- "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People",
"Who Moved My Cheese?",
"What to Expect When You're Expecting",
"The Power of Positive Thinking", "The Secret",
"How to Win Friends and Influence People".
These books have had staying power, haven't they?
What do they have in common?
And how can you mimic their approach to maybe, just maybe,
mimic their results too?
Well, if you're wondering how to write a book
that lasts a lifetime, this video is for you.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Hey there, I'm Julie The Book Broad from Book Launchers.
We're your professional self-publishing team
helping you write, publish, and promote a nonfiction book
that will help you have a huge impact on your readers
and done right, will also help you grow your brand,
build your business, and make you money.
The best part you keep all rights and royalties.
There's a market for books that dive into tactics
and specific how-to details.
This video is not trying to convince you
that you should not write that kind of a book
because those books provide a valuable piece
of the success puzzle for so many readers.
That step by step guidance to get results
is often exactly what people need.
Whether you're writing a book and talking about
the keto diet, or the best way to invest in cryptocurrency,
or sharing insights about politics of today,
or you're doing something to try to make change happen
in this current environment,
or even just building a business with the latest marketing
and promotion techniques,
including email marketing and social media and video,
those books have value.
Don't stop writing them,
but you may wanna start mentally planning to write a book
that you'll be referring to and using for 10, 20,
or even more years than that.
So what kind of books stand the test of time?
The examples I gave at the start
all have one thing in common,
and it's the first thing on my list of three things
to write a timeless book.
The first thing is that those books that I mentioned,
and many others that have stood the test of time,
are really more about humanity and mindset.
They're about the way people think about a problem
or the way to think about communication
versus the actual how to do it.
Even a book like "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"
is more mindset and strategy
than it is tactical investment advice.
So it's got staying power too.
So if you wanna write a book that you'll be still selling
and still talking about in 10 years,
the first thing to do is write a book that is more about
the way to think about a problem,
or how to strategically handle a situation
versus a specific tactical solution how-to book.
Let's say you're a financial advisor.
You could talk about the most current popular funds,
current investment environment,
technology tools that work for folks today.
And this is all very important and valuable,
but it's gonna go out of date.
Or you can write about your investment philosophy
and how to set someone up to make
the right investment choices for their life.
Both books could perform really well
and help your business grow,
but the investment philosophy book will last as long
as that remains your core belief and approach to investing.
The second thing you wanna do is choose your stories
and references in this book carefully.
Pop culture references can be fun to make,
but they date a book really fast.
So rather than referencing the latest TV shows
or the latest music sensations,
try fables, historical examples,
or stories from your own life worded in a way
that doesn't date them too badly.
In other words, you wouldn't say, "Last year,"
you'd say, "when my business was two years old
"and facing this issue."
The third and final tip I want to share is,
and well, you see this in the books that I mentioned
at the beginning, is they have story arcs
and they also have specific details
that make that writing more timeless.
So they've got that first act as the setup, you know,
the inciting incident that sets you off on your adventure.
The call to adventure, the thing, you know,
that gets you off your butt doing something
that leads to act number two,
which is where everything gets intense. (laughs)
You know, where act one may have led you
to start a business,
but act two is where you find out your loved one is sick
with cancer and the bills are piling up
and your most valued employee quits.
So now there's nobody to run the business
while you focus on the cancer care.
And then the government makes you close your doors
because of a pandemic and now your income is cut in half.
(depressing instrumental music)
(laughs) So that all happens in act two,
and then act three, the resolution.
This is where things start to get resolved,
and you start to draw out the stories and the emotions
and the lessons of all of this journey.
That's a classic story structure,
and it makes the reader connect with the moment
that you're in in the book,
no matter when in time that moment was.
And then when you add in details with those layers,
you'll really transport the reader to that moment.
Now, when I say details, a lotta people think I mean
the painstaking, every single thing that happened
kind of details, but what I actually mean is little things
like choosing words, like instead of saying walk,
you would choose shuffle or plotted or tramped or strode.
You can actually see it in your head
how this person was walking.
It's describing what you smelled when you walked in a room
and who was there,
or saying little details like the tree house
was 12 steps from your back door.
It had a red checkered tablecloth
covering the door for privacy.
And your favorite memory was when mom baked fresh cookies
and brought them to you to eat when you were up there
coloring pictures of race cars and robots, (laughs) right?
Those details transport you to that place and that moment,
and you don't actually think about when the book was written
or whether it's relevant to today.
Now not every book should be like this.
Readers want how-to, action-taking type books.
But as an author, you may wanna write a few tactical books
and a long-lasting book that lays the foundation
for everything you do in your business to help your clients.
If you're a speaker or you wanna be paid
to give keynote talks,
I think the insights into humanity
or the how to think about a problem kind of talks,
and the books that support them (laughs),
are a golden recipe for success,
especially if you can make people laugh.
Like this tip.
Go ahead, smash that thumbs-up button, try it.
It feels so good (laughs),
and what else do you think makes a book stand
the test of time?
Let's chat about it in the comments below.
And when you comment the day a video is released,
you'll be entered to win some sweet Book Launcher swag
like this #noboringbooks mug,
where coffee, tea, and hot chocolate tastes better in it,
or our oh so soft journal for writing down
your brilliant book ideas.
You're quite lovely to spend time with.
Shall we keep hanging out?
If you're writing a memoir and watching this
to learn how to make it stand the test of time,
you also really should check out this video
on the most common memoir writing mistakes.
And if you think you'll need help to make all this happen,
maybe you should consider a book coach.
This video right here explains what a book coach does
and how they help.
Both videos are pretty great, if I say so myself,
so please click on one and I'll see you there.
(upbeat instrumental music)