of Separation” and the conversation resonated with me. One of the 3, 459 projects I’m working on is a ‘how-to’ book on a business topic to potentially set up speaking gigs – which is exactly how Mr. Boothman got to where he is in life.
This wasn’t everything I wanted it to be. It was targeted at people who have trouble writing, or more specifically, writing with the purpose for sale to a specific target audience. If this is you then the methodology here will be valuable for you.
The book has that same breathless enthusiasm that Mr. Boothman brings to all his works. (I wish I had 50% of his unfettered enthusiasm!) It is very tight and describes a methodology to help people focus their ‘big idea’ into something that will result in a clear, concise, ‘how-to’ type self-help genre book.
This is a great ‘quick-start’ user guide for anyone who wants to write a book about a ‘how-to’ topic but doesn’t know where to start or how to focus their ideas. It’s a checklist methodology that will force you to produce something and produce something structured towards that goal.
If your challenge is how to force yourself to put pen to paper, or how to organize your thoughts into something that will appeal to the self-help market – then this book is an easy read and could be just what you’re looking for.
Credit goes to Mr. Boothman for being able to carve off digestible chunks of things and turn them into short, to the point, self-help guides. The flip side of that is that there is a lot of ground he doesn’t cover because of this focus.
If you’re looking to write something other than a short, focused, 10-chapter, punchy, self-help book then this methodology may miss the mark. You could still use pieces of it, and it’s still a useful read, but if you’re looking to end up with Thoreau’s Walden this aint gonna git you there.
The other part that he glosses over is how to sell this wonderful, punchy, saleable book you end up with. Which is really the rub. You end up with a saleable book but he leaves it up to you to sell it. Maybe that’s the next book? “How to sell your saleable book in 90 seconds or less!”
Chris Russell
10/21/2016