Bestselling Leadership Books are Like Hit Songs. Here’s Why.
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I have a client who started his own business, built it into a successful operation, and retired comfortably. John wants to share the secrets to his success in a book. The problem is that the more John wrote, the more he realized that his advice wasn’t unique. The things John did to become a millionaire were really the same things you could find in any blog post on how to start your own company. He realized that his work-in-progress didn’t have the makings of a New York Times bestseller.
One of the biggest challenges for authors writing self-help, how-to, and leadership books is overcoming the lack of originality. Even if you have an interesting personal story (which John has), the component of the book in which you share pearls of wisdom about the subject matter can suffer from overexposure. Your message can sound like something readers have heard before.
To help shift John’s mindset, I asked him what his favourite song was. Without hesitation, he told me he can still remember the day when he first heard Eric Burdon & the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun.” He was 17 years old and decades later it remains his favourite song of all time. It was the perfect choice for the lesson I was trying to communicate.
That’s because many of the exact same elements that help make a song a smash success can be an excellent template for crafting a bestselling book of your own. Here are 5 guiding principles that influence the writing of most hit songs — including “House of the Rising Sun” — and how to apply them while writing your book.
1. Don’t Try to Do too Much
Life is full of pitfalls. But this song only sings of a single type of ruin. Eric Burdon warns his audience to avoid ending up in a place like that of the song’s namesake: the House of the Rising Sun. In doing so, he deftly avoids the most common misstep of nonfiction authors who write books containing life advice.
It’s not just new authors who step into the trap of saying too much. All nonfiction authors must come to terms with this challenge, but it’s most common in self-help or leadership books. Content experts possess a lot of information and they want to share it all with the world. It seems logical that the more you share, the better your book will be. But there can be too much of a good thing.
Very little sticks with your reader when you throw too much at them too quickly. Readers are not willing to sift through tons of material to find your nuggets of knowledge. It’s the author’s job to do that work for the reader and find those select few nuggets for them to focus on.
I told John that you have to impose this self-limiting device because writing a book is not like running a business. When you run a business, the marketplace will impose limits. You’ll start losing customers if you have poor service, but you can adjust. When you write a book, the only time the marketplace can give you feedback is after the book is already published. By then it’s too late to make changes. The first rule of songwriting and book writing is the same — don’t try to do too much.
2. Make It Personal
While the most famous and successful version of “House of the Rising Sun” is performed by Eric Burdon & the Animals, dozens of artists have recorded it. Two years prior to the 1964 chart-topping release by the Animals, the song appeared on an album by none other than Bob Dylan. And yet it was the version by Eric Burdon that elevated this song from American folk ballad to a lasting classic.
Many of the early versions of “House of the Rising Sun'' were about a woman. But Eric Burdon flipped the gender. Instead of centering on the “ruin of many a poor girl” (as Dylan sung), it was now about a “poor boy”. Burdon made the song about himself, narrating the story of his own ruin. The listener becomes more invested in the song (and its outcome) when it feels like it’s about the singer. There are emotional stakes where there weren’t before.
As writers, we have to make the reader care about our story — the author’s story — first. You’d think it was the other way around, but this is another way that writing a book might surprise you. Readers buy books because they are looking for guidance and inspiration to apply to their own goals and challenges. It seems to be all about the reader. But it’s really not. If you want your reader to care enough to keep turning pages, then you have to get them to care about you and your story.
Readers buy a nonfiction book because it promises to solve a problem they are dealing with. But they actually read the book because they develop a bond with the author. They feel like they’re getting to know you. And it’s up to you to build that relationship through making the writing personal; you’ll need to develop and maintain that relationship throughout the whole book.
3. Stick to Your Brand
In the early 1960s, the Animals toured the UK as part of multi-act events with other bands. They needed to stand out from the crowd. They became known for their intense performances and gritty renditions of blues/folk songs. They were the band from the wrong side of the tracks, the outsiders, the rebels. There was no way they could sing “House of the Rising Sun” the way Dylan did, or how many other artists had covered the tune in a more traditional folk ballad style. The Animals’ made the song’s arrangement fit their brand as a band.
Whether you realize it or not, you have a brand, too. Even if you’ve never written a book or started your own business, you’ve still lived your life in a way that friends and family could describe: exactly what makes you stand out, what is quintessentially you. T — though, that doesn’t mean your book must be a direct extension of your personal or life brand. In fact, I’ve coached many authors who have written their books primarily as a rebranding tool for a new venture they’re beginning, or a way to reposition themselves within their career or profession.
The bands who have consistently written chart-topping tunes have focused their brands and ensured their know that their songs must reflect this message;their brands, and the same applies to authors who write nonfiction books. If this is your first book, try to imagine that you will write many more. Imagine as well that you become a bestselling author and readers eagerly await your next release. Then ask yourself these questions: how am I perceived by my readers? What is the brand they’ve come to trust? How would a talk show host introduce me in two or three sentences that sum up my approach to life? How do I try to help others through what I write? After you’ve answered those questions, use the values your brand represents to focus your point of view when writing your book.
4. Make It Your Own
In his autobiography, Mark Twain wrote:
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”
Making it personal makes it about you. Making it your own means you put a new spin on a familiar tune so that it’s always associated with your work. When the Animals added Alan Price’s haunting organ solo and Eric Burdon’s gritty vocals to an American folk ballad, they made it their own. They took something familiar and made it different, interesting, and compelling. Virtually every author of nonfiction faces the same challenge: “How do I talk about something that’s already been talked about many times and make it my own?”
One way of accomplishing this is through a metaphor or analogy. If you can’t come up with a new message, then look for a new way to say something that hasn’t been used before. In John’s case, he decided to compare starting a business to running for political office. Customers are like votes, and whoever gets the most of them is the winner. He found a unique method to describe very common and accepted practices for running a successful business in a simple analogy that most people can understand.
Human brains are wired to notice novelty. When you say something in a fresh way, it gets the reader’s attention. How do you achieve this? The secret is to identify what is different about your way of thinking than everyone else’s, and then making that distinction clear through how you write. Keep in mind that making it your own is also closely linked to sticking to your brand. John’s brand is all about winning. To the victor goes the spoils. And his brand lines up perfectly with the analogy he deployed to make the message his own.
5. Keep Playing the Pattern
While music is a very creative art form, there are still rules to follow. Certain melodic patterns must keep repeating. You can make a traditional folk ballad your own with a classic Hammond organ sound, but you can’t change an A minor chord to a G major and have the song remain identifiable. As canny and innovative as the Animals were, they knew that they still had to follow the traditional pattern of the song with its repeating chorus, chord progression, and verses.
I’ve written before about the importance of a repeating pattern in a nonfiction book. There are many patterns you can use when writing yours. The key is to repeat those patterns because readers are a lot like someone listening to a favourite song. There’s a very pleasing and comforting feeling when the next chapter begins with a format that they’ve become familiar with while reading the preceding ones. The only downside is that your book can appear formulaic. But that’s where the art comes in. (And as an author you are an artist.) You must use your ability in crafting sentences and paragraphs to accomplish both the feeling of a familiar form while dazzling the reader with new ideas, or captivating them with the story you’re telling.
John and I experimented with a number of patterns. He ended up with a template that began each section with a sour story from his own business. We decided that the stories would always include something John did wrong, a mistake he made. This kind of story grabs the reader’s attention. Next, John transitions from the cautionary tale to the remedy that anyone reading his book should follow. Because John is an avid researcher, he likes to share current data that applies to running a business right now as opposed to when he was doing it. So John’s book features facts and figures and graphs that back up the solution he offers in the remedy. He ends each chapter by circling back to the story that opened the section with a final nugget of wisdom to bring closure to that message. Since his stories are so entertaining, the readers fall into a comfortable and familiar pattern that keeps them turning pages.
Like hit songs, bestselling books are rare. It takes a perfect alignment of many factors to pen a hit. One of the few factors that is completely within your control is the quality of the writing itself. If you emulated what Eric Burdon & the Animals did, you’ll have a better chance of topping the charts with your next release.
Steve Donahue is a professional speaker, book coach, and the author of two bestselling nonfiction books. His works have sold over 100,000 copies and have been translated into Korean, Turkish, Russian and Greek. Steve helps new and experienced authors turn their book ideas into well-crafted publications that delight readers and inspire change. To learn more, visit his website at MyBookCoach.ca.
