The 10-Minute Method to Pick Your First Book Topic
24 Oct 2025 · 5 min
Shelley Hitz walks through a 10-minute method to find your first book topic: spend five minutes on problems you've solved, three minutes on a spiritual breakthrough, then two minutes asking what message you'd regret leaving unsaid. The test is whether you'd write it in 90 days.
Questions this episode answers
90 minutes
15 minutes a day
podcast
50% off
If I had only 90 days to write and publish one book, which message would I not want to leave unsaid?
Chapters
Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelli Hitz.
This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.
Still spinning your wheels trying to figure out which book to write first? Well, let's end that right now. In this quick training, I'll walk you through a simple process to help you confidently choose your first book topic, even if you've been overthinking it for months. Hi, my name is Shelly Hitz. I'm the founder of Christian Book Academy and I talk to writers all the time who are overwhelmed with ideas.
Who.
We tend to be idea people. Right. And I get it. You've got a message to share and multiple directions you could go. But when everything feels important, nothing gets written. So here's a step by step method to help you choose your book topic in 10 minutes or less. I want you to get out a timer and a journal and actually do this process. And I really believe you're going to have more clear. So first, set a timer for five minutes and ask, what problems have I overcome and I could help someone else with? So this isn't your entire life. It's not your entire life experience. Just choose one breakthrough. But right now, I want you to brainstorm any idea and every idea that you can think of. And these are your first ideas. The second step is to set a timer for three minutes. And now I want you to choose a breakthrough. You've already walked through with God, so you're not still in the middle of it. If it's still fresh or raw, it might be too soon. But if God has brought you through to the other side, that's a message you can share with clarity and confidence. So those are the type of ideas to start with first. And then finally step number three. Set a timer for two minutes and you're going to test all the ideas you've written down with this question.
If I had only 90 days to.
Write and publish one book, which message would I not want to leave unsaid? That's the one. That's the book you write first and ask God. We always say partner with God. So in this final step, ask God what? Which of these books would I not want to leave unsaid? The good news. You don't need to write everything you know. You just need to start with one thing that you've lived through. If this gave you clarity, then I've got something even better for you. We have a workshop called the Book writing lab. It's 90 minutes where I walk you step by step through choosing your book topic, outlining your book and creating a plan to actually finish it. You'll walk away with your book mapped out and momentum to get it done so you can go to bookwritinglab.com so you can get the clarity that you need today.
If you're ready to take a step of faith and finally finish your book, we have a few ways we can help you. First of all, you can join our Free Writing Week challenge to create a writing habit in just 15 minutes a day. Thousands of writers have taken this over the years and it is incredible the progress that you'll see. So join us@writingweek.com and again, this is completely free.
Inside our Book Writing Lab workshop, you.
Can choose your book topic, write an outline and create a writing plan in just 90 minutes so you'll finally feel confident that you'll actually finish your book. Get started@bookwritinglab.com and finally you can get more support and personalized feedback from myself and our team by joining Christian Book Academy. Because the honest truth is most writers stay stuck and never finish their first draft. But inside Christian Book Academy, we help you partner with God to write your book so you can become a published author.
So finally ditch your self doubt and.
Take a step of faith so so you can finish your book. Join Christian book academy@christianbookacademy.com and get 50% off your first month by using the Coupon code podcast at checkout. There's a special coupon code for our podcast listeners.
We love you.
So come over to ChristianBookAcademy.com, use the coupon Code podcast and we look forward to working closely with you.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you as a Christian writer have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.
And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom writers.