25 for 25: Bringing it all together
A positioning statement can help you connect and align all of your book’s foundational elements.
This essay is part of my 25 for 25 book writing series. The lessons in this series are meant to simplify the book writing and production journey. You can find a guide with links to the entire series here.
It took me years as a book writer and ghostwriter before I fully understood the elements of book foundation—and even then, I struggled to put all of the pieces together. It wasn’t until I began using positioning statements that I was able to connect and align all of a book’s foundational elements together.
The positioning statement is a sentence that encapsulates your book’s lessons, themes, goals and takeaways while providing focus. The positioning statement represents “how,” in addition to “what.”
By/through ________________________________ and ________________________________, I/we have/you can ________________________________ and ________________________________.
I started using that approach after working on a draft for an education-focused project. The first draft was fine, but it was flat. A little boring. It felt too much like a history lesson instead of a transformative work.
So I dug deep and came up with a positioning statement for the book—one sentence that captured all of the book’s overriding themes and takeaways: “through a series of happy accidents and lots of resilience. We’ve stumbled onto a model of hope for education and lessons on healing our hurting world.”
That’s a powerful message.
I then broke that positioning statement down to its elements:
A series of happy accidents
Lots of resilience
A model of hope for education
Lessons on healing our hurting world
In turn, I made sure that every chapter in the outline oriented toward one of those elements.
That little step made such a big difference. By orienting each of the chapters based on one of these core themes, it infused the book with such a powerful sense of purpose—something that had been missing earlier.
Let’s break down the positioning statements for the books referenced above.
“The 4-Hour Work Week”— By using a step-by-step process and seizing opportunities others miss, you can separate income from time, create your ideal lifestyle, and enjoy the best of everything.
James Clear’s “Atomic Habits”— By making tiny changes and putting good habits into practice, you can overcome a lack of willpower, build self-confidence, and achieve your greatest success.
Henry Winkler’s “Being Henry: The Fonz... and Beyond”— Through truth and kindness and deep self-work, Henry Winkler was able to overcome a turbulent childhood and his struggles with stardom to find fulfillment.
By being able to take a step back to work on the positioning statement, and connecting all those pieces together, It makes a book ironclad.
Watch this!
I cover positioning statements in this video.