Julie Broad explains why nonfiction books need a strong hook: an outcome-of-the-outcome that shows readers the deeper benefit. She breaks down the real pain points (wasted time, failed strategies, money, loneliness) and how to connect your offer to what readers actually want, like how hair regrowth leads to confidence and better dating.
Chapters
Your book needs a hook. You have to give your reader a compelling reason to read or listen to you. They have to really want to spend four, five, six, eight hours with you. And telling them that you're going to motivate them or inspire them is not enough. Curiosity might sell a celebrity memoir, but you have to give your reader a cold, hard reason to buy. That's the hook. The outcome from the outcome you offer. But what in the heck is that? Well, if you want some extra support to figure out what you have to offer, this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of Book Launchers, a professional publishing services company helping you write, publish and promote nonfiction books. I'm also the author of three books, including Self Publish and Succeed in that Book. In chapter two, I reveal the single most important thing every nonfiction book needs to succeed. A hook. And that hook is something that speaks directly to your ideal reader, to their fears, their aspirations. It's picking up where their conversations with themselves at 2am are leaving off. It's showing them that you can help them and you know what they're going through. My favorite example to illustrate this is that your book possibly offers a hair regrowth solution. But that's not your hook telling them that you can make their hair grow back. Your hook is the dramatic improvement in your reader's dating life after their hair is covering their head and making them look 10 years younger. This means your reader isn't only a bald man. It is a bald man who is looking for love or dating and not enjoying the people who want to date them and believing that it's the receding hairline that's to blame, or the person that lacks confidence because they don't like how they look and they believe having hair is going to change them, their confidence and their career and their love life as a result. Got it. What pain matters? Well, pain. Like they're wasting time, wasting time with the wrong people. Wasting time not getting the results they want the first time, wasting time with diets that don't work. You get the picture. Apply that pain point to your reader group and what you offer. So if your story is inspirational, maybe you're going to have them stop wasting time worrying about what other people think and finally just step into their truth and be themselves. Maybe you're trying to write a book, but you're wasting time wondering if it's any good or you started to write but you lose focus. That would be a great reason to join our 12 week course, Self Publish and succeed or to get support from a writing coach. Something we also have. Check it out@book launchers.com Wasting something is a Big Pain Point Another big pain point is that what they're doing now isn't working. They're trying things to get results they want and ease their pain, save money, grow their business, build their YouTube channel, book more speaking gigs, write their book so they aren't thinking about doing something. They are doing something, but it's not working. They realize their strategy isn't hitting the mark and they're looking for another approach. When I wrote my first book, More Than Cash Flow, the audience was someone who had bought an investment property or two in real estate, but it wasn't going well. Or they were trying to get a deal done but they were struggling. The book offered a different approach to buy properties that fit with their life goals so they can enjoy their life as an investor. But it also truthfully deterred some people from ever trying real estate. And that's okay too, because real estate investing is not for everyone. The reason it wasn't working for those people, though, is that the investment strategy they were trying wasn't a good fit for them. Another pain point, besides wasting something and strategy not working, is a financial pain point. Financial pain points can be an aspirational pain point, like they aren't making the money they want or they aren't ready for retirement. Or it can be a fear pain point. They're afraid of losing their money or they're in debt and they're afraid of what's going to happen regardless. There's a financial pain point to many, many books, but knowing what's on the other side of the financial pain point is where the hook is. Is it retirement funding so that you can support your children to live life on their terms? And is it getting out of debt so that you break the cycle in your family? Is it saving for university so that you can be a doctor and save lives like the person who saved you? And finally, one more pain category to know about is the human pain. And this is big. It can be support, connection, communication. But connection and acceptance is a need we have as humans. So how do you help them get where they want to go in this human pain category? And remember that it's not only getting them away from those things, it's what that brings them to. Or you can focus on how you help them communicate their way to career success. Like Dan Fraser shares in his book Kick Ass Presentations or Steve Molter's book Nothing Gets Sold until the Story Gets told There's also other books like My Heart behind Bars by Laurie Britt where she shares her powerful and hard experience having her son go to prison and feeling the loss of her friends, community and support circle as they judged her like it was her fault as a mother. Kids don't have to be bad, have bad parents or live in bad homes to suffer mental health breakdowns, addiction or incarceration. Everything can change instantly and if it's happened to your family member, you know the emotional chaos and the feelings of losing control that threaten your various survival. So her book gives you a guide to get through that human pain. By the way, I'm so proud of Lori for sharing this story. It's really powerful. The human pain is a big bucket of pain to draw from. But remember, you have to go beyond the pain and remember what your reader wants on the other side of it and why. It's as simple, but definitely not as easy as that. For most authors, a hook is essential to sell your book. Now to create one, you need to know your reader really well. And you also need to understand what you offer and how that offer leads to what the reader really, really wants, the outcome of the outcome that you're offering. If you want more videos on hooks and how to write them, this video on chapter templates will help. And so will this oldie but goodie on what is a hook? Click on over. I'll see you there.
