collecting audience input

Today's post is by Lynne Klippel, a best-selling author, publisher, and book shepherd. Since 2004, she's been working with coaches, speakers, and entrepreneurs who want to write a nonfiction book to showcase their expertise and build their business.  Her business, Business Building Books, focuses on the marriage of internet marketing and publishing and has helped clients from six of the seven continents. An avid reader, Lynne used to get in loads of trouble as a kid for reading books instead of doing her chores.  Lynne lives in Missouri with her husband, three sons, a bunch of pets and tons of books.

Most new authors have a hard time believing they are writers or have anything worthwhile to say.  You might hear little voices of doubt whispering that you aren’t very interesting, creative, or don’t have the proper degrees behind your name.  These little whispers erode your confidence and make it hard to write confidently.

The best way to overcome those nagging doubts is to collect evidence that people are interested in your information.  Sally, one of my coaching clients, was starting a new book project and concerned because there were quite a few other books in her topic area.  She wasn’t sure if she could add anything new or fresh.

So, I had Sally start to experiment with her information to see what kind of a reaction she would get.  First, Sally started telling people in her networking groups that she was writing a book about her topic.  Then, she noted the number of people who asked her a question or showed interest versus how many others changed the subject.  Sally was pleasantly surprised that the majority of people seemed very interested in her topic.

Next, Sally wrote three articles about her topic, posting them on her blog and submitting them to article banks.  She watched to see how many comments she received and if her articles received many views or downloads.  This experiment gave Sally some mixed results.  She did not get many comments on her blog but two of her articles were very popular on the article banks.  This told Sally that there were people interested in her writing but they were not reading her blog or commenting on it.  She decided to drive more traffic to her blog and continue to monitor the number of comments.  They began to grow in time as more readers viewed her blog.

Finally, Sally invited some of her local clients to a free afternoon workshop where she taught the key topics from her book.  She was thrilled to have thirty people in attendance who gave her enthusiastic feedback about her information.

These three experiments gave Sally solid evidence that people were interested in and receptive to her information.  Her confidence grew and she was able to finish her book.  As an additional benefit, she used the questions that came up in her workshop to create an information product she could offer for people after they read the book.

How does this story inspire you?

Do you have any evidence to prove to yourself that your book idea has merit? 

If not, get busy and collect some. When you do, you’ll find your confidence growing and your passion for your book increasing.

If you are ready to become a successful author, capitalize on your strengths and build from there.  To identify your author strengths complete the free Author Assessment at www.BusinessBuildingBooks.com