How to write your self-help book for the perfect readers
This is the third in a series of posts giving you free extracts from my book: How to Write a Self-Help Book.
In this one, I’m exploring how write your self-help book for the perfect readers.
Spoiler alert: choosing the best people to write your book for is not as obvious as you might think.
Your book will be leading people through a big change in their lives, so you have to know those people intimately. A book that’s written for ‘everyone’ will appeal to no-one, whereas a book that’s aimed at one set of people whom you completely understand, will sweep them off their feet.
Be selective about your perfect readers
Imagine that you’re standing in the foyer of your local cinema on a Saturday night. There’s a hustle and bustle around you, the buttery scent of popcorn is wafting past your nose, and you’re excited about the evening ahead.
But what to watch? You glance at the posters on display. There’s an action movie starring a guy sporting big muscles and a torn vest; a romantic comedy featuring a dippy-looking couple with the Eiffel Tower behind them; a psychological thriller with five men in suits looking serious; and a foreign language film, the main character of which appears to be a middle-aged woman in a red dress.
You’ll make your decision based on your personal preferences and experiences.
If you’ve previously been bored by action movies and rom coms (may I raise a hand here) you’ll probably skip past those and plump for one of the other choices. But if tucking into a box of Maltesers while devouring a good old love story is something that you know will make you happy, the rom com will be all yours.
What does this have to do with book readers? It’s that film producers identify and analyse their customer groups so closely that they can predict what they’ll enjoy before it’s even hit the screens. Your readers also belong to a group with shared traits, preferences, and experiences. Your job is to identify what those elements are so that you can write the book that’s irresistible for them.
What could those things be?
Your perfect readers’ problem (as they see it)
If you’re writing a book about how to communicate effectively, your readers are people who find this a challenge.
But it’s not enough simply to have trouble with their communication skills — heaven knows, we could all do with some help with those — they must also have a view of themselves that tells them that this is what’s holding them back.
That means your book should be aimed readers who are frustrated by their shortcomings in this area, rather than everyone who has that problem whether they know it or not.
Your perfect readers’ desires, goals, fears and frustrations
To write a book that speaks to your readers, you need to be familiar with their inner drivers for buying and reading it.
Jon Morrow is a blogging expert whose advice I’ve often found invaluable, and much of his wisdom is just as relevant for book writing as it is for short form pieces.
He advises writers to focus on the obsessive thoughts that are troubling their readers. These can be split into two types: positive motivators (desires and goals) and negative motivators (fears and frustrations).
The motivators can also be categorised by whether they’re ongoing or time-bound.
Desires and fears are usually ongoing conditions; someone may yearn to feel more fulfilled in their work, or afraid of being lonely.
Goals and frustrations, on the other hand, are time-bound. A goal is something positive that a person wants to achieve and, once done, will usually stay that way — such as finding a permanent partner. A frustration is something negative that’s causing them pain right now, such as being in debt.
What state of mind are your readers in? Are they:
- desiring something that will take them a long time to achieve?
- afraid of something that might never be gone from their lives?
- aiming for something that they can remove from their to-do list?
- frustrated by something that they want to rid themselves of right now?
Also, we’re not just talking about any old desires, goals, fears, and frustrations, but those that have special qualities.
For your book to be irresistible to its readers, it needs to be written for those who are struggling to solve their problems in a big way.
They have desires, but they’re ones that they can’t imagine they could ever satisfy. They have fears, but they’re ones that they worry will never be eradicated. They have goals, but they’re ones that seem impossible to achieve. And they have frustrations, but they’re ones that they can’t see a way to become free of.
These aren’t trifling issues, they’re high stakes games. They represent the difference between ‘improving your career’ and ‘loving your job forever’, or ‘losing weight’ and ‘not dying young’.
When your readers have an obsessive fear or frustration that they want to remove, or an overwhelming desire or goal that they want to fulfil, they’re in the market to buy a book about it. That book could be yours.
What are your readers’ fears, desires, goals, and frustrations? Grab a notebook or fire up a spreadsheet and list as many of them as you can. Then hone them down so that you have one or two to focus on.
Your perfect readers’ lives
If you’re writing a book about retirement or parenting, for instance, it’s pretty clear what life stage your readers are at.
But it’s also important to pin down their personal characteristics, even if your topic is age or gender specific. This is where self-help authors can come unstuck.
Suppose your book is about goal-setting — a topic that’s surely relevant to readers of any gender, at any age, and of any lifestyle. Why narrow it down? Because if you don’t, your content will be generic and appeal to fewer people than if you’d been targeted about it.
Writing that’s couched in general terms is hard work to absorb — readers must deduce for themselves how it applies to their lives, rather than it being obvious. To see what I mean, think about the difference between these two sentences from an imaginary book that’s about how to sleep well at night:
When you want to sleep soundly at night, it’s important to eliminate stresses and distractions before bedtime.
When you want to sleep soundly at night, it’s important to turn off your phone, switch off your laptop, and make it clear to your boss or clients that you’re not available for e-mails after 7pm.
The first sentence is aimed at ‘anyone’ who finds it hard to de-stress before bedtime. The second is aimed at employees and business owners who work from home (or bring their work home with them) and have demanding jobs that are hard to get away from. It’s obvious who the book is for, and to those over-worked souls who will benefit from it, it’s far more meaningful.
If narrowing your book’s audience worries you, please take comfort in this. It’s a weird fact that when we read a book that we can see is aimed at a different audience to ourselves, we still get a lot out of it. In fact, we relate to it more easily than if we’re not sure who it’s for in the first place.
Your readers are no different. When you make it clear who your book is for right from the start, many of them will stick with it and be happy to ‘translate’ your advice into their own lives. They’ll even find this simpler than if they’re confused about whether it’s for them.
So please don’t worry about being picky with who your readers are; it’s an essential part of writing a good book.
The perfect topic for the perfect reader
Picture a plait, or braid, in a girl’s hair. It’s impossible to tell which set of strands is which, because once they’re interwoven, they make up one harmonious whole.
That’s how your book’s topic and its target readership should be. Your topic is for a particular set of readers, and those readers are obsessed with learning about your topic. One can’t work without the other.
Here’s a simple but powerful exercise that you can use to get clear on how your topic relates to your readers and vice versa. It consists of three statements for you to complete.
I’m sick and tired of [enter your readers’ key problem as they see it]
I wish I could [enter the state or situation that your readers would love instead]
But I don’t know [enter the information that your readers are lacking, which if they had it would give them the transformation they desire]
Here are a couple of examples. I’m sick and tired of seeing unfairness in the world. I wish I could help to create a more equal society, but I don’t know how to talk to the right people in the right way so that I can set things in motion. Or, I’m sick and tired of going on diets and putting the weight on afterwards. I wish I could keep it off for good. But I don’t know how to generate the willpower to do that — it seems impossible.
Note that neither of these people frames their problem in the way that you might as the author of the book they’re about to read.
In the first example, the reader wants to learn how to become an activist, but they probably wouldn’t describe it that way if you asked them. Instead, they sees their issues as being a lack of confidence and networking skills. The second reader wants to learn how to eat healthily and enjoyably for the rest of their life, but again, they probably wouldn’t talk about it like that. Instead, they perceive that developing more willpower is the way to reach their goal.
Completing these statements is an excellent way of stepping into your target reader’s head and looking at the world through their eyes. It’s only when you’ve done this that you can write for them in a way that they appreciate and understand.
If you’d like to buy How to Write a Self-Help Book, here’s where to click.
