Tip 1: Write About Something You Know

Number one, write about something you know or something you can learn about something you’re passionate about something you care about.

Tip 2: Get Feedback

Number two, get feedback every Chicken Soup for the Soul story that you’ve ever read was read by at least 20 or 30 other people, and scored on a scale of one to 10. Remember I said, the feedback. How would you rate the story on a scale of one to 10? What would it take to make it a 10? And if the score of the story couldn’t be brought up to a level of a nine. It was never published in the Chicken Soup book that has my name on it. And the reality for that was that we got feedback from men, women, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, whatever, all kinds of religions, all kinds of countries all kinds of ethnic backgrounds, all kinds of income levels East Coast, West Coast of America. Middle America conservatives, liberals, old, young, etc. So it would have a universal appeal. Now if you’re writing for certain niche market like people who love football, that’s fine, that’s great, then you would get football lovers to give you feedback. But in general, I always wanted to reach otherwise. Some of the stories I wrote that I loved, never got in the book, because I realized it didn’t have, it didn’t meet the score of is going to be universally impactful for people, and that’s what I wanted for the book to be successful. Most books are read by you, your spouse, a literary agent, maybe, you know 200 People, that’s not enough to know if the books really going to have great appeal. So that’s the first tip.

Tip 3: Get a Really Good Title

The third reason would be to make sure you get a really good title, you know, Chicken Soup for the Soul is kind of a strange title. In India they go, we did not need the chickens, they said we should do Khichdi for the Soul or something like that, but, but the point being that it was such a unique title that the brand began to stand out now it stands for love and compassion and overcoming obstacles, and all that, but something that people can remember.

Tip 4: Have a Really Good Cover

And then finally, make sure that you have a good cover for your book, you know, get people to give you feedback, you know, you want to test that with a lot of people what cover works best. Because when you go to a bookstore, certain covers jump out to you and certain don’t. And so you’ve got like a microsecond to make a difference in people’s perceptions.

It’s definitely worth it changed my life, it will change yours as well.