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How to Outline a Non-Fiction Book · The Daily Writer

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Rider.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Each weekday, we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer: creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers and teaching that helps us apply what we're learning.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailywriterlife.com.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as I talk to writers, one of the most frustrating parts of the book creation process seems to be creating an outline.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people have great ideas for books and they're really motivated to tackle the writing and the publishing aspects, but the outline seems to give people a lot of trouble because creating an outline feels like this mysterious, vague kind of process.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So on this episode, I want to walk you through a simple five-step roadmap for outlining a standard nonfiction book.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the exact process I walk through with my ghostwriting clients whenever we are crafting their books.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, when I go through this with clients, it's it's really extensive and we go really deep into their business and their goals and their audience and things like that.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: So this is obviously going to be really abbreviated, but I think this is going to be really helpful for you just to give you a basic kind of five-part framework for how to develop a standard nonfiction book outline.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, first, I want to throw a few questions out there.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to put the questions out there, then I'm going to answer them because I'm pretending like you're here in my home office as I record this, and I'm pretending like people are asking me these questions because I'm imagining these are a few questions that you would ask as we go over this topic.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive into a few questions before I get into the five steps.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, what is a book outline?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know that sounds like a super um elementary kind of question, a very, very basic question, but to make sure we're on the same page, here is what a book outline is.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: An outline is the scaffolding or the framework that's the backbone of your book.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I prefer to think of an outline as the journey the reader's going to take in order to solve a problem.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I look at this whole process of outlining.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I look at the whole process really of constructing a book as you're taking someone on a journey.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if you keep that metaphor of a journey in mind as you create an outline and as you work on your book, that really helps because remember, the book is not about you.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: The book is about the reader and what you're going to do for the reader.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that really helps eliminate, I think, a lot of the fear and anxiety that people have whenever they're trying to create book outlines.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And really just whenever they're thinking about doing a book in the first place, it's not about you.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, it's completely about the reader and what you can do for them, particularly as we talk about nonfiction.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, still, when you're writing fiction, you're still obviously serving the reader, but you're doing it through obviously a made-up story.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Any way you slice it, though, we're there to serve the reader.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: So remember that you're taking the reader on a journey, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, you're still taking them on a journey of some kind.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So a book outline is the scaffolding.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like the mile markers, if you will, of the journey that you're going to take that reader on.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Second question is why should you use a book outline?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the reason that a book outline is so important is because an outline makes writing a lot easier because you can see where you're going.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: An outline also gives you the big picture of the whole book and it ensures that you're serving your reader in the best way possible.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: So again, let's go back to the journey metaphor.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: You would probably never let's say you're going to go hiking in the mountains and you hire um, no, let's say you're going to go to Mount Everest.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love stories of Mount Everest.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I always have.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say you go to Mount Everest and you hire a guide and you get part way up, you know, you get to like base camp two, and the guide is like, hey, uh, we're going to keep on going up the mountain, but I've never actually done this.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just going to see if we can find the best route and hope for the best.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, of course, that would be a horrible guide to go up the face of Mount Everest on this long, treacherous journey.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're going through the process of constructing the journey that you're going to take your reader on, you want the reader to have confidence that you know where you're taking them.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: So an outline helps you accomplish that.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: It takes the guesswork out of where you're taking the reader, but it also takes the guesswork out of where you're going as you construct the actual book.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Question number three is when should you outline the book?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: At what part of the book writing process should you outline?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was going to say the obvious answer, but it's not always so obvious because some people just write, you know, they'll they'll write tens of thousands of words with really no outline or no clear direction, which I guess is better than nothing, but it's so much easier if you outline at the beginning of the book writing process.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because you're going to be way more efficient in your use of time if you create that outline and then you know where you're going as you write the book.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you're in the weeds of writing, when you're writing those chapters and you're writing those stories and you're editing and you're going through that whole process, it is really, really easy to get lost in the details.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're kind of like lost in the weeds or you're lost in the forest, whatever nature metaphor you want to use there.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Be that as it may, when you're in the weeds of the details of writing and editing the book, it's easy to lose sight of the whole big picture.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the outline is always going to bring you back to the big picture.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like on Google Maps, you can zoom in to a real specific place, but you can also zoom out and you can see the big picture all at once, which is so helpful.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So if you know that large view up front before you actually start writing the book, then even when you feel lost in the weeds of the writing and editing process, you can zoom out and you can just know at any given time, here's where I am in the process.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then the fourth question I want to throw out there before we get into the five steps is this what type of nonfiction book should you write?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I've said already in this episode that we're talking about a what I'm calling a standard nonfiction book.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I get the fact that there's really no such thing as a standard book because books come in all shapes and sizes and all kinds of links and for all ages and genres and so forth.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: However, that being said, the kind of book that I tend to write for clients is just what I call a standard nonfiction book.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And what I'm talking about here is a book that's around 150 pages, which is going to be somewhere between 40 and 45,000 words, give or take.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And there's obviously a lot of leeway there.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I would say anything really between like 140 pages and 100 and 160 or 170 pages, you know, somewhere between 35,000 words and 55 or 60,000 words.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: That is a really good range for a standard nonfiction book.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is that a book of that length is long enough to demonstrate your expertise and long enough to give a lot of great content, but it's also short enough not to intimidate the reader.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, unless you're Stephen King, less is almost always more when it comes to book length.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: I am a huge fan of brevity.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a huge fan of getting in and getting out and making your point and then leaving the reader wanting more.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's always better to leave the reader wanting more than it is to give them too much.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know as writers, sometimes we feel like, oh, more length in a book is better or a longer article is better.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it might be better for SEO purposes, but you know, ultimately, again, we're there to serve the reader.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think honestly, the best way to serve the reader is to be brief when you can.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Make your point and then get out and keep the reader moving through your book.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I think all this is important because knowing what you're shooting for up front and knowing what type of book you're gonna write is a massive help whenever you're developing your outline.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that way you don't have to guess at what kind of book that you're writing.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, okay, going back to the length of the book, let's say 140 to 160 pages.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna say 150 pages for simplicity's sake.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: For the book outline of that type of book, I would recommend 10 to 15 chapters, which are then divided into three to four main sections of the book, usually called, you know, part one or part two or section one, section two, or so forth.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that I recommend dividing up a book this way into 10 to 15 chapters is that it keeps the chapters at a manageable length of around 2,500 to 3,500 words.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then each chapter can be divided into five to seven segments, which are 500 to 750 words each.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if I just totally confused you with the math, rewind it 30 seconds and listen to that again.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you might have to go over that a couple times to really get clear on what I said.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: But the basic idea is that we want to break down the book into manageable chunks when you're going through the writing and also when the person's reading the book.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: I love this way of approaching book construction because it makes it very, very doable.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone can sit down and write 500 to 750 words because that's a pretty small chunk, and you can write that in, you know, far less than an hour if you know what you want to say.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: You can dictate it in 10 minutes very easily.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: You can dictate a draft of it in 10 minutes or so if you just walk around the block and you know what you want to say.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: So that's very easy to construct a book using that way of thinking about it.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Again, kind of the big picture here is about 150 pages, 10 to 15 chapters, which are divided into three to four main sections.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the chapters are going to be 2,500 to 3,500 words long.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Each of those chapters is going to be divided into five to seven segments of about 500 to 750 words.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I approach book construction.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: It works really, really well.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is an extremely effective way to get your head around the sections that need to go into a book and how you actually construct a great nonfiction book.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me give one little more one more little caveat before I get into the five steps.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that is this.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: The steps that I want to go through in just a second, these are primarily for authors who are starting from scratch.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you already have material from your blog, from your podcast, from presentations or workshops, you can easily start from there.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So you can kind of gather your material and then build your outline from there.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: However, even if you do that, you still want to make sure and go through the following steps to make sure that you're creating a solid outline that makes sense rather than just creating a book that's a bunch of stuff that you've thrown together.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: You don't ever want to do that.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly you can bring together other material that you've created and you can craft a great book out of that, but it needs to be finessed and it needs to be structured the correct way.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just dump a bunch of info together in a book and hope that it gels together.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: This has to be a very intentional, very methodical kind of process.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way that I approach books.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I look at books basically as an assembly line.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, not assembly line may not be the right metaphor because I don't want to, I don't want to portray like this as something that's just like a very cut and paste type of a thing.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: What I do mean is that building a book is a very predictable and process-driven exercise that I think any intelligent person can do, including you and I.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in here.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Five steps to crafting a solid book outline.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Step number one is determine who your ideal reader is and the problem you're trying to solve for them.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a huge step all by itself, but the bottom line is that you have to have a clear idea about your topic, your ideal reader, and the change that you want to help them achieve as a result of reading your book.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that a book is more than just a dumping ground for a bunch of information or a bunch of stories.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're taking the reader from point A to point B.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Point B represents a place where they're happier, healthier, more successful, more abundant, or whatever change you're trying to help the reader achieve.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to spend some time thinking about who is that ideal reader?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: What are they like?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where do they live?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: What is their income level?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: What's uh what things are important to them?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: What's their viewpoint on life?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what problem am I trying to solve for them?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, really super important to be clear on those things up front.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you're gonna get kind of lost in the weeds and you probably are gonna get paralyzed if you don't have a clear idea who that ideal reader is and what you're trying to help them with.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Step number two is figure out why your reader hasn't already achieved these results.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, basically, here's what this comes down to.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: In the book, you're going to use a simple sales technique where you're addressing reader objections, which I also call false beliefs.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: But first you have to understand what those objections and false beliefs are.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And these false beliefs typically fall into three different categories.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: These are false beliefs about themselves, false beliefs about the topic, and false beliefs about their environment.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me take a second to break that down.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: What do I mean by these false beliefs?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, we're talking about lies that your reader believes that has kept them from achieving the transformation you want them to experience after they read your book.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: So somebody reads your book, it takes them from point A to point B on the journey that they're going on.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: You want them to be a different person at the end of your book than they are at the beginning.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, otherwise, what's the point of reading the book if it's not going to help them address the problem or help them to change or transform in some way?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: But what is what has kept them from achieving that transformation?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's because they believe certain things about themselves or about the topic or about their environment.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: For example, here's here's some false beliefs that someone might have about themselves.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: When people say, I can't do it, it's too hard, or I've tried that before and it didn't work.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as they go through your book, they're going to be thinking those things to themselves because you're going to be suggesting action steps and you're going to be telling stories and you're going to be bringing in probably data and information and steps they can take to achieve a certain result.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: But as you're doing that, you know, our human nature is always going to throw up objections.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're always going to say, well, it's too hard, or I've tried it before and it didn't work, and those kinds of things.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: So those are false beliefs about themselves.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're also going to, they're going to believe some things that are false about the topic.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the reader might say, you know, this topic really isn't relevant to me, or I'm the exception, or I've tried this kind of program before and it didn't work, or this topic really is not important to my life.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then third, they oftentimes have false beliefs about their environment, such as my family doesn't support me, or I'll be the odd one out in my social group if I adopt these changes in my life.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, if you're doing a book on eating healthier, uh one objection that a lot of readers probably have is that if they start eating healthier, that's going to be weird if they're in a family or social group that does not eat healthy.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you're going to have to address those pain points and those false beliefs and those limiting beliefs in your book.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the basic idea here is again, figure out why your reader has not already achieved those results and think about your topic from the reader's perspective.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're just trying to put yourself in their shoes and think about the objections they're going to throw up ahead of time.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And again, this is a simple, just a very simple sales technique, really, is all that it is.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a persuasion technique.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: But what you're trying to do in a book is you're trying to persuade the reader to take action and to change their behavior or to change their life in some way.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here are a few other ways you can discover people's pain points that are related to your topic.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've got three or four things here before we move on to step three.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: You can do keyword research to learn what people are searching for related to your topic.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: There are some great keyword research tools out there that can really help you with that.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can also use a tool called brainstorm it, which is available at tools.com.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's tools.com.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: That was recommended to me by my good friend Jennifer Harshman.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: She uses it all the time in her keyword research for her clients.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you can check out that tool.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can also spend some time talking to people and your target audience to make sure that you understand their pains, their struggles, their frustrations, and obstacles related to the topic.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: So don't assume that you already know what their pains and struggles are.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's really good to talk to people and just find out where their pain points are related to your book topic.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, you can ask Google some questions related to your topic.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Just type in Google.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what are people struggling with, with whatever your topic is?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the cool thing is that whenever you ask a question to Google, it's always going to produce additional questions related to that first question, which is really cool.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, you can go down this deep rabbit hole of questions and pain points and all this stuff.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: So try not to get lost in in all the details and the um, you know, the rabbit hole, uh, as it were, because when you go down the rabbit hole of Google, sometimes you'll never come out and you'll never get your book done.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, spend some time in Google and it can really help you out.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the first two steps in crafting a solid book outline are number one, determine who your ideal reader is and the problem you're trying to solve for them.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, figure out why your reader hasn't already achieved those results.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then number three is use the reader pain points and questions and organize those into three to four major sections of three to four chapters each.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And here's how you would do that.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: I recommend taking some time to write down each of those limiting beliefs or pain points that we've talked about.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Write each of those down on a separate index card and then group those according to topic.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've done your homework and you've talked to people and you've done some research on Google and you've really thought through why people haven't achieved the transformation you want them to achieve, you're gonna have hopefully several dozen possibilities.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to write those on index cards and then sort those into piles according to the topic.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where a lot of people get hung up because they feel that they're not organized enough to tackle this kind of a thing.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I just want to tell you, this does not need to be perfect.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is okay to be sloppy.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: The important thing is just to take action and to do it.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna feel uncomfortable, you're gonna feel like you're not doing it right, you're constantly probably gonna feel like, oh, this is not very organized, but it doesn't matter.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can always change stuff later in the process.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to take action and put those suckers down on index cards, put them into piles, and then you will have a great start on how to organize your book chapters.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: So go as far as you can, and we're gonna refine this in the next couple of steps.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: So remember you're taking the reader on a journey.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: What is the most logical way to organize the chapters so it makes the most sense to the reader?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really key question.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Think of it as a journey, and how would the reader like to go through the topics that you are proposing, the chapter titles and the things that you're going to be addressing in the book?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that's step number three.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Step number four is look at similar books and your genre to ensure that you haven't left anything out.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this does not mean that you're copying what other authors are doing.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not suggesting that you do that, but what I am suggesting is that you kind of see what the competition is up to.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you have um if you have a uh furniture store in your town and then you have another furniture store down the street, I guarantee you that those furniture stores are wanting to find out what the other one's doing, what sales are they having, what kind of furniture do they have in stock, and all those kinds of things.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's just good business.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: You want to find out what your competitors are doing.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And writing a book is the exact same way.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: You want to find out what other people are saying related to your topic.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a couple of reasons for that.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is that when you do that, you're ensuring that you're covering the basis of your topic.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to leave out some major hole in the topic of your book.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And looking at other books in your field will help you make sure that you're doing that.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then number two, they're also going to help you see where your perspective is unique.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: You may have an angle or a point of view on your topic that other books don't have, which is a really great selling point.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you will also, by the way, want to bring that out in your marketing when it comes to your Amazon description, which is going to go on Amazon and on the back cover of your book and elsewhere, website, email newsletters, social media, you really want to bring out why your book is representing a unique viewpoint on your topic.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure and look at books that are your competition.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, whenever you prepare a proposal for a publisher, that is always an essential part of the proposal, is the publisher wants to know what other books are you competing against?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you're going to have to do an analysis of that.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because the publisher has to know how to position your book in the marketplace because there are other books on that topic.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: So how are they going to frame yours as a unique take on that subject?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where it's helpful to kind of take a cue from what uh what traditional publishers are doing because they're thinking about all these kinds of things, and we should too, even if we're self publishing.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Then finally, step number five in creating a solid book outline is get feedback from a few people who represent your ideal reader.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this is Key step because they will probably identify some things that you have missed.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And to keep things simple, I recommend going back to the people that you talked to in step two and asking them to review the outline.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: So remember those people that you talked to about the topic, the ones who identified their questions or struggles or pain points.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: You want to go back to those people and ask them to review your outline.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: You just say, hey, hey, Joe, I talked to you a while back about this book that I'm putting together.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you were kind enough to have this conversation with me about this topic and share with me where you're struggling with it or questions you have about it, would you be so kind as to take a few minutes and look over this potential book outline and give me some feedback?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really just that simple.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: You will be shocked sometimes at the amazing feedback that people will give you on your book outline because you're so close to the topic, you're probably going to miss some things.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: But whenever you're sharing this with people who are interested in the topic and they know something about it and they care about it, they're probably going to give you some really, really great feedback.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: So those are five steps to creating a solid book outline.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Main thing to remember here is that this is a very simple process.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: It takes some time and it's some effort, obviously.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: But if you go through these steps, creating a book outline is actually a very straightforward kind of a thing.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like, you know, if you've ever built Lego sets, you follow the directions, you follow it step by step, and pretty soon you have the finished Lego thing that you built, whether it's, you know, a house or a vehicle or whatever you're working on, you've followed the instructions and you've got a finished product.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly how a book outline is.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be intimidated by what feels like a massive book project.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you take it step by step, you're gonna get there.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the cool thing is that once you create a solid book outline, the book starts to feel like a real thing.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: That is the moment, I think, whenever it doesn't feel like kind of a vague idea, and it now feels like a real thing that is happening.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: That always happens with my clients.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can guarantee you, we take about a month when I work with a client and we really dig into their audience.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what are their business goals, what things do they want to accomplish with the book, and all those kinds of things.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: We dive really, really deep into all that stuff.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And after we've had a few conversations, uh, then I create a draft of an outline and I send it to them.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the moment where it starts to feel real to the client because now it this has gone from a collection of ideas and a bunch of conversations to something that is an actual outline in Microsoft Word or Google Docs, whatever we're using.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's pretty cool.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you can have that exact same experience when you do your book online as well.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: So remember, we still have six months left in 2021, and that is more than enough time to make some awesome headway on your book project.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: So get a jump start on your book this summer.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Come January, I think you'll be really glad that you did.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been listening to this show for any length of time, you know that one of the four practices of a great writer is creativity.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to stay creative, you've got to have great input.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where writing prompts come in.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: A writing prompt is a sentence or two that helps you break through creative blocks, brainstorm new ideas, and get back into a state of flow.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Writing prompts are an awesome creative tool for journaling, storytelling, creative writing, stress relief, social media posts, and so much more.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: But the great news is that you don't have to create these yourself.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: We've put together an amazing package of 365 daily writing prompts.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: So every day for the next year, you can have a shot of inspiration delivered straight to your inbox.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can check it out at dailywriterlife.com slash writing prompts.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.