Story Time:
One of the fun things we do here at The Author Incubator is company-sponsored Taco Tuesdays.
We order tacos for everyone on staff who works from our Georgetown office in Washington, DC (we have staff all around the world from California to Poland!).
At lunchtime our local team of about 25 descend into our 1st floor conference room to take part in the spoils.
But – as you can probably imagine – ordering tacos for 25 isn’t as simple as it seems for one major reason: individual dietary restrictions.
Some of our staff are vegan. Some eat meat, but not from animals with four legs. Some are text-book carnivores. Some are allergic to corn, which would prompt flour tortillas for the win but alas, others eat gluten-free.
But we want everyone to be happy.
If you’re like most aspiring writers, you’ve probably experienced a similar dilemma with your book.
You want to help and heal as many people in the world as possible with your message, but you have so many different ideas and can solve so many different problems.
So how do you please everyone with a single book?
Your logical mind would probably say, “Make the book as general as possible.”
Or in taco-speak, “I’ll just serve a taco shell since most people will generally be able to eat it.”
Except there’s one problem: the shell is just the delivery system… it’s what’s INSIDE the shell that fills people up and makes them smile. The ingredients are the gold.
“Well, then I’ll just put everything in it so that every reader can find something useful.”
In other words, order a single taco with all the things that everyone would want to eat.
Okay.
Let’s order a taco with fish and chicken and ground beef and carnitas and onions and dates and tartar sauce and ketchup and sour cream and onions and corn and asparagus and eggs and lentils and avocado and mushrooms and olives and cheese and beans and… and… and…
Except, all of these things can’t FIT in a taco and NO ONE is going to be looking for a taco with all of those things in it… It’s too much to handle and therefore not digestible.
It’s not about putting everything into a single taco… no one will eat it.
In the same way, if you put every idea you have into a single book and try to market it to every person on the planet NO ONE will be looking for it and won’t read it because it’s NOT DIGESTIBLE.
Your book can’t be all things to all people. It has to have the specific ingredients that your ideal reader would devour at first sight. That’s when you know you have a winner.
Every book idea you have is actually a different type of taco that will be sought after by a different eater.
Make a fish taco for the pescatarians.
Make a veggie taco for the vegetarians.
Make a steak taco for the meat-atarians.
And here’s the thing, when your taco is created for a specific person, say a pescatarian, it doesn’t prevent anyone else from buying it too. Anyone who likes fish can buy a fish taco, but it was made with the pescatarian in mind.
Other readers will still buy your book, but it has to be written for one specific reader if you want anyone to read it in the first place.
And maybe you agree with the premise here, but you’re concerned about which idea to choose first.
Great news!
Hunger comes every few hours.
Tuesday comes every week.
You can always make more tacos and you can always write more books.
But here’s some expert advice: you might want to start and finish your first taco before you go for a second 😉
Happy Eating!
The Author Incubator Team
Need help narrowing down an idea
Thanks so much for the great ananalogy!! This really makes great sense and will help w the editing process! I look forward to heaing more great ideas that will ensure the success of the book that is meant to come from me! Thanks again!
Kind regards
You can be rest assured that The Author Incubator Team will always share our great ideas with aspiring writers like yourself!
Dr. Angela and our team can definitely help you with that Brian! Go ahead and submit your application and we’ll be in touch.
I understand complaints the message it actually reassures me that I am in the correct path to have a successful book
We’re happy to hear it!
oh I love this one! Great way to bring the message home. I just decided to expand my reach by narrowing my focus which may sound counter-intuitive but actually for me makes all the sense in the world. I’ve resisted the “niche” push because it felt like a limitation. But just as we can’t digest a taco that has everything in it, I can’t help heal the world by trying to heal everyone at the same time! Thank you for this wonderful analogy!
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
This was a very on time blog post and written with just the right insight I needed after I just decided to combine all my ideas! Lol. I’m grateful for this message and now I can get back on track with my more simplified message!
Looks like our message arrived right in the nick of time!
I love the analogy… I need help sticking with one idea! Because doesn’t one taco, as you mention, lead to another and to another? Sigh… life is a smorgasbord!
We totally understand that frustration Margo, but we know writers can quickly become overwhelmed if they start thinking about all the possible books they can write. It’s best to work on one taco at a time— your other ideas aren’t going anywhere!
Thanks for the insight and I must admit that as I began to sit down and try to focus on the key pointsfor the outline of my book I too struggled to identity my audience by trying to have a message that speaks to everyone… but thankfully the more I continued to write the more I began to see the true heart of my of message begin to emerge… I found my voice and I found my audience.
Thanks again for the reminder on the importance of streamlining your message for the purpose of massive impact!
You can’t start a movement without a solid foundation just like you can’t overload your taco without breaking the shell!
The analogy is very good and simple and I appreciate the input a while back I was thinking of keeping our of doing a short book series about other stories because people’s attention span seems like it’s getting shorter so if we was to apply the healing book in a short book series and specify each book for particular areas this may enable us to get directly to the niche market for each area of healing needed sincerely Rick Urich
You’ve got the right idea!
Being confident being committed being content being open-minded being honest and realizing that breakthroughs are in the journey.
That’s all we ask for in our authors. If you’re able to keep an open mind and be receptive to our teachings then there will be nothing stopping you from achieving what you were always meant to do on this planet.
I would love to go it would help me alot and give me more experience in helping another author and it would sure help me to understand more about the business of writing thank u very much I’m glad for this book writing program bless u
It’ll definitely be a worthwhile experience! Send us an email about why you should be considered and we’ll let you know our decision Monday.