“Anyone can write a book if they sit down for long enough,” Nicholas grinned, “but writing a book and selling a book are completely separate events.”
Nicholas Boothman is a professional speaker, a writing and public speaking coach, and the author of How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less (Workman Publishing: 2008) and How to Write a $aleable Book in 10-Minute Bursts of Madness (Boothman: 2016). With a background in fashion photography, and training in neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), he proved to be a fascinating and lively subject for my latest In Conversation Masterclass.
Together we discussed his philosophy of writing, the secret to a good title, and what he believes is necessary for authors to reach their full potential. Here are a few of the things I learned:
1 – When is a writer not a writer?
The answer? When they’re an inventor. Or at least, that’s how Nicholas encouraged my writing students to view themselves. “Don’t take yourself too seriously,” he told them. “You’re not a ‘writer’, you’ve just invented a book – unless, of course, it’s fiction,” he added with a laugh, “in which case you are a writer.” Instead, he prefers to think of his books as ‘self-help fiction’. In explaining his reasoning for this, Nicholas displayed his wonderful aptitude for concise and evocative analogies, as demonstrated by…
2 – The shish-kebab model of writing
Nicholas prides himself on his ability to convey complicated ideas through simple images. My favourite of these metaphors emerged from the importance he laid on knowing the purpose behind what you write.
“A book or a speech for me is like a shish-kebab,” he explains. “It has a hook and a point.” This model applies not only to when you write a book, but also to each individual chapter. The writer – or inventor – must ensure that they consistently hook the reader with a new idea before they cleanly skewer their way through the thought to its conclusion, layering their words one on top of the other until the reader is carried from the hook to the final point. After all, as Nicholas argues, “The bottom line with any speech or book is what’s your point? Because once you’ve got your point, all you have to do is prove it.”
Whenever I’ve had to describe how to write a book, I usually compare it to a cooking recipe, or describing each chapter as parts of a roadmap. That said, I love this idea of constructing a book like a shish-kebab and definitely won’t be forgetting it any time soon! Nicholas has a knack for what he calls ‘sticky’ ideas, which leads me to…
3 – How to come up with a ‘Velcro’ title
Nicholas is keen to stress two points: for a self-help book, whatever benefit your book offers the reader must appear in the title, and that benefit should provide an interesting twist on a popular topic.
“My publisher in New York won’t touch a self-help book if there isn’t a benefit in the title,” he explains. The reader needs to be grabbed by what the book offers, and that information cannot be tucked away into a subtitle where it might get lost when journalists, book bloggers or producers publish write-ups or reviews of your work. “If you don’t make our title sticky enough to stay in their fingers, they’re not going to write about you, or talk about you, so no-one’s going to know about you.”
What’s more, in order to write a book that you can actually market, you need to be able to draw on a topic that readers are interested in, which means that you need to know what your topic is and how it stands out from the crowd. To figure out what it is you are writing, he recommends that you ask yourself “Where would they put this book in the bookstore?” It’s no good writing an unfocused book because no one will want to buy it, and if they did no shop would know where to put it, and even if they managed that then no customer would know where to find it. “You have to be able to put your book in a category or topic,” he concludes, because once you know your central theme, then you can figure out how to capture its unique benefit in your title.
4 – How to write a book in ten-minute bursts of madness
“I’m not a teacher,” Nicholas insists when I ask about his writing workshops. “I show them my invention and how to use it.” The rest is up to them.
Nicholas’ writing workshops are built around the metaphor of helping the reader cross a river using stepping stones. The initial bank that you stand on together is the introduction to your book, explaining who you are and what you know, while the other side is your outro where the reader departs in their own direction with the skills they’ve learned. The author’s job is to get the reader to that point by helping them cross each stepping stone, or chapter, hopefully by employing the shish-kebab model mentioned above at each stage.
Before attending the workshop, Nicholas expects his students to prepare eight chapter titles, which they then break down into three logically connected headings. These three headings are then further broken down into three subheadings which provide a structure to a ‘ten-minute burst of madness’. By breaking down a book into these small, but well defined, chunks, all that remains is to write each of these micro-sections in a ten-minute burst of mad, non-stop, free writing. “You’ve got the knowledge,” he points out, “So basically you write until your subconscious sphincter bursts open and everything flies out from inside you. You can write any old rubbish you want so long as you keep writing.”
With each burst of madness only taking up ten minutes at a time, nine bursts are enough to finish a chapter, which swiftly adds up to an impressive amount of raw material. Of course, editing will come later to polish up this rough draft, but the important thing is getting a first draft down on paper through free writing, no matter the madness it took to achieve it!
5 – Finally, be careful of premature feedback
“I go crazy when I see people standing in the way of other people who have got potential,” he admits. For that reason he recommends that you don’t tell people about your book whilst you’re working on it, because they likely won’t understand and their confusion will make you doubt yourself. “Keep it to yourself until you finish your first draft,” he advises, “because I’ve seen so many people who’ve made changes based on the feedback of people who haven’t got a [clue].” Being confident means trusting yourself, and not being afraid of failure, which are both essential skills for writers and inventors of every stripe.
I’d like to thank Nicholas for talking to me. The full video of our conversation can be found here, and he can be contacted through his website nicholasboothman.com while his book, How to Write a $aleable Book in 10-minute Bursts of Madness is available for purchase on Amazon.
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If you would like to watch more of my In Conversation Masterclasses, they can be found on my Events page and on YouTube. Please subscribe to my channel to make sure you don’t miss out.
In Conversation Masterclasses are free of charge for now and take place once or twice a month at 14:00 UK time.
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This post has been collated by our intern, Charlie Wellings, who is helping us to produce more content to inspire your writing.
