Write Useful Books: A modern approach to designing and refining recommendable nonfiction

by Rob Fitzpatrick

Here’s the secret to a five-star Amazon rating: be clear enough about what your book is promising that people can decide they don’t need it.

Your book’s promise should appear in (or at least be strongly implied by) its title and/or subtitle.

When someone asks what you’re working on, attempt to describe the book in just one or two sentences. And then you need to do the hardest thing of all: to shut up and listen to them completely misinterpret and misunderstand what you’re trying to do.

The scope of a useful book is like the executive summary of a new business. It’s an as-brief-as-possible description of what it is, who it’s for, and why they’ll pay for it: Scope = Promise + Reader profile + Who it’s not for + What it won’t cover

A recommendation loop will function even if people don’t know that they’re looking for a book.

To create a book that lasts and grows, the formula is simple: do the best job of solving an important problem for a reader who cares, without anchoring yourself to temporary tools, tactics, or trends.

The most common way to ruin your reader experience is to spend too long on foundational theory before getting to the bits that people actually want.

Since beta readers are real readers, they can offer real insights, which come from three places: What they say in their comments (qualitative insights) Where they begin to become bored, start skimming, stop reading, and stop commenting (quantitative insights) How they apply the book’s ideas in their lives (observational insights)

your book gains the ability to be recommended as a “suggested product” on other product pages, and is treated by Amazon as being a legitimate, trusted offering. This is based on five consecutive days of purchases rather than reviews, but it’s an illuminating example of how Amazon’s algorithm “thinks,” and how it values consistency over volume.

whenever a reader asks a question, instead of sending an email reply, I record the answer as a public video on my YouTube channel[50] and send them a link. This requires slightly more time, but doubles as a permanent piece of content to help build my fledgling audience.