Hey Reader!
My first book was a novel, and it took me 10 years to write, 3 more to edit and publish.
The next three books took about 6-8 weeks each. (Impending motherhood deadlines will do that.)
And by then, I'd been writing, reading, learning, and helping other people publish books long enough to notice some patterns. In 2018, I started coaching authors on their nonfiction books, and I kept seeing the same two problems:
- Programs promising a book in 30 days by teaching you to dump all your thoughts onto the page.
- Authors who believed they had two choices: teach the material with no typos, or tell their whole life story and hope the reader soaks up the lesson.
Neither one gets you a good book—but a book poorly done could wreck a carefully tended reputation, so I couldn't see why people were doing it that way.
A good one builds your reputation and brings in clients for years.
The pattern I noticed was that nonfiction books that stay with readers and really get their readers transformational results all follow a story structure that's almost like a good novel, with the teaching built in at the right moments.
Adults remember what they learn when they have something to anchor it on, given to them at the right moment, so the story and the lesson have to work together, in a certain order.
So I pulled apart what made good books work and over a few years, I built it into a framework: the Heroine's Journey.
(So named because it does the opposite of a Hero's Journey: it's a transformational journey taken together with the reader and no one dies alone at the end.)
It has 9 story moments, and each one is held up by a purpose point that teaches the reader the right thing at the right time.
When I teach it, the reply I hear most is some version of "This is the kind of book I want to write. This is the kind of book I want to read."
Before any of that structure, a book needs to know where it's taking the reader.
A good book is the step right before someone needs you, so I always start from the work the author already does and plan backwards from there. The last page of your book should leave your reader where your clients are on their first day with you.
That's what I'm teaching live on Wednesday, November 11, at 12 pm ET, in Open the Right Doors. You'll work on your own book the whole time, and you'll leave with:
- Your Profitable Book Strategy Stack, so you know which "door of opportunity" your business is best designed for and which kind of book opens that door. A book built to bring in clients reads differently from one built to get you paid stages, digital product sales, company partnerships or thought leadership, and all five follow the same Heroine’s Journey.
- The step your book covers right before your offer, so you know where your book needs to end to bring you the results you want
- Your book funnel sketched out, so you know how to build a book that elevates your business ecosystem instead of overriding it, plus the money math: what your door could bring in over a year, next to what a typical book costs and earns in royalties
Come live if you can. I'll be teaching these key pieces of your pre-writing book strategy live and guiding you through exercises on your own book: choosing your door, working backwards from your offer and sketching your funnel, so that when you sit down to start writing, you'll know what your book is for and where it ends.
For those who come live, I'll be giving live feedback and coaching for a few people on each exercise, along with a Q&A at the end. Replay included if you can't make it. Tickets are $27 to join the fun (and strategy!).
Come Start Your Book off on the Right Foot
Your book bestie,
Holly
PS — Hit reply and tell me about the book you keep thinking about writing.