How to Know If You Have a Good Book Idea
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When a new book idea strikes you, it can feel exhilarating. You become eager to open up the blank document and start putting your words on the page — but then doubt can start to creep in, and you begin to wonder if this is really a good book idea or not. Is this an idea that's actually worth pursuing and putting all your time and energy behind? Is it something that readers are actually going to respond to? How do you know if you have a good book idea?
It's a question worth considering before you spend countless hours working on it. So, to help you navigate this creative crossroads, I'm going to go through five things to look for to determine if your book idea is a good one or if maybe you should shelve it for now.
Hopefully this framework helps you figure out if your book idea has strong potential so you don't inadvertently waste time on a project that isn't going to pan out the way you hope for.
1. It Speaks to Others
If your intention is to publish the book and have others read it, then this is arguably the most important factor to consider when figuring out if you have a good book idea. Is the content of the book actually appealing to other people? Is this a topic that is really niche and only pertains to you and your personal interests, or is there broader appeal?
Now, this absolutely does not mean that your book should appeal to everyone across the world — that is impossible. But there should be some subset of the population who make up your ideal target audience. Maybe that is moms between the ages of 30 and 60, or maybe that is bird-watching enthusiasts. In some cases, it might be super important to you on a personal level to write this story, especially if it is prioritizing your own experiences or chronicling members of your family, but evaluate if your story has some kind of universal theme or information that will resonate with people besides yourself.
To do this, it can help to distill down what the reader is going to take away from your book, whether it's nonfiction or a novel. That's going to help you ensure that you are providing something to the reader in this book, in which case it will be that much easier for you to identify your target audience and confirm that there is appeal for people beyond just yourself.
2. It Has an Element of Intrigue
The next indicator that you have a good book idea is if it has an element of intrigue. For your book to catch a reader's attention and hold their interest all the way through until the end, there needs to be some element of intrigue. So, think through what is going to make someone want to read this. It could be that you're writing an entertaining mystery with lots of twists and turns, or it could be that you're providing insight into a well-known historical event or piece of culture, like the Titanic sinking.
Now, a bad book idea would be an idea about something mundane, like a man going to the grocery store, because there's really no point of intrigue there if we're just seeing him go to the grocery store and follow his routine. But, if the man witnessed a murder while he was at the grocery store and then he became the police's prime suspect because of the circumstances, that could be a good book idea, because there's intrigue.
Remember that readers ultimately read books to either provide them entertainment or open their minds to something they didn't know before. You want them to hear your pitch or read the description of the book and go, “Wow, I have to read that!” That is the element of intrigue I'm talking about.
3. It Suits the Medium
The next way to determine if you have a good book idea is to see if it suits the medium. Not every story idea should actually be a book. You want to be certain that a book-length text is actually the right outlet for what you are trying to do and the information or story you're trying to convey.
It's possible that your book idea might actually be better suited as a long-form journalistic article or a short story, novella, personal essay or even a screenplay. So, if you're writing nonfiction, make sure that you actually have enough to contribute on this topic to make up a book-length work, and if you're writing fiction, consider if there really is enough meat to this story idea to carry the reader through hundreds of pages without the pace dragging.
You also need to consider your publishing goals. If you are interested in pursuing traditional publishing, there is going to be a certain length that publishers are looking for, which depends on the genre that you're writing in.
4. It’s Original
This pretty much goes without saying, but your book idea should be totally unique. That doesn't mean that you can't draw on inspiration from other authors — you absolutely should, and I strongly encourage writers to read widely within their genre and see what others have contributed in the same category.
But all that said, you do need to bring something fresh to the table with your book. If your book is just like every other one that's already on the market, then what's going to make a reader pick up yours over someone else's? There must be a differentiating factor of some kind for you to have a good book idea.
This is where some amount of research can be really helpful. In nonfiction especially, you want to review the previous books that have been published on this topic and make sure that your particular spin hasn't already been exhausted.
In fiction, you might come across other books that have a similar premise or play on similar tropes as your novel. For instance, how many rags-to-riches stories are out there? But just because you find other stories with a similar trope or premise or structure to yours, that doesn't necessarily mean you have a bad idea — it just means you have to be cognizant of what sets yours apart, whether that is a setting detail or a character element or a plot twist that makes yours different from all those other similar stories.
5. It Excites You
The final way to determine if you have a good book idea is to ask if it excites you. If you're going to commit countless hours to working on this book, you better be passionate and enthusiastic about it. If you lie awake at night thinking about your book idea and getting excited about drafting it, then that is a really good sign that you're onto something. If it feels like a slog to write this book and you're really not that excited to turn to the page, then it might be challenging for you to see the book all the way through.
Writing a book ultimately takes a ton of dedication and hours and hours and hours of work, so I don't want you to pursue a book idea that just doesn't entice you, even if it is good by any other metric. Also remember that the more enthusiastic about the book idea that you are, the more passion you're bringing to it, the better the content is likely to be because you're truly going to be putting your heart and soul into it — and I promise you that readers are going to register and respond to that.
I hope this helped you determine how to know if you have a good book idea. Thanks so much for reading and happy writing!