I was at the Landmark bookstore, and in my search for books on management and economics, I came across a book that got my attention for the wrong reasons. On examination, the book titled “Corporate Blogging in India” by Rajeev Karwal and Preeti Chaturvedi had just the recipe for a publishing disaster. 

Here is why. The contents of the book ran to a few hundred pages, and a cursory glance of the content revealed facts and statistics that were repetitive and could have be easily culled out of the Internet.  The content was dated too, and so were references. It gave me the impression that the meat of the book was only worth a few pages. 

It also didn’t help that the book cover was poorly designed, the title was mundane and the book was overpriced for what it was worth. 

I’ve been to a few book launches in recent times, and though the books were launched with fan-fare and all the hype, the book sales fizzled beyond the initial hype. Some of the reasons are obvious, but people still fail to observe it. 

Here are my recommendations for authors or publishers.

1. Chart out your audience, and know who the book will be addressing.

2. Do a good amount of research on your topic, and read books related to the topics to determine if some of things you state haven’t been stated before. 

3. Do a lot of interviews, and gather different perspectives from influencers and opinion leaders. This lends credibility to your book.

4. Pepper your book with good amount of case studies – success stories and failures. 

5. Stay coherent to the theme of the book, and do not digress or repeat content. 

6. The introduction and the first chapter of the book is the most important, and is usually gauge of a good book. 

7. The title of the book is the bait, along with the cover design. Always keep a few options for the title, and do opinion checks with your friends and peers. 

Here are examples of good title, and cover design.

The Decisive Moment by Johan Lehrer

Who moved my Job - Mark Kobayashi-Hillary

Stick to the maxim of good Style, Structure and Substance, and you have a winner. And yes, you need good PR too, to spread the word around. But more about that in a future post.