David Barnes @ Packt

You know I've lost count of how many times authors have told me that the goal of their book is:

To provide a clear introduction to the principles and practice of using Moodle (for example) in a friendly, example rich way.

(I choose Moodle as an example here, not to imply anything about the excellent Moodle authors I have worked with and continue to work with.)

That is not a goal. That is a cure for insomnia. Boring goals lead to boring books. Every time. If you're pitching a book, wake your editor up -- give it a big hairy audacious goal. If your planning a book, wake your reader up -- give it a big hairy audacious goal, and then plan the book around it.

Even if you're self publishing the book, take the time to give it a big hairy audacious goal.

Here's how to do that.

Step 1 -- Focus on the outcome not the process

Few people -- especially beginners -- buy a book because they want to learn about a tool. They buy books because they want to do something with the tool. There's that old cliche people buy holes not drills. Ask yourself, what is the hole here?

For example, Moodle is about creating e-learning courses. For a reader, "creating e-learning courses" is a more interesting goal than "learning Moodle". So get that into your goal. So our goal would now be:

To provide a clear introduction to the principles and practice of creating e-learning courses using Moodle in a friendly, example rich way.

Better, not not big, hairy or audacious yet.

Step 2 -- Remove anything that sounds boring

Big hairy audacious goals are sure not boring. "Principles and practice" sounds boring. Yeah, we know the book should cover it, but it makes me sleepy. So get rid of it, at lest from the goal:

To provide a clear introduction to creating e-learning courses using Moodle in a friendly, example rich way.

Step 3 -- It's the reader's goal, not yours

The first step is to turn the statement around so that it's not talking about what the book will do, but what the reader will do. So istead of starting with words like "provide" (which is a statement of what you as an author, or your book will do), choose a big hairy audacious word for the reader. Like:

Create!
Build!
Develop!
Discover!
Design!

You might need to put "learn how to" before that magic word, depending on the sort of book you're writing. That's OK.

Another part of this is, remove anything that describes the book rather than the goal. The qualities of the book are important. They are not part of the goal. They are part of how you acheive that goal.

You'll have a short goal now:

Create e-learning courses using Moodle.

That was a lot of work to make something shorter. At least it is a goal now, and one that a reader will hook into. But it's not big, hairy, or audacious yet.

Step 4 -- Provide more information about what you'll build

"Create e-learning courses" is good. But we don't want to create any old e-learning course. We want to create BIG, HAIRY, AUDACIOUS ones. But what will your reader consider sufficiently big, hairy, and audacious? Try to find the words... they could be:

Create engaging, fun, media-rich and exciting e-learning courses using Moodle.

It's looking better now. But it's not enough to create big, hairy, audacious courses. We also want to create them in a big, hairy, audacious way.

Step 6 -- Talk about the process a bit

How is the reader going to acheive this task? Will it be hard work with lots of brain draining and headaches? That doesn't sound much fun. Let's be big, hairy, and audacious and claim that our reader will acheive this goal quickly and easily, at least:

Create engaging, fun, media-rich and exciting e-learning courses quickly and easily using Moodle.

Sometimes these statements are obvious and hollow, and only make the goal wordier without making it bigger if you get my drift. Only follow this step if it feels worth it.

Step 5 -- Design your book around that goal

Compare the goal we started with and the one we ended with:

Before: To provide a clear introduction to the principles and practice of using Moodle in a friendly, example rich way.

After: Create engaging, fun, media-rich and exciting e-learning courses quickly and easily using Moodle.

I hope you can see that these different goals imply a completely different focus for the book. The first book is all "let's talk about Moodle" blah blah blah. The second is "let's create some cool stuff". The books will look and feel completely different, and guess which one will be most fun and interesting to read? From your first page, show that you're serious about this big, hairy, audacious goal and don't let the reader go until they've achieved it.