Writer, It's Not About You.

How is it possible that I wrote five books, including a memoir, before the lightbulb went on for me and I realized that writing a book really wasn't about me?

And how is it possible that it took me five more years to implement practical strategies I was discovering to serve the reader?

That weird situation is possible because no one told me. Well, they may have told me, but I didn't hear it. About six years ago, though, I heard it. And I hope you will, too.

Writers, it's not about you.

Even if you're writing a memoir that is literally about you, it's not about you. The best books serve the reader.

• If you're writing memoir, the way you tell your story resonates with the reader and creates an opportunity for her to reflect on her own experience.
• If you're writing Christian Living, every chapter has takeaway value for the reader. 
• If you're writing self-help, the reader discovers practical strategies to live differently.

For many of us, writing to serve the reader requires a complete inversion of our thinking. I had lots of stories and ideas in my head that I wanted to share with readers, but I wasn't being thoughtful and intentional about meeting their needs.

As I mentioned, that conversion in me happened over time. I learned from Jonathan Merritt how to create a single target reader for my book, and then write to meet her needs. I learned from Margaret Feinberg how to consider the needs of a reader on every page. I learned from Lysa Terkeurst how to identify readers' needs and craft a book, from the inception, to meet those needs.


So What?

If you're anything like me, I suspect that when you're writing you want to brain-dump all those ideas and stories you have crammed into you head. Fine, go ahead. But then be sure to return to every chapter and make sure that it serves the reader.

• At the end of the chapter, can the reader name the one big idea you were communicating in that chapter? (Can you?!)
• Does the reader see what the big idea looks like as it's lived out in the lives of people who are like her and unlike her?
• Is she equipped with practical tools to gain traction with the big idea in her own life?

Craft a book so that it meets a reader's felt need.

And if you really want to grow and develop as a writer who serves readers:

Jonathan and Margaret have created Write Brilliant

Lysa and her team equip writers through Compel Training

Has this revolutionary idea, that it's about the reader and not about you, found traction in your heart and head? If it has, be strategic about meeting readers' needs. If it hasn't, hang on to this idea and commit to discovering practical strategies to meet readers' needs.

Help a Publisher Say Yes By Doing These 2 Things!

There are all kinds of reasons we write books:

Some of us write a book because we want to see our names on the cover of a book.

Some of us write because we’re convinced that God has given us a message to share with the world.

Some of us write a book because someone told us, “You should write a book.”

 Others write because we’re creative or thinkers. We’re always noodling on the things, and we need to get the things out of our heads and onto a page.

None are horrible reasons to write a book, but also: none of these are particularly compelling to publishers. A publisher has one job: The publisher’s job is to serve the reader.

So when you’re writing the proposal for that book God planted in your heart, when you’re pitching that book your aunt insisted you write, the very best thing you can do is to convince a publisher that the book you’re suggesting meets a reader’s need.

(1) You help a publisher say yes when you solve a reader’s problem.

These popular titles do that:

• How to Get a Date Worth Keeping
• The Purpose Driven Life
• Discerning the Voice of God
• Habits of Highly Effective People

Readers buy and read these books because they meet a real need.

But there are lots of books about getting a date, living with purpose, hearing God, and becoming effective, right? Of course there are. So what makes these different?

(2) You help a publisher say yes when your idea has a fresh angle, edge, or slant.

You have to say it in a way they haven’t heard a hundred times before. Editor savant Stephanie Smith calls this unique angle “a fresh frame for a timeless truth.” She explains,

“An angle is simply this: it’s a fresh frame for timeless truth. It’s creative, unexpected, a pinch provocative, and able to power up vital conversations people are compelled to join. It’s the signature of great writing. And it makes all the difference in standing out beyond overdone, underdeveloped, dime-a-dozen concepts.” -Stephanie Smith

*

What does this mean for you?

• It means that when an editor reads your book proposal:
• She recognizes that it meets a real need readers have.
• She notices a timeless truth that's being communicated in a new way.

So if you’re writing on dieting, or simple living, or studying Scripture, or loving your neighbor, you need to communicate it in a way that others have not.

• Maybe you embraced simple living by doing the same 3 things every day. Now readers are curious.
• Maybe you began living simply because you lost everything you owned in a house fire.
• Maybe your practice of designating only one day a week to make purchases radically changed your life.

The big win?

(1) The solution you’ve found is meeting a real need and (2) you’re communicating it in a way that readers haven’t heard before.

How Literary Agents and Publishers Think

This week I heard from a writer who's pitched to agents and publishers without success. And the query reminded me how important it is for writers to be able to get inside the head of these important gatekeepers. Here's what I want not-yet-published writers to know about how agents and publishers think...

1. HOW AGENTS/PUBLISHERS THINK

When they're reading your proposal, the agent is thinking about what the publisher wants, and the publisher is thinking about what the reader wants. And the reader is thinking about...the reader. The BIG question you have to answer for agents/publishers is, "What's in it for the reader?" Whatever book you are writing HAS TO meet the felt need of the reader. Reader's don't buy books they "should" read, they buy books they "have to" read. Why is the book you're pitching a must-read?

2. HOW AGENTS/PUBLISHERS SEE

Without knowing what book you've written, I will hazard a guess that an agent/publisher has seen this book before. Maybe 100 proposals for this book and 5 that made it to market--saying the exact thing you're saying, in a slightly different way. While that can sound jaded, that's their reality. So whatever message you want to communicate--ideally, in the words of Stephanie Smith, a "timeless truth"--must have a FRESH FRAME. Whether you're communicating that "God is gracious," or "You are loved," or "Kittens are God's gift to the world," the agent/publisher must read your proposal and say, "Hmmm...I haven't heard it quite that way before." Are you saying something in such a fresh way that the agent/publisher wants to know more?

3. HOW AGENTS/PUBLISHERS DECIDE

The #1 rule of good writing is "show, don't tell." Your proposal needs to prove to agents/publishers that your project has FOUR THINGS: (1) a unique and compelling project, (2) a market of people who can't wait to buy this book, (3) a growing platform, and (4) mad writing skills. While I'd love to say that if they love your fresh idea, or if they think you're a great writer, they will take a chance and contract your book, I can't say that. They may WANT to, but to convince a publishing board to publish a book, they really need to see strength in all four areas. If you need to develop one or more of those areas, it might make sense to do that before pitching again. Does your proposal demonstrate that you are offering all four things a publisher needs to see?

The job of your book proposal is to convince the agent/publisher that your project meets the reader's need in a fresh and compelling way, and that you can sell books. To help writers do that, I've got a few free resources online...

1. An Author Inventory helps you mine and mention every asset you're bringing to the table.

2. An Annotated Book Proposal Template offers tips for each section of the proposal. (Not necessary to use this particular template, but do read the tips.)

3. The Book Proposal Checklist helps you review the first draft of your proposal, to make sure it's as strong as it can be.

Help agents and publishers say YES by offering them the strongest proposal you can!

10 Tips for Writing Memoir

You have a unique story that only you can tell. And the way that you tell it matters. Even the world’s best story—winning the World Cup, walking on the moon, dipping into death and returning to life—needs to be told well. 

Here are a few ideas to help you write your story in the most compelling way.

1. Offer a Unique Angle

Your story—a difficult childhood, your cancer journey or disillusionment with church—must have a unique angle, or slant. This fresh angle needs to grab the reader. How is yours unique?

2. Meet a Felt Need

Your memoir needs to meet the reader's felt need. To keep the reader turning pages, there must be something in it for her/him. What's the benefit for the reader?

3. Ignore your internal critic.

Silence the inner voice saying you’re doing it wrong or should probably just stop and make a sandwich. Write now; edit later.

4. Tell the truth.

Notice your own resistance to truth-telling. Being bullied by an instinct to protect, yourself or others, deprives readers—and you!—of the surprising gifts truth brings forth.

5. Develop a clear theme.

Are you after adventure?  Hunting for healing?  Identifying your fundamental theme, or “red thread,” allows you to skim off extraneous material in the editing stage.

6. Exercise chronological creativity.

Sometimes telling your story from conception to the present moment works. Be open, though, to the ways a reordered narrative might serve the story.

7. Employ dialogue.

Dialogue lubricates the flow of the narrative.  It gives the reader critical insight into characters without telling the reader about them. 

8. Show transformation.

Throughout the book, the reader should be able to see the main character change, grow, transform. Have you done this?

9. Avoid painting yourself as the victim or the hero.

Abigail Thomas writes, “Memoir should never be self-serving, even accidentally.” Avoid “poor little me” and “good little me.”  Jeanette Wall’s Glass Castle does this beautifully.

10. Read memoir. But be you.

Notice when memoir makes your heart soar (or sore) and when you want to set the book down to take out the trash. Don’t try to sound like Anne Lamott. Be you. It’s better that way.

Cheering you on,

Margot