Holy shit. I’ve just jumped off a massive online session with Dave Taylor from Intelligent Ink about my book. It was day one of my two day ’Better Book Blueprint’ course and my head feels like it's still spinning after all the ground we have traversed over the last 4 hours. I was extremely lucky that through a series of unfortunate events my original group session with Verity Craft morphed into a very indulgent one on one session with Dave. Indulgent for me obviously as I got to speak about myself until I pretty much ran out of breath!
As the name would suggest, this particular course is about creating a blueprint for your book. I’ve been desperate to get some guidance on how to turn the mess of 300K+ words online into a book worth reading and this program is definitely starting to sharpen up the edges. It turns out that I really needed to go through the whole 4 W’s and an H (Why, Who, What, Where and How) to then go back through again but now with some understanding of what I’m actually trying to achieve.
I’ll start at the end with the revelation that I want this book to create new revenue streams. Not necessarily through book sales, but as a rather elaborate lead generator. If I want to make a substantial income off being a professional speaker then there needs to be a reason why you’d want me to speak. Writing a book that shows the reader how I constantly turn negative experiences into positive outcomes will empower them to take more risks in their own lives.
It's common to write books for the person you were before you went through the life changing event that caused you to write the book in the first place. In my case I was a female in my early thirties, navigating the seriousness of being an adult for the first time. Hangovers were now a real thing and society's unrelenting influences had me thinking about marriage and starting a family. My early thirties was the first time I really considered the consequences of my lifestyle and that they might actually affect what I wanted to be when I grew up. I think I finally realised that I only get one life and no one else is living my life but me. It was my first morality check of sorts. It was also the first time in my life I was ready to accept advice from a mentor without being a shit about it.
Now that I have my audience in the cross hairs I can start to refine and adjust the messaging around my book to highlight the value that said audience would get from reading it. If I can’t offer them any value then why would they pick up the book in the first place? This again, has sharpened up my lens because I’ll now be able to go through my blogs and pull out the stories that have a relevant take away for young Jess or any other young professional who are navigating through the ‘pick a path’ section of their early thirties.
Focusing on this particular audience doesn’t mean that males in their 50’s can’t read my book and take something away from it. No at all. What it does is stops me from writing a book to please everyone thus writing a book for no one. Though it feels counter, the more I refine and focus on my audience, the stronger and more accessible my message will become. It will create clarity.
Clarity will be key if I want to create speaking gigs off the back of writing a book. I had to imagine who would pay me $10K to speak and came up with an imaginary CEO who is struggling to get their young professionals to take risks. Fear of failure and social reprimand has limited their own expectations for themselves (and the business). Interestingly real estate agents came up in our conversation considering they have PD budgets to fill along with a relatively young workforce. It would be a great plot twist if I become influential in the world of my long time arch enemies! Perhaps that's how I change things… from the inside…
Now that I've figured out ‘Who’ I'm writing to, I can go back and refine ‘Why’. My ‘What’ then sits snuggly inside a beautiful venn diagram linking my story/passion with the relevance to the audience and how it relates to my business because remember - at the end of the day I want this to make money for me. 'Writing for free' is this very blog - the book has to be a business investment to warrant its very existence. I have no more room for hobbies!
With that in mind I have to begrudgingly meet my audience where they’re at which means I have to dust off the old Instagram account in order to maintain some kind of social relevance. I’ve always struggled with this part of promotion. I truly do despise posting on instagram. Its so much work for such little return so I’m going to have to turn it into a project about about the book - not me (thank fuck)! Hopefully this separation from my identity will help me approach it more gracefully than I previously have.
The ‘instagram’ project itself is something that I haven’t stopped fizzing about since it came up, which was in conversation with some new girlfriends at GSS (Thanks Jen and Jess xox). I’ve pretty much locked into the whole ‘good news, good story’ concept as the overarching takeaway for the book - bit like Mel Robbins with ‘Let Them Theory’ - the punchline is on the cover with a couple of hundred pages explaining why inside. What I want to do is start collecting other people's good news / good stories as a way of shifting the focus from myself (which will get boring after a while) and highlighting all the awesome people in my life.
To begin with I’m just going to be looking for snippets. Maybe just a little story about something that happened to someone I know. I’m not quite sure how I’ll present these but I’m thinking Instagram style magazine articles which are all the rage. They can be anonymous or I can tag people to help others promote themselves. They’ll start small but over time I’d LOVE to turn it into a podcast - I can almost hear some of you audibly sighing say “Boo Jess - another podcast…” but hold it - I want to talk to the people I think are awesome which is pretty much all my friends and people in my community. The whole reason the good news/good story philosophy has worked for me is because I actually shared my stories - I want to help others to do the same… Big or small. A one-act play or an epic. They’re all awesome. They all bring us together.
So.
Who is going to get the ball rolling???? Who is going to spend the next 60 seconds sending me a quick good news or good story email? I know that each and every one of you has something because each and everyone one of you has taken the time to read this blog. Good story tellers know a good story. I can use your name or keep it anonymous. You could attach a photo or make me a video. We could even go old school and talk on the phone! You could send an audio message or paint me a picture. I’ll meet you wherever you're at. Ready?
