Most non-fiction business writers waste time, money and opportunities by writing the wrong book for the wrong audience…

Are you writing the wrong book?

Most people writing a non-fiction business book are writing the wrong book for the wrong audience. They are wasting their precious time and frequently money (if they’re using a ‘done for them’ writing service) on a book that no one will read and won’t get them their desired outcome.

How can I say that? I’ve ghostwritten, published, coached and rescued hundreds of books for hundreds of business people, and by far the biggest problems I’ve seen are that the entrepreneur or business owner wants to write (or has written) a book that:

1. has no audience, or a vague audience (“anyone who wants to read my book”)
2. won’t help the writer get more business (“I’ll make money selling books”)
3. is muddled, confused, lost in space (“I’ll just tell them what I know”)
4. won’t help the reader get what they need either! (“They need to hire me”)

Expert business owners and entrepreneurs have been told that they need a book to help them raise their profile, get more business, elevate themselves in crowded market places and position themselves as thought leaders. The tendency, and trap, is to emulate an author you admire, model their style and the way their book is built. Whilst this isn’t a completely bad idea (modeling success is of course a smart move) there are some problems.

Are you writing a crap book?

There are plenty of ways to write a business book. Fundamentally, you have to decide who you are writing for, the benefits they’ll get from reading your book and how the book will help you and your business. If you get this wrong, or don’t even consider the questions, you’ll write a crap book that no one will read, waste your time, your money and miss out on opportunities.

Let’s consider the implications of writing a crap book…

You might have already written a book, or be in the muddy throes, thrashing out those last few chapters and when you’ve finished your draft you have a few options. If you know it’s not great or you need help, you will probably:

1. Pay someone plenty of cash to rescue it — I know, it’s my bread and butter work.
2. Pay someone to rewrite it — basically starting again. I know about that too, that’s my jam.
3. Procrastinate, go round in circles, ask your friends to read it and give feedback, add a few more charts, wait a year, get bored and go and do something else.
4. Pay to publish anyway! Risk ruining your reputation, waste more money, fall out of love with your creation…

If you are writing, have written or are thinking of writing a business book, stop! Don’t go any further until you have tested your book against this proven (by me!) model.

Here’s what you should do…

Answer these two simple questions:

1. Who are you writing the book for?

2. What purpose does the book serve for you?

That’s it.

Too simple? OK, let’s complexify it up a bit…

Directions, Map or Landmark

We’re going to look at a model for business book development, how to choose what type of business book to write, how to write the book and most importantly how that book can fit in with your business strategy, enhance your profile and provide you with a lucrative marketing tool.

This is a long article, take your time reading it, pause, bookmark it and come back later after you’ve thought a little. If you have questions post a comment, I’ll respond, I promise. If you don’t like my model tell me why, if you do like my model give me a clap (or two)!

And remember, this is just a model — it’s not real. There are lots of different models. A model helps us make sense of complex situations, and to do that it reduces the situation to smaller, more manageable parts.

“Everything simple is false. Everything which is complex is unusable.” — Paul Valéry, French poet

This means there will be successful books that don’t fit in my model. That’s OK. It’s just a model. A model simplifies complexity, you’ve been complexifying simplicity!

Helping people get from A to B

Imagine you want to get to the new restaurant in town, so you ask a friend to tell you how to get there. They send you a detailed list of turn by turn instructions to drive there from your home, a 20km journey. But you are at work, on your bike, 2 minutes away from the restaurant. How helpful are the directions? You really needed a landmark to help you — “head towards the train station and it’s on the left”.

Or perhaps you are new to the area and want some help finding your way around, getting to know the local environment, the best restaurants, where the good schools are. A manifesto on re-opening the canal system won’t be particularly helpful. Of course, later, when you have been there a few years you might be really interested, but right now?

Late at night you realise you’ve walked down a dark alley and are completely lost in the middle of a city, in what appears to be a not too salubrious area. A large scale, tourist map won’t get you out of danger fast. You need a detailed, turn by turn, ‘get me to the closest metro station as fast as possible’ solution.

There are different ways of giving directions for different types of people, with different needs and at different starting points. There’s a recurring word here — different — one system does not fit all. To give good help you need to know where the person is now, where they want to go, why they want go there, how they plan to get there and whether you’re going with them.

When you write a book in the style of someone famous, or following the rules of other business books, or you emulate the same book everyone else is emulating, you are not understanding the differences.

The Directions/Map/Landmark Model

I first came across the idea of using directions, map or landmark from my brother, Joe. He came across it in a book: The Back of a Napkin, by Dan Roam.

Directions (how to…) books describe directions to a new place in detail (turn left at the church), map (what & where to…) books must describe the whole map, with all the contours and buildings (detailed terrain), a landmark (why to…) book identifies a bright, shining destination, that we head towards (even if we might never get there).

Directions books (how to…) are good for people who sell structured training, video courses, other books in a series — “ie do this and then do the next thing in the list”. If you have a team of people who take action, do the work and take the hassle off the client, this is the book you could write. How to books are great for readers who are desperate for a solution, right now!

Map books (what & where to…) are great for people who have multiple products to sell too, but they allow the customer to decide — like, buy my coaching, or buy my book or buy my in-house training course. Map books are for curious readers who will happily get stuck in and solve their own problems with a little help from your or your team.

Landmark books (why to…) are for people who want to lead, who are looking for followers and who are able to describe a bright shining opportunity — like mavens (making connections), prolific writers (who can monetise their writing), prolific video makers (who can monetise video), keynote speakers (get paid for speaking), government or big business advisors, also those looking to create follower-leaders (offer mentorship, coaching, train the trainer, which lead back to the manifesto). Your reader needs to be inspired by you and the issue. They are looking to follow an inspirational leader.

No one type is better than the other in absolute terms — they each have their role and place and time.

I’ve found that expert author business books fall into about 30% Directions, 50% Map and 20% Landmark. So the vast majority of small expert business owners will end up writing a map type book — and that’s where they get lost — in detailing the terrain!

I have developed the model and have a way of mapping yourself and your reader so you can work out what book to write…

But first, let’s look at each type, see who they work for (reader and writer), and what you need to make it work.

DIRECTIONS— HOW TO

Directions books have plenty of lists, facts, instructions. People reading this book don’t want to go off and find out information, they want to be told what to do, the order, what next, what they need for the journey. It’s all about order and getting there. They’re not looking for detours. Imagine the reader of a directions type book looking down, following instructions, they just don’t see the rest of the landscape/terrain, they are on their way to a destination.

If they get lost they might abandon the trip and you’ll lose them forever. Or they need to go backwards some steps, wasting time and resources. Directions books need to help the reader get from A to B easily, quickly, without getting lost!

Your reader is desperate for a solution — get her there fast, efficiently — and don't lose her!

Any case studies need to show progression in the form of ‘I did this, then that, then that and now I’m here…’ Cases need to be specific, clear, unambiguous.

What business books are in this category?

Types of direction books include cookery books (how to make great paella), how to run a pet store, how to travel the world as a writer, how to run facebook ads, how to set up a website.

My cookery books are directions books — you have to do the things in the right order, step by step — there is only one right way (or at least the Spanish women I interviewed for the book say so, and who am I to argue?)

For these books to work everyone must start from the same place — so you must choose the target carefully. A cordon bleu cookery book won’t be great for an 18 year old needing to cook for themselves for the first time when they leave for university. A cake baking book isn’t right for a 50 year old man on the Paleo diet.

You can’t give good directions if you don’t have a common starting point. Imagine you want to take your friends on a picnic, they are coming from all over the city — some from the north, some from the south, you can’t give each person the same directions, unless you get them all to the same starting point.

Books in this space will be competing to take the reader from where they are now to a DIFFERENT place than you want them to go. For example, diet books — Atkins, Paleo, Low Carbs — they are all competing to take your reader from being unhappy with their diet, but each leads to a different place.

Want a website and don’t have any coding skills? Buy my ‘how to set up a Wordpress website for dummies’ book. No, buy my ‘how to get started with your website on WIX, without coding skills’ book. How to set up your business mailing list on Infusionsoft — or on Salesforce — or on Mailchimp — same starting point (problem), different destination (solution).

Same starting points, different directions, different destination.

How can you tie this in to your business: step by step instructional videos, courses, books, more how to products, done for you, toolkits, product progression (beginner to advanced), DIY with help from the team or done for you by the team.

Why Directions-type books don’t get read…

They can be turgid, boring, repetitive — these are the biggest problems with a directions book. You need to consider different ways of presenting the useful lists of directions. Think about screenshots? bullets? breakouts? checklists? images?

MAP — WHAT & WHERE TO

With a map type book you need to diagram everything, set out all the nooks and crannies, show the whole terrain — landmarks, corners, traffic lights, McDonalds (even though you hate fast food), you need to be complete and all encompassing within a specific scope, size, scale and span.

Scope

What purpose will the map provide? Is it a cycling map? A pub crawl? Lost treasure? Motorway service stations?

This helps you work out your “who for” — a cycling map is for cyclists.

The map isn’t for everyone!

The biggest problem I find (and my bugbear) is that plenty of business people say something like: my book is for everyone who wants to be a coach? My book is for everyone in business. My book is for startups.

No! They have to have a need to move — cyclists want to cycle, they could use a road map and work it out themselves, but they’d be much happier with a map just for them.

So, your book needs to be for:

• coaches who want to grow their practice from X to XX (where they are now to where they want to be in the future)
• big companies who want to improve their entrepreneurial spirit (current place, new place)
• managers who want to become CEOs (current role, new role)

Size

Where are the edges of the map? Is it the whole of the UK? The World? The Algorrobo mountain (that’s where I live if you want to send wine or Campari)?

If you’re writing a business startup book for getting VC the rules are different in the UK than the States. You need to decide the size of the map, and where your map ends.

Scale

How much depth will you provide — what scale map? Will it be detailed? An overview?

The depth may be effected by or effect the size of the map. You need to provide the same attention to detail, to the scale, for all parts of the map. If your book is for starting up a small business in the UK, and you cover everything in detail, except the legislation — that would be a crap map. That fuzzy bit in the middle is where you’ll lose (literally) your reader.

Span

What time period — how often will it need updating? Mountains are harder to move than McDonalds.

The biggest problem with maps is that they go out of date. The biggest benefit of map type books is they go out of date. You will need to re-visit your book in a few years, do a revised edition, update everything and SELL IT AGAIN! If it was a great map book, people will buy the revised edition too. Of course that means you have to do the work.

Each of these questions impacts the others — a detailed, but small map is doable. A detailed, in depth, map of the world, all the shops, every traffic light is a little more of a challenge — unless you’re Google of course. But even they haven’t written the BOOK about that!

My Going Native in Murcia book came in this category. I wrote about every town, village, golf course, shopping centre, beach and bar! Restricted to the area of Murcia and for holiday makers. It’s now in its third edition — because the territory changed. Map books can go out of date really quickly, and they can be hard work keeping on top of — but— you have a ready made audience, your readers (clients) need to know what’s changed, what’s new, what’s been torn down. I also wrote a map book for the same region, covering the same scale for people wanting to buy property here. Their movement would be different — they still needed to MOVE — but for different reasons.

In this category — map — there will be lots of competitors, lots of ‘me too’ books — after all you’re all describing the same territory. Your trick is how you differentiate yourself from the crowd. How do you encourage readers (clients) to purchase your map book? What’s different? What’s special?

Your readers are curious about the landscape, the terrain, the options. They want less instruction, more information & exploration…

Map books don’t need everyone to start from the same place, if the terrain (scope, scale, size & span) is well set out then you can parachute the right reader into any location on the map and they will be able to find their own path.

What business books are in this category?

Book writing books fall here — you are in place A and you want to be in B — where do you go? What routes could you take? What will you find on the journey? Also, setting up in business, developing coaching skills, becoming an entrepreneurial type company, creating agile teams, how to be happy, self help… This category is busy, it’s where most business people end up writing their book.

Tie in to your business: speaker, sell products, 1to1 consultancy, training courses, workshops, mentorship, coaching.

How Map-type books can go wrong…

Neil Gaiman retells the parable in reference to storytelling in Fragile Things:

“One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or the world, is by telling the story. It is a balancing act and it is a dream. The more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. The most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless. The tale is the map that is the territory.”

When you get bogged down in the detail you are not creating a map you are creating the territory. The art of writing a map book is getting the scope, size, scale and span just right. If you’re stuck in the middle of writing your map book, go back to your basic map skills.

Landmark — WHY TO

If you write a Landmark book you will meet haters. You are leading people to your chosen destination, other people will want to subvert the direction, and lead them astray.

Nassim Taleb — his landmark (I think) is THINK — all his books ask us to learn to think better, to question our thinking. He’s not the only person writing for this landmark, but he is especially vocal.

“To climb high one must begin low. Out of this small beginning one may help to create a more sane and happy world.” — Krishnamurti, J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

This type of books needs stories, personal stories, inspirational and motivational stories. It needs the stories to get movement in a direction without a map or directions. The reader needs to be able to picture the destination, you use stories to create a picture.

Are you getting the point? STORIES — case stories, life stories, anecdotes…

Readers will come from all directions, all lifestyles, every skillset and career. Landmark books don’t need everyone to start at the same spot, they don’t even need everyone to be on the same map, as long as you can see the shining star you can enjoy the book and benefit from it.

Readers are inspired to follow you to attempt to reach the landmark — even though you may never get there…

Types of book? Philosophy, religion (should be here but they frequently end up in directions!), manifestos, calls to action, better world, hope.

Biographies come in this category — they are the ultimate story, with a landmark. Think about Richard Branson’s autobiography. Or biographies of Steve Jobs…

Tie in to your business: licenses (franchises, train the trainer), more books, keynote speeches, government or industry consultancy, advocacy.

Why your landmark book leaves you alone on the mountain…

Finding yourself alone at the top of the mountain you might wonder where it all went wrong… Unless your landmark, bright shining star, is where people really want to go, they won’t follow you. How sure are you that there’s an audience of vegan, flat-earthers, who want to build a caterpillar-tracked tank to get to the other side of the disc? And are you really the charismatic story-teller who can lead them there?

It’s hard to be inspiring… I know! LOL!

OK, Back to the 2 simple questions

OK, so enough of the chat, how do you work out what book to write? To use this model you need first to consider two questions:

1. Who are you writing the book for?

2. What purpose does the book serve for you?

The Reader

How knowledgeable (about the subject) is your reader? For your reader you must identify, in advance of writing:

1. Who you are writing for (novice, expert, psychographics, etc). The usual (and frequently overlooked) questions that help you clearly identify your reader (and potential client).
2. Where they are right now.
3. Their current level of knowledge on the subject.
4. What do they need from the book?
5. What’s their pain and what’s your promise.
6. Where are the now?
7. Where do they want to go?

How confident are they to take action alone? How autonomous (on this subject) are your readers?

1. Do they want someone to do it for them?
2. Their level of autonomy (on this subject), do they take action or do they need hand-holding and guidance?

The Writer

For yourself (the business owner who is writing a book to enhance their reputation and create more business) you need to specify:

1. Your writing skills (detail, big picture, inspirational, doesn’t matter you’ll be hiring a ghostwriter).
2. Your business destination.
3. The goal for your book.
4. What do you want from the book?
5. What are you selling?

Who are you selling?

Are you selling you?

If your business is You, then you are always selling you. Writers, consultants, coaches, advisors, trainers — the client is buying you, you are selling you.

Are you selling the team, product or business solution?

If your business has a solution that is independent of you, like software, a training team, accountancy services, then you are selling the business solution.

If you are selling you and you don’t have any products you might want to consider creating products to sell too — I don’t know, like a book! Oh, you are, well done!

So, now we’ve got that sorted, let’s look in more detail at the model.

What are you selling?

Are you mostly selling products? Or services?

1. Your products and product types
2. The service you want to sell

You may have services and products, that’s great and bodes well for a long-term successful business, but if you could only sell one ‘thing’ from the book, what would it be?

Later we’ll look at how we map your reader’s (customer’s) needs to your own needs and see what type of book you should write.

If you are writing a business book then your book has a job to do. You aren’t writing it for fun. So you need to work out what job your book has. Is it to create leads, incoming contacts generator? Is it to convince people that you are an expert in your field? Is it to set you up as a thought leader, are you looking for followers? To sell a product? Create an opportunity? Build a movement?

Who will buy your product? Who can grant the opportunities you seek? Who will join your movement?

Conclusions

Nassim hits the nail on the head in Fooled by Randomness:

A model might show you some risks, but not the risks of using it. Moreover, models are built on a finite set of parameters, while reality affords us infinite sources of risks.

These are just models for writing a book. They are not the book. They might not even be accurate models.

If you want help working out what type of book you should write give me a call. Or download the Expert Author Mentorship Program.