Roadmapping Your Thought Leadership Book: Rapid Writing Series

By Jessica Mehring

Transform yourself from busy expert to accomplished author with this must-read guide. Roadmapping Your Thought Leadership Book takes you through the process of outlining your book from start to finish, so you can dramatically accelerate your writing process.

 

Writing a book stretches and challenges you as an expert. It also elevates your credibility and authority in your field, opens new doors, and connects you with new audiences. At the end of this short book, you'll have a clear roadmap for your book project so you can easily fit writing into your busy schedule. Whether you're a harried executive, a preoccupied parent, or frazzled founder, you'll feel empowered to write a book that stands the test of time and captivates readers—fast.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Five Bears Press
• Release date: Jan 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781735401348

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Writing a book is one of the most satisfying things a human can do. Putting our ideas down for others to read, finding and using our unique voice to communicate a message or a story—it’s a beautiful thing. It stretches us in ways nothing else does.

You picked up this Rapid Writing book because you want to share your knowledge and experience with the world in the form of a book. Today, people like you—experts with unique insights to share with the world—are called thought leaders. And packaging up and sharing your expertise in the form of a book is called thought leadership. Love the term or hate it, the desire to write a thought leadership book is an incredibly noble calling. Yet of all the work you did to get here, writing a book may feel like your biggest challenge yet.

That’s why this book, the first book in my Rapid Writing series, teaches you how to create a roadmap. By the end, not only will you have a detailed plan—you’ll also have confidence that you can write that book, and motivation to get it done quickly.

For a thought leader like you, writing a book can offer massive benefits for your personal and professional life. Writing a book gives you the space to explore your ideas more in depth, and helps you package your thinking so others can better learn from you. Being the author of a book can also give you more credibility and authority—and there are enormous business benefits if you’re a business owner, entrepreneur, or freelancer. A book can reach a wider audience than other forms of content and media, and it can help you connect with new audiences. It can help you generate new opportunities for speaking, consulting, and teaching. And potential clients may feel more confident in hiring someone who has written and published a book.

Writing a book also gives you no room for poor thinking. As Wharton professor and author Adam Grant puts it, Unclear writing is a sign of unclear thinking. To put an idea down on a page in a way that others can understand requires clarity of thought and a vocabulary robust enough to communicate what’s in your head. Because of this, writing a book can improve your thinking and communication.

Unclear writing is a sign of unclear thinking. -Adam Grant

Writing a book is also one of the hardest things we can do. You simply can’t crank out a book in a week, no matter what the Kindle e-book gurus tell you. To write a book of value, a book that stands the test of time and that others want to read, takes time.

I don’t think it’s a leap to say that writing a book improves your character.

If you plan well, however, you can cut down the time it takes to write your book—and you can make the process much more enjoyable.

That’s exactly why I wrote this book for you.

I’ve been a writer since I could pick up a pencil. I got my first short story published in high school, and got my first paid essay published shortly after college. Since then, I’ve published novels, business books, collections of personal essays, poetry—and as a copywriter for technology companies, I’ve been paid to write articles, white papers, e-books, infographics, emails, and ads.

I have lived and breathed writing my whole life, and I’ve tried just about every method for starting a new project. What I’ve discovered is that, while there are some writers who can just start writing and see where the story goes (we call them pantsers—as in, they write by the seat of their