What’s wrong with your idea?

I work with authors. That means my clients are idea people . . . and boy do they have a lot of ideas.

I take it as my sacred duty to give honest feedback on those ideas. I am the author’s first sounding board. I can keep them from wasting time on a dumb idea, make an interesting idea better, or identify how great a great idea is. It’s hard to get paid for being a judge of ideas, but it’s an essential part of editing, coaching, or ghostwriting for an author. If you’re a good and experienced judges of ideas, you can get paid quite well for those services.

The feedback I give on ideas

First off, I never ignore an idea. Authors tend to be fond of them; ignoring their ideas makes them justly feel disrespected.

I also always justify my feedback. My judgment is based on one criterion: does this make the book better? If it does, it’s a good idea; if it doesn’t, it isn’t (or at least, it it isn’t a good idea for this book). Based on that criterion, I present a logical, unemotional analysis of the idea. This helps people accept criticism and move on. “This idea won’t help the book” is a lot easier to accept than “This idea is dumb.”

This is a comprehensive list of the ways I might characterize your idea:

• Wrong. Some ideas are just at odds with reality. If there’s proof your idea is wrong, I’ll help you see why you really don’t want it in your book.
• Dangerous. Ideas like this seem attractive, but change how people perceive you — often in negative ways. If an idea is going to make you seem cruel, racist, simplistic, or violent, I’ll try to help you see the likely negative consequences of associating yourself with that idea.
• Weak. This idea doesn’t add much, isn’t well supported, and will add bulk without adding insight.
• Contradictory. If the idea works at cross purposes to the rest if the book, it’s going to subtract value, not add it.
• Unoriginal. You may have had a great idea that somebody else already had. If it’s still worth including, we need to give credit to the person who originated it.
• Promising. Some ideas are interesting but ill-formed. For those kind of ideas, I engage the author in discussion about how to build on them to make them better. Collaborating on ideas like this is my favorite part of the job.
• Useful. Lots of ideas that authors have can solve specific problems in the manuscript. If an idea has that kind of value, the discussion turns to where it fits and how we can support it with evidence.
• Groundbreaking. I love a powerful idea. Often authors don’t even realize how amazing their idea is, and why it will stand out. Ideas like this may require revising major parts of the book, the title, or even the whole book concept. But they create the promise of a much better book. While these big changes are work, authors are often enthusiastic to embrace them.

You need this feedback

If you’re writing, you need somebody who can help you evaluate your ideas. It’s wasteful and demoralizing to spend effort on unoriginal, wrong, dangerous, or weak ideas. Conversely, it’s a huge missed opportunity not to spend effort developing useful or groundbreaking ideas.

Great books are based on great ideas. But they don’t always start that way. The process of evaluating and incorporating ideas is how they grow. If you’re full of ideas, take that concept to heart.