In Lesson 1 we looked at your reason why and this will become more obvious why this is essential as you progress through this course. Next, we need to establish, plan and define your goal for the book.

The reason we need to establish this is because it will help you in a later lesson when we look at "to self-publish or not to self-publish that is the question".

If you are short on time and keen to get on. Only work on 1 part of lesson 2 and return to it at a later time. Do not forget to finish this lesson before you move on. All parts of this lesson are vital to your book planning success.

Lesson 2, Part 1

Here I want you to think about the goal for your book. There is no need to get specific at this stage. (You will by the end of this lesson!) Start with these questions. there is a worksheet below you can download to be able to refer back to and ensure you are staying true to your aims and goals. And if you are adjusting them appreciate the reason why.

• Do you want your book to make you famous? (Be prepared to pay and work very hard.)
• Do you want this book to be your main income? (This is not achieved easily unless you are a celebrity already!)
• Do you want this book to raise the profile of your company?
• Do you want this book to open doors to help you get to work with your target audiences?
• Do you want this book because it's been a life ambition to write a book?

ACTION; Create a sentence now that says what your goals are for your book. It does not need to be specific at this stage, we will build on this.

Lesson 2, Part 2 - Specifics!

Taking the information from above now we need to get specific to help you stay focused and help with further lessons.

It will be a lot easier to achieve your book writing goals with the knowledge from this lesson available to you.

• How much money do you want to make from this book? Per month? Per quarter?
• (Remember if you work with a publisher it is likely you will only get sales figures and royalties every 6 months. This is important to remember when marketing your book, which we will look at in more detail in another lesson.)
• How much time are you prepared to spend promoting your book?
• Are you prepared to travel?
• What is your knowledge of promoting a book?
• What routes to market would you like to use? Bookstores, events, Amazon, eBay, Events, PR, etc?
• Do you understand how to do this?
• Does it feel too big to learn how to do this?
• How many readers do you want?
• What do you want writing this book to give you personally?
• What do you want writing this book to give you professionally?

By getting specific and considering the goals for the book, you also need to consider the things you fear or that you feel have been obstacles to your success in the past.

For instance, you could have a great idea for a book however if you lack confidence or fear public speaking this needs to factor in your goal for this book so you understand what the ultimate result will be. It will also help you to appreciate what additional skills you need to add or check the standard of.

Take the time to complete the second worksheet on offer for this lesson that helps you to understand your ambitions and fears about writing a book. This will help you build a sentence that describes the goal for your book. So your goal may say;

"The goal for my book is that it willl enable me to overcome my fear of public speaking and become a paid professional speaker within 2 years of publishing my book."

or

"My goal is to create a book that helps me get on the radio as people's number 1 choice of expert on X so that I can get paid to feature in the media, be a headline speaker at events on the area of X within 2 years so that I can be a headlining speaker at the X conference in May 20XX"

or

"The goal for my book is to be able to guide people through best practices on the subject of X and lead them to come to me for consultancy work."

or

"The goal for my book is to become a TV personality that is the only one in Europe speaking on X and enabling people to overcome this."

Make your goal succinct, make it big (most people don't make goals big enough in my 1000's of hours of coaching) make it accountable, make it feel slightly too big to achieve (that is the goal that has power.) and make it very personal to you.

My personal goal was for Fight the Fear; "My goal for my book is to showcase myself as an expert on the area of confidence, achieving your goals and overcoming fears that impact on success so that I can help people around the world via my book, courses and coaching. This will also enable me to showcase The Business Womans Network and increase my status as a thought leader and grow my paid professional speaking opportunities, utilising no cost, low cost marketing that enables me to make money without working so that I can protect my health" (And for the record my book is doing all of those things, very powerfully and in a future lesson I will help you understand how to achieve this too.)

ACTION; Create a powerful sentence that explains your goal for the book, what it will do for you personally and professionally, ensuring you mention what you want it to do for the reader and include dates to give you real accountability and focus.