How to find your book idea

Topic, idea and book: three different things

It helps to separate three things people lump together.

• A topic is a subject: retirement, sales, grief, company culture. You can write a thousand different books on any topic.
• An idea is a topic aimed at one reader with one result in mind. "A plain-English guide that helps people five years from retirement decide how and when to turn their savings into income" is an idea.
• A book is an idea with enough substance, structure and proof to fill 5 to 15 chapters.

The Scribe Method, the book Scribe Media publishes free on its website, puts it this way in its chapter on book positioning: every reader asks one question of every book, "Why should I read this book?" A topic cannot answer it. An idea can.

Start with the goal, not the subject

This is the step most people skip. Before you decide what the book is about, decide what you need the book to do for you. The Scribe Method's chapter on book objectives groups most authors' goals into six kinds:

The same chapter suggests naming a "champagne moment": the one specific event that would make the whole effort worth it, such as the first client who calls because of the book. It warns against moments outside your control, like selling a million copies.

Why goal first? Because the goal decides the reader, and the reader decides the idea. If you want clients, the book has to be written for the person who could hire you. A financial planner who writes a general book on money for everyone may write a fine book and never hear from a single new client.

Five places book ideas come from

Good nonfiction ideas rarely arrive from nowhere. They tend to come from one of these places. Look at each and write down anything that recurs.

1. The questions you answer over and over

What do clients, colleagues or friends ask you again and again? Every repeated question is evidence that people want something and cannot find it easily. Keep a list for two weeks: every question, in the asker's words.

2. The book you wish you could hand people

Jake Falcon spent 20 years in retirement planning and read every new retirement book that came out. According to his story on scribemedia.com, he could never find one he trusted enough to hand his clients, so he wrote it. If you keep thinking "there should be a book that explains this properly", that is an idea, and the gap is your reason to write it.

3. The thing people already ask you to write down

Carrie Cox ran a member challenge at her gyms called The Self-Care Dare for 8 years before the book, first as 5 a.m. text messages, then emails, then blog posts. Her story describes members asking for something they could hold and share. That is the best evidence an idea can have: people asking for it before it exists.

4. A moment when you saw who needed it

Kris Holmes, an executive recruiter, was asked to speak to business-school students about resumes and interviews. Her story describes how hungry they were for it, even at schools with strong career centers, and how that showed her the reader: students who needed a career guide. Watch for the room where people lean in.

5. An argument you keep making

Some of the strongest ideas are a position, not a how-to. Neil Thanedar wanted to own one idea, a Y Combinator for politics, and had written more than a hundred thousand words on his website before the book. His story reports the finished book at 42,000 words, and that 3 of 5 founders in the first class of his accelerator found him through his writing. A book can turn a scattered argument into one thing people can point to.

The 200-word test and the recommendation test

Once you have a candidate idea, put it through two tests from The Scribe Method's chapter on figuring out your book idea.

The 200-word description

Write one paragraph of 200 words or fewer that answers three questions: what is the book about, who is the ideal reader, and what will that reader get? The chapter says that if you cannot fit the idea into 200 words, you probably need more clarity on the concept. Its strong example names the reader (safety managers), the outcome (fewer hand injuries) and the approach. Its weak example lists topics (mindset, real estate, entrepreneurship, life lessons) without saying what anyone gains.

The recommendation sentence

Then write one sentence a happy reader would use to recommend the book to a friend. The chapter calls it the cocktail party pitch. Good versions say what the reader gets. Weak versions talk about the author or the method. Compare:

That pair is The Scribe Method's own example. If you can say your sentence out loud and someone in your reader's shoes says "I need that", you have an idea. If they nod politely, keep working. The book idea starter walks you through both steps and checks that your sentence stays under 35 words.

What most people get wrong

• Writing the book they think readers should want. The Scribe Method calls this the biggest mistake at this stage. Your reader wants their problem solved, not your curriculum.
• Choosing a topic so broad it has no reader. "Leadership" has millions of readers and no reader in particular. "Leading a team for the first time after being promoted from inside it" has a reader you could find this week.
• Trying to make one book do everything. A memoir, a business manual and a manifesto in one book usually does none of the three well. See choosing the kind of book.
• Worrying that someone will steal it. The US Copyright Office says copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, systems or methods, only the way you express them. Your real protection is the experience and stories only you can bring. Keeping the idea secret mostly stops you testing it.
• Waiting for the perfect idea. You refine an idea by putting it in front of readers, not by thinking harder alone. See how to test a book idea before you write it.

What to do next

1. Write your goal and your champagne moment in one line each.
2. Name the one reader that goal points to. The guide on defining your one reader helps.
3. Write the 200-word description and the recommendation sentence.
4. List the chapters you can already see.
5. Put the result through the book idea starter to see which parts are still thin.

If you would rather do this with someone, Scribe Media makes this site and sells book coaching (Scribe Compass, $5,000 on scribemedia.com/pricing) that defines the audience, purpose and table of contents with you. Most people can do the first pass alone with the steps above.