Book Planning 101: How to Hook Readers and Finish Strong with Chad Sanborn

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Hello, everyone. Happy Tuesday and happy near the end of November. You guys, can you believe that we just have one more week left of this month? That is absolutely insane. Well, I am joined today by Chad. Many of you have seen Chad before. He has been on YouTube lives in the past. He is in our communities. You guys will see him popping in there and sharing some of his wisdom. And today he is going to be talking about book planning. And this is really Chad's area of expertise. So we're excited to dive in. I don't think we've ever done this topic before, actually, Chad, I was thinking about that last week and I was like, I don't think we ever have. Which, this is really cool. So if you guys are popping in here, please feel free to say hello and let us know where you're watching from, because we always love to hear that. I am watching from Florida and Chad is in. I almost said Missouri, but that's a lie. You're in Kansas.

I mean, I mean, on the Kansas side. Now back on the Kansas side in Kansas City. Yep.

You can just hop back and forth, put one foot in into both states pretty much.

Yeah. You have. But you do. You have to declare which part of Kansas City you're in. That's very important.

That's so funny. Yeah. See, I wouldn't know that if I. If I hadn't talked to you. Hi, Carrie from West Virginia, Gary from Utah. Lovely to see you guys both here. Okay, well, we're gonna wait for just another couple moments, let some more people sign in and say hello. We do, of course, have prizes. And lo and behold, you guys, earlier today in one of my meetings, I heard a knock at the door and I was like, oh, I'm in a meeting. I can't get it. But it was some book launchers. Swag. So I have some fresh swag to give for you guys. So that is going to be our hashtag no boring books mug or our oh so soft journal or I do have a few of our client books still on hand. I'm starting to dwindle down with those. But if you guys would like one of those, I can let you know what I have left as well as Julie's books. So if you guys are located in the US you can choose from any of the things. If you are outside of the US we will have to send you one of the books. So we've got a few more people here. We've got Darla from California. Hello, Darla. Matilda from Mississippi, and Wanjiku. I hope I am pronouncing your name properly, but I love that. From New York City. How awesome. Well, you know what? I should go ahead and kick us off with this first prize and then I'm going to hand the stage over to Chad so he can dive in and share some of his wisdom. If you haven't yet commented and you're just lurking in the shadows, now is your time to say hello because that is how we choose prize winners is by who is commenting in the chat. So I'm going to pull up our fun giveaway tool and I'm going to share screen, but let me first choose the proper item. Okay, you have just another moment. If you have not yet said hello while I am getting this screen sharing. Oh, it's not wanting to share. There it is. Okay, so we have the five people who have said hello. Oh, we've got six. Another person, Heather. He sneaked in there. How perfect. All right, let's see who this first winner is for today. And you know, some of these names aren't as familiar, so. Oh, Gary, how lovely. It's been a little bit, hasn't it, since you've won? Yeah. So please let me know. I feel like it's been a hot minute, but this year has just been speeding by. Feel free to email me@teamoklaunchers.com let me know what you would like. I do need your address again because I don't keep yalls addresses, so. Okay, well, I'm going to stop sharing. We are going to be doing more prizes. We are going to be answering questions. So as we go through this, if you guys have questions, please do feel free to pop it into the chat. And I will be queuing them up for. For Chad to answer at the end, but I'm going to hand the reins over to Chad and let him take over. So thank you so much, Chad. I'll be here in the shadows, so if you need me, just holler.

Oh, and I will. So thank you, Angela. Yeah. So first of all, if you don't know me and there's really no reason that you should. My name is Chad Sanborn and my title at Book Launchers is Pen to Paper Pro, which is a fun way of saying I'm a book coach and I'm also a ghostwriter and I help, you know, I help people basically write their books in one way or another. I've been with Book Launchers for four, four years as an employee and I think was a contractor a year before that, so worked on a lot of books, helped on a lot of different subjects, helped a lot of different people. Different people. And I have, you know, over that time developed some different techniques for, you know, helping people get that idea out of their head and onto the page. And so that's kind of culminated in some ways in the, the book launchers book plan, which is what I'm talking about today, you know, and back when I started. And you'll get, you know, if you tell anybody you're writing a book, you're going to get this too. You're going to get this question, what's your book about? And, you know, I admit I'm guilty. I used to say that too. That was the first thing I would ask. And, you know, I think about that statement about, you know, I admit my guilt. And it's like, you know, I'm a writer. Why did I choose those words? Why did those pop into my head? It's not that there's anything wrong with the question. It's just that the answer to that question, what's your book about? Just doesn't give you enough information, whether you're writing the book or you're contemplating, you know, buying the book. So there's, you know, one of the things we, we looked at was how do we, you know, how do we get as much information as we can and succinctly figure out, you know, the best way to, to get this book off the ground and launched. And now when I start working with, with people on their, their project at the book planning stage, my first question is not what's your question? Is who is your book for? And that's a really, it seems like a subtle difference, but it's not. Because if you answer that question, it's going to tell you everything you need to know about the book. If you can tell me who it's for. You know, ask, you know, if I ask you what's your book about? I might learn the topic and I might get a sense of your point of view on it. That's it. But if you can tell me, you know, who your book is for, I get not only topic and a good idea of who, you know, you are, but I also get a sense of who might be interested in this book, like who has the problem that you're solving. And furthermore, I know why they might be interested. And those are really important things. And it doesn't even stop there. When you tell me who your book is for, you know, you're telling me that, like, that person is likely to take the next step when they hear about Your book, they might buy your book, and then they're gonna take the next step after that and read your book. Right? And that's great, but that's not enough. You know, we want them not just to read the book, we want to take the knowledge that you're sharing with them and apply it. They have to understand what you're saying. They have to be inspired by what you're saying. And so once those things happen, then they're going to take it and they're going to apply it to whatever problem it's addressing in their life. And hopefully their life is going to be a little bit better. As an author, heck, as a human, I really can't think of anything better than that than, like, sharing some information that helps make somebody else's life better. But then there's even more than that. And that's what's amazing, is that if you write that book and somebody takes it and they apply that stuff and it makes their life even just a little bit better, they are going to be compelled to talk about it. They're going to want to tell people about it. And, you know, as an author, not as a human, but as an author, word of mouth is key. You know, if. If that person was helped by the book, they probably know other people dealing with the same thing, and so they're going to go tell them about that book. And that's, you know, that's one of the things that is like, you know, you can do advertising, you can do promotion, and those things are great, but you just can't beat word of mouth. Because when somebody tells me about this thing and I know them, I believe them. You don't have to sell me on it. My good friend or this person I know told me that that's the thing. And so you have to, you know, you want to reach as many people as possible. Word of mouth is the way to do that. But how do you write that book? And we're going to get into that, you know, how do you make a book do that? If there's one thing, though, while we're still in this sort of introduction part about, you know, from today's presentation that you take away, that I want you to remember, it's this thing that I've just kind of been. And, you know, about as in, you know, what's your book about? About lives on the book's back cover. Right. Who's your book for? The four that lives in your reader's chest, that lives in their heart. So if you focus on who the Book is for you will. You know, you'll create those things. You'll create that connection. And that, you know, that's the difference between a book that sits on the shelf and a book that travels by word of mouth. And there's the word for that is resonance. You know, that book resonated with them. And that's what we're trying to figure out is how can we, you know, make sure that in the book plan, you're not just, you know, you're not just writing a book, but you're writing a book that's going to resonate with people. And it'd be great if you could do that from the very beginning before you even write the first word of your first draft. But let's be honest, you know, starting is hard. Any kind of project, certainly a book project, is hard. It's daunting. You know, you look up and it's this big mountain of a book, and how am I going to get there? And, you know, you start thinking, like, where do I start? How do I start? Maybe you throw together, like a list or, you know, a rough outline of ideas. You know, all these ideas that are in your head. You've been thinking about your book for a while. You've had, you know, this idea, oh, this might be a book, and that was probably a year ago. And, you know, you've been thinking and thinking and maybe taking notes, but there's just all this stuff. Maybe you're one of those people who doesn't even need an outline. You just jump right in and just start writing. But again, it's unwieldy. It's huge. Just like with anything helps to have a plan. And that's why we created the Book Launchers Book Plan. You know, it helps bring order to those ideas. It gets them out of your head, gets them onto the page. And once they're on the page, then they're a little easier to work with. You know, you can kind of massage them and tweak them, and that's one of the. That's where you start to build the resonance. But then, you know, we thought, what if, like I said, you know, you could start to build that resonance in before you even start writing as you're kind of putting it together. So we kind of refined the Book Launchers Book Plan process so that jumpstart your book project, but helps you, you know, understand who your book is for and then shows you how to use that understanding to develop an outline that you then use to write a book that resonates with your reader. And so we're going to kind of step through a little bit of that process. But you know that that is the end goal is that, you know, you're going to get this. The book plan is going to help you figure out who the book is for, and you're going to take that information and you're going to use it to then write a book that resonates with those people. We can, I don't know, Angela, if you want to take a shifting into something, if you want to do another prize now, if you want me to keep going, you just let me know.

I think, yeah, I think we can. I haven't seen any questions come in yet. We've had a few people, new people popping in and saying hello, which is great, but I think we could wait for another prize, let you go a little while longer, and then we. And we can do some later. I will be flagging for those of you who have just popped in, I will be flagging any questions that you guys have. So if you want it answered live, please do post it in the chat and we will answer them at the end. And then for anyone new, because there are some names on here that I don't quite recognize. Commenting in the chat is how you actually win the prizes, or I should say have the chance to win the prizes is because we pull from people commenting in the chat. So please do feel free to interact and again, post those questions because they will be here in the background to collect them. So you're good, Chad. I'll let you dive back.

All right, so now I'll kind of start to do an overview of that process and what it's like if you were to, you know, to engage with us and do the, the book launchers book plan. As I said, you know, when I, you know, I always now I start with, you know, who's your book is for. I try to get people thinking that right away. Like, start thinking in those terms, you know, who is your book for? And when I ask that question, people usually, they kind of fall back on demographics. It's male, female, this age group, this income bracket. And that information can be helpful, but it doesn't give you, like, the clarity that you need to write a book specifically for someone. So the book plan, as I said, we kind of refined it a little bit and it focuses on what we call can't even talk psychographics of the people who you're writing for. So it's less about their place in the world and more about their place in Their head. Like, what are they concerned with? You know, what are. What do they need? What are they afraid of? And so the book plan process starts with, you know, a series of questions. And like I said, a lot of these questions, they'll focus on your reader. Again, what are they concerned with? What are their needs? What are their fears? Some of the questions kind of look at, you know, your industry or your area of interest or expertise or whatever, you know, and, you know, nobody thinks I'm going to write a book because the obvious answer is already out there, right? Usually there's some sort of myth or misconception or something that's just flat out wrong. Something about your subject has caught your attention, and you're like, this is I got to correct this, or there's a better way. Maybe that's not bad, but this is a better way. So some of the questions focus, like I said, on myths and misconceptions, things that are wrong or, you know, thoughts that people may have or preconceived notions they may have about your subject that just, you know, they're not true or you found a better way. And then, of course, some of the questions focus on you. Most people, unless you're, you know, Ph.D. or something like that, most people are writing prescriptive nonfiction books based on their own experience. They may be an expert in some way, shape or form. But. But chances are, you know, they are once. They were once like their readers are now, right? They were facing that problem. They were down in that hole, whatever that hole was. And so we look into that like, you know, what was your mindset then when you were like, your reader, your ideal reader? What triggered your change? What made you go, oh, how did you get here? What do you wish you had known then that, you know, now? And again, there's really no greater credibility than I've been where you are, and I know you can. Can get to someplace else. And here's how I did it. Here's how you can do it, too. So there's a. That's the first whole part is, you know, we do a bunch of questions. It's a real simple process. It's not hard, and it's. It's tailored toward how you like to respond, let's put it that way. You know, some people like to write out their answers in a document. Some people like to respond in email. Some people like to record themselves so that, you know, the. The whole point is not the process of, you know, how do we get the information out. It's about, you know, Doing it in such a way so that you can really start to dig into, you know, what about your reader, what about your industry or area expertise, what about yourself? How do we, you know, what, what is. What's some of the common ground here that, that we can kind of mine and figure out, like, oh, this all connects, because that's one of the things we're looking for later is, you know, in this process is where are all of the connections? Let's see. So one of the things we'll do after we, you know, got all of these questions, I'll work with you to kind of create some statements at this point, you know, we are looking to clarify by simplifying. I mean, you've been thinking about this idea for a long time, and your head, it's gotten real complex. And so most of the time I kind of need to jump in and kind of pull people back out to a higher view. We'll go back down into the details of minutia. I always tell people, the minutia that's writing the book. We're not writing the book yet. We're trying to, you know, take these steps to get you to a point where what you present to is going to be presented in such a way that it resonates with people. And a lot of times that means kind of pulling back to the bigger picture. You know, one of the things, like I said, we talk about is we're going to clarify by simplifying, you know, who your ideal reader is. Again, we've got all those. Those questions, answers to those questions. And that's going to really help us pinpoint, you know, who your reader is. And I'll walk you through an example in a minute. One of the other things we're going to talk about is, you know, sort of the, the truth, the, the keystone truth of your book that the sort of universal truth, for lack of a better word, that your book is built on. And then we're also going to talk about sort of the main message of your book, you know, and that's usually like a simple statement, just sort of of the overall idea. It is the answer you would give if somebody said, what is your book about? And then we're going to talk about. We're going to do a statement that's the promise of your book, right? And it's basically like, if you buy this book, read this book, apply what's in this book, you know, then you're going to be able to whatever, you know, problem you're solving, which is basically like it's the, like, it's what it says, it's the promise of your book. Do this with this book and this is how you can change your life. And again, with all this information, we're also going to do what's called the hook of your book. And I work with you on all of these because again, people really want to get detailed on these. And the point is not to be detailed. The point is to be general enough that we get the big picture. You know, a hook is just a few sentences to clarify who your book is for which we're going to work on why you're the person to write it, you know, what gives you that credibility and then how the user, you know, the user, the reader can benefit from the book. Again, sort of what's the promise of your book? So the things are all kind of related, but it's just, it's helpful both at the beginning and later when you're writing the book. A lot of times, you know, it can take you six months, a year, two years longer to write a book. And it's nice to have that there where you can look at that and just kind of go like, oh yeah, that's, that's what I'm here for. That's the main, main idea here. So I told you I'd give you an example. So let's say I'm a leather working expert, right? I work with leather. I'm also a business consultant that I help other like leather working shops, you know, you improve their leather working business. And I want to write a book to help people make money with their leather working. You know, they could be, they could want it to be a side hustle, maybe they want to be their livelihood. But you know, I want to write a book for these people. So a reader statement. And I'm going to read this might be something like, you know, I am writing for novice and experienced leather working hobbyists who believe they can't or are unsure or of how to make money or more money from their craft. Though I would say the problem lies not in understanding what they're actually selling. It's usually more than leather working, than they're selling. They're selling a story and they don't understand who they're selling it to. So that's sort of my reader statement, you know. So we know that there are people who have leather working skills and they are looking to make money from that. Some of them may want to keep it small as a side hustle, some may want to make it their main livelihood. And I'm the person to write it, you know, because I'm this expert in, in this area. So what's the truth of a book like that? You know, the biggest thing might be, you know, that you don't have to have a big, you know, workshop to make money in leather working. That's, you know, that could be one of the truths of the book. It could be, could be something else. But it's, it's that sort of like simple, plain spoken, you know, sort of idea that this is true. You don't have to have this big shop to make money. The main message of your book would be something like, you know, leather workers can make money by finding a market that needs a product rather than trying to find people to buy their product. Now, again, we're not, you know, making these up just out of whole cloth. These are all coming out of the work that we did first with all of the questions and looking at the needs and concerns. You know, one of the concerns might have been, you know, I need to have a big shop to make money with leather working. We've addressed that. You know, the promise of this book would be if you buy this book, read it, finish it, act on it, you'll be able to make money with your leather working craft at whatever scale you choose. Okay, so now we've taken that idea and we put it into words that you can make money and it can be big or it can be small, but it is, it is possible. You buy this book and read this book and do these things, this is possible. And then a hook, you know, a hook would just be something that kind of ties all of those things together. Leather working expert and business consultant for artisanal craft shops, Chad Sanborn explains in detail how both novice and experienced leatherworking hobbyists can make money or more money from the craft they love. From leather working skills to shop setup and operations, to marketing your products, living a leather working life reveals how to turn your craft into cash. The hook is great because it helps you in writing. Obviously, it clarifies really who this book is for and why I'm the person to write it and why that people would read it. The hook is also a starting point down the road for your marketing because again, it's got everything in there who you're talking to. So at this point, you haven't written a word really of your book, but you really have a clear idea of, of who you're writing for, of what their concerns are, what their hot buttons are. So now you're in a Better position to start to dig into that. To that resonance. It's, you know, when I, when I try to explain resonance to people, I always think of, like, back before we had Google Maps and navigation on our phone, you would have to sometimes stop and ask for, ask for directions. I mean, I'm a guy, so I would never do that. But, yeah, you. And when you ask somebody for directions, it really helps, you know, if you have a common language. If the person tells me, you know, you got to go down here, you take a left, you'll see the entrance for I35. You're going to take that to the 635 east exit, whatever, you know. But if they start talking about, well, you go down three blocks and then there's a tree that's a little crooked and you're going to want to take a left. Like, it's. That's not resonating with you. You're trying to, like, what are you talking about? And that's, that's what resonance stems from. It's sort of like you're speaking my language. When you're speaking my language, we're connecting. And again, we have all those questions and all those answers that we went through. So now, you know, we can talk about, you know, we can talk about the things we want to talk about, but in a way that our reader, our ideal reader, the way they need to hear them, I guess, so that they make sense to them. So basically, at this point, what we're doing is we're taking all of those concerns, all those reader concerns and needs and fears, and then we're going to take everything you want to talk about, all your topics, right? And we're going to connect them. Every topic of yours needs to connect with one reader. Concern or need or fear. And so we kind of put together this big sort of map of where these things connect. Some may end up in other places, more than one place, I should say. And it's a, it's an interesting process because you may find that you have. You've come up with some concerns or needs or fears that you don't have a topic for. You're like, great, I need to go find a topic on this, you know, in my area expertise, you may have a topic that doesn't match to any of their concerns or fears. And you may. That could be one of two things. Your reader's not interested. You want to talk about it. They just really are not that concerned with it. Leave it out of the book, or there's a concern or need or A fear that you've missed. So it can be a really good indicator of, oh, here's an area that I hadn't even thought about, you know, in terms of their concerns. I had it as a topic because I'm out doing this every day or talking with people every day. So I know it is, I just have forgotten it. So it's a great way to kind of check yourself and make sure you got all your bases, you know, covered from a, from a, like I said, a subject matter standpoint. So at this point, like I said, we've done all the questions, we've kind of clarified things by simplifying. And now we've taken all of your topics and we've made sure that they connect with all of your readers concerns. Now we're going to start to do what are called teaching points. That's basically, you know, when you've got the concern and you've got how you would address that concern. A teaching point is just like a simple declarative statement, you know, that when you do my topic, you are able to alleviate that concern. If you do this, you can do this. And that's going to make, it's the first layer of sort of testing to make sure that that resonance is in there, you know, and it helps you again, as a, as the writer down the road because again, it takes a while. You don't have to go like now what's this, what's this section about? Because again, all these things, it's essentially going to become a chapter, more than likely. And that teaching statement is going to be the main point of that chapter. That sentence may or may not be in your chapter, but you will always know what's the main takeaway from that chapter. And so it's like I said, it's really good to have that there rather than have to like sit down and go, now what was the point of this? How was I going to address this? And then once we have the statements, we test them again because again, we're really pushing the idea of does it connect with the reader? Does it resonate with the reader? You know, and that's the first question is like this teaching point that I have, does this help me connect with my reader? You know, the next question is, does it support my main message in this case? It's, you know, leather workers can make money, right? Does it support that? And then does it help deliver on the promise of my book? You know, if they finish the book, they read the book and finish and act on it, can they make money? At leather. Working the test means that a teaching point has to answer yes to at least one of those questions. Can answer more. But if. If you have a teaching point and does, it's not a yes to at least one of those questions. It's not, you know, it'll probably come out of the book or it needs to be reworked a little bit. So now, you know, we've got a lot of stuff. We've got the questions and we've got the statements, and we've got the map that. Where the things connect, and we've got the teaching statements that are. That are, you know, that we've tested. We know we're rock solid. We're getting closer. Like, we're speaking about what they want to hear about, and we're saying it in a way that they need to hear it. One more thing we got to do, though, is we got to talk about the order of things, right? And that's really simply, you know, what do they need to know and when do they need to know it? You know, I can't. I can't teach you multiplication until I've taught you, you know, basic adding, addition, and subtraction. It's that kind of thing. I'm working with a teacher right now who's working on a book. And it was funny because I laughed. I was like, I guarantee this will be the easiest part of the process for her because she's been lesson planning. Because that's all it is, is lesson planning. You know, can we talk about this? No, we have to talk about this. This first. It's not a real long process, and a lot of us feel. And things may change as you're writing the book, but it's really important to just kind of first go, oh, yeah, I got to tell them about this before I tell them about that. But again, those teaching statements, because they are sort of the basis of your chapter, and we've. And we've tested them. We just got to make sure they're. They're in the. The right order. And after that, you know, that process then turns into, you're almost done. You got basically the meat of all of your chapters, right? You got the concerns and how your topics map to them, and you have these statements, but you're still. You're still missing something. And that's what we call, you know, the hook, the story hook. And I always illustrate, you know, why this is important with, I don't know, you know, it's not real sexy, but car tires, you know, automobile tires, commercials. When I was A kid. It was all about, like, the specs. It's, you know, steel belted, seven steels of strands of steel, round, two wrapped by one. You know, it was. It was the specs of the tire. And then somewhere a little later, it became about, you know, well, the tire hugs the road. It's got great performance, better mileage. So it was more about the features of the tire, less about the specs. If you look at a car tire commercial today, you know, it's something like, you know, it's a. It's a. We see a mom. She's driving on a rainy night. The roads are wet. There's no voiceover, no narration. There may be some music. She glances up in the rearview mirror. Her child is sleeping safely, comfortably in the back. It's all about the benefit. It's that emotional appeal. I don't even tell you about the tires anymore. You don't care. All you care is about is, you know, these things. Is it going to make me keep my kids safe? Is it going to keep me out of an accident? You know, is it going to make me feel like a good parent? So it's all these emotional peels. And the reason is because we don't make decisions based on facts or information. We make decisions based on emotion. There have been all sorts of neuroscience studies about this. The information helps, don't get me wrong, but it's the emotional layer that is key, that gets people to take action. And that's what the hooks are for as we start to look at them in your book plan. Nothing's better at sort of, you know, giving you that emotional layer than a story. Stories are sort of like the sugar that makes you take the medicine. The medicine being, you know, the facts and the information, you know, and you also need to get your readers attention right off the bat, you know, you want to. You want to make sure that they're paying attention, that, you know, constantly competing for people's time, right? They could pick up their phone, they could go watch tv, they could do whatever. So you got to make sure you keep it interesting. And you want them sort of mentally and emotionally open to hearing and accepting what you're saying, at least considering the information once they get there. Stories are amazing. Stories do all of these things. They're powerful, they hook your attention, they open your mind, they give you an example. You know, that's the other thing. You know, the story that you're going to pick for each of these chapters is going to, you know, it's. It's going to Sort of set the table for them, and it's going to give them an example. And, you know, we're terrible at definitions. If I ask you to give me the definition of a book, it's going to be like some bound pages and there's some words. Give me an example of a book. Harry Potter, like, we're really good at examples. And that's what stories are. At the beginning of your chapter, it's a story that is an example that illustrates and reinforces the main point, the teaching point of your chapter. So now, you know, we're just in the book plan process. We're just going to put a couple, like a word or a small phrase that reminds me of, this is the story I want to use to start that chapter when I go to write the book. We're doing all this advanced work now because it's really hard to do all of these things while you're writing. And like, again, book takes a long time. By the time you get to writing chapter 12, it may, you know, six months may have gone by and you, you know, you don't want to go, like, now, what story was I going to use to hook my reader? You know, what was, you know, what were their concerns, you know, with the book plan? You have all that right there. And when you go to sit down to write that day, you know, you don't have to spend 15 minutes going, now what was I going to write about? Where did I. It's like, boom. You look at your outline, it tells you, this is what I'm writing about today. And you pick up where you left off. So for the story hooks, again, we're not going to write the stories right now. We're just going like, oh, I have a story that I can use here. Now, these stories could be personal story of yours, be, you know, somebody that, you know, or could be, you know, something historical. Could be about, you know, Warren Buffett, you know, Warren Buffett story that illustrates the point that you're trying to make. They can even be hypothetical. You have to cop to them being hypothetical. Hypothetical. But, you know, just suppose and blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, again, the idea is that the story is engaging and that it relates to your topic and it gets their attention and it creates this engine that keeps the reader reading so that they, like, they want to find out what happens next. They want to find out more information. You know, they're already primed for that. And because they have a sense of what it is based upon the story, you know, they've seen it in action or they have a bigger picture of it. You know, it's not, it's not a mystery in the sense that they don't know what's going on. It's a mystery that they're on of connecting these dots that you're laying out for them to help them solve their problem. And it's, you know, it shows your solution in practice. And again, that's what we call proof in the pudding, you know, so determine your hooks now and then you don't have to, to think about them later. So once we've done all that, once we've done the questions and, you know, the teaching points and the statements, all that stuff, you know, now we come to the outline, right? This is where we got to tie it all together. It's the biggest part of the process, is already done. That's the beauty of the book launcher, book process, book book plan, process is that none of it is just busy work. It all builds on each of it. So by the time you get to the end of the process, you have your outline, you have everything you need. It's all there in one document. It's single document, keeps you focused on who your book's for and talks, you know, you know what they need to hear from you. You know, how to present your ideas in a way that they can hear them, in a way that they will resonate with them. You know, again, this idea of resonating is, you know, we want their interest. Oh, that sounds like it's for me. We want them to buy it. Oh, it is for me. You know, we want them to read it. This is interesting. It's helping me. You know what, I'm going to go and apply what I've learned. And you know what? It worked. I have to go tell people about it. That's what we mean by resonate. So, yeah, the book launcher's book plan is just basically it has the whole structure of your book in one place, contains all the advanced thinking that you need so that you can just focus on the writing. I don't know any writers who can do all the thinking and the writing at the same time. It's just, it's two different functions for your brain. It's exhausting. So if you sort of batch process that stuff, if you will, the thinking first and then the writing next, it's. It's much easier to do it that way. Like I said, you don't have to decide, oh, what am I writing today? It's right there. You know, it helps you do whatever you, you need to do that day and you're not questioning. You don't spend time, waste wasting time going like, how do I do that? You know, what am I supposed to do, do? It's all there, it's all right there. And then the book plan actually helps you down the road when it comes time to like market your book talk, you know, to produce it, you know, what does the COVID of a book like this look like? Well, who's the book for? Okay, now we know. Less interested in your topic, more concerned about who the book is for. That's going to be huge in determining your cover. And we all know that covers are hugely important when it comes to marketing a book. Same thing with, you know, the marketing I talked about. You know, you can do advertising and things like that and you know, those things are great. To do them though, you gotta know who you're talking to. Who is this book for? Where do they hang out? Whether it's online or in the real world. You know, the thing like the hook and all that stuff, all of the book plan stuff comes into play. It's like a starting point for your marketing. Like I said, it clarifies things in so many ways. For you, the writer, for the person who is designing the layout of the book or the COVID for the people who are going to be, you know, helping market the book. Or, you know, it's just, it's, it's, it's time well spent, I guess is the best way to say it. You know, and I think that's, you know, that's kind of the whole process. You know, like I said, the main thing I want you to remember is that, you know, it's not what is a book about, it's who is a book, you know, who's it for. And remember, you know, about lives on the back cover for lives in their hearts. If you can remember that and you know the book plan, then can help you figure out how do I reach those hearts, how do I speak to them in such a way that I can help them, you know, with whatever they're facing? And that's kind of, that's kind of the process in, in a high level view. I don't know if we have any questions yet or.

We do. Yes, we do. And I think if people have more questions, they can post them in the chat. I think before we do that, we should go ahead and give away another prize.

Why not?

So that way people can do that. And I don't know, I wasn't planning on this. I don't know if you have one prepped. I know sometimes you like to sneak in like skill testing questions or anything like that. Did you want to do anything like that or do you want to just do the normal giveaway tool that I was originally planning, but I don't know.

Yeah, I'm just. I'm just trying to think. Nothing off the top of my head.

We could do that. I'll let you think. I'll do the giveaway tool now. And if you. For the last prize, if you want to do a fun thing aside from the giveaway tool, let me know and we can do it. Okay, well, let me pull this back up and we are going to get the right live stream. Oh, we've got some more questions coming in. Great. Okay, well let me share this first and we will pick a new winner. So let us see who it's going to be today. And Gary, if you do happen to win again, I am going to redraw just that we can have multiple winners. Heather, fantastic. Well, Heather, I think you were here at the beginning. We've got several different prizes that you can choose from. So please email me at Team T E A M book launchers.com let me know which prize you would like And I will of course need your mailing address, please. Okay, so let me stop sharing again. Do stick around to the end because we will do another prize at the end. So let's go through some of these questions. Chad, I'll put them on the screen for you.

Okay.

First up is from. Is that the first one? Yes, it is the first one. This is from Daniel. Could you help with a rewrite, slash republishing a memoir, adding to a current bitcoin book on a quote, a purpose for the book?

Yeah, absolutely. It's the same sort of. You kind of re engineer the process, but I have done it. The biggest obstacle is people not wanting to do that because they've gotten so far along. But there's ways, you know, we still have to. You do the question part and the clarification part and then you kind of figure out like, oh, you know, the things that I have there. Do they do already, do they map to those concerns? You know, memoirs are a little bit different. This is kind of for prescriptive, but it is somewhat the same process. For memoir. People read memoirs for a different reason. You know, they read them first of all for information like you would prescriptive, but they also read them for sort of, you know, entertainment adventure. They want to explore different worlds and want to live Vicariously, Certainly if somebody's going, you know, their memoirs about something they're going through, they're looking for, well, how did this person deal with that? So there is that helpful element to it. It's a little bit different on the questions that we go in terms of a memoir. The issue you always want with a memoir, the biggest issues you don't want to come across as. And then this happened. And then this happened. And you know, really with a memoir, the book plan process is designed to sort of figure out that arc of that story. But it can absolutely be, you know, sort of re engineered or retrofitted to an existing manuscript. There may be some work to be done, but it is a very helpful process. You know, like I said, the only issue I've run into with it is that people are so married to their manuscript the way it is, that they're kind of resistant. Usually I can break them down and show them why this would help them. Even if they choose not to go with what we find, definitely they have a better understanding of who they're writing for and that helps them down the road with marketing. But yeah, it can absolutely be sort of retrofit to any book, including a memoir.

Chad is, is king at like chipping away and breaking people down from some of these things. He's excellent, excellent at it. So we have full confidence. Okay. He also asked, do you have to state what your book is going to.

Do for the reader at some point? Yeah. And it may not be that promise of the book part, like that statement may just be for you, but yeah, at some point in the book, usually in the introduction and in the first chapter, you're gonna, you're gonna be pretty explicit about that. It certainly it is going to be on the back cover, but yeah, that, that some, some version of that promise is going to be, you know, going to, needs to be there. And I would go even farther to say that, you know, we talked about those teaching statements. Every chapter needs to have a statement basically like, that's what this chapter is about. You know, when I'm, when I get a new written manuscript, the first thing I do is I go through and I look for that, that sentence. Again, we're talking about prescriptive non fiction, not necessarily memoir or something like that. But you know, this is, you know, 12 steps to real Estate Success. Okay. So each of those chapters, they're better. There needs to be a very clear cut statement in there of what this chapter is about. If I, you know, I go through, I try to find it If I can't find it, I send it back to the author and ask them to, like, highlight it for me because I couldn't find it. Nine times out of 10, it's not in there. And that's why the book doesn't. Doesn't sing, because it doesn't have that clarity there. And again, that always kind of goes back to what does the reader need to hear? Usually that's a sign of. This is what, as an author, this is what I want to talk about with no thought, understandably, because most people don't do it that way. But no thought to what does the reader? What are their concerns? What are their needs? What are their fears? Those are the big three things that we focus on. And so usually when that statement's not in there, it's because it's just not. Not putting the reader first. And we haven't really been taught to write that way. You know, what do you want to write about? What's your idea again? What's your book about? That's. That's kind of how we go about it. And it's not completely wrong, but it just leaves out the other half of the equation. It's great that you want to talk about that, but who wants to hear it? And once you know who wants to hear it, how can you say it so that. That it, you know, that it jibes with them, that it electrifies them, that it gets them to want to do something? So, yeah, I would say, yeah, you know, I have sort of a template that introduction should have. You know, one of the things it's going to have is, you know what this book. If you read this book, you know what it's going to do for you. It also has caveats, like, if you only read half the book, it's not going to work, or if you don't do this, it's not going to work. You know, so I just build in those caveats too, which is, you know, because it's not just reading the book, right? They've got to apply what's in the book for it to really help them with whatever they're facing. So I hope that answers that question.

And I think Chad's done several live streams for us in the past. I'll see in a moment if I can pull some of the past ones, because I think, Chad, you have talked about identifying your ideal reader or writing for your ideal reader, something like that. So I think you have. And if you haven't, then I know Julie has videos on this for sure. So I'll do some digging in just a minute with this next. Next question. Okay, so I think these are all the same questions. Let me put up the first one. My book is primarily for those who are in a state of unpeacefulness because of the bad effects had on them for no apparent cause or reason, primarily other people, but with reason for everything being, oh, this is another part. Something innately of interest to every human who is a human because of the reasoning we possess. Do I start the book addressing everyone after I address my primary audience or t. Or address everyone? At first.

I would only address my primary audience. In fact, as you're writing the book, I would take it even narrower. I would have. Again, you heard me use the phrase your ideal reader, not ideal readers. Ideal reader. You know, you may have heard this before, but, you know, try to write for one person and that one ideal reader, that one person is. You're going to know who that is based upon the series of questions in the book plan. You know, who's your. Who's your book for? But, yeah, I. And I would only address that person. It's the old thing about, like, if you're for everyone, then you're for nobody. But if you're for somebody, then, you know, it's. It could be for everybody. I'll give you an example. There's a book called. What is it? Playing Big, I think is the name of it. It's a book for women in just. I think it's business women, but it's about, you know, not sort of, you know, don't. Don't play small. Play big. Go big. Don't. Don't hide yourself. Get out there, you know, really push for your ideas. All this stuff. That book's not written for me, but I heard a lot of women talking about how great that book was. So I was like, I gotta check it out again. Wasn't written for me, wasn't marketed to me. There were a lot of things in there that were applicable in my life, but I'm not a businesswoman. And so it would have done them no good to speak to me, to market to me. It just so happens that the book was really good. And I heard about it, word of mouth and went, oh, maybe there's some stuff in there for me at the very least, you know, for my profession. I got to see what's so great about this. Just personally. There were some things in there that I could pull out of there. You know, we all have those moments when we're timid. How do you how do you overcome that, being timid and really, you know, push for your ideas? How do you really, really push for yourself, represent yourself? And so, you know, the lesson there is like, they weren't talking to me and if they would, it would have been a waste of time because they may or may not have gotten to me. But they wrote a book that was so good for the people they were talking to that people were everywhere, were talking about it, and that's how it got to me. So I would address the people you're talking to and I would only address those people. That's who you're going to market to. That's who you're going to want to, you know, to read that book. I think that, you know, hopefully that that answers your question. There were a lot of, you know, some abstract concepts in your question. So again, without being, getting into the specifics of what it's about, you know, focus on, on, on who is really going to be helped by your book in a specific, you know, particular sense. And then, you know, you do a good job of that. Other people are going to jump on board.

I was muted so you guys wouldn't hear me typing, trying to find all those videos. So I found them, I posted them in the, in the chat. Thank you for that. So we have only one other question so far that I've seen. This is any guidance on how to ensure it resonates with both beginners and tech savvy readers? Oh, I'm sorry. She had said that her book is about people who feel late or left out of the AI conversation. So with that in mind, any guidance on how to ensure it resonates with both beginners and tech savvy readers? Without diluting the message, I think you.

Focus on that common ground between them, which is I'm late to the party. You know, their fear, their concern is that they've already missed out if I'm not tech savvy, if I'm a beginner, you know, I feel like it's way too far gone if I am tech savvy. For some reason I have, I kind of, I'm a little late to this party. So I would focus on those concerns. And that's, you know, you're going to. Because essentially they're both the tech savvy people may, you know, know how to use certain interfaces better or things like that. But the core issues of how do I, you know, leverage AI for me, how do I make it work for me, you know, what's, and how do I keep up with what's going on, those issues, you know, your beginners are going to get a little more tech savvy. And your tech savvy people may be tech savvy, but they're, they're basically beginners. You know, if your book is for people who are, feel like they're late to the party, to AI, that's the common ground. That's the thing that you would, you would speak to, you know, that's who your book is for, people who feel like they're late to the. Late to the party. Like with the leather working thing, you know, there could have been some people who were beginners, some people who had been doing leather working as a hobby for years. You know, the book was for both those people. And you may, there may be some sections where you kind of go, now if you're beginning, you may want to look at this. You're tech savvy. This might be something to try. But the overall messaging, the overall book is, is, is geared toward people who feel that they are late to the party on AI and that's really what you focus on. That's what you keep hammering on.

Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Well, Chad, I think that's it so far. So we do have another prize to give away. Did you want to do a, a fun question or something? Sure, sure.

Yeah. It's from the, the presentation. But what are, I guess one of the three things that we're trying to find out for who the book is for, you know, our ideal reader. What are, what are one of the three things that, that we're trying to figure out so that we can speak to them? What, what are those things? I've said them a million times. So.

So if they don't get it, then. Well, if you guys enjoyed this while you are typing it out. So we'll go with the first person to get the correct answer. We'll say if you guys are interested in this, you know, Chad was talking about book planning and we do have book planning here as he alluded to. So if you guys are interested in this and you'd like to learn more, you are welcome to email me directly at TeamokLaunchers. Again, that's T E A M book launchers dot com. If you are coming directly from this live stream, you can remind me of that. We can put a fun hashtag in the email, like hashtag Chad rocks. And I'll know for sure. Okay, well, we, I don't know if it's my Internet. I haven't seen any of the questions or Any answers come in. So I don't know. You guys were too busy listening and not. Not taking notes. It's like me, it's like you have to take notes in school. You got to take notes and meetings. Otherwise afterwards, like wait a minute. I know, I know that there was something needed to catch.

Well, I'll go ahead and give the answer and then you can go ahead and do the spinny thing. But again, we're looking for your readers concerns, their needs and their fears. What are they concerned with, what do they need and what are they afraid of? You start talking to those three things, you know, then you're, then you're getting. You're writing a book. That's for someone, for someone who has those concerns, those needs and those fears. You know, you were talking about the some available, you know, working with me on a book plan. I think we have two openings in October and two openings in November. If people are interested. Just want to mention that. So.

No, yeah, I'm glad, Jake, because all I said was that they were curious, they could email. I didn't know that there was any sort of openings or limitations. So I'm glad that you mentioned that. So yeah, if you guys are interested, start typing in that email to me really quickly. Okay, well, let me re pull up our giveaway tool and we are going to do this for the last time today. Choose the correct live stream and. Alrighty, let's see who this last winner is today. Kevin, I'm gonna laugh if it's you tuning in late, but Kevin, you are always a winner, I swear. Oh, Matilda. Yay. Awesome, Matilda. Well, please email me at Team T A M book launchers.com let me know which prize you would like as well as your mailing address. Because I don't have telepathy. That would help me a lot with my, with my job, but I don't have that. So please let me know mailing address and what you guys would like. Oh, and I guess people weren't watching live because here are some of the. Some of the answers. Well, that makes sense. Okay, well we are going to go ahead and call it for today. Thank you guys so much for being here. I think we had like 20 people here live at one time. 20 or 21, which is actually pretty awesome. That is a good amount. So, so thank you guys so much for tuning in. Thank you Chad for being our guest host for today. It's always so lovely to have you on here. So thanks for all the prep work that you guys did for that you guys got a glimpse of just how awesome and in depth he is with this and truly just his expertise, because I can spout things off, but there is a gift that Chad has for really pulling this out of authors. So it's really cool to get to see that on display. It's certainly not something I can do. I work with spreadsheets and numbers and mailing out prizes. I'm not doing the things that Chad is doing. So thank you guys so much for being here. Have a lovely rest of your Tuesday, and we will see you guys next week. Thank you, everyone.

Bye.