Welcome to another Book more show blog post. In this post, we will discuss two commonly asked questions, How long should my book be? And How much editing should I do? To listen to the podcast episode or look through the transcript, click here
How long should my book be?
Often when talking to potential clients before they come on board, there are always a couple of questions that repeatedly come up. One of the main ones being, ‘how long should my book be?’. Should the book be 200 pages? Should it be 50 pages?
From the 90-minute book perspective, the book will be as short or as long as it needs to be to answer the specific question the book wishes to address. Because the length of the book is determined by how comfortable the client is throughout the recorded interview. On average, we recommend a minimum of 25 pages to make the book look good, with free range to scale from there, depending on what you’re comfortable with.
There is this mindset that a book has to be thick and heavy to be informative, which is not necessarily true. It is important to remember the bigger picture here; instead of getting mired in the technicalities of page numbers, you need to think of it in terms of where the book sits in the engagement funnel,
is the content produced sufficient to answer the question posed? And does the book push readers to the next step in the funnel? And to do these things, our book model follows a conversational format that is easy and simple to read.
How much editing do I need to do?
Typically, with the traditional 90 Minute Book, there is a 30-minute preparation session, then a 60-minute interview. the book is then sent to the in-house editors, who clean it up. At this point, the book is ready for printing. The challenge appears to be when the book goes back to the client.
As with the mental blocks present with book length, there is the notion that when your book comes, you should change it.
There is a saying that a man with one watch is confident of the time, but a man with two watches is never confident of the time. Because more opinions aren’t necessarily going to make it any better.
You must remember that there is a difference between traditional books and books written from the transcript of a conversation. It is guaranteed to read differently.
What is done here at 90-minute books is to strike the balance between an interesting conversational read and an informative piece of literature.
I would advise people to be very careful about striking the right balance. It needs to be correct and read as well as it can, but the fact that it’s not structured like a traditional book is structured is absolutely fine.
The fact that it’s only addressing one particular point is absolutely fine.
The fact that your personality comes out in it and the words you use while talking might be different than the words you use if you were to write an email to someone, and again, this is absolutely fine.
At the end of the day,
remember the book’s purpose: it is a lead generation piece to give value to potential customers, to allow them to raise their hands to start that conversation in a way that makes them feel good and gives them the answers they seek. If you are ready to start your book journey with us, you can contact us at http://90minutebooks.com/start. If you have any other questions, you can send them to hello@90minutebooks.com.