Rob Fitzpatrick

Write Useful Books

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The goal of book marketing is to stop needing to do itLearn how to:
Scope your book into the world's best solution for a certain type of readerTest, improve, & iterate your ToC without needing to rewrite anythingDesign a engaging reader experience that makes your book a delight to readDiscover the hidden analytics of boredom & confusion to identify book-killing problems & make the most of beta readersTreat marketing as a temporary activity instead of an ongoing obligation by designing a strong recommendation loopEvaluate which of the four seed marketing options are best-suited for your goals, constraints, & skillsWrite a book that endures & grows for years instead of fading into swift obscurityBoost long-term growth by optimizing your pricing, platforms, & purchase funnelMost books don't workWriting a nonfiction book is a wonderful project, allowing you to preserve & share the most important things you've ever learned. Plus, a successful book will improve your reputation, your career, your earnings, & the lives of your readers.
Up until fairly recently, it was possible to receive at least some of these benefits by writing any book, regardless of its quality. But today, a million new titles are published per year and it's no longer enough to simply join the pile. Instead, you must create something that is able to stand out & succeed. And the most reliable path toward that goal — especially for an unproven author who lacks a pre-existing audience — is to write a book so startlingly useful that readers can't stop talking about it.
This guide proposes a different way of planning, writing, & refining nonfiction, drawn from the hard-won lessons of product designers & entrepreneurs. Applied properly, it leads to books that can grow organically via reader recommendations for many years, without relying on either heavy marketing or a large author platform.
The preconceptions about “writing a book” are so deeply entrenched that most authors don't even ask themselves whether a better way exists. Which is crazy, because the normal approach doesn't work! For example:
The average NYT nonfiction bestseller loses 95% of its peak sales within a year70% of traditionally published titles fail to pay out a single dollar in royaltiesVanishingly few nonfiction books sell even 500 copiesThese are not good results, but it doesn't have to be this way.
By following a more modern approach, my first two books (2013 & 2019) now do more than $150k/year in royalties (and growing). You can do it too. It's not easy, but it is reliable & repeatable. And in the normally hit-driven, feast-or-famine world of writing, there's something to be said for reliability.
What this book is not:This isn't a get-rich-quick scheme. If you want to write a mediocre book the easy way, then you probably want to look elsewhere.
This isn't about prose or creativity. I'm assuming that you know how to write a coherent sentence and are able to do the work. Instead, this guide is about understanding how to design, test, and refine nonfiction that succeeds as a long-lasting, high-impact, and recommendable product.
This isn't a self-publishing guide. I won't walk you through every tool & technicality of formatting, printing, and shipping a book. Our focus is on creating the most useful, and most recommendable book possible.
Still not sure?
Head on over to writeusefulbooks.com to find more resources, samples, and information.
This book is currently unavailable
162 printed pages
Original publication
2021
Publication year
2021
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Quotes

  • Marianahas quoted3 years ago
    create a book that lasts and grows, the formula is simple: do the best job of solving an important problem for a reader who cares, without anchoring yourself to temporary tools, tactics, or trends.
  • Marianahas quoted3 years ago
    Pick a promise that will remain relevant and important for 5+ years
  • Marianahas quoted3 years ago
    solving a problem, making a promise, targeting a specific type of reader, and ensuring that the knowledge works

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