Paul
Greenberg wrote a book called CRM at the speed of light; I think it was his 3rd
or 4th edition of the CRM book. He spent a year researching social
media and how social media is influencing CRM. He wrote a book about CRM and
social media technologies, it’s just as much a book about social media as it is
about CRM.
Paul
is a great writer because he doesn’t just give you the facts and principles he
gives you stories that illustrate those principles. Instead of writing a book
just about ideas and concepts my suggestion would be to think about how you can
write a book about stories and cases that illustrate your concepts. Take your
concepts, put them aside, and think about the stories that are important to
your audience, what would interest them.
Paul’s
book also worked because he interviewed everyone in the industry, using the phone
and social media, 1) he learned how to use social media in the year of writing
the book, but 2) he managed to find all of the best stories in the industry.
He
interviewed most of the leading thinkers in the industry, but also asked them
to contribute to the book. This was great in 2 ways, 1) he had content from
writers he did not need to write, and 2) he had influencers contribute ideas
that helped with the structure and overall value of the book.
My
advice is that instead of thinking of a book as something you write, you are
more of the editor to the industry, you are still the principal writer, but the
more people you can get involved, the more valuable your book, and the more
likely the people who contribute will promote the book, because you included
them in the book.
Paul
did a very good job of breaking up the chapters into smaller sections, everyone
likes small bites these days, I think grabbing a few successful business books
and leafing through them to get a sense of how the book is structured is a good
idea. Paul was good at this, also look at Andy Sernovitz’s book on word of
mouth marketing, he is very good at splitting up stories and concepts into sections.
All
of these ideas should help you plan and develop your book so that it markets
much more easily.
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