- Way too many authors do not spend enough time
on their table of contents,
and that's a problem, a really big problem,
because the table of contents not only needs
to sell your book, but it also can lead
to speaking engagements and media interviews.
Stick around, I've got your back on this subject
and it's something you need to know.
(upbeat music)
Well, hello there,
I'm Julie the Book Broad,
award-winning author and founder of Book Launchers,
your professional self publishing team
that will help you write,
publish, and promote a moneymaking,
impact creating, nonfiction book.
When I self published my first two books,
nobody told me this.
In fact, despite spending nearly $8000 on each book,
hiring professionals to make the books
as good as they possibly could be,
not a single person spent any time on the table
of contents except my editor editing it for formatting
and typos, and that's a darn shame.
I look at my books and I see some decent chapter titles,
but I also see some that could've been so much better
if someone had just told me
that I should be brainstorming them
and working on them as hard as I worked on my titles.
They need to be researched,
tested, and tried to make each chapter title
as good as it possibly could be, why?
Because it matters.
First, if a reader likes your book cover and title,
the reviews are good enough to continue looking,
they're going to pick it up
and flip to the inside or click on the Look Inside,
and if that table of contents
or those chapter titles aren't making them even
more curious, you're probably
going to lose them, and here's the thing.
Most chapter titles sound
like every other book in their genre.
Do you want in on a little secret?
There is one chapter title I see
all the time, Finding Your Why.
Seriously, all the time.
In real estate, I see this chapter title all the time,
Calculating Your Cashflow,
Evaluating Investment Properties, there's two.
Snooze.
They're in every book already.
It doesn't need to be in your book.
So as soon as you've read one self-help book
or one real estate book,
and you see those, you feel
like you don't need to read that book,
but let's take an example as to what would make that better.
We'll use Finding Your Why as an example.
Now, what you want in an ideal scenario is something
that has an enormous benefit to the reader,
even better if you can quantify it.
It creates curiosity, so something they don't already feel
like they know, or it goes in the face of the expected.
It counters commonly-held beliefs,
or finally, could possibly stand alone as a talk title,
a course title, or a workshop.
Your chapter titles don't have to have all of those,
but if you do at least two,
you're probably in really good shape,
and of course, it has to be relevant
and summarize your chapter at least to a point.
So let's take Finding Your Why.
One book that we worked on had this recently,
and it's kind of a self-help book.
I'm totally generalizing,
'cause I don't want to reveal anything about this book,
but we workshopped to Finding Your Why title
and came up with a really long list
and then narrowed it down.
Some of the ones that were on the list were Dreams
and Escape Plans, Dancing Around Your Dream.
There's a Difference Between a Dream and an Escape Plan.
Your Dreams in a Trust.
These were all related to content
in that chapter, so it fit.
But they are more interesting than Finding Your Why.
So what if your chapter's kind of boring,
like How to Calculate Cashflow?
Look at that chapter and find what you say that's
a little different, or maybe you have your own approach.
Calculating Cashflow without a Calculator.
The 5 Second Approach to Whether a Property Will Cashflow.
Know 3 Numbers and You'll know If A Property Cashflows.
7 Ways to Calculate Cashflow that Won't Waste Your Time.
Those are all just examples
of what would be more interesting than
how to calculate cashflow, again,
just making the stuff up.
The big things again, create curiosity,
have a benefit, fit with the hook of your book,
and engage that reader,
not like this engaged, like interesting engaged (laughs).
All right, does each title
in your table of contents make someone so curious they
have to ask about it or read it?
So if you want a little test,
show someone who hasn't read your book yet,
the table of contents, and ask them,
actually, don't even ask them,
wait to see if they ask you about any of the chapter titles
or say, oh, I have to read this chapter.
When you get somebody saying that,
ideally somebody that is in your ideal reader audience,
you know you are starting to get on the track
of great table of contents.
Ideally, try to get every chapter to the point
where somebody goes, hmm,
I got to hear, I got to read this chapter,
but getting 50% would still be miles ahead of most books.
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Thank you so much for your comments, likes, and shares.
I really appreciate you.
Now, if you haven't already,
you must check out this video on making sure
you have a great hook for your book
because your chapter titles
will hang off that hook (laughs).
Get it?
But if you've watched that already,
this video is pretty fabulous as well,
so go ahead, and click on one of them
and I will see you there.
(upbeat music)