Help $TYPE_OF_PERSON be awesome at $THING (via @kathysierra)
Kathy taught me that if you can’t explain your mission in the form, “We help $TYPE_OF_PERSON be awesome at $THING,” you are not going to have passionate users. What’s your tagline? Can you fit it into that template?
This is the perfect single-sentence pitch for any book or educational product. It captures the target audience and the goal of the book in a few short, compelling words.
The trick is to define each of those variables in the most specific, vivid way that you can -- and then let that mission drive everything about the book's content and approach.
Not just "we help developers be awesome at Ext JS", but...
"We help experienced web developers be awesome at building beautiful, interactive, and fun user interfaces using Ext JS".
You can weigh every bit of content against a sentence like that, and you'll know exactly what to leave in and what to leave out.
