Writing The Book You Want To Read

And finding the readers you want to write for

Photo by Seven Shooter on Unsplash

"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." - Toni Morrison

I want to read a book about using your words to change the world. Similar books exist, and I’ve read them. Books like Writing To Change The World by Mary Pipher, Writing for Impact by Bill Birchard, and Write a Must-Read: Craft a Book That Changes Lives-Including Your Own by A J Harper, all cover varied but related ground.

These books are excellent reads. I recommend them. But they don’t say everything I want to say on the topic. I still feel I have something to add, from my own experience and from my extensive research on change-making in general, and writing for change in particular.

One of the main reasons I’m on Substack is to try and build a community of like-minded writers and readers. I am (I’m hoping) finding the readers I want to write for. I’m hoping that when I finish writing the book I want to read, you guys will want to read it too.

If that’s your aim too, then Substack is a great place to be. If you have a non-fiction book in mind, here’s what I suggest you do.

• Create a Substack with the name of the book you want to write.

• Use that Substack to post about your topic (many of your posts can be used in your book, or you can even plan the whole book out, chapter-by-chapter, and post them as you go)

• Monitor engagement on your posts to see which resonate most with people (pillar chapters in your book) and which fall flat (cutting room floor)

• Build a community of subscribers and followers who are interested in what you have to say

• Ask them for feedback

Lemon Tree Mindset by

Veronica Llorca-Smith

is a great example of how this can be done (here’s the Substack, and here’s the book).

And you can, of course, use your own blog or any other newsletter platform in the same way. I just feel the community element at Substack allows this strategy to work particularly well.

The only stage I’m still missing from the above, is asking for feedback. And I’m rectifying that today. Please take a second to cast a vote.

At least one person who answers this poll will be randomly selected to get a free copy of the book when it’s finished. Unless they answer yes to the last question. Then I’ll send them an Amazon voucher to get a book they actually want to read. (I don’t want to discourage honest feedback!)

Thanks for participating.

Some thoughts from others I’ve been enjoying this week

• 4 Proven Strategies to Become a Substack Bestseller in 2024 by

  David McIlroy
  ,
  Claire Venus
  , &
  Russell Nohelty

• Some Thoughts If You're Struggling On Both Medium and Substack by

  Linda Caroll

• 'Be yourself' is crap advice for writers by Alex Mathers

• 2 Simple Questions to Create Better Content And Make More Money by

  Sinem Günel

• From Beginner to First Book Deal | How Evelyn Skye Became a 6-Figure NYT Bestselling Author from

  Kristina God
  &
  Evelyn Skye

• The Joy & Connection Marketing Plan by

  Dan Blank

• 20 Quick Hitting Pieces of Writing, Marketing, and Audience Building Advice by

  Ayodeji

What else I’ve been up to this week

Reading: Girl A by Abigail Dean

Listening to: How to Fix Your Sh*t: A Straightforward Guide to a Better Life (on Audible)

Enjoying: Upping my daily steps (over 5,000 a day average this week)

Also enjoying: The back-to-school vibe

This week’s Medium posts

(Friend links, as always, so you can read for free.)

• Writing On Medium Saves Me About Ten Hours A Week (compared to when I was running my Wordpress blogs)

• Three Effective CTAs I Use On My Articles (and what they do for me)

That’s all for this week. If you’re reading this online, feel free to subscribe to get future posts straight to your inbox.

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