Writing your expert book: How to choose a topic that will grow your brand

A quick note from Cate:

These earlier episodes come from a previous chapter of my work, before my focus shifted to writing and publishing books through The Luminous Press.

They’re still well worth a listen, so I’ve kept the full archive available.

If you’d like to stay in touch and hear about my books — including the ADHD Mum series — you can join my reader newsletter here:www.theluminous.media/newsletter/

You want to write be an author because you know it's a great way to position yourself as an expert, call in new opportunities and attract more clients and customers - but what should your book be about, and if you've got lots of books you could write, which one should you write first?

It's such a big decision, and can be the difference between all that time (and possibly money) spent writing your book having incredible ROI or seemingly being a bit of a waste of time...

So in this episode I’m going to share with you the 2 questions you need to ask  in order to work out what is the best topic to choose for your book!



KEY POINTS
[00:07:26] Choosing which book to write (or which to write first) can be challenging for a coach, creative or entrepreneur with so many things to teach. This is how I chose the topic of my first book, Soul Story.
[00:10:50] Choosing the right book topic is crucial for a strong premise and focused writing. It can take time to decide and is essential for writing success.
[00:14:18] Choosing your goal: If it's revenue, planners and journals are good for repeat purchases, and some authors have their own journals and planners. Another option is to plan to write a series like "Chicken Soup for the Soul" have also done this. But more commonly coaches, creatives and entrepreneurs are going to be writing a book with a goal of driving traffic to other services or products.
[00:16:19] Writing to market means creating content for a specific target audience. Authors write books for a dedicated readership and create content to fill gaps in the market. 
[00:21:33] A book is the most powerful tool in helping to decide if someone's services are right, based on knowing, liking, and trusting them. To determine the right topic for a book, two questions should be asked.
[00:27:11] Upcoming free masterclass for authors, landing page to be announced and new cohort for book writing program starting in September.

Transcript

Cate Butler Ross [00:00:00]:

In this episode I'm going to share with you the two questions you need to ask in order to work out what is the best topic for your expert book that is going to help you grow your business.

Cate Butler Ross [00:06:02]:

Now, one of the reasons that I am doing this is because inside The Soul Works Atelier, we've had a few people, quite a few people who have joined and they've had more than one book inside them.

Cate Butler Ross [00:07:26]:

And the first problem that they've had to deal with before getting started with the actual writing process, has been, "Which book do I write first?" Which book? Now, I had this exact problem myself. You probably know, you've heard me talk about before, but there are at least five non-fiction books that I would like to write around the topic of writing of content about the kind of things that I teach, messaging, content systems, et cetera. But in a sense I had so many options it kind of put me off from making a decision. Like, where do I start with my first book of my own. But I did actually eventually in 2022 decided to write my first book, Soul Story: How to Tell Stories that Call Your Soul Tribe, which is all about how to tell your story. Because I knew this was a book that I was burning to write, but it was also strategic for me and my business as well. So let me explain this. It was what I call, a book of my head and of my heart, and this is a kind of sweet spot that we talk about inside the The Soul Works Atelier, that is a really powerful place to write a book from, when you're writing a book as an expert. So I was burning to write it because storytelling held a huge personal importance to me.

Cate Butler Ross [00:08:55]:

Storytelling isn't just something I teach because it works or because it's the new trendy thing to do. Storytelling is something that I have a history with. It's something that's deeply personal to me. And so in that sense, Soul Story was a book of my heart because it shares the story of how and why I became so fascinated with stories and storytelling and how storytelling shaped my life as a child and my career and went on to lead me going into the business world. And it kind of very much dictates how I show up in my life as as a teacher and communicator. But the truth is, if I was just going to write a book of my heart, soul Story probably wouldn't have been the first one that I would have sat down and written. I've got many fiction books literally burning holes in my heart at the moment that I wish I could be had time to write. And I also have a narrative nonfiction memoir idea that I would like to write at some point as well.

Cate Butler Ross [00:09:54]:

So those probably would have been my first choice if I was just thinking, right, I'm just writing a book that I would just really want to write. However, Soul Story also had a strategic purpose for me. So storytelling is obviously a big part of what I help my clients with. So my background as a journalist and features writer means that I'm particularly adept at helping my clients uncover and vocalize their stories and tell their stories. And teaching my students how to weave stories into their content, whether it's a book or a blog post, is a huge part of what I do. And for years I'd been asked and was aware of people asking online, how do we tell our story? How do you become a storyteller in your content? And I knew that this is something that I could teach on. It was why I created the course Soul Story, and I decided to turn it into a book. So in a sense, Soul Story was a book of both my head and my heart, which meant that it had strategy and soul.

Cate Butler Ross [00:10:50]:

And so it really felt like it had this it was like the perfect fit. So getting your book topic right is ever so important, and this is actually a topic that the first of our we've had eight people go through the Soul Works Atelier since it's been in beta, and half of them had questions to start off with around which book should I write first? And sometimes it was between more should I go for a more granular topic which deals with a specific area that I deal with, or should it be a more broader topic that kind of looks at my secret source and how I can transform people's lives. And it's something that we have spent quite a long time talking about and going through and they would be working it through in the kind of self study course material and we'd be talking it through on our calls. And it was a month for some of them before they were actually ready to start putting pen to paper because it's so important to get those foundations right. And I can feel the frustration. You've decided to write your book and you just want to get going. But having a strong premise for your book is so important and choosing the right topic is essential. So why else is it important? Well, the other reason it's important is that in terms of writing, it makes it so much easier and focused.

Cate Butler Ross [00:12:14]:

So you've picked the right topic and you've got a strong premise. And so everything is answering that one question or dealing with one problem or challenge. It's so much easier. It also makes the marketing so much easier because your potential reader knows exactly what the book is about. So it's important for lots of reasons, but particularly if you're writing many books and you don't know which one to start with, but if you're writing the book and you're only ever going to write one, it's so important. Because you want to make sure that this book, for all the time, energy, perhaps money that you're putting into it, that it is going to get the results that you require. So as experts, and I say this as in people with specialised knowledge, so not necessarily you don't have to have gone to university to learn something to be an expert. You have specialised knowledge born of experience or whatever, which you want to put into a book to serve other people.

Cate Butler Ross [00:13:11]:

The chances are you're not just doing it for a simple love of writing. I mean, you love communicating. Yes. You love writing. Yes, you want to be an author. Yes, you want to serve people. But there is usually some kind of end goal or you would hope that there's some kind of end goal in place.

Cate Butler Ross [00:13:32]:

As a professional, again, using that word as in like as a business owner, as a coach, as a creative, as an expert, there is going to be some kind of end goal. So it could be to create a new revenue stream. Now, I'm going to say again, it's harder to make a living from a single book. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it is hard. It's a low value product. It is possible to make a decent revenue stream from a series. That's what the whole idea behind 20 books to 50K is. And so if you are planning on writing multiple installments of a series, this could be a viable reason and actually one of our Solwicks Italier students, that's her plan for her books.

Cate Butler Ross [00:14:18]:

Also another thing to consider is books like planners and journals. They're a really great example of this because if people buy it once and they love them, then they're going to carry on buying them every single year. So that becomes kind of scalable. Most self help books, people are only going to ever buy it once, whereas with a planner and journal they might come back and buy it over and over again. So Danielle Laporte has her journal, leone Dawson has her journals and lots of other self help authors, et cetera will have journals and planners specific to their topics. And for example, I buy every year, I buy the Magic of Eye journals because I love them and they're beautiful and don't really use them actually that much because everything is online but I just love having them. But you can also do this with nonfiction books as in series. So some famous series that have done this that you might be familiar with, which you probably are familiar with would be the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, the Fadammies series, et cetera.

Cate Butler Ross [00:15:16]:

So that could be one of the end goals. But the more common end goal for a coach or a creative or entrepreneur to want to write a book is because they want to use it, their book as a vehicle to drive more traffic to a particular service product. Or course they want to use their book as a vehicle to get more clients okay to make more sales. And that means, if that's your goal, that means that you are able to do something with your book. That is the secret to success for most authors that you will find in the best selling bestsellers lists. Whether you know they're fiction or nonfiction, they've probably or very often done this and that is they have written to market. And you are able to do that too if you have a very clear end goal in mind for your book. So if your book has a specific business goal, in other words, it's not just a book of your heart, writing to market is the best method to help choose which topic you start with now.

Cate Butler Ross [00:16:19]:

So let's just clarify what writing to market means. So writing to market is when an author writes a book designed specifically for the needs of a target audience. And if you've been doing any content marketing, you are writing to market. Every time that you create a piece of content marketing, hopefully you specifically know who your reader is, you know what their problem or challenge or desire is and you are creating content to fill that gap. The difference of course, between creating content and a book is that with a social media or social media or blogging, you can try something out. You can just test it out, see if it works, and if it doesn't work, you can try it again tomorrow and there's not really any harm done. You've only just wasted like the 15 minutes or the day or whatever with a book which is going to take you weeks, if not months, to complete and which is going to probably take some kind of investment of money time in producing it and definitely marketing it. You've got to get it right.

Cate Butler Ross [00:17:18]:

You want to get it right. So how do you pick your topic? How do you pick the topic that's going to be right for your market and then create a premise that is going to help you reach your end goal? Okay, so I picked the topic storytelling, because it was a book of my heart, because I knew I was going to be very motivated to write it. I had some personal stories around it as well, but I knew that there was a need. I knew that there was a market for this book. My clients wanted the answers in this book. I saw lots of people asking these questions. I knew it was a common question. I knew it was a popular topic.

Cate Butler Ross [00:18:06]:

I knew that this was I knew that it was a viable topic and it tied in with the products and services that I offer. Okay? And so the premise of my book Soul Story, which I had to go about proving, is that storytelling is the most powerful way to grow your influence and attract more soulmate clients and customers to you as a communicator. So let's say your end goal, like me, is to help people, to get more people engaging your services or your products, which basically makes your book a lead magnet. So that means that your book is essentially marketing. But although it's marketing, if it's in any way salesy in any way makes them feel that they're being sold to is going to turn them off immediately. Now, there is a way of doing this, of incorporating the marketing and the selling and the invitations in it without it feeling like that okay. It doesn't mean that you can't do that, but there's a way of doing it. But predominantly, your book needs to be valuable.

Cate Butler Ross [00:19:34]:

It needs to be a self help book. A how to book. A book that is going to give them valuable information and that they can act on. It has to be genuinely valuable, which means that your book needs to be doing two things. It needs to be giving your reader the tools they need to solve whatever problem or challenge your book deals with, whatever the promise of your book is. And for those who want to dive deeper, you've got to use your book to help them make that decision on whether your approach, whether you your secret source, your method, the way you do things is right for them. And you've got to kind of persuade them or help them decide whether they want to go ahead and hire your Service or buy your course or whatever it might be now, this is so powerful. I first came across this, I'm somebody who I mean, it's basically a book funnel.

Cate Butler Ross [00:20:39]:

And I came across this first in 2017, before I started my business. I read Carrie Green's. She means business book. I read her book. I liked her, I trusted her. She gave me valuable information. She got me excited and motivated and really desiring the thing that she was selling, which is like a wildly successful business. And by the time I finished that book, I was a yes for joining her membership.

Cate Butler Ross [00:21:09]:

I knew she had a membership because she'd mentioned it in the book and I was a yes. I wanted to get in there. And I remember going onto the page to sign up and it was closed for enrollment. And I was so keen that I emailed them directly and I said, I know you're close for enrollment, but I want in now. I don't want to wait until October. I want to join now. And so they let me in through the back door. That is how powerful a book can be.

Cate Butler Ross [00:21:33]:

I read a lot of self help, a lot of personal development, and it is often a key factor of whether I'm going to engage somebody's services is if they have a book, if I read their book, it is the most powerful tool in helping me make a decision about whether somebody is right for me. More powerful than any sales page or webinar. A book is so powerful for me about helping me decide whether I know, like and trust them and whether their approach to things is right for me for whatever problem and challenge that I'm facing that I need a solution for. So if you want your reader to go through a similar process to what you've probably been through with many books and which I went through with Carrie's book, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions. When you decide, which topic do I need to choose to talk about, what topic do I start with? And what is my premise going to be? And the two questions you need to ask to decide this are what does my reader need to understand to decide if my solution is right for them? And number Two, what does My reader need to believe in order to want to commit to this solution? So those two questions again, what does My reader need to understand to decide if my solution is right for them? And number Two, what does My reader need to believe in order to want to commit to this solution? These two questions, I promise you, will be gold in helping you to work out the right topic for your next book. And actually, I think just sitting down and kind of thinking about those things and journaling on them will help you decide whether you are ready to write that book and actually see the power in it. And so if you are kind of dithering, you'd quite like to write a book, what is holding you back? A bit like me for the last few years, knowing that there were so many books that I wanted to write, but I wasn't sure what the first one should be. I was kind of overwhelmed by choice.

Cate Butler Ross [00:23:56]:

I was overwhelmed by my options. And you might feel like that too. There's so many topics that you can talk about. You could write a book which is just like an introduction to what you do, or you could write a book about a specific problem that you deal with. What do you start with? Decide on your end goal. Decide on what is the purpose. Do you want them to engage you in specific services from you? Do you want them to buy a specific product? Do you want them to join a membership? Decide what the end goal is. Okay, decide what your solution is that you're ultimately going to be selling to them.

Cate Butler Ross [00:24:38]:

And then ask yourself those questions. What does my reader need to understand to decide if my solution i.e.  the end goal, the thing that you eventually want to sell them, which might be private coaching, which might be a membership, which might be a course, which might be something else entirely. And what does my reader need to believe in order to want to commit to this solution? Because there is a difference between somebody who reads the book and they take the tools and they go away and they do it themselves. But then there's those of us who actually know we actually want somebody else to help us. We need somebody to hold our hand. We're not that motivated. We want that. So for those people who, in order to kind of really dive deeper and really engage with what you're teaching them, want to take that next step, what do they need to believe in order to want to commit to this solution? And this could be just seeing that it's possible.

Cate Butler Ross [00:25:39]:

It could be seeing case studies of people who have done it too. It could be hearing your story, your transformation story, which reflects the one that you're going to take them on. So, yes, two very powerful questions for you to take away with you and ponder on while you plan your next or your first brand building book. I'm really excited. Let me know how you get on with those questions. Let me know what you thought of this episode as well because yeah, because I love to get feedback. You can connect with me on Instagram@instagram.com, Katebutteros. I'm on Facebook as well.

Cate Butler Ross [00:26:18]:

And of course, the best way to stay in touch with me is by joining my newsletter, which is www dot, the Luminous Media newsletter. I've also got a free Webinar Masterclass in the pipeline. I'm literally planning it this week before I break for half term. It is going to be up and running live from I think it's the 27 June. I've decided to run this Masterclass and this is the key. It's all about working title, author, your influence, write and publish a book that will grow your business. So if this is something that you're thinking about doing and on the fence and not really sure whether it's something that you want to commit time to, or whether you could possibly do it at all, or what you'd write about, or what topic you'd do, come along to this Masterclass. I am in the process of getting it all the details ironed out and up and running.

Cate Butler Ross [00:27:11]:

So if you are listening to this, if you're a very eager beaver and you're listening to this just as it goes out on Thursday, it might not be quite ready yet, the landing page to sign up for these. But don't worry, if you follow me on socials or in my email, I'll be talking about it a lot. But if you are listening to this a little bit later on and the landing page is available to sign up, you will find it at www.theluminous.media/masterclass. So, as I say, the tentative plan is to be running a free Masterclass on the 27 June around lunchtime, British time. So do join us if you can. If you are thinking about whether this year is the year that you finally commit to becoming an author and writing a book that is going to grow your business, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please rate and review it and don't forget to subscribe. And before we go, of course, having mentioned The Soul Works Atelier, inside this episode, it's worth saying that a brand new cohort of The Soul Works Atelier, which is my group book writing program for coaches, creators and heart led entrepreneurs who want to write books to grow their business, is kicking off in September.

Cate Butler Ross [00:28:19]:

But right now you can jump on in now for the September 2023 Cohort. You can jump in now this summer and you can get instant access to all the self study modules and trainings, and you can also join any of our remaining calls which are running until early July as well. So that basically means that you will get not only access to all the content ahead of our start in September, so you can get writing and get geeking up on it before we kick off in September. But you're also going to be getting twelve months support instead of nine, which is brilliant. So you can currently join for eight, nine nine. And there probably is going to be a price rise in the autumn as well. So you're probably also going to be getting it at quite a good price as well. So if you are interested in joining us now ahead of the summer, ready to join the nine month Cohort which kicks off in September.

Cate Butler Ross [00:29:17]:

You can check out all the details at www.theluminous.media/SoulWorks. Anyway, thank you so much for listening, and I'll catch you next week. Bye.