The Book In A Box Method Summary
4 min read ⌚
The New Way to Quickly and Easily Write Your Book (Even If You’re Not a Writer)
Tucker Max and Zach Obront have great ideas, stemming from their extensive writing background. I find their style rather personal and casual, even being in places even outspoken.
“The Book in a Box Method Summary”
But the best of it comes from an average introduction, and that’s what makes them geniuses. Being a genius doesn’t mean inventing something extraordinary.
Rather, it comes from pointing out something evident, which was hidden from everyone else: an entirely new way of creating, of writing a book.
STRATEGIC CREATIVITY/ THE BOOK IN A BOX METHOD
A book is a medium of transfer for wisdom or ideas.
Max and Obront’s introduction reflects the 21st century: “Time is money.” It faces the “blank page” problem. The Book in a Box Method can help budding writers solve their problems this without needing any writing skills:
Socrates… never wrote anything down, Plato recorded his words.
Jesus Christ… never wrote down a word, his disciples did.
Winston Churchill… dictated all of his books to his secretary.
People talked more and wrote less in the past: “We’ve been talking for at least 200,000 years, but we’ve only been writing for about 10,000 years.” Yet our ancestors still created masterpieces.
Nowadays we write more than we talk, and we get lost in information (ever go on Wikipedia to look up something and find yourself, two hours later, reading about the history of flour in Ancient Egypt or how carrier pigeons are trained?).
For thousands of years, writing was a specific job, attributed to the “scribes”. For instance, Julius Caesar spent his time thinking and doing things, instead of writing them down. He had people who immortalized his actions in writing, he didn’t need to bother doing it himself.
The Book in a Box Method is a guideline for writing. In order to succeed, you need to follow these stages:
- Crystallize your Book Idea
- Create your Book Outline
- Interview and Record Yourself
- Creating your Rough Draft
- Editing your Book
Max and Obront have learned a lot from our ancestors, the people who didn’t record their wisdom but instead shared it orally:
“The majority of the tacit knowledge that builds civilizations, the stuff that maybe isn’t sexy but is foundational knowledge, has actually been lost.”
It’s lost because no one wrote it down. Max and Obront distinguish between information and knowledge. We are constantly bombarded with information from all sorts of outlets. But how useful is it?
Google is great for providing information, like searching for the best Italian restaurant in New York City.
This will leave you with about 11 million different pages to search through, and in the end, most of us will rely on the knowledge of others, those who have reviewed the restaurants, to make a choice.
The Book in a Box Method‘s mission is to help people turn their wisdom and knowledge into published books.
First of all, you need to figure out where the book would fit in the market, and if there is an audience for it. You have to have goals, and different audiences require different goals.
Second, you should have catchy beginnings. The real challenge lies in creating order out of chaos, so as to “make the experience as seamless as possible for the reader”. This will keep your readers intrigued.
The table of contents in the outline not only helps you organize your thoughts but also makes it easier to see the progression of ideas.
The orientation material should also be personal, and should show the reader “the massive pain that accrues from not taking the advice or lesson in this book.”
Third, “writing is foreign to most people, but speaking is comfortable”. Maybe this derives from the fact that humans are innately social creatures. We all enjoy sharing ideas and talking about them!
Your rough draft should be between 3,000 – 5,000 words. The advantage of The Book in a Box Method: you won’t be struggling with the “blank page” problem.
Lastly, ensure – before editing – that each chapter has a clearly stated goal for the reader. However, you must put aside your material at least once a week. It will help you get a fresh view.
Having checked the feedback, it made me want to start writing my own book. I agree with Max and Obront that people need a tourist guide in order to visit the best places:
This book is for everyone who has a great book in them, but doesn’t know how to get it out.
Your intelligence, wisdom or knowledge cannot be judged by its cover.
This means that your writing skill would not reflect your knowledge. Richard Branson, a dyslexic, has built a billion-dollar worldwide empire. Agatha Christie and Albert Einstein had dyslexia, too, and both achieved great things.
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“The Book In A Box Method Quotes”
To put it simply, we think books are too important to leave to writers, and we want the wisest, most experienced, most knowledgeable people on earth to be able to effectively and easily share their wisdom with the world. Click To Tweet This is not a small thing. You may not realize this, but the majority of the tacit knowledge that builds civilizations, the stuff that maybe isn’t sexy but is foundational knowledge, has actually been lost. Why? Because no one wrote it… Click To Tweet
When it comes to cooking, we follow the recipe. When it comes to writing a book, why not do the same?
Whenever we want to capture a moment we use a camera. The same applies when creating books. But instead of writing, why not talk instead? The Book In the Box Method will help you translate your thoughts into prose:
Go step by step, work the process and you’ll eventually finish.
Emir is the Head of Marketing at 12min. In his spare time, he loves to meditate and play soccer.
