I’ll help you start your book or restart one that may have stalled or been put aside for a while. Beginning a book or even reviewing an entire draft can be tough. You have no natural next step and no momentum, only a general eagerness to get going. But, get going on what?

One good paragraph.
After our early conversations it’s probably a good idea to sit down and craft a single well-made paragraph that captures our first ideas. Call it your target or your manifesto. Write it out and hang it up someplace. When you have this paragraph and a sense that “That’s it!” you’re ready to move on.

Outlines and re-outlines
Instead, we might start by capturing the general shape of the project in an outline. Obvious advice, I know, but we’ll think of ways to do this routine exercise that are distinctively suitable to you and your project.

One of my clients said she was immediately launched by our two-page outline. We used “book logic,” listing topics in the form of chapter titles, 13 of them, I recall. Then she wrote a short paragraph under each chapter heading to capture the sense of the last part of the chapter. After reading what she had written she said she had an immediate and powerful sense of the book she was going to write. Her book pretty much turned out the way she had planned except for a couple of chapters being combined into one.

The outline captures the design of the book, of course, and I’ll help you be sure your design is realistic and sensible, one that will be the foundation for a truly good book. If you already have a manuscript or a good start on one, we’ll go over it together to clarify and improve its structure.

Who is your audience?
One thing we’ll look at especially closely is how well you’ve isolated an audience for your ideas. A good, clear definition of the audience will give precision and cogency to everything you do.  We may try to imagine your readers rather completely: ages, genders, professions, temperaments, beliefs, and even prejudices.

If you’re hoping to write for a general audience, I’ll help you avoid a common mistake experts make.  They pitch their book too low.  Remember, only seven percent of Americans ever enter a bookstore in a given year.  Book buyers are a select group, tending to be college level or beyond.  One can write clearly for such an audience, but don’t turn them off with dumbed-down stuff.  On the other hand, this audience doesn’t often have the same time and attention to give as specialized professionals or scholars.  You’ll need to make your ideas broadly accessible and also entertaining—particularly intellectually entertaining.

The importance of your launch
This beginning stage is critical and naturally will condition everything you do. Having someone to work with you helps you be certain your ideas are clear and plausible. In “selling” your ideas and your approach to your coach, you’ll have to put a precision and legitimacy on them that perhaps no other person has asked of you before. When I’m convinced, so will you be, and you’ll have a much more solid foundation for everything that follows