Julie Broad (founder of Book Launchers) presents a short how-to on writing non-fiction book introductions that sell rather than bore. She criticizes common Google-sourced advice (summaries, author-focused background, long explanations) and offers five practical tips: 1) you may not need an introduction — consider starting with a strong Chapter 1; 2) start with the book's promise and be benefit-driven; 3) keep the introduction focused on the reader (even when using brief personal stories); 4) keep it short (ideally under ~500 words); and 5) include a clear call to action showing the cost of waiting. She illustrates points with Rachel Hollis examples and a fictional anger-management opener, and ends with viewer engagement prompts (comments, subscribe).
Chapters
If you Google how to Write a Book Introduction, you're going to get advice on how to write a boring introduction to your book. And the problem is this is the start of your book. This is something a potential reader will look at to decide if they even want to read your book. So many books would be better off with no introduction at all. If you want to make sure your book introduction is the best it can be before you publish your book, this video is for you. Hey, I'm Julie Book Broad, an award winning author and the founder of a fantastic company called Book Launchers. We're your fabulous professional self publishing team helping you write, publish and sell nonfiction books that grow your business and make you money. A quick Google search for how to write a book introduction lands you some advice like Number one, summarize or outline the book. Number two, provide an overview of the book with your reader hook. Number three, share why you wrote the book. Number four tell them who the ideal reader is and what the intended use or outcome is for the book. Are you still awake? Probably not, because that is a total snooze fest right there. We're all about no boring books at Book Launchers and especially important when it comes to the beginning stuff in your book. If you did a great job of your title, your cover, your book description and somebody actually flips open your book or clicks that look inside feature on Amazon, those first pages better get that potential reader pulling out their credit card or clicking that Buy Now. And the reality is, most introductions are so so author focused. They bore the reader right to sleep and they don't get the sale. So what can you do so you don't join the ranks of boring books out there? Well, first of all, don't follow that advice you get when you Google how to Write a Book introduction. Here are my five tips for writing a book selling introduction. Number one, you might not need one at all. You heard me right. Take it out and let a few beta readers see what they think. If you're following our advice for creating authority awesome chapters, you know, making that page turning book, then your first chapter probably will knock a reader's socks off and it will be a much stronger way to start your book than a boring introduction. Let's take an example from Rachel Hollis's Book Girl. Stop Apologizing. Now. If you're already a Rachel Hollis fan, you're gonna love this. But let's imagine you've never heard of Rachel Hollis before the book starts out. When I originally started writing this book, I fully planned on calling it Sorry, not sorry. And yes, I was basing that title on Demi Lovato song. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the song song was the impetus for the entire book. I'm not going to read the whole introduction to you. It's well written. But if I didn't know that Rachel Hollis is a super hot best selling author and this is a follow up book to her crazy popular girl wash her face, I don't know if I would keep reading if this was a random book I was checking out. I'd be bored and disinterested. And let me tell you, that introduction is long and that's why what I'm saying is so important. There are far more people out there that will have never heard of you than the people who have. So you need to write your introduction as though nobody knows who you are. Because in many cases that's true. That introduction just kept going on and on and on. Now compare that to how Rachel Hollis starts her chapter one of her number one New York Times best selling book girl, wash your face. I love how chapter one starts. It's everything that makes me jump up with excitement about books. Chapter title, the lie, something else will make me happy. The chapter starts, I peed my pants last week. Not full on. Peed my pants like that one time at summer camp when I was 10 years old. Come on, you want to keep reading, right? You're thinking, Julie, keep going. I want to know what happens. That's how you start a book. Your book doesn't need an introduction if you crush your first chapter and have a great book cover and description. But I get it. I'm a traditionalist too. I like a to the point intro. So here's tip number Go straight to the promise of the book. Hit them hard over the head with it. Don't make them read all about how you got to the idea for the book. Just tell them it sucks when you feel angry all the time. You get mad at your kids for asking for dinner. You yell at your dog for whining to go out to pee. And when you stub your toe, you burst like a volcano erupting. That's not a fun way to live. I know, I've been there. Once I got so mad I yelled at a stop sign for telling me to stop. But you can get calm without going to anger management. You can find joy in little things. And you can do it with just a simple technique you're about to learn in less than seven minutes a day. This is going to help You. It helped me. It's helped John. You'll need him soon. So that's how you could start a book about getting over anger. I don't have anger issues. I just made that up. I've never yelled at a stop sign, I swear. But I want you to see a great intro can be short and and really pointed and benefit driven. Tell the reader why they need to read this book. Number three, make sure your intro is all about the reader. Even if you tell a story. See in my fake intro that I just told you about yelling at a stop sign, that was a story about me so the reader could relate to. I wasn't rambling about a story about how I found enlightenment or I got inspired. It's one sentence that I tell you. I understand you're angry reader, so make sure it's about the reader. Number four, keep it short. Remember, this book is for your reader. It's intended to help them with a transformation, solving a problem, or giving them a way to achieve an important outcome or an emotional experience. Don't make them wait too long until you get to that. Finally, number five, make sure there's a clear call to action. A great intro covers the problem, offers the solution, and makes the reader realize they shouldn't wait. To make my fake intro better, I could tell them the cost of waiting. I could say, maybe you don't think you need to read this book today, but if you don't, you could be damaging your relationships beyond repair. And you're certainly missing out on a lot of love and joy that you'll be open to once you know the tricks in this book. So what are you waiting for? Calmer waters are ahead. Keep reading. That's the key. Keep reading. This is what you're gonna get if your intro is too long or too boring or all about you. You may get book sales despite it, but you'll never know the ones you miss out on. So take a look. Can you cut it out completely? Or even better, make it no more than 500 words long and all about the reader? Now I'm curious. Do you even read introductions from authors you don't know about? Let's chat about it in the comments below. And when you comment on the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some sweet book launcher swag like our no Boringbooks mug. Just like no Boring introductions. Like this. Tip. Go ahead and smash that thumbs up button. It feels so good. And make sure you subscribe to the channel and turn the notifications on so we can hang out every Tuesday and Friday when a new video comes out if you want to learn about dedications and forwards as well. Also, Beginning BookMatter, these two videos are exactly what you should watch, and really, I want you to click on them because I'm having so much fun hanging out with you and I just don't want it to end yet. I'll see you on one of those videos.
