Readers Want Solutions, Not Sermons
Many Christian books struggle because they read more like sermons than solutions.
They offer broad spiritual encouragement the reader may have heard many times before, without making it immediately clear what will be different in her life after she reads the book.
If your book could just as easily be preached on Sunday morning, you may not have a book concept yet.
I know I’m hurting feelings. Stay with me anyway.
Your reader isn’t in church. She’s shopping.
A woman searching Amazon for a nonfiction book is looking for something.
She has a question. A struggle. A goal. Something she wants to understand, change, fix or do better.
That puts her in a very different mindset from someone sitting in a church service listening to a message.
A sermon can inspire her.
A book usually needs to carry her further. It needs to actually help.
Inspiration isn’t enough
Christian authors often begin with something important:
Faith.
Prayer.
Purpose.
Healing.
Trusting God.
Those are wonderful themes. They are not necessarily book concepts.
The question is what the reader can actually do with the message.
That doesn’t mean every Christian book needs to promise some flashy transformation. It means the reader should understand why this particular book belongs in her life right now.
The green smoothie lesson
One of my favorite books of those I’ve written is Becoming the Woman I Want to Be: A 90-Day Journey to Renew Spirit, Soul, and Body.
It grew into a course and a membership. It did well, but not nearly as well as I know it should have done. It resulted in significant weight loss for women, at a time when online weight loss programs represented a billion dollar industry. Many similar programs were multi-million dollar businesses.
I couldn’t figure out why my program wasn’t succeeding at that level. But in retrospect, I realize I made it far too complicated.
Somewhere in my enormous list of things women could do to be healthier was one tiny suggestion: have a green smoothie in the morning.
Then along came two women whose message was essentially: Forget the giant plan to change your entire life. Just drink a smoothie.
People loved it and it instantly became a multi-million dollar online phenom.
Women wanted something they could understand and act on immediately. I gave them an encyclopedia of ideas and options. That taught me something I’ve never forgotten:
More information does not automatically make a book more valuable.
Sometimes the most useful book is the one simply that makes the next step obvious.
James and Karen started with a broad idea
Two of my clients, James and Karen, originally wanted to write about hearing from God.
Important topic.
Very broad book.
As we worked together, the concept became much more concrete and memorable, eventually centering around Matthew 6:33 and their practice of seeking God first…and doing so very early in the morning.
The result became more than general teaching. Instead, readers had something they could actually participate in. Within weeks of release, the book reached #1 in several Amazon categories.
The lesson isn’t that every Christian book needs a gimmick or a movement. The lesson is that specific beats vague.
Look at the books people remember
Consider some enormously successful Christian and faith-friendly nonfiction:
Boundaries.
The Five Love Languages.
Love & Respect.
The Total Money Makeover.
You can describe what each one helps the reader understand or do in a sentence.
That matters.
Readers don’t merely remember the information.
They remember the idea.
Move from message to usefulness
You may have a powerful message.
Good.
Now ask what that message will help someone do, understand, overcome or change.
That’s where the book begins to take shape.
You don’t have to turn your faith into a formula.
You do have to make the value of the book understandable to someone who has never heard you preach, attended your Bible study or met you.
A stranger should be able to look at the book and think:
That’s for me.
If your idea is still broad, don’t abandon it.
Narrow it.
The useful book may already be hiding inside the sermon.
What’s really wrong
Many authors assume an unsold book has a marketing problem.
Sometimes it does.
But sometimes the marketing is simply exposing a deeper problem:
The reader still doesn’t understand why she needs the book.
That’s a positioning problem.
And no amount of promotion can completely compensate for it.
Quick answers
Can a book about prayer or faith still sell?
Absolutely. The stronger question is whether a stranger can immediately understand what makes this particular book useful or relevant to her.
Does every Christian nonfiction book need a step-by-step system?
No. But it should give the reader a clear reason to choose this book instead of the hundreds of others addressing the same broad subject.
What if my book idea is still too broad?
Don’t throw it away. Narrow the focus until you can explain clearly who the book is for and why she would want it.
Not sure what kind of writer you are—or why your book still isn’t coming together?
Take my free 90-second What Kind of Writer Are You? quiz and discover your writer type, your biggest strength, the hidden trap slowing your book down, and your one next step.
Not sure what kind of writer you are? Take my free 90-second quiz — What Kind of Writer Are You? — and discover your writer type, the hidden trap stalling your book, and your one next step.