- Did you know that Dr. Seuss created his book,
"Green Eggs and Ham" using this simple strategy,
and that book sold over 200 million copies?
And that same strategy actually was a bet.
Now that same strategy applied in different ways,
also led to many other best selling-books
for Dr. Seuss and many other authors.
If you want a simple strategy to write a better book faster,
then this video is for you.
(bright music)
Hey there, I'm Julie the Book Broad from Book Launchers.
We have professional self publishing team,
helping you write publish and promote a non-fiction book
that will impact your reader,
grow your business and make you money.
Our superpower is caring more about you and your book.
And what we do differently is we work really hard
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And the best part, you keep all rights
and royalties, have full control.
James Clear wrote an article on his site
that told a story of Dr. Seuss that I didn't know before.
Bennett Cerf,
the founder of the publishing firm
Random House, bet Dr. Seuss, that Dr. Seuss
would not be able to write an entertaining children's book,
using only 50 different words.
Of course, Dr. Seuss did and that book was,
"Green Eggs and Ham", which has now sold
more than 200 million copies.
He wrote, "The Cat in the Hat"
by only focusing on grade one vocabulary list,
constraints, like 50 words or a single
vocabulary
(laughs loudly)
list.
That's a tongue twister.
Constraints are powerful, and always lead
to a better book done faster,
but do the opposite of what most authors do.
Please allow me a moment to explain
before I give you the ideas of how you can use constraints
to make your book better and faster.
Here's what most authors I speak to are doing.
They'll say things like, "My book is for everyone.
"I want it to be a best seller.
"This book needs to cover all the background
"and all the history so people understand
why this message is important."
Or, "I want the book to be the best it can be
however long that takes."
Or, "I just need to tweak it and read it
just one more time."
Or, "I'm gonna write my book when I get time."
Or, "I wanna launch it when it's ready."
I hear those things all the time.
And it's not that these approaches are wrong,
it's that they're general.
It's like setting a goal to be rich, fit or happy.
What does that actually mean?
Let's try to put a powerful constraint or two
around your book project and see what happens.
So here's some constraints I've seen work incredibly well.
Number one, narrow your audience down
to a very specific type of person.
You may feel that this constraint is limiting,
but I want to tell you something,
would you rather get point 0.01% percent of a wide audience,
or ten to 20% have a very specific audience
to buy your book or pay attention to what you're saying,
so that all of the people in that audience
actually know who you are?
Likely the math actually works out better for you
to get the focus and attention of the smaller audience.
It's also easier to create that feeling of being everywhere
with a small audience, which makes exponential growth
actually way more possible.
Here's an example.
If you have a book about being a cancer survivor,
you may wanna make your book
something that would appeal to anyone with cancer.
But I actually think that's a mistake, in most cases.
If you had skin cancer or prostate cancer or breast cancer,
write very specifically to that audience
about your experience, about what you tried,
about what you felt.
When you do this, it will be easier to write
because you won't always be questioning yourself,
you won't be making any assumptions that can bite you later.
And you'll also find that your audience
actually naturally widens out from what you start with.
But you will have a very specific and very clear audience
to promote your book to when you launch.
It would be much easier to get the attention
and support of a niche cancer group
than trying to get the Cancer Society of Canada
or the full Cancer Society of the United States
to pay attention and support your book.
Try it.
Number two, limit the time you have for things.
For example, writing.
Set a timer for your writing session.
Do nothing else but write until that timer goes off.
I find 30 to 40 minute increments works great
and you'll get a ton done during that time.
Deadline.
Set a hard deadline of when you'll turn the draft over
to an editor, no matter what.
Or when you'll give your friend
the first chapter or the next chapter.
Amazingly, you'll get more done
as the deadline approaches, guaranteed.
Or set your launch date.
So long as you actually give yourself
enough time to do things properly,
set a launch date and make it public
and then make yourself get it done
so you're not embarrassed.
(laughs loudly)
Not sure how much this is gonna take
watch the video on the time it takes to publish your book.
In James clear article about this Dr. Seuss story,
he said, "This is why I believe
"that professionals set a schedule for their production,
"while amateurs wait until they feel motivated."
Constraints and deadlines work.
Finally, number three, put a constrain on your goal.
I know, you're gonna resist this one,
but try it on for size.
So what can you do to create a constraint
that will be a value for you?
My suggestion is to look at
what you find yourself complaining about.
"I don't have a big enough audience."
Okay.
Now create the constraint that
you can only promote your book by reaching out
to people that do have an audience.
Maybe you say, "I don't have time."
Okay.
Now you create a constraint
that you can only write your book in 20 minute increments
and you set a timer and try to do this every day.
Or maybe you're thinking, "I don't think I'm ready yet."
Set a date make it public and go for it.
So tell me, what are you going to do to limit yourself?
Post it in the comments below
and we're gonna hold you to it.
And, bonus points if you tell me the real name of Dr. Seuss.
And when you comment on the day a video is released,
you'll be entered to win some Book Launcher swag,
like our oh, so soft journal and our No Boring Books mug.
There are new videos every Tuesday and Friday.
So make sure you subscribe to the channel
and you've turned the notifications on
so you know when the new videos come out.
Now it's been absolutely delightful
hanging out with you today.
I'm going to put some coffee on
so we can keep hanging out.
YouTube recommends that you check out this video right here.
This video right here is a great video
with Michael Brenner on how he got a ton of reviews
for his book on launch.
So go ahead choose one of these videos.
I've got the coffee on.
I'll see you there.