A book outline is the secret weapon that you need to write a nonfiction book when you have a lot of demands on your time.

You’re an entrepreneurial author. You may have a business that requires your constant attention, or you may be a professional with a busy practice, or you may run a busy consultancy.

You’ve come to the realization that what you need right now to take your business, practice or consultancy to the next level is a book. A book that can open big doors and new markets. A book that can be used as a tool to convert new prospects, a book that will help you achieve the status of industry expert.

But there’s a roadblock on the way to your desired goal: lack of time.

Deep inside, you fear it’ll take a lot of time to write a book and you simply don’t have much of it available. You certainly don’t want to take time out of your family life or your sleep – you’ve already made enough sacrifices for the sake of your business.

You’re at a crossroads and unsure how to proceed.

But what if I told you that there’s a secret weapon at your disposal?

A weapon that:

• Will help you finish your book in record time
• Will make it possible for your book to literally “write itself”
• Will create the structure of your book with minimal effort on your part
• Will ensure that you never get writer’s block

This is a secret weapon used by the most successful nonfiction writers to write book after book after book, without seemingly ever running out of ideas.

How Do You Start Writing a Book?

There’s a key difference between an entrepreneurial author and a fiction author.

The fiction author is said to “have a book in them.” The entrepreneurial author “is the book itself.”

That’s right, technically speaking you’re a walking book. All those years learning, training and refining your skills, all those years serving clients and all those years teaching your skills to others mean that when you sit down to write your book you’re not going to have to think hard to come up with new ideas, new scenarios or new storylines.

The ideas will be drawn from your knowledge, the scenarios will be drawn from your client interactions and your storylines will be drawn from your life experience.

All you have to do now is to find the perfect “secret recipe” to download all that information out of your brain and onto the printed page.

That’s what I’ll help you achieve in this article.

How Do You Gather Your Thoughts?

The secret weapon you’re going to learn how to use next has two phases: the “Mind Mapping” phase and the “Outlining” phase.

• Mind Mapping is the technique that you’re going to use to do a brain dump of your thoughts and ideas into a format that you can easily structure and manipulate.
• Outlining is the technique that will allow you to turn that Mind Map into the table of contents of your book.

And I’m not talking about a straw man here. I’m talking about a fully fleshed out table of contents with every single topic that you’ll cover in your book, with the right flow and with such level of detail that your book will simply write itself.

All you’ll have to do now is to expand each topic with information that will come second nature to you, flowing directly from your professional experience and much faster than you think is possible.

As a matter of fact, not only will you not be “stuck” for ideas and content, but you’ll be overflowing with such a torrent of thoughts you won’t be able to write fast enough to capture it all in one sitting!

These are the same techniques that successful nonfiction authors in business, psychology, finance, health, law, coaching and many other genres use to keep coming up with new books in such a high frequency.

How Do You Organize Your Thoughts For Writing?

The first step you need to follow to organize your thoughts in preparation for your book is to create a Mind Map. You can learn how to use this technique in detail in my article: How to Use a Mind Map to Create a Great Book for Your Business.

In short, you’ll be creating a “map of your mind” as it pertains to the main idea or topic that you’ve chosen for your book. You’ll achieve this by drawing a mind map on a whiteboard or on a piece of paper, mimicking the same method your brain uses to store information.

Your mind map will include the main idea of your book at the center (typically conveyed in your book’s title and sub-title) and radiating out of it will list all the different areas that need to be explored further in order to support of your main idea.

These “branches,” or the key topics derived from them, will eventually be turned into book chapters.

Each branch then spawns a number of sub-branches as you expand the depth or complexity of each key topic into smaller building blocks. When you’re using this technique, you’ll be surprised how intuitive it feels. This is because the way you recall information to draw on the whiteboard maps very closely to the way information is stored in your brain.

And this is where you’ll notice time speeding up. Before you know it, you’ll have mapped out all your thoughts and ideas as they pertain to your book’s main idea. In the future, you’ll be using the same mind mapping technique with different main ideas at the center to create new books with ease.

Over time you’ll find that your brain is actually storing every book that you’ll ever write in a filing cabinet called “Main Idea 1,” “Main Idea 2,” and so on. But such a cabinet isn’t arranged linearly in rows and columns like a physical filing cabinet, but instead it’s arranged in a radial way, just like your mind map!

How About Writing Your Thoughts Down?

If you attempted to write your thoughts down “linearly,” sitting down with a laptop and just typing away, you may do well for a while if you happen to feel inspired at that moment. But when that river runs dry (and soon enough it will!) you may find yourself stuck trying to force thoughts onto the page.

With the use of a mind map, you’ll never be out of ideas.

How Do You Organize Your Book?

Your mind map will be complete when you’ve exhausted every possible topic, subtopic and sub-subtopic associated with the main idea of your book.

Your next job then is to take this “radial” information and structure it into a “linear format.”

• First, you’ll group the main branches thematically. These super chapters will become the main parts or sections of your book. For example, the first part of your book may be composed of chapters 1-4, the second part will contain chapters 5-8, and so on.
• Next, you’ll focus on the key topics of each main branch. They’ll connect to a number of subtopics which will expand on the information related to that key topic. The key topics will become your chapters.
• Finally, you’ll group the chapters’ subtopics. Sometimes a subtopic connects to enough sub-subtopics that it might warrant its own sub-chapter. Other times, you’ll combine two or more subtopics into one.

Depending on the depth of your mind map, you may need to go one level deeper. But don’t keep diving ever-deeper: beyond three levels, you may be adding too much complexity to your book.

Now you’re armed with all the information you need to create your book outline.

How Do You Create a Book Outline?

In their simplest form, outlines are numbered lists of the same kind you can find in any word processor.

To create a book outline, you begin by entering the “super chapters” into your document and labeling them “Part 1, Part 2, etc.) – you don’t need to name the parts yet.

Next, you begin placing the main branches or key topics into the numbered list. Hit the tab key before you go down to the next level so the word processor can begin numbering them again from the top of the count.

At this book-outline stage, you don’t need to worry about formal chapter names; that will come later on. For now, listing your topics is sufficient.

Next, for every key topic you’ll tab once to get to a level deeper and begin populating the subtopics that you grouped earlier. Again, don’t worry about creating formal names for the subtopics yet. Just write down enough information to identify them clearly – you can use a single word, a short phrase, or even a long phrase to jog your memory.

Finally, tab one more time to the next level (3^rd) and repeat the above process for your sub-subtopics.

How Do You Write a Book Outline?

Now that you’ve finished populating your draft book outline, you can begin to give it the shape required to turn it into a proper book.

The first thing you want to do is to read your draft book outline and think about what the best roadmap would be for a reader to step through (e.g. Part 1 followed by Part 2 followed by Part 3? or perhaps Part 1 then part 3 then part 2?).

Next, find what the best chapter flow is within each part, and rearrange them by highlighting and dragging around chapters (along with all their contents). The outline numbering will be automatically re-sequenced.

Once you’ve created the right chapter sequence for each part of the book, repeat this process inside each chapter by rearranging the subtopics in the same fashion using the highlight and dragging technique.

How to Structure a Nonfiction Book

Now it’s time to clean up your book outline. To do that, start tightening (rewriting) all entries to make them less verbose if necessary.

Next, to achieve a balanced visual weight make sure that most chapters have approximately the same number of sub-chapters and that most sub-chapters have an equivalent number of sub-sub-chapters. In order to achieve this you may need to combine some entries.

Finally, it’s time to turn your book outline into a proper table of contents.

You need to begin substituting your book outline entries for actual chapter, sub-chapter and sub-sub-chapter headings. For this task, try your best to use language that will resonate with your target audience.

To create proper headings, aim to be:

Concise

Try to use as few words as possible to convey the main message of the chapter, sub-chapter or sub-sub-chapter. The best table of contents always looks clean and balanced – headings that are too short may skip key information and become confusing for readers, too verbose and your sentences will wrap around making your table of contents look like a plate of spaghetti.

Clear

Your table of contents is part roadmap and part sales tool. As such, you have to have chapter and sub-chapters headings that are enticing to your readers, that speak directly to them and that address their problems or challenges.

Relatable

Use language your readers can relate to and always try to make them the subject of your headings, when applicable (e.g. use “How Your Mind Works” instead of “How Our Mind Works”).

Congratulations!

You’ve now created the first table of contents of your book. Why do I say first? For a number of reasons:

Firstly, expect your table of contents to be a living document as you go through the process of writing your book.

As you create actual content for your book, you’ll discover new ways to rearrange your chapters and sub-chapters which make more sense to you.

This is not only normal but also desired. Why? Because your original table of contents is the starting point of your book-writing journey, not the end. You want your writing to inform your final roadmap. Your initial roadmap is just there to kick-start your journey.

Secondly, when you pass your manuscript over to your editor, it may come back with suggestions to further refine the table of contents and that may result in new rearranging.

Thirdly, before you start writing your book, it’s a very good idea to get outside feedback about the structure of your table of contents – you’re just too close to the action. Enlist a small group of advance readers to help you run a reality check on your table of contents before you begin to turn it into a book.

Always Try to Get Feedback From Members of Your Target Audience

To get the best feedback, enlist the help of a small group of members of your target audience. They’re the people that you’re trying to help the most, so their feedback will be invaluable to you. You’ll find out first-hand whether elements of your roadmap resonate with them, or fall on deaf ears.

Although it’s perfectly okay to run your table of contents by peers and colleagues, since they’re not part of your target audience their feedback will tend to be more academic in nature. This can be valuable, but not as much as feedback from your actual target audience.

Finally, when it comes to family and friends, ask them for their opinion by all means, but do take their feedback with a grain of salt, because it’s quite rare that they’ll provide you with critical comments. In most cases, family and friends will tend to give you “benign” feedback because they want to be supportive.

Next Steps

Now it’s time to turn your table of contents into a proper book!

I highly recommend that you read my article: How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Business Owners. It’ll provide you with all the information you need to turn your table of contents into a great book.

All the best on your writing journey!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to generate additional leads for their businesses.

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

How to Use a Mind Map to Create a Great Book for Your Business

How to Come Up With Killer Book Titles for Your Nonfiction Book

10 Nonfiction Book Layout Tips that Will Glue Your Audience to the Page

How to Write a Compelling Introduction that Will Move the Needle

Bennett R. Coles is the author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

All Nonfiction books have a beginning (book introduction), a middle (body) and an end (conclusion). We’ve been taught at school that whenever we create a written essay, our goal must always be to “First tell them what we’re going to tell them, then tell them, and finally tell them what we told them.”

Because this is ingrained in our minds, many first-time entrepreneurial writers think that a book introduction is supposed to be just an advance read of their book, a prologue of sorts. The reality is that in the nonfiction genre second to your book cover the introduction is the most influential part of your book.

The content of your introduction will determine with a high degree of certainly whether your nonfiction book will live or die.

Yes, your introduction is that critical for the success of your book.

Why?

Because it’s the place where you have to “hook” the reader into buying and reading your book. An attractive cover page and clever title will only get people as far along as picking up your book and opening it – in marketing parlance, this is how you get the lead. The introduction, however, is where you actually close the sale.

What’s the Purpose of The Introduction in a Book?

The purpose of the introduction is to be the “sales letter” for your book.

A successful sales letter that will close a lead needs to have a specific structure that guides your reader through a proper sales process to your desired result. In your case, it could be one of the following five outcomes:

• You want anyone who’s picked up your book in a store or clicked the Look Inside feature on Amazon to be moved to open their wallets and purchase your book.
• If you handed your book to a prospect as a calling card, then you want them to read your book and ultimately hire your services over your competitors’.
• If you handed the book to an event manager, you want to be booked for a paid speaking engagement (most event managers won’t read past your introduction since they receive a large number of books and don’t really have the time to read them).
• If you sent your book to a media outlet, you want to be booked for an interview – show producers don’t have time to read the books they receive either, so the sales letter contained in your introduction is all you have to hook them.
• If you handed your book to a potential strategic partner, you want your calling card to develop into a strategic relationship.

Does the Introduction Come Before the Table of Contents?

The table of contents always comes first, because it’s part of the front matter of your book. The front matter includes sections like the Copyright Page, the Title Page, the Foreword and the Preface (we’ll talk about the latter two a bit further down). The introduction is considered part of your book’s body and is placed right before your first chapter.

Sometimes new authors think that the table of contents is what entices prospective readers, because they will often scan it as soon as they open your book in order to browse its contents.

While this behavior pattern is true, the table of contents is a very weak selling tool because it’s not a proper sales letter. That’s why you need to create an introduction that compels readers to buy your book.

How Do You Write a Good Introduction?

It’s critical that your book introduction be 100% about your reader and 0% about you – we’ll discuss a little later where you can introduce your personal story and tell your readers about yourself.

Your introduction must clearly show how your book will help solve your reader’s problem in a unique way.

Before we get into how to craft a compelling introduction for your book, let’s clarify the key differences between an introduction, a preface and a foreword – three unique sections that have very defined roles in the marketing of your book.

What’s the Difference Between an Introduction, a Preface and a Foreword?

As stated above, the introduction is the sales letter for your book and it must always be centered on your reader and what your book will do for them (it must always answer their primary question: “What’s in it for me?”).

What Do You Write in a Preface?

The Preface, on the other hand, is all about you. Here you can share your personal story, the journey that has led you to write your book, what your book does (but not “how” it does it), why you are qualified to write this book and, if your book has been published before, that this is an updated edition and outlining what the changes are.

In short, the preface is the vehicle that you use to have an initial personal conversation with the readers to start building rapport.

A word of caution: Since you’ll be telling your reader about yourself, it’s imperative that you’re not perceived as “bragging” or being a shameless self-promoter.

This section is the place to tell your readers who you are in order to build rapport, not to impress them or be boastful about your accomplishments or credentials (however, you can mention a specific credential if it’s something you feel the reader needs to know).

Only include those pieces of personal information that are relevant to your personal journey in relation to your book and how the book came to be.

What Do You Write in a Foreword?

The Foreword is a comment about your book or about you or both, written by a recognized influencer with a large following in your industry. We’re talking about a “celebrity” whose credibility is well established and recognized in your field and by the media at large.

Now, to be quite honest these are very hard to get unless you have a direct connection with these individuals.

Unless you know the celebrity personally in some capacity (perhaps through family and friends, or perhaps you’ve done work for them in the past and they hold you in high regard), it’s highly unlikely that they’ll sing your praises, because they value their personal brand and will likely never put their reputation on the line for an unknown author. Unless, of course, your book is so outstanding in their eyes that you manage to “knock their socks off.”

If you can secure one, however, a positive foreword by someone famous has the potential to launch your book into the stratosphere. There are many accounts of unknown nonfiction book authors that went on to achieve great success through the giant doors that were swung open by a powerful foreword from such a person.

Having said that, unless you already have a solid connection to a celebrity in your niche, don’t spend too much time trying to obtain a foreword. Spend this time instead writing a killer book introduction, which I’m going to show you how to do next.

How To Write a Book Introduction that Grabs the Interest of Readers

Since introductions are sales letters, they must be structured in a specific way to entice your “leads” to become “customers”.

To create a truly compelling introduction that will entice your readers to read your book, you have to implement the following nine steps:

1) Draw Your Readers In

The first paragraph in your book introduction is the most important one, because it must “hook” your readers into reading the entire section.

One of the most powerful hooks is the power of the “story,” because our brains are wired to be highly susceptible to them. But we’re not talking about just any kind of story.

Your Story Must First Show Them the Problem Your Book Will Solve…

• Your story must be about a problem that your readers deeply identify with. It could be based on your own experience, the experience of a client, the experience of a stranger, or even the experience of a fictional character.
• It must clearly identify the situation that your readers face right now through the use of a “character” they can easily relate to, or through posing questions that the book will eventually answer – e.g. “Do you find yourself ____?,” “Are you feeling ____?,” “Are you stuck in ____?,” etc.

…And Then Show Them the Expected End Result

• Your story must then show the character’s transformation after applying your solution. You could end your story with a statement like: “This book will show the exact steps you need to follow so you can experience what <Character’s Name> achieved.”

2) Reveal Your Solution, But Don’t Reveal too Much

When you describe the solution that your book provides, don’t explain “how” your readers will achieve the solution; just mention “what” it is. Use statements like: “This book will show you how to _____”. To learn how your solution actually works, they must read your book!

3) Show Them Why They Should Listen to You

This is the part of the introduction where you build your credibility. The goal of this step is for readers to trust you and, once again, this is not achieved by listing a bunch of accomplishments.

Instead, you’ll achieve this goal by showing what made you pursue the research that has led to your particular solution (perhaps at one point you were in the same boat your readers are in now).

It would also be useful to describe your observations as you pursued your solution and to also show a summary of the steps that you took in order to reach your “discovery.”

Finally, you want to convey your passion about your subject matter and what’s driving your desire to improve the lives of people (or businesses) who are afflicted with this problem.

4) Show Them a Roadmap from Problem to Solution

Now it’s time to show your readers your roadmap. For example, you can list the different parts or sections of your book and what the reader is expected to learn in each (e.g. “In part one we discuss…,” “In part two the book will cover….” etc.).

The goal here is to “whet the reader’s appetite” with a high-level view of what they’ll achieve by reading your book, without revealing any of the specifics.

5) Show Them the Benefits They’ll Receive

This is where you translate your solution into clear and tangible benefits the reader will get by reading your book.

These benefits are the various outcomes the reader will experience with your solution. What you want to do is to paint a picture of the reader’s future as vividly as you possibly can – e.g. “Do you want to be stress free?,” “financially free?,” “healthier bones?,” “debt free?.” and so on.

6) Show Them Your Guarantee (i.e. Social Proof)

Once you’ve helped your reader “see” what the future will look like after reading your book, you need to show them your proof.

In other words, this is where you mention testimonials, be it stories from real people or organizations (no fiction here, please!) who have already benefited from your solution.

This information must come from your own clients. You should naturally seek their permission first, and it’s totally acceptable to abbreviate or even change their names or some circumstances in order to protect their privacy and identity.

7) Address Their Objections

This part is optional but can be quite effective. The goal here is to address the main objections that you know of.

What you want to do here is to bring up each objection – no more than 3-5 – and then explain how your solution will take care of it.

8) Entice Them to Take Action

Now it’s time to “close the deal.” You will do this by making it clear to readers that if they follow the secrets/formulas/steps revealed in your book, they will achieve the goal revealed by your title and sub-title.

Make sure your reader is always the subject – e.g. “if ‘you’ apply the secrets/formulas/steps revealed in this book, ‘you’ will be debt free within 5 years.” “…’you’ will be able to lose weight and keep it off permanently.” “…’your’ business revenue will double,” etc.

9) Wish Them Well and Transition to the Book’s Content

This is a short transitional sentence to guide your reader to the beginning chapter of your book. By extending an invitation to read your book and wishing them well, you’re bringing the attention back to the reader.

To transition to your book’s body you can end the introduction with a phrase like “Let’s now embark together on your journey to <desired goal of your reader (i.e. your solution)>.”

How Long Should a Book Introduction Be?

Since the book introduction is a sales letter, you want to make sure that it always flows and that it never gets “stuck” with unnecessary language. You want to keep it tight and not overwrite it (beware: too much writing could potentially undo the sale!).

As a rule of thumb, you want to keep it in the range of 1.5 to 3 pages, depending on the nature of your subject matter.

Next Steps

Congratulations! You now have a strong foundation to craft a compelling book introduction that can “seal the deal.”

As a parting tip, write your introduction only after your manuscript is completed. Don’t write it first or you’ll be wasting a lot of time.

The reason is that there’s a good chance that during the editing process your chapters will be rearranged and the final order of your table of contents will only fully settle when your book is ready for publication.

Some writers are of the thought that the conclusion should be the last thing you write, but I beg to differ. In my opinion, the introduction should be written after the conclusion, since it’s technically not part of the book content but a sales and marketing document that needs to be crafted separately.

One Last Thing…

If you are now in the initial stages of your book project, I invite you to read my article: How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Business Owners. It’ll provide you with a clear and efficient roadmap for your book-writing project so you don’t end up spinning your wheels.

Now it’s time to write a great book introduction!

All the best,

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to generate additional leads for their businesses.

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

How to Find A Book Editor That’s Perfect For Your Nonfiction Book

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business

How to Come Up With Killer Book Titles for Your Nonfiction Book

Bennett R. Coles is the author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

The best technique to create a nonfiction book is Mind Mapping. You want to learn how to mind map a book if you’re an entrepreneur, an intrapreneur or a small business owner who wants to use a book as a lead generation tool for your business.

You also want to learn how to mind map a book if you’re a professional, practitioner or coach who wants to use a book to be recognized as an expert in your field in order to attract media attention, increase your chances of booking paid speaking engagements, enhance your ability to create strategic partnerships, and as a calling card for prospects.

Since technically you already have a book (or books) inside your head, due to your deep knowledge and expertise in your field, let’s now look into a clever technique to “get it out” and onto the printed page.

What Is a Mind Map And What Is It Used For?

If someone asked us “How are you planning to write your book?” most of us would likely default to the most common approach for information gathering: a note pad and a pen, or any of their electronic-device counterparts.

The problem is that the act of writing ideas down linearly (i.e. think>write down>repeat) is not really aligned with the way our brains retrieve information.

Our brains store information visually, so using a visual tool to retrieve our knowledge and ideas is more in tune with the way our brain naturally operates.

This visual tool is called the Mind Map. Mind maps are a much more effective way to get the job done without feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data that we need to access and sort through in order to write a book.

The mind mapping technique was popularized in the mid 70’s by British author Tony Buzan and has been broadly adopted since then for a large number of applications,

For Example:

• Creating outlines for books
• Creating business plans
• Problem solving
• Project management
• Business planning

What Are The Benefits of Mind Mapping?

The Main Benefits of Mind Maps Are:

• Speed: Mind maps save you a lot of time compared to the frustration of sifting through pages and pages of ideas captured through linear note taking.
• Organization: Mind maps allow you to see the forest for the trees by helping you organize and categorize your ideas in a visual way.
• Productivity: Mind maps make you much more productive because they easily translate into a book’s outline or table of contents.
• Creativity: Mind maps are a great idea generator as they elegantly bring into balance the creative right side of your brain with the critical thinking left side.
• Memory Recall: Mind maps enhance your ability to access facts and experiences stored deeply inside your brain.

How Do Mind Maps Work?

A Mind Map is a tool that encourages Radial Thinking. This is triggered by using a central idea (in your case, the main idea or premise of your book) and placing it at the center of the map.

You then proceed to break down this central idea into its main components, branching out radially and away from the center.

Next, you go a step deeper by breaking down the main components into sub-components also radially, and then repeat this process as many times as necessary.

Here’s an example of the mind map from one of Tony Buzan’s nonfiction books:

In summary, when it comes to brainstorming and capturing ideas, radial thinking is much more effective than linear thinking because it better approximates the way your brain works.

How To Make a Mind Map For a Nonfiction Book

Books written to support a business are a perfect fit for the mind mapping technique, because they tend to be very methodical in how they deliver a subject matter to readers. They begin with a main idea, usually captured in the title and sub-title, and then proceed to break down this main idea into its main components, sub-components, sub-sub-components, etc.

This structure maps quite closely to the radial thinking approach inherent in mind mapping.

The process for a nonfiction book of this type would go something like this:

Step 1

Write down your book’s main idea in the center of the mind map and draw a circle around it. Ideally, you want to use a whiteboard. If you don’t have one, then use a large piece of unlined paper, or 4 pieces of computer paper taped together to create a large sheet. Don’t use paper with lines or grids.

Step 2

Radiating out from the main idea, create the central branches listing the key concepts derived from the main idea at the end of the branch (draw a circle around each concept). These key concepts are eventually going to be turned into chapters in your book.

You may begin by drawing anywhere between 7 and 15 branches. Don’t worry about your book’s final chapter count at this stage. Initially, it’s better to have more chapters than fewer in order to give you some freedom – you can always combine two or more chapters later on in the process.

Refrain from using long sentences; choose instead a short keyword that clearly represents each key concept (e.g. use “Sharing Gifts” instead of “Sharing Your Gifts with Others”). Also, it’s important to use a different color for each of the central branches to stimulate the creative side of your brain.

Step 3

For each central branch, free-associate ideas related to its key concept. These are the ideas that you’d want to convey to your readers. They will eventually become sub-chapters in your book.

Now, using the color chosen for that branch, draw a sub-branch for each idea and write it down as a short keyword at the end of the sub-branch.

Step 4

Repeat the above process multiple times to expand on the ideas of the sub-branches, until you feel you’ve reached the desired depth of information.

In summary, your book’s main idea will become the title and sub-title, the key concepts will become the chapters, the ideas stemming from the key concepts will become the sub-chapters, and subsequent sub-sub-branches will become headings and sub-headings within each sub-chapter.

Keep in mind that the above are just guidelines and the process can be quite fluid. Once you go through the mind mapping process, the shape your book takes will be influenced by the information on the mind map – you may end up with only one level of sub-chapters, three or none at all.

However, following the above four steps will always get you going in the right direction.

Mind-Map Software

There are many mind-mapping software tools available, some free and some paid. The free ones can be quite limiting and uninspiring (the mind maps they produce tend to be on the “ugly” side of things).

The paid ones, on the other hand, produce beautiful visuals and tend to be jam-packed with features, but they are still limiting because you’re always bound by the size of your physical computer or tablet screen – in most instances you’ll find yourself having to scroll around a mind map that keeps getting bigger and bigger with time, missing out from seeing the big picture, which is key to your creative stimulation.

In my opinion, the best solution is using a whiteboard (if you have one, of course – it’s not worth it buying one just to create a mind map). Whiteboards and a set of colorful dry-erase makers are ideal for creating great mind maps, because you can easily make corrections while you get to see the big picture at all times.

If you do use a whiteboard, however, I suggest you take regular pictures of the full board with your smartphone as you progress, so that you are never at a loss should you erase something that you might end up needing later on.

If you use paper, you may want to use color pencils so that you have the ability to erase and re-write. Paper is not as “neat” as a whiteboard, but it’s very effective and was used for decades before whiteboards became commonplace.

A third option is to use colored post-it notes on a wall, and many people prefer this method. However, I don’t personally find this approach stimulating enough for the creative side of our brains. Even though each post-it note has unique information, the little squares all begin to look the same after a while.

Can You Make a Mind Map using PowerPoint, Word or their Google Equivalents?

Yes, you can and many people do. However, I find these alternatives to still be limiting (size of your screen) and worse yet, they can rapidly become a distraction.

What you don’t want to do when mind mapping is to spend your creative “juices” and your valuable time crafting a beautiful-looking map at the exclusion of the time spent on the actual content.

I don’t want you to fall into the temptation of the “pretty slideshow syndrome,” where we get lost in the PowerPoint features to get the right color and the right geometric shapes and the right shadows and line sizes and so on.

Sometimes our procrastinating bug will lead us in this direction as a “cover” for some hidden resistance to jumping head first into the unknown of creating our first mind map.

I do promise you this: once you get started creating your mind map, you won’t be able to stop! And at the end of the process you’ll not only have a great table of contents, but also you’ll be full of ideas and eager to start writing your book.

Next Steps

If you are interested in learning more about the process for creating a book to support your business from beginning to end, you may want to read my article: How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Business Owners

There’s no better feeling than creating a tangible legacy of your life’s work that can be shared with others.

Best of luck!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to generate additional leads for their businesses.

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

How to Come Up With Great Book Ideas For Entrepreneurs

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business?

Learn 10 Powerful Writing Habits to Fast Track Your Nonfiction Book

The Most Effective Writing Exercise for Busy Business People

Bennett R. Coles is the author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

All successful nonfiction titles are based on great book ideas. Every entrepreneur, business owner, professional or coach with a book in mind understands that they need to write about something that deeply resonates with their readers.

So, now that you’re thinking about writing your own book, naturally the first thing on your to-do list is to come up with a great idea. You begin to do online research to find out how to generate great ideas for your book, and you find posts with titles like these:

• “XXX Great Ideas For Nonfiction Books”
• “How to Find/Pick/Choose/Develop The Perfect Idea For Your Book”
• “Where to Get Good Book Ideas”
• “XXX Ways to Find The Best Book Ideas”
• “The XXX Best Sources For Great Book Ideas”

Let me save you some valuable time: Aside from the often-overwhelming number of choices they offer (I’ve seen some posts where the “XXXs” go into the hundreds), there’s a very good chance they’re going about finding great book ideas the wrong way.

In this article I’m going to demystify the search for your great book idea and I’ll provide you with an approach that actually works, especially for entrepreneurial authors.

I know I’m sounding a bit presumptuous here, but as you read on you’ll realize not only why this approach works so well where others fail, but you’ll also learn the “secret sauce” behind the success of so many blockbuster nonfiction books on the market.

How Do You Come Up With An Idea For a Book?

Before we can go into specific strategies, we first need to explore what makes a “Good” idea for a book.

To do that, we’re going to use first principles. Let’s start with a question: Who judges what makes a good idea for a book?

As an entrepreneurial author, you’re excellent at problem solving – it’s in your DNA. You’ve found your success in business by coming up with solutions to specific problems in your field of expertise.

With so much experience delivering results and so many happy customers, you might think: “My solution produces great results for my clients, so it’s definitely a great idea for a book.”

Well, I can tell you that your idea will have at best a 50/50 chance of making it as a book. In other words, it’s as good as a coin toss.

Now, how can I say that given that I don’t even know what you do for a living? After all, you really know your stuff and you know you’re well qualified to judge your solution as a good idea.

The problem is that you’ll never be the true judge of your idea, no matter how great your solution may work for your clients.

When it comes to nonfiction books, there’s a well-documented history of mediocre solutions that went on to sell millions of books while great solutions turned in lackluster book sales.

The reason is that there’s only one judge and jury of what makes a great idea – the reader. And even though this statement sounds simplistic at face value, in reality, it’s quite profound.

What Makes a Good Idea?

In order for a reader to judge your book idea as great, the solution that you provide can’t just solve a problem that you think, or even deeply know, your reader has. Clearly, in your view, your reader truly needs your solution – you just know it, and years of experience are telling you so.

But being of service to your clients is a very different thing from convincing strangers reading your book that your solution is what they need.

For your book to be judged as a great idea in the eyes of your readers, you can’t just solve a problem you know they have, you have to solve a problem that is deeply painful to them.

The deeper the pain they feel, the greater your idea will be perceived. If you’re solving a problem that is a little painful (say, a 2 or 3 in a scale from 1-10), your idea will be perceived as just okay. If their pain is only at level 1, then your idea won’t resonate with them at all and it’ll be judged to be mediocre at best.

(Incidentally, this judgement doesn’t in any way reflect on your skills or on your ability to come up with a great solution that delivers real results. It simply reflects the fact that your solution has little or no resonance with the pain level your target readers are experiencing.)

However, if their pain is at level 9 or10 and your solution addresses that pain head on, then you have a winner.

And here is the clincher: it’ll take you exactly the same amount of effort to write a book that addresses a pain level of 9 or 10 as it’ll take you to write a book that addresses a pain level of 1.

In Short:

• The judgment of what makes a great book idea is always, without exception, in the eyes of your target audience.
• How “great” your book idea will be perceived to be is directly proportional to the level of pain that your target audience is experiencing, which your idea will make go away.

How Do You Come Up With Original Book Ideas?

This brings us to the most important part of how to identify a great book idea:

Before you can find out what constitutes a high pain level for your audience, you need to understand very clearly who your true audience actually is. In other words, you have to first develop a deep understanding of your market niche.

If you’re like most entrepreneurial authors, you’re likely writing your book because you want to take your business to the next level.

This is typically motivated by a revenue ceiling or plateau you want to break through, and you know instinctively that keeping doing what you’ve been doing for years isn’t going to achieve that goal.

You want to scale your outreach beyond your current level, and want to use your book to open new markets and new doors. So the question now is, how do you grow beyond your current audience?

The answer: By niching down.

What Techniques Do You Follow In Generating Book Ideas?

If you’re providing a business service that is broadly available in the marketplace, then it could be that your target market is too large and too competitive to expand with your current resources – hence the ceiling or plateau.

For your book to successfully scale into new markets, you’ll need to niche down and find a sub-niche that is under served by other entrepreneurial authors.

If you’re publishing a book in a sub-niche and your competitors aren’t, then you’ll be the one perceived as an expert in the eyes of your target, sub-niche market.

Now the million-dollar question is: How do you find a sub-niche where you can shine? Simple. By looking for a cohort within your current niche that has a problem that registers at a pain level of 9 or 10 which you can easily solve.

The challenge with going after your full niche with your book, is that once you find what the #1 most painful problem is, it’ll be shared so broadly that the competition will be fierce – as an example, look at the overcrowded psychology and nutrition industries. Trying to stand out will be very difficult. You’ll likely be outgunned, outspent and outmaneuvered by authors with much deeper pockets than yours.

Why try to be a small fish in a big pond when there are so many under-served small ponds where you’ll instantly become the big fish?

Leveraging Your Great Book Idea

Even better yet, and this goes to the heart of scaling your business with the help of a book: if you identify an under-served sub-niche and then find their most painful problem and address it with your solution, you can then identify a different sub-niche later on and address their most painful problem with yet another book – this is what I call growing your audience “horizontally.”

In addition, you can grow your audience “vertically” by writing additional books within the same sub-niche (where you now have a following!) and solve another high-pain problem they suffer from, or even address the same problem, but from a different angle.

What may happen over time if you follow these strategies, is that you’ll begin to be recognized in a number of sub-niches and all of a sudden you’ll be able to start competing “up niche” with the giants in your space.

Time to Take Your Great Book Idea For a Test Drive

Now that you’ve honed into your sub-niche, it’s time to get to know these people (or businesses) deeply so that you can understand what their most painful problems are. Although online searches may shed some light into this matter, a better approach is to interview as many people in your sub-niche as possible.

Remember that it’s not what you think their biggest problem is that really matters; it’s what they think it is. It’s only when you unearth this information that you can begin crafting the main idea for your book by tailoring your solution to address that problem.

And when you do, you’ll have finally arrived at your great book idea!

All you have to do now is to come up with a great title to match and you’re off to the races. To help you develop the perfect title for your book, you’re welcome to read my article entitled How to Come Up with a Killer Title for Your Nonfiction Book.

Next Steps

Now you know why brainstorming ideas or reading the “XXX” greatest ideas for nonfiction books doesn’t work, because a great idea isn’t about the idea itself but about solving the most painful problem in your sub-niche.

That’s the “secret sauce” that you won’t likely find in the posts you’ll encounter in an online search for “book ideas,” because they’re focusing on the outcome and not the root cause.

Once you’ve identified your great book idea by following the above steps and you’ve come up with a great title that captures it, you’re ready to begin writing your book. To save you some time, I’ve created a follow-up article that details the steps you need to navigate in order to create your nonfiction book in the least amount of time. It’s entitled How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Business Owners and it’ll walk you through all the stages necessary to turn your great idea into a great book.

Best of success with your book project!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to generate additional leads for their businesses.

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

How to Use a Mind Map to Create a Great Book for Your Business

How to Come Up With Killer Book Titles for Your Nonfiction Book

10 Nonfiction Book Layout Tips That Will Glue Your Audience to the Page

How to Write a Compelling Book Introduction That Will Move the Needle

Bennett R. Coles is the author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

Good book titles can mean the difference between limelight and obscurity. Books are judged by their covers, and within the cover, it is the title that’ll be responsible for their market appeal.

When you’re writing your book, it’s better to use a working title for inspiration leaving the creation of the final title for the very end of your book project.

The selection of the title you’ll go to print with is by far the most critical marketing decision you’ll make regarding your book and it requires a great deal of thought.

In Search for the Perfect Book Title…

Choosing perfect book titles is part art and part science. We’re talking, more specifically, about the art and science of persuasion.

Your title must persuade your target audience to, not only pick up your book, but compel them to read it. Ideally, your book title will speak directly to their sub-conscious, without being filtered through their critical thinking.

In this article, we’ll have a look behind the curtains of human persuasion and we’ll use marketing and advertising research to arm you with the tools that you’ll need to create a killer title for your nonfiction book.

How to Create a Good Title

Before you can persuade your audience, you have to know what it’s like to be in their shoes.

You’ll have to understand who they are – this applies whether you’re a professional targeting new clients or a business owner targeting decision makers in other businesses.

The more you know about the needs, desires, fears/challenges and goals of your target audience, the more you’ll be able to come up with a book title that speaks directly to them.

What Makes a Good Title?

(and for contrast, what makes a bad one)?

• A good book title is centered on your audience / a bad title is centered on you and your product or service
• A good book title is short, strong and to the point / a bad title is meandering, weak and confusing
• A good book title solves a problem / a bad title sells a solution
• A good book title connects with emotions / a bad title targets the intellect
• A good book title is memorable / a bad title is hard to remember

It’s well understood in sales and marketing circles that most purchasing decisions are at their core emotional decisions, and this is no different with books.

However, books have a built-in advantage over many products: their title can be engineered to target the emotional core of their audiences.

How Do I Choose A Title For My Book?

To answer this question, we need to take a page from the world of sales and marketing and more specifically, we need to follow the lead from the masters of emotional persuasion: advertisers.

In order to persuade people to purchase a product or service, advertisers make use of copywriting techniques. To choose a title for your book, we’re going to borrow from some of those techniques.

Here Are 3 Key Rules of Copywriting that Apply to Nonfiction Book Titles:

Rule #1:

Your book title must always be addressed to an audience of one. You never want to write a book for a group of people, you always want to write it for the single reader who is holding the book in their hands. For books to persuade someone into action they have to be that personal and, by extension, your book title has to follow the same rule.

Rule #2:

For your book (and title) to connect with your audience, you must have a thorough understanding of their desires as well as their biggest challenges. Human beings are internally wired to go towards pleasure (their desired result) and away from pain (their biggest challenge or fear).

Rule #3:

The job of your book title is then to show your audience with a couple of very short phrases (the title and the sub-title) how your book will help them achieve their desired result while avoiding their biggest challenge or fear.

How Do I Make My Book Title Interesting?

Your job now is to make sure that your book title sparks interest in your audience by following the above rules.

Here Are Some Techniques to Generate Book Title Ideas:

Using Numbers to Add Specificity to the Desired Result

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• The 4-Hour Workweek
• The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
• The 90 Second Fitness Solution

Using a “Key” Word that Sounds Counter Intuitive

• “Stumbling” on Happiness
• The “Tipping” Point
• “Learned” Optimism
• The Motivation “Myth”
• The “Gifts” of Imperfection

Single-Word Titles Can Be Effective (provided the sub-title expands on them)

• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
• Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
• Outliers: The Story of Success

Inventing a New Word or Expression (provided the sub-title explains it)

• Buyology: Truths and Lies About Why We Buy
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explains the Hidden side of Everything
• Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It
• Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley

How Long Should Book Titles Be?

As a rule, you’ll want to make your title short and punchy and your sub-title long and explanatory.

Usually the title will be designed by your cover designer to stand out from the crowd in a physical bookstore or within a group of thumbnails in an online bookstore, so they’ll typically choose a fairly large font-size.

The sub-title, on the other hand, needs to be longer to expand on the meaning that the short title is missing due to its real estate limitations. No one expects to be able to read the sub-title from a distance. The goal is for the title to spark enough interest to make readers curious about reading the sub-title in order to learn more.

Should I Use a Book Title Generator?

Personally, I’m of the opinion that book title generators are counterproductive. The title of a book is something that requires a lot of thought and analysis, and this is something that shouldn’t be left to automation.

Instead of using a book title generator, study the title of nonfiction bestsellers in your field to learn how they managed to apply the above copywriting rules and techniques to find success.

How Do I Find Out If a Title Is Trademarked?

A single book title cannot be trademarked. The only exception to this rule is when you are publishing a series of books that share the same brand (e.g. The Chicken Soup for the Soul series or the Harry Potter series).

While on the subject of trademarks, make sure you don’t mention someone else’s trademark in your book title unless you are authorized to use it. Most online bookstores including Amazon have strict guidelines against using unauthorized trademarks, which may result in your book being banned from the site.

Finally, Get Plenty of Feedback

Don’t just focus on a single title because it happens to sound great. Remember, it doesn’t matter what you think, all that matters is what your audience thinks.

A clever play on words that makes perfect sense to you may be lost on your audience. The best approach is to come up with 3-5 title options and test them out in the wild.

At first, you may ask business acquaintances, colleagues and clients for initial feedback. But eventually you’re going to have to find people that fit the description of your audience as closely as possible and get their first impressions.

These are the people your book has been written for, and they’ll provide your most valuable feedback.

Best of luck with your title!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to generate additional leads for their businesses.

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

How to Come Up With Great Book Ideas For Entrepreneurs

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business?

Learn 10 Powerful Writing Habits to Fast Track Your Nonfiction Book

The Most Effective Writing Exercise for Busy Business People

Bennett R. Coles is the author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.