Ep09- How To Mind Map Your Book Idea

[00:00:00] Let's talk about how to map and outline your book idea. Creating your book idea. It's all about developing a plan of attack for your book. And it's a powerful way to organize the concepts. You have your chapters and your ideas. So every time you sit down to write, you know, exactly what you're supposed to write and exactly the words that you want to put on the page. So I'm going to go through this episode as a step-by-step process.

[00:00:26] And this is the process I use that will help you craft a really awesome outline and. It'll make sure you've got everything covered and your topic is really, really ready to deliver maximum impact to your audience. So, how do you mind map your book idea? Well, what that looks like is really dumping all your ideas down on a page.

[00:00:48] And I would always recommend writing on a physical piece of paper because technology can be too distracting when you're trying to really get in the presence of documenting everything in your mind. So, Using physical paper, that way you're writing down your ideas and you're not getting lost on a computer screen, but it's also really exciting to see your ideas take shape.

[00:01:08] As you write down, what's in your head. How we work through the mind mapping stage are through four different steps. The first step is to get clarity. It's asking yourself, what is your book about? You want to write a description for your book in a couple of sentences. Almost as if it's like an elevator pitch, but you also want to make sure that you include the message

[00:01:30] you're trying to send the reader up the problem you're trying to solve and why you're writing your book. So getting that clarity is really important. And then what builds into the next step, which is the structure. That next step you want to write down the type of nonfiction book structure, yours is going to be.

[00:01:48] So what type of style are you going to write? And I would suggest what you do is have a look at different books that are in your niche genre that you're writing about and have a look, how they structure their book. Are they including only chapters or are they splitting books into different sections? I've done several different structures in my books and the six pillars of rewarding life,

[00:02:09] I had every chapter open with a story. And evolve your skills was a bit different where I would have. Different parts related to different sections of the book. So first part was called learn. Second part was called applied, and the third part of the book was called perform. So it's really up to you, how you structure your book because there is no right or wrong structure. You just need to find what you believe would work best for what content you're going to put in your book and what you want to talk about.

[00:02:37] You then want to start thinking about how your reader will transform throughout the book. Think of your book as a beginning to end transformation point, where did they begin and where will they end up? You want to then write out your chapter and some chapter ideas. So everything that's from the beginning to the end. You want to organize them in order of importance? For example, with published impact, I wouldn't start. My chapters with how to launch a book. I'd start off with how to get into the right mindset to write a book. So really find that zone of importance when it comes to your ideas. And it's okay.

[00:03:16] Just to list them out in terms of a number of one to 20, it's kind of, however you decide to structure your book. It's up to you.

[00:03:22] And then what you want to do is after organizing your concepts from importance. Write a draft table of contents, and this won't be a final table of contents, but it really gives you the belief that your ideas can turn into your book because when you see a table of contents, you go, oh, that's how my book can be structured.

[00:03:40] And you have a real base to work off, and it's really validating for you because you can essentially know that you can turn that into real life. So. Just remember to have fun and play around with different chapters and figure out where they belong in the journey of your reader.

[00:03:56] The third step is how are you going to solve your reader's problem? This is where the real fun begins. So for every chapter idea, write down your key points that help solve that problem. For example, if your book is about building an online business, what important concepts do you have to say? Is it about digital marketing? Is it about identifying your niche? You want to list out those concepts for each chapter and. Once you've laid out all your ideas and you've expanded on them, list out the takeaways and key points. So. What would you like your readers to learn? And think of it as sort of a brief conclusion to the ideas you've written out and writing down key takeaways and points of your chapter.

[00:04:39] It really gets you in the mind frame of thinking about how you would start and end each chapter, but you'll also be able to effectively communicate what you have to say when the time comes to write your book. The fourth step when it comes to creating your book outline is to write a draft conclusion. And it's something that I've done in my two most recent books, but. I found this a really powerful way when I wrote published to impact, because it was kind of just the reverse where it was, it was a challenge, but after writing the key takeaway points I had, I really thought about where my reader ends up.

[00:05:15] And for me in my book published impact, that was you writing publishing and launching a book where you've made a significant personal and professional transformation in your life, in your business and everything that you do. So imagine it this way, right? You've held your reader's hand and you've guided them along the journey of transformation in their book from beginning to end. Where are they now?

[00:05:40] It's an important step because when you write your ending or the conclusion before you've even started, You gain clarity in the message you're trying to convey. . You want to keep the conclusion handy with you? Because when it comes time to write the official ending of your book, compare it.

[00:05:56] But what you'll actually notice is how far you've come in, the writing process. I do this as well with my introductions where I'll write a really basic introduction at the beginning. But as I write through, I really understand what it is I'm trying to convey. And. That makes, that means I can go back and rework that introduction and make it stronger.

[00:06:15] The conclusion is exactly the same. So after you've written a placeholder ending for your book. Going back to step one, which was finding that clarity in your idea and what your book is about. And then you want to ask yourself how you're feeling about the idea. So keep doing the same in each step with the mindset of is this important.

[00:06:35] And when you review. All these ideas that you've laid out on the page, you should be clear on what message you have to say to your audience and to the people you're writing for. I also don't want you to think of your mind map as a brainstorm cloud with dashes and lines, you know, that mind that, that you got taught in primary school, I want you to make your mind map your own in saying that, you know, how you best learn, whether everything's color coordinated or whether it's just messy, it's up to you, how you mind map your book.

[00:07:07] So however that looks, whether that's, Just spitballing, anything into paper, good ideas, bad ideas. Choose a way that you want your mind map to look like and get creative with it. You know, write down different things and however you feel works best, but. Use it as the opportunity to watch your ideas take place, because this is such an important phase in the book writing process, and you'll gain a whole lot of clarity just from hashing out everything in your mind and putting it onto paper. Now once you've collaborated all those ideas in your mind, it's time to look at the research materials you're going to need to have, because those research materials really help in getting your book written. Don't think you have to write a book without relying on elements that you need to go back to and research on.

[00:07:55] So there's a chance you may have stories that might be studies and research and your book that needs to be credited the easiest way to collate all your references is to follow a system that works for you. So I want you to consider some of the, some of these things because when it comes to researching, it's one of those. Elements of writing a book that you have to not get bogged down in the finer details of researching, because it really is easy to take time away from writing and to try and find the best researching material for your book.

[00:08:25] And how I look at that is to really consider firstly your research goals. Before you even write your book. What materials are you going to use? Are they materials that you've already created in your business and you want to use those materials to support everything. You've got to say. Or perhaps maybe. You have materials like stories, for example, real life stories, interviews on podcasts. Would you use that to support your book?

[00:08:53] Once you've collated all those materials. It becomes much easier to refer back to when you're writing your manuscript, because you've got an outline already done. You've got your chapters and you've got a, a sense of transformation on where you're taking your reader. And if you've, and if you've got your materials there, ready to go, you just need to refer back to them. And that will keep the momentum going in your manuscript.

[00:09:17] And one of the things too is really important, I believe is to make sure you research before writing and always set a time limit on how long you're spending on research. Because, like I said, it can get out of hand very quickly where. You've spent two hours researching and five minutes writing. It's really easy to get caught in the rabbit hole.

[00:09:35] So remember it's the writing that gets your book written. So if there's something that you need to clarify while writing a book, don't spend too much time chasing it. Just put a placeholder in and I've learned this the hard way. I would now put a placeholder in and go right back at the end when I'm proofreading my manuscript, because I'm more likely to have that fresh in mind where I can remember again, where that research came from. I can go yeah, that's what I meant. And I can go back and review the material and then credit that source.

[00:10:04] I don't want you to think about or worry about how much content you've got for your book and whether it's too much or too little. The thing about writing a book is it's a balance and. When you write that outline, you're creating that balance for yourself because when it comes to writing your actual book, if you've done that outline correctly, you know, you're in that mindset of, okay, this might be a bit too much for this chapter. I bring it back a little bit I knew deep down whether or not you're overloading your reader when you're writing out your book.

[00:10:33] So, I just want to remind you that it's all about. That journey or taking the radar on. You know, you're not writing a novel, you're not telling a story of fantasy. Your solving a problem and you're using your expertise to your audience to deliver that solution.

[00:10:50] Now want to recap today's episode because my mapping is such a pivotal stage in the. Journey of writing a book. And tell you that most stages are important, but mind mapping in particular really starts to create the momentum. And I just want to recount the four steps I've spoken about on what it takes to effectively it mind map your book idea.

[00:11:12] Step one was to find clarity. So remember, but what is your book about? Write a description for your book in a couple of sentences, and don't forget to include the message you're trying to send your reader, the problem you're trying to solve and why you're writing the book. Step two was looking at how you're going to structure your book. Again, I am going to have parts to your book.

[00:11:34] Is your book going to be chapters only? Are you going to create interactive end of chapter exercises, it's up to you. How you structure your book. There is no right and no wrong, but I would recommend looking at different books in your niche or genre and take some notes about how they approach their different structure in their books. So step's rate was how are you solving your Raiders problem? Now, this was where you lay out all of your ideas and you start expanding on them. And it becomes fun because you think of what your reader would like to learn.

[00:12:03] And then you would write that down. You then organize that out of importance, whether that's one to 10. How many chapters do you think you might have. And you just write a draft table of contents and write down the key takeaway points of your chapters. That would then get you in the mind frame of how you think you might start each chapter.

[00:12:22] And step four was, write your draft conclusion.

[00:12:26] So when you put a placeholder conclusion for your book and go back to the beginning, when it comes to rewriting your draft to conclusion, It then becomes much more powerful because you've gone through that whole process of writing and you can really transform your reader while you're writing your book. And then what can happen? Is at the end when you're ready to actually write your solid conclusion, you can look at that draft conclusion and you've gone. Oh shit, this is actually really bad. I can write a way better conclusion than that. So placeholder your conclusion, put a draft conclusion in and then see how you go.

[00:12:59] But with that said, I've also included a little bonus for you in the show notes, which is a mind map template. And this is a really awesome way to get your ideas down onto the page. And this is something I'd recommend for you to download and use.

[00:13:10] So you don't have to keep re listening to this episode. I will list the four steps down in the show notes, but definitely use the mind map template. If you're thinking about writing a book. Now. Thanks very much again for joining me. You can always download a copy of published to impact for free available in the show notes. But for now, it's a good buy for me. And we'll see you on the next episode.