One of the most valuable transferable skills I picked up along the way to earning my PhD (yep. I have one) is the ability to see ideas from different angles. It’s kind of like having x-ray vision, but for universal concepts.
In philosophy grad school, we learned how to take apart arguments, turn them inside-out, and rebuild them from the ground up.
That training reshaped my brain. I can’t watch a political ad or hear a CEO speak without wondering about the logic of the argument (whether it’s rational or not), the underlying assumptions, the ideal audience for the key statements, and all the ways those claims could be (mis)understood.
In my professional life, I use this skill to bring clarity to my clients’ book ideas.
Recently, I’ve been doing some market research to help with the messaging for The Pocket PhD. I’ve talked to a number of folks with big ideas—or at least, what I would consider to be big ideas—but who have not (yet) written a book.
One of the tidbits of information I gleaned from these conversations is that finding your big idea isn’t hard for everyone, especially if you’re consistently testing out your ideas (e.g., you write monthly blog posts, send weekly email newsletters, have an active Substack, or create regular podcast episodes).
What’s often harder is finding the right angle (and I’m not talking about triangles) for your business book.
You might be scratching your head thinking:
- I have created hundreds of blog articles or seasons of podcast episodes. There must be a common thread here, but what is it?
- I’m interested in writing about this idea, but will it really help people? How can I present my big idea in a way that will connect with my audience?
- My business is humming along pretty well. I know I have a book in me, but how will this book strategically grow my business?
What’s the difference between an idea and an angle?
When I talk about finding the right angle for your book, I want you to think about your unique perspective on your idea. Chances are you haven’t come up with a totally new idea (sorry to burst your bubble). Others have written books on your topic. But no one has your point of view (POV) on your topic.
Your point of view is your way in. If it helps, you can think of it as positioning. Why would someone looking to get information about your book’s topic pick up your book, rather than someone else’s?
So what makes up your angle?
- Your industry experience
- What your experience has taught you about your book’s topic
- What you have learned from researching your book’s topic
- What you know that other experts seem to overlook
- Your clients’ experiences and how they inform your work
- Your readers’ experiences and where they are on their journeys
I wrote a book about how to write a business book. Unwritten: The Thought Leader’s Guide to Not Overthinking Your Business Book (you can pre-order your copy here) is not the first book on writing ever written, and it won’t be the last. But it’s a business book written by a business owner for other business owners. It helps you cut through the bullsh*t so that you can get your book done quickly and use it to grow your business.
My big idea: How to write a business book.
My angle: How to write a business book that sells at least 1,000 copies, fits into your business strategy, and will help you grow your business, without overthinking the process or having to put the brakes on running your business.
Knowing your big idea is great, but you won’t get far without also knowing the angle.
Cues that your problem is finding the angle
Finding the angle can be a challenge at any stage in the writing process, though you might not instantly recognize it as the problem when you’re stuck. Here are some cues that will help you recognize that you need to work on finding the right angle:
In the ideation phase:
- Your thoughts feel disjointed
- You don’t know who this book is for
- Your thinking feels chaotic and almost random
- You have a ton of ideas, but you’re not sure how they fit together
- You’re having trouble moving from mind mapping to outlining your book
- You have a book idea, but it doesn’t seem to relate to the core work you do
- You believe you have several different book ideas floating around in your head
In the writing phase:
- The big picture or vision feels foggy
- When you try to talk about your book, you get tripped up
- You keep rewriting early chapters and can’t seem to move forward
- The introduction doesn’t feel quite right—you are tempted to keep rewriting it
In the editing phase:
- You can’t seem to get past that 85% mark
- Your transitions feel clunky or they’re non-existent
- You feel like you’re forcing the connections between sections
- You have chapters that don’t fit, but you’re afraid to let them go
- You keep finding gaps in your writing, but it’s not clear how to fill them
- You pretend like you have a complete draft, but deep down you know it’s incomplete
If any of this resonates with you, stop banging your head on the keyboard, take a step back, and reconsider your angle.
You might find that the angle has shifted since you started the writing process. This is perfectly natural and not at all the end of the world. In fact, this is something to celebrate because you’ve made a discovery that just might bring everything together. Often getting the angle right is exactly the breakthrough you need.
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to facilitate finding your angle:
- What’s the status quo I’m standing against?
- Where would someone disagree with me?
- If someone put my advice into practice what would change for them or their business?
- What is the transformation I want my reader to make? What’s point A and what’s point B?
Client Examples: From Big Idea to Angle
Finally, to drive my point home, I want to leave you with some client examples. You can think of these as before and after shots. Clients often come to me with a big idea—and a complete outline or even a full manuscript—but the angle isn’t always clear. I help them move from big idea to angle.
Big idea: How to manage our money better.
Angle: The money stories we learn, make up, and internalize hold us back from maximizing our wealth. When we uncover our hidden beliefs, we can develop the mindset that will help us reach our money goals.
Big idea: Women control most of the world’s wealth. Let’s show women how to use that power.
Angle: Using the principles of ESG investing and other financial tools, women can benefit the causes they care about most, while also filling their own bank accounts.
Big idea: A little bit of brain science can make you a better parent.
Angle: How to apply brain science to your kiddos and, more importantly, yourself, to make parenting more mindful, less stressful, and a lot more fun.
Big idea: We can do gathering better in our organizations.
Angle: It’s really hard to create long-lasting change in our organizations. By looking at gathering as a tool for creating a specific outcome, we can better understand how to create change that sticks, bring people together in meaningful ways, and design more effective company events.
Big idea: The ethics of precision medicine.
Angle: By examining use cases to tease out proper guidelines around innovations in precision medicine, healthcare practitioners and researchers can avoid discrimination and increase justice in healthcare.
Big idea: When we better understand ourselves, our relationships get better.
Angle: Let’s introduce underserved communities to different types of therapy and teach them unconventional ways to access these types of therapy. This exploration, along with real-world examples, will help them see how focusing on our personal happiness can have ripple effects throughout their lives.
Big idea: It’s important for software engineers to have empathy.
Angle: Empathy is a skill that can be taught and practiced by technical professionals. Let’s develop some key models to show decision makers why this is important and how it can benefit their teams.
Often finding the right angle is harder than finding the big idea for your book, but it doesn’t have to be this way. If you’re creating consistent content for your business, you have a big idea AND a unique angle, you just need to uncover it. Ask yourself some of the questions above and see if that helps. Still stuck? Let’s chat. I bet I can help.