This past week, I suggested to a group of business owners that almost anyone could write a book if they structured it like an interview. Why? Being an author gives you credibility almost immediately. In business, you want to be recognized as an authority in your niche. Regardless of your service or product, being an author adds authority to you and your business.
Structure your book to be an interview. Carefully select questions for your interview. The answers to your questions will become the chapters of your book. When you know the answer to a question without thinking, you can talk confidently and cover a multitude of topics in that one question.
For example, I usually ask a potential writer, “Tell me about your first car!” Everyone remembers their first car. No one else knows about it. You pick and choose what you want to tell the world about your car. The car question becomes the temporary title of that chapter of your book.
I suggest that the new author write several bullet points outlining the question so they don’t forget anything, and present their answer in the order they intend to tell it. You are not jumping around. You don’t need more than a word or two, a short phrase to be a bullet. It is there to jog your memory and to keep your answer on point. I also tell them to include stories about themselves or others they know that highlight the topic of the question.
Another example, I might tell the story about me driving home over the high bridge in Corpus Christi one evening. I get to the top of the bridge, and my car starts shaking, and I hear a loud thump, and the car comes to a stop. As I am gathering my wits, I notice a tire rolling past me and going down the side of the bridge. I quickly checked for traffic and stepped out of the car for a moment. My driver’s side rear tire is missing.
The car engine is still running, and I slowly go forward down the far side of the bridge on three wheels and a brake drum. I noticed my tire sitting on the edge of the roadway, pulled up behind it, got out, and loaded it into the trunk of my car. I slowly continued driving on my three good wheels and a loudly screeching brake drum for a few hundred more feet, until I could safely pull my car off to the side and figure out what had happened.
My lug nuts had backed off. I jacked up the car. Stole a lug nut from each of my three good tires, forced the lug nuts onto the stripped bolts, and prayed. I drove slowly home and spent the next day replacing the damaged parts and mounting my tire on a replacement rim. This story keeps the reader tuned in. Stories sell; ensure they are included where appropriate.
I tell my clients to come up with 30 questions about the book they want to write. Separate the list into 15 good and 15 not-so-good questions. Take the 15 questions and carefully select 10 to 12 of the best questions, those offering real value to your readers, and those are the first ten or twelve chapters of your book.
Select an accountability partner to share your list of questions, including bullets and stories. Determine a method for conducting and recording the interview. Zoom or your cell phone will work fine. The audio file from that recording can be converted to text using many apps. You end up with a chapter of text from your interview that is 90+% of your chapter. Since it is your verbal response to a question, the editing is minimal compared to many other writing options.
Spend two or three weeks thinking about your questions (your chapters) and another week honing bullets and stories. Schedule a time to be interviewed, and usually, within a couple of weeks, your book is mostly written. Start with the chapter you are most passionate about and comfortable with. This gives you, the future author, confidence and a trail of success to follow.
Red O’Laughlin – RedOLaughlin.com – Red.Olaughlin@gmail.com
