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Finding Your Voice When Writing Your Book

Finding Your Voice When Writing Your Book

Looking at the leading business thought leadership books from the past few years, you’ll see authors with all different writing styles and voices. As we see more diverse authors entering this field, we also see writing styles that vary widely. The most important common thread here for successful writers is authenticity. It’s all about owning a writing style and voice that truly feels like you.

In What it Takes, Blackstone executive Steven Schwarzman takes a relatively formal tone with readers. He uses complex vocabulary and commas fairly liberally, and the result is a voice that feels academic but warm. On the flipside, Rachel Hollis’ Girl, Wash Your Face is full of short, declarative sentences. Her voice is that of a friend who wants to “tell it like it is”.

These are both incredibly successful books whose authors have found voices that authentically fit them. As you develop your book, keep the idea of voice in mind. Often the tone that is most comfortable for you will also be the most authentic for your readers.

One of the best ways to decide on your tone when writing a book is to look over best-selling books in the category of book in which you want to write. A great tool to use in this instance is Publisher Rocket. Dave Chesson, creator of this powerful tool that can search for the best categories you can rank in with the fewest number of books that will help you rank at the top faster. So far, three of my authors this last year were able to rank #1 in their respective categories.

Researching book categories where you can rank well and then searching through the “Look Inside” feature on Amazon could be just the quick and simple way to discover your voice.

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