Part 6 - Cocktail party pitch and North Star check
Part 11 - Outline Chapter Structure
Most authors think the purpose of the introduction is to explain the book. That is boring and wrong.
What an introduction should NOT do:
- Summarize the book
- Tell the author’s life story
- Have a meandering back story
- Too much detail
- Be too long
What an introduction should do:
- Get the reader into the book
- Lay out the pain and pleasure
- Explain what the reader will learn
- Why author is the expert
- Get reader excited
Parts of an introduction
- Hook
- Reader’s current pain
- Reader’s potential pleasure
- Tell them what they’ll learn
- Author’s background/book origin
It is recommended that you write your intro last. The intro is the hardest thing to write, and you don’t know how to describe your book accurately until you have written it.
Hook tests
What will the audience care about, be interested in or shocked by?
What fact makes them take notice?
What is the most interesting story or claim in your book?
I’m going to take the advice and circle back and write the introduction after I have written the rest of the book.