Is Your Book Good Enough to be Published?

0:00Welcome to the Self Publishing School podcast. These show for aspiring authors and writers who want to publish a book that actually builds their business and their life. Every episode you'll hear from top authors and everyday people just like you who are doing it at the highest level. I'm your host, Chandler Polt, the founder and CEO of Self Publishing.com, where we've helped over 7,000 authors write, publish, and launch their book successfully. Let's get into it. Is your book good enough to be published? Today we're talking about five signs that your book has a shot. If you have one of these green lights, you should publish your book. This is a question that you've probably asked before. We certainly get asked this question dozens of times a day by aspiring authors or by people who are working with us. Now spoiler alert, one of the signs isn't that your manuscript needs to be finished. The common misconception is that my book's got to be finished for it to be published worthy. No, obviously if you're even if you're shopping to a traditional publisher, they just want to know that you've got a plan to sell that book. And it's

1:02certainly doesn't need to be finished for you to book a call with our team and for you to sign up to work with us. Sign number one, you've lived what you're writing about. Okay, let's talk nonfiction, an fiction. Most of this video is catered to nonfiction, but obviously if you're teaching a thing to other people, you need to have done that thing. And if you have done that thing, that's a really good sign. Now you don't have to be the world's greatest expert. You don't have to be a deck of millionaire. You don't have to be Elon or Oprah. You just have to know a little bit more than the person that you're teaching. And if you have done that, if you've if you're writing the book to your previous self, that was you two months ago, you a year ago, that's great. That's proof. You've got receipts because proof is better than good writing for nonfiction books. If you can just definitively say, Hey, look, I've done this thing and better yet, I've done this thing and I've helped a bunch of other people do this thing. Here's the process. Here's the proof. People are instantly going to listen. Now what does this mean for fiction? In the fiction world, you are a reader of the genre that you're writing in. And so you understand how that genre works.

2:06You understand the expectations of that genre. I'm not going to get into a bunch of fiction stuff here, but you got to write to read your expectations. You got to write to genre. If you don't do that, you're making a huge mistake. You're going to think that you're the exception to the rule. You're not go check our fiction training, especially we got a video popping off on the channel about the fundamentals of a good story. Okay, so you got to understand a story, understand your genre. Sign number two that your book's got a shot. You've defined the four piece. What are the four piece? The four piece are person pain, promise, price. So you're getting to find at least three of these up front, preferably before you start writing. Now this is where I think people think, oh, that's in the marketing or that's after the fact or whatever else. The marketing starts before the marketing starts and you need to get clear on these things before you start writing. It's going to lead to a faster book is going to lead to a better book. This is a big part of the reason why some of the people that we help the most who work with us start working with us before they've started

3:06writing, which again, I've seems obvious to me, but I think a lot of people for whatever reason, they think they need to have their book done. So the person, you need to identify one real person in your life that you're writing this book to and then I want you to write this book as if you're writing a letter to that person. Every decision that you make around voice, around story, around everything will come back to this. So this is one of the big struggles that people have when they're in the writing process is, should I be funny? Should I be serious? Should I tell this story? Should I not? Well, if you define a single person that you're writing to, let's say it's Susie, I'm writing to you Susie. Okay, well then every decision that I make, should I be funny or serious? Well, how would I say this to Susie? Should I tell the story or not? Well, what I tell about to Susie, right? So every question gets answered if you write to a specific person. Now you got to identify the pain that they have that they know that they have because you're writing to that pain. You're going to call out that pain in the title and the subtitle and the first chapter, the introduction, right? We've got a book outline template. There's links probably in the description. You can

4:07download that and it walks you through the steps to write a good introduction. A big part is calling out the pain and then twisting the knife. Well, why do you do that? Because they need to be compelled to read the rest of the book. Because you know that if they read the rest of the book that you can solve that pain through the compelling promise that you're making, but you've got to call out that pain and articulate that pain better than they can. And if you do that, they're going to assume that you have a solution. I'll circle back to this because this is a fundamental part of our One-Page Launch Plan. Do this upfront. That's sign two. Sign number three. You focus on helping the audience not yourself. This is a big one. If you're writing a book for your ego, if you're writing a book for to heal your childhood wounds, if you're writing your book to, I don't know, blast your family or your narcissistic ex that you just feel like wronged you and you've got to get the truth out in this book. That book is going to suck. No one is going to care. Now, if it's just free

5:08therapy, awesome. Most people want to have an impact beyond just your trauma and even just yourself. So you've got to write a book that focuses on the audience and how you can help them. It doesn't matter if it's a memoir. Memoir is not about you. It's about the themes in your story that can help the audience. If you're writing self-help, obviously that's not about you. That's about the audience. So if you just want to grandstand, if you just want to beat your chest, if you just want to say how awesome you are, it's not going to be that good. You got to focus on helping the audience. All right. Let's go number five and then I'm going to come back to number four, which I think is the most important. So number five, your idea is extremely niche and specific. That's a sign. The big time green flag. The audience is so small. This is so niche. Would anyone even read this? If you're asking those questions, that is a great sign. The riches are in the niches. So you've got a niche down. And especially in today's world with AI, Slop, with generic books, all the things. You can't just write the generic catch all self-help book. Or I guess you can, but it's not in a

6:12cell because no one cares. So if you think about my very first book, the book is called The Productive Person. I wrote that book at 19 years old with no audience. Nothing. It made thousands of dollars a month. I dropped out of school. It paid the bills. Why did that book work so well? Well, two reasons. One, I marketed it like crazy. But then firstly, it was extremely niche and extremely specific. So the book is called The Productive Person. So you might think, oh, this is just a productivity book. Yeah. And there's a bajillion productivity books. So we knew if we're going to stand out, we need to be specific. We need to write to a specific person with a pain to make a promise. And so the subtitle talks about this is for entrepreneurs who control your own schedule, who struggle with work-life balance and a specific habits and routines that you can use to help with that. Now, all of a sudden, we just got really niche. We were in a category of one, or at least a category of a few. And we made it clear who we're for and who we're not for. So that the people who we are for bought the book in droves. We got example after example after example

7:14of this with customers in our program. People who have worked with us, one of my favorite stories to tell here is Bill Soroka. He wrote a book for mobile notaries. That was the first time I ever thought that someone might write a book whose two niche. But then look the book up. It's got over a thousand reviews. It created a six-figure business. He's speaking like crazy. He owns the category all because he got extremely niche and extremely specific. And so if you're thinking about this, if you're wrestling with your idea, when in doubt niche down, your book needs to be so niche that it kind of makes you want to poop your pants because you're scared that there's nobody who will read this. That's sign number five. Now number four, again, I think this is maybe the most important sign you're committed to marketing the book. If you're committed, if you understand that the person in charge of marketing the book is you. Okay, listen to me. It's not a publishing company. It's not some random person that you pay. So many authors make this mistake. They say, oh yeah, the marketing, I'm just going to hire someone for that. I don't need to do that. If I

8:19build it, they will come. No, they won't. Okay, if you care about this book, if you want to help people with this book, if people leave that this book can change someone's life, well, you can't change your life if they don't read the book. They can't read the book if they don't buy the book and they can't buy the book if they don't know about it. And guess what? Knowing about it means you. You are committed to marketing that book. We call it the one year launch, not the one week launch. Okay, so you got to be committed. This is the ultimate green flag. If if you're committed and coachable, one of the biggest sides that we look for is that they're committed to marketing the book and they're coachable. If you are, we can help with all this other stuff. We can coach you to define the four P's. We can help you niche down your idea. We can make sure that you're focusing on the audience and not yourself. And we can distill your story so that you're writing about the things that you've actually lived out. But if you are not a yes to this, it's the book's not going to sell. If you want this book to make an impact and if you want this book to make an income, especially if you want this book to grow your business, you got to be the captain of your ship here and market

9:23the book like crazy. So those are the five signs that your book has a shot. If you watch this video all the way to Emily, then that's a sign that you need to get this book done. So there's two ways that we can help you. Number one, scroll below, click the link, book a call with my team. We'll map out a strategy for your book and we'll walk through how we can help. Number two, obviously, you can comment below. We read and respond to every single comment. I'd love to hear your takeaways. Subscribe to the channel. We just hit a hundred thousand subscribers. I don't know if you can see that back there on YouTube. So thank you guys for subscribing to the channel. The next video, I think you're going to like. If you think your book's got what it takes, then I want you to watch that we got this video. It's called the One Page Launch Plan. You need to fill out this page. It's going to make you exponentially more successful with your launch. So check out this video and fill out the One Page Launch Plan. I'll see you there. That's a wrap on this episode. Thank you for spending your time with us. It means a lot. Now,

10:25before you go two things that will be really helpful for you and for us and for even for other aspiring authors. Number one, if you got value from this episode, subscribe to the podcast right now wherever you're watching or listening so that you don't miss a future episode. And if you really loved it, leave her a view. It takes 30 seconds. It's the single best way to help other people find this show. If you're an author, you know how important reviews are. And then number two, come find us on self publishing.com's Instagram. Follow us there. That's where we release content every single day to inspire your author journey. And if you're ready to work with our team on your book, just send us a DM with a word ready and our team will reach out. We'll learn more about your book. We'll create a custom plan and help you get started. We've helped over 7,000 authors or aspiring authors just like you get their book published and working for their business. Let's make yours next. We'll see you on Instagram and we'll see you in the next episode.