360 tools - Ruth Bullivant

Nonfiction Book 360

Planning tools

Assess your book plan in the round

Tools for the time-stretched expert who wants to reach their niche reader with a nonfiction book.

Gather the data to work out if you have a viable book plan.

Find your Reader

Explore the Shape of Your Book

Risk Assessment Tool (+ video instruction)

Plan to Get Your Book Done

Bundle offer!

$45

Just thinking about writing a book is a huge deal.

That you are on this page shows how seriously you take the prospect.

The 360 Tools will help you work out if you are in the right place, at the right time, to get down to writing your book.

Really?

Yes, really! When you have worked on the tools, you will be able to narrow your options down to three:

1. It might be, to walk away from it with tender regret but a clear mind.

2. It might be, to postpone action until you know you can give it a better chance.

3. It might be to cry, “Let’s do it! All systems go!”

You won’t know what’s best until you have worked through the Nonfiction Book 360 tools.

What do the tools do?

The 360 Tools will help you:

📔 Understand what you are writing and who for

📔 Give you a starting framework for your book

📔 Identify the risks that might stop you finishing your book (and how to mitigate those risks)

📔 The confidence to take the next steps to get to grips with your book.

Writing a book is a large project

You don’t sit down on a Monday morning and keep writing until you get to the last page.

It takes months, even years, to:

☕ hone your ideas so you make the best impact your readers

☕work out what has been written before and how you are moving the discussion on

☕understand why you have to write this book, even through the dark days of Month 11 when your enthusiasm is ebbing.

These tools make sure you are clear up front.

Before you begin.

They show you how to look at your book idea from different angles:

🌍 Readership

🌍 Concept

🌍 Risk, and

🌍 Planning.

Buying the tools

Bundle offer! $45

You can buy the tools individually for $15 each, or you can buy all of them in one bundle and save 25%

Readership

Who, exactly, is going to read your book?

We write books to reach the minds of other people.

A book that sits untouched, unread, is a sad thing.

If you want to write to unburden your soul, write a journal.

If you want to inspire, persuade, inform, then you need to know who you are writing for.

It can be tempting to default into thinking in terms of demographics. To answer something like, “My readers are female and aged between 40 and 60 and work in accountancy.”

This approach may work for some sectors, but not when you are writing a book.

The reason I say this is that even though your reader may be female, middle-aged, and has trained as an accountant, we don’t know:

🤔 how she thinks, or

🤔 what bothers her, or

☺️ what makes her joyful, or

👁️ what she reads, or

💖 anything at all that matters about her personality or character.

If you want to reach your reader’s heart and mind through your book, you need to know a bit more about her than inferring she is good at numbers, that her hair could be going grey, and that she may, or may not, have a dependent family.

So how are you going to reach her heart and mind? What will help you look deeper into your reader’s life, and even her soul?

I’ve got just the thing for you! Find your Reader is an amazingly effective exercise that enables you to pinpoint the one person who needs to read your book.

(And don’t worry: having found The One, there will be many more like them!)

If you want to buy just the Find your Reader worksheet, without taking advantage of the Bundle offer of $45, click the pink button.

Concept

The Table of Contents is a promise to your reader

Let me guide you through one of the most exciting parts of starting a new book.

We will create a potential framework for your book by writing a Table of Contents.

I will help you consider a variety of frameworks so you choose the one that best suits your content.

The Table of Contents. It’s a bit of a mouthful, so we’ll do what editors do, and call it the TOC.

When you open a book and glance at the TOC, you might think it was compiled at the end of the process. That the publisher simply gathered up a list of chapter headings and stuck them at the front of the book.

But in reality, your TOC—any TOC—is the very first thing a writer should think about when starting a new book. We design the TOC even before writing the first page.

And it is so much more than a list of chapter headings.

It’s a promise.

It promises your reader:

“This book will answer your questions, solve your problems, or satisfy your curiosity—and here’s how.”

If you want to buy the worksheet Explore the Shape of Your Book that will help you frame the concept of your book, without taking advantage of the Bundle offer of $45, click the pink button.

Risk planning

Risk is inbuilt into everything we do

Risk Planning is a key part of turning your book idea into reality.

Risk is inbuilt into everything we do:

⚠️ If you choose to do one thing, there is a risk you won’t have time/energy/money to do something else

⚠️ If you have two book ideas and choose one, there is a risk the other one won’t loosen its grip on you and slow you down

⚠️ If you start to write a book, there is a risk you won’t finish it (and a further risk that you think you have failed)

My Risk Assessment Tool guides you to name your individual risks, assess them, and think whether you can mitigate or accept them.

In a substantial, but easy to use Excel sheet, you will:

Identify your particular risks of writing your book

Learn how to anticipate and mitigate these risks

Create a robust Risk Register to navigate roadblocks with confidence.

I’ve even made you a video that walks you through the steps for making the most of the tool.

If you want to buy the Risk Assessment Tool + Video that will help you address the risks that might prevent you from making your book a reality, without taking advantage of the Bundle offer of $45, click the pink button.

Plan to Fit Your Book into Your Life

Make your book project fit into your busy lifestyle

This tool will help you plan to get your book done.

You need a holistic plan to organise your time to focus on your book project.

Life has a way of throwing us curveballs—work trips, family obligations, holidays, and everything else that fills up the calendar.

Your book journey needs to account for these commitments while maintaining momentum.

Note I say, your “book project”.

I don’t say, “your writing”.

When you write nonfiction books, it’s important to spend the early weeks (and months) doing more thinking and research than writing.

🤔 You carry on working out the best TOC, the structure to hold your unique book. After a while, when you are comfortable you have the right shape, you will expand it, or “annotate” it.

🤔 You analyse your audience and you think about your marketing.

🤔 You explain why you are the best person to write your book, and you work out a short synopsis, and a longer overview.

🤔 You write a chapter or two, more as a proof of concept than as an actual start on the writing.

All of this is what equips you to either propose your book to publishers, or (if you prefer to self-publish) to write your book quickly, without multiple rewrites.

This tool helps you tailor a flexible, realistic plan that will allow you to adjust and keep going with your book.

If you want to buy the Plan to Get Your Book Done that will help you account for all your commitments so maintaining momentum to finish your book, without taking advantage of the Bundle offer of $45, click the pink button.

Remember!

I’m offering a Bundle of all four Tools

Find your Reader

Explore the Shape of Your Book

Risk Assessment Tool (+ video instruction)

Plan to Get Your Book Done

Total value $60

Save 25% by buying the Bundle for $45