If you’re going to make money from a book, then it needs to have a clear, concise and accurate writing style. You could have the very best premise and the very most valuable information in the world – but if you have a poor writing style that sounds amateurish then most people won’t get past the first few lines and you’re going to get bad reviews.
So the question then becomes: can you learn to be a good writer? And if so, how? Some people will argue that good writing is actually something you either ‘have or don’t have’ but it’s certainly true that at least learning some basic concepts can help a great deal. Let’s take a look…
The Objective of Writing
What exactly is ‘good writing’? While there are many answers, the one underlying truth is that good writing needs to communicate. That means that your audience needs to understand what you’re saying and get your point.
And it also follows that good writing should be efficient. So that means your aim is to convey the most information in the fewest possible words. By doing this, you give your reader the information that they’re looking for in the quickest possible time, thereby essentially offering the most value and saving the most time and space!
Writing Should be Fun to Read
It also follows that writing should be enjoyable to read and easy. You want people to not only get the information you’re trying to put across but also to enjoy the process of getting it. If your text is very dense or if you use a lot of indecipherable jargon, then you will put people off and this is not effective writing! Writing is certainly not about showing off how many words you know.
Writing should flow off the tongue and it should sound great when read aloud.
Vocabulary
With that in mind then, why do people use ‘big words’ at all? Why not rely on the same few words to efficiently convey meaning?
The answer is simply that vocabulary allows you to put across more specific meaning. There are subtle differences between words that look like synonyms on the face of it and some words will flow better in a sentence than others. Therefore, using a range of different words can add color, emotion and drama to your writing which you couldn’t put across with just a few basic words.
Tone
For the vast majority of books on the Kindle store a ‘conversational’ tone will be the most appropriate. These are books aimed at a commercial audience who want to be entertained and perhaps learn something.
But when you’re writing a B2B book on finance, then you need to adopt a more serious and formal tone. This is another reason why a good vocabulary is a most: it allows you to work within any niche and still sound appropriate. Make sure that the tone and style of your book is fitting for the audience and the subject matter and this will ensure it is better received.
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