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When someone gets a [[book]], what do they want to get out of it? [[Rob Fitzpatrick]] suggests that recommendability creates monopolies.
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What does the [[reader]] already [[know]] and [[want]]?
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- Readers like books where they already want what the writer wants them to want, so there is often no need to try to get them to want what you want them to want.
- If they already know the fundamentals of what you want to give them, there is no reason to go over the fundamentals.
- [[Focus]] the book by cutting out most [[people]] and concentrating on a few (potentially a thousand) people.
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To [[sell]], a book must promise what its intended readers would want. It must give most people who read it what they want out of it, and some of what they want is given on every page.
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Pick a [[promise]] that has a crisis associated with it, so what the [[book]] gives can immediately help with that crisis.
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- Choose a promise that will age well. [[time]]
- Which kind of [[reader]] likes to help others get useful things? Target them.
- Solve a high-[[pain]] [[problem]] for a few hundred people who tell you about it again and again.
- [[Make]] something that someone would tell someone else is the solution to the problem they are facing now.
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A Table of Contents works as a way to put what people will get out of those chapters. It is also a skeleton for your [[book]].
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- What will the [[reader]] get out of this? What will they learn from this chapter or section?
- Imagine the table of contents being used as a field reference- is it [[clear]] enough for that?
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By making the conversation about the reader’s life, you can make the book about a [[reader]]‘s life.
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- Remember: [[people]] [[care]] about characters, and in how-to nonfiction, they are the [[character]].
- What on this page would make a [[reader]] react with [[surprise]] at finding something they could use?
- The [[reader]] should find something they will immediately want to [[play]] with on every page.
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Check to see how long it is between every bit a [[reader]] would get to [[play]] with. You can do this by looking at how many words there are between these ‘playpoints’- people read at about 250 words per minute.
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- What is the word count per [[learning]] outcome?
- How many words are there before the first thing a reader can play with? How many [[words]] are there between each tidbit they can play with?
- Cutting aggressively helps with giving more of what the reader wants per page.
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Give more of what readers want at the start, because that’s when they’re most likely to stop reading.
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- Remove introductions and put anything they can [[play]] with right at the start.
- Is it possible to put everything readers would [[want]] most from the [[book]] in a [[Twitter]] thread? If it is, start the book with that Twitter thread.
- Where did the early [[reader]] get [[bored]]? What don’t they say anything about? Did they apply anything in the book to their [[life]]? Where did they disagree? Where did the advice not match their experience?
- "Their disinterest IS the data."
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