How To Choose a Book Topic

Read time: 6 minutes

One of the most daunting tasks writers face is choosing a book topic.

It’s more of an art than a science, however, today I’ll offer 3 simple steps you can take to help you hone in on a concept.

Whether you’re overwhelmed with too many ideas, or your struggling to come up with one, these steps will help you identify and sharpen a big idea, so you can enjoy the writing process.

Step 1: Brainstorm with strategic questions.

Questions slow us down, giving us the creative margin we need to search our hearts and minds. If I was sitting across from you at a coffee shop, workshopping future book ideas, I wouldn’t ask you a generic question like: So, what do you want to write about? It’s much too broad.

Instead, I’d ask you a few more thoughtful questions, that help draw out the themes, emotions, and stories you’ve been collecting over a lifetime. Editor David Sluka offers some helpful questions for brainstorming a book topic, which I’ve adapted a bit:

• What are you passionate about?
• What frustrates you? What gets your blood boiling?
• When you get together with friends, what do you find yourself talking about? Just ask a good friend, or your spouse, who regularly listens to your rants about a topic.
• As you study the scriptures, what messages continually grab your attention? What thematic threads has God woven through your faith journey?
• What is a burning question you long to know the answer to? Put more mildly, what would you enjoy learning about?

Action Step #1: Whether digitally or on paper, write down as many answers as you can to the questions above.

A Simple Ideating Exercise

Sluka also recommends the following exercise:

Set a timer for 15 minutes. Then ask yourself: If I had a half hour to talk about anything, what topics would I choose? Within the 15-minute time block, write down every idea you can think of.

Ideas might flow immediately, then slow down. For others, ideas won’t show themselves until a few minutes into the exercise. Regardless, push yourself to keep jotting down your thoughts until the 15 minutes is up. I think you’ll be surprised by how many possibilities you come up with!

Whether you answer the questions above or try the 15-minute exercise (or both), look at the list you’ve created and narrow it down to your 2-3 best ideas. If you’re struggling to eliminate ideas, sit down with a few people who know you well, and ask them for insight.

Now you’re ready for Step 2.

Step 2: Apply the urgency test.

Now that you have a few ideas, apply the “urgency test.”

Just because you find a topic interesting doesn’t necessarily mean you should write a whole book on it. First, ask the question: Why do readers need this book now?

The difference between “interesting” and “urgent” is crucial. Readers may come to a topic that’s “nice to know,” but they’ll bolt to a topic they feel they “need to know.”

Interesting books are informative, but not necessary. They’re easy to put down and forget about. Urgent books, on the other hand, are bold in their promises and irresistibly relevant to readers.

Action Step #2: To apply the urgency test to your book idea, finish the following sentence:

This book will help readers … [list the ways it will help them].

For example, if your topic is “How to use technology wisely in modern life,” you might make a list like this.

This book will help readers:

• Live less distracted, focused lives
• Stop wasting countless hours on social media
• Give their full attention to the people around them
• Think through media choices more carefully
• Learn to say no to trivial things, so they can say yes to important things
• Avoid tech-induced anxiety and isolation
• Feel at peace about their daily habits
• Help others who struggle to use technology well
• Be better friends, neighbors, parents, and spouses

With the list you’ve created in hand, on to Step 3.

Step 3: Do the 1-sentence, 1-page, 1-paragraph exercise.

The last step is to articulate your book in 1 sentence, 1 paragraph, and 1 page.

This is a great exercise to beta test a book concept. I often see this 3-fold description in book proposals, and I appreciate how quickly it orients me to an author’s big idea.

First, the 1 sentence, 1 paragraph, and 1 page exercise forces you to be succinct. This is crucial. Authors tend to ramble about their ideas, and by the end I’m still not sure what their topic is. The challenge to articulate your book idea in a single sentence and paragraph forces you to whittle it down to the core.

Formulating an elevator pitch is hard work. But don’t skip over it. If you can’t say something well in a few words, chances are more words won’t make up for it.

The last part of this exercise—to articulate book in a 1-page summary—reveals if you have enough to say about your topic. Sure, you can summarize it in a sentence. But have you dug down deep enough to write a whole page about it?

If not, it’s much better to know now, before you’ve spent hours trying to write a whole book. If you’re struggling to write 1 page on your topic, it’s a sign you either need to 1) do more reading and research, or 2) switch to a different topic.

To help you complete the 1 sentence, 1 paragraph, 1 page exercise, without staring hopelessly at a blank screen, here’s a prompt I picked up from Jordan Raynor:

This is a book for ______ that helps them ______.

Using the previous example, an author writing about technology use might write a sentence like this:

“This is a book for modern tech-users that helps them think critically about what devices and services they use, so they can live undistracted, anxiety-free lives.”

Notice, this prompt helps you identify your target reader. Who is your book for? If you’re tempted to answer: “Everyone” … beware. A book for everyone is a book for no one. Every book needs a niche—an interested group of people who will resonate with its message.

This prompt is also helpful because it forces you to describe the impact of your book (how it helps readers), not just the content of your book (what it’s about).

Action Step #3: Use this prompt and use it to complete the 1 sentence, 1 paragraph, 1 page exercise.

Putting Everything Together

Coming up with a book idea isn’t a formula, but these 3 steps can help guide your journey. In a nutshell, here they are again:

1. Brainstorm using the 5 strategic questions I provided (or do the 15-minute exercise), then choose 2-3 of your favorite ideas.
2. Apply the urgency test using this prompt: “This book will help readers … [list the ways it will help them].”
3. Put it all together with the 1 sentence, 1 paragraph, and 1 page exercise.

Can’t wait to hear how these strategies help you unearth some great book concepts.

I’m rooting for you.