Is that book worth writing? Two criteria.
If you’re writing a nonfiction book, ask yourself two questions.
- Is my idea unique?
- Have I described it in a way that is easy to understand?
Is your idea unique?
What do you know that nobody else knows? If you can’t answer that question, you don’t have a book (or if you do, it is not worth writing).
The unique qualities of your book could include:
- A new, uniquely defined audience (for example, people who rehired workers after mistakenly believing they could be replaced with AI)
- An idea no one has seen before
- A unique perspective on an existing idea
- Descriptions of events no one has heard about, or from a unique point of view
- A unique way to package up insights, even if the insights are familiar
- New data
Here’s a complete list of possible ways to differentiate your book.
If your idea is not unique, you could improve it.
Talk to people about your idea. Ask them which parts of it they haven’t heard elsewhere.
Consider how modern trends (for example, the rise of AI or changes in the political landscape) create new aspects to your idea.
Look at well-known ideas and ask how new insights have changed the way we think about them.
Reflect on which of your personal experiences are unique and interesting.
No publisher will consider an idea that is not differentiated. And you shouldn’t self-publish ideas that have already been well covered — it’s a waste of your time and effort.
Have you described it in a way that is easy to understand?
I work often with authors who have complex ideas with many facets. They know a lot. But there’s no simple way to describe their knowledge to those who don’t already know about it.
If you can’t write your main idea down in one short sentence, you’ll have a rough time convincing others to buy into it.
Refining ideas this way is hard. It takes iterations, and there are often many interim stages that seem appropriate, but aren’t quite there yet.
If you have more than one way to express your idea, do a poll on LinkedIn. See which one resonates best with your audience.
Idea development can help
It can help to work with people who are used to developing ideas. I help people develop ideas. So do other consultants. Talking with somebody like me is a way to vet your idea and get out of the echo chamber that is going on in your own head.
When I work with people on book idea development, I push back relentlessly on the two criteria. I point out where the idea is insufficiently differentiated and keep poking the author until they cough up something unique and interesting. And I attempt different ways to write the idea down succinctly. One of those is likely to resonate.
Two things about this process tend to surprise people.
One is that an outsider who knows nothing about their idea can change how they think about it.
The second is that once they refine their idea for these two criteria, it changes everything. They think differently about what they really want to say.
You might think this is a process of knowledge generating an idea statement.
But it’s also a process of an idea statement transforming how people think about their knowledge.
It’s not always comfortable. But it always gets people further along on creating an idea worth writing about.