What is the best business book structure?
Planning to write a business book? Book mentor Lucy McCarraher explains the best way to structure it, using a series of five ‘cards’.
I’m often asked, ‘What is the best structure for my business book?’, and my answer to that is, ‘The structure of your business is the best structure for your business book.’
Let me explain. The books that I write, publish and mentor other authors through writing, are almost always about the author’s own business or expertise, rather than some generic concept of ‘business’. That means the subject matter could be about anything from personal development, to finance, to marketing, to leadership.
There is no one-fits-all structure for such a wide range of content. The one unifying factor is that most of these businesses have a process that they take their clients through, and that is what provides the ideal structure for each author’s book.
How to use the Book Magic, five card planning system
I’ve developed and refined my unique Book Magic book planning system over a decade of working with 1,000+ entrepreneur and expert authors. To begin with, I worked in person with roomfuls of aspiring authors using packs of coloured index cards to plan their books.
Now the process has been elegantly incorporated in the Book Magic AI app. It still works just as well whether you use the app or one pack of white index cards and one pack of four colours of index cards – pink, blue, green and yellow.
Of the five colours of cards, the first three colours represent three vital types of content you need in your book; and the last two colours are to structure that content into chapters and parts.
This creates a strong but flexible book structure that works perfectly for the majority of books designed to build their author’s business. Let me deconstruct it for you so you can create your own book structure in a series of simple steps.
White cards: Topics
Unlike most book planning formulae, this method starts not from the top down, but from the bottom up. This is to demonstrate that everyone has all the content they need to write their book. The first step is to write on individual white index cards the title of around 30 individual topics that you need to communicate to your ideal reader/prospect.
Each one represents 500 to 1,000 words of content. No need to worry about order, chapter headings or the reader journey. These 30 topics provide the basic content of the book. The ideal length for a business book is 30,000 to 40,000 words.
Blue cards: Stories
Step two is to create ‘Story’ content on blue cards that will intersperse and illustrate your factual topics.
The two most important types of ‘Story’ are short case studies, little vignettes of your successful interventions with your own clients, written as practical illustrations of your white topics; and personal anecdotes, parts of your own business or personal journey, both successes and failures, ups and downs.
Sharing these little stories will engage your ideal client and reader in a different way than your factual content, allowing them to see that you and your clients have experienced the same challenges as they are facing now, and that you know how to solve their problems in real life situations.
Each story heading represents around 250 – 300 words of narrative. Ten to 20 of these will give your reader an insight into you and your work on the ground.
Green cards: Data
On Green cards, we’re looking for data and evidence to support, rather than illustrate, your white card topics. These could be quotes, references, ideas, models, research and content that have inspired you, contributed to your own ideas, model or process, and that would be useful to point your reader to; or from your own original research.
These can include books, articles, statistics, facts, figures, graphs, charts, tables. They will flesh out your white factual topics in a different way, and give substance to your views.
Pink cards: Chapters
Now you’ve identified the headings of all three types of content your book needs to include, this is where you put your white, blue and green headings into order under sequential Chapter headings on pink cards.
Start by grouping the content cards into the order you want to take the reader through your information. Then, on Pink cards, write the number and title of the chapters that will contain your white, blue and green cards.
Divide them into between six and twelve chapters: fewer than six makes for rather long chapters; more than twelve results in very short chapters. Keep them consistent lengths – all your chapters should have a similar amount of white topics within them, and the blue stories and green data should be scattered consistently through the chapters, illustrating the white topics.
Yellow cards: ‘Parts’
In a final step, you may (or may not) want to sort your chapters into overarching ‘parts’ – a minimum of two and a maximum of four. In fact, three is ideal. Or you may not; in my latest book, Book Magic, chapters are the top line structure.
If it works for your book, on yellow cards or lines, you can divide your chapters and their contents into overarching parts. The parts might represent Beginning, Middle and End; or Theory, Model and Implementation. Also add ‘Introduction’ and ‘Summary’ – they are not part of chapters. Every book needs a start and a finish.
The perfect structure for your business book
If you follow this flexible Magic Book Planning system with its simple but effective process of planning your book using coloured cards, you will easily discover the ideal structure for your unique book. You can write the card headings up into a contents page, and having this amount of detail will make the writing so much easier.
You’ll never wonder what to write next or get writer’s block. And you will have your own perfect structure for your unique business book.
Lucy McCarraher is the UK’s most experienced business book mentor and has mentored over a thousand entrepreneurs, experts and business owners to write and publish their books. In 2011, McCarraher founded Rethink Press, the premier hybrid publisher of business books. She is also the founder and CEO of Book Magic AI, the unique AI-supported book-writing app, and founder of the Business Book Awards.
McCarraher is a well-established author of fourteen books, including A Book of One’s Own, a manifesto for women to share their experience and make a difference, and Bookbuilder (with Joe Gregory). She is also the host of Mission Magic, a support and mentoring group for women entrepreneurs, the co-host of the ‘The Year of Being 70’ podcast, and a keynote speaker on books and writing.
Lucy’s new book, Book Magic is available now. Book Magic is a galvanising call to action empowering business owners to get their book out of their heads and into the world.
