I have been a huge fan of Kathy Sierra since the days of her extremely popular blog, Creating Passionate Users. She has become a huge success in the publishing industry and recently gave a talk at O’Reilly’s Tools of Change in Publishing conference that was amazing and is a must-watch for any author.
If you’re interested, here are a few of the notes I took while watching:
- People don’t buy the book because they like the book (or author). They buy the book because they likethemselves.
- The goal of your book is not to get people to like you or your book. The goal is to help the reader think “I’m awesome!”.
- Don’t try to reverse-engineer successful books. Reverse-engineer successful readers of books.
- The #1 goal of your book is to help the reader “Kick Ass”.
- What really matters is what the reader does after reading the book.
- Have a relentless focus on the results of someone reading your book. Ask on every page, “How is this helping the reader ‘kick ass’?”.
- Who cares about your Table of Contents? What is your “Map of Superpowers”? What power to act and succeed are you giving to your reader?
My notes are a sad reflection of what she actually said in the talk so make sure you watch it above.
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