The importance of stories

Many elements make a business book successful. You can have all sorts of charts and graphs and unsorted statistics, and they lend credibility to your idea. Footnotes do the same. For readers who rely on the left sides of their brains, the logical and mathematical side, you will have their attention.

Unfortunately, attention does not always extend to recall. What numbers and facts don’t do is appeal to what psychologists call the affective domain: emotions. Story telling is the key book element for building an emotional relationship with readers and maintaining their recall. The story could be a short, Twitter-sized vignette. Horror stories, or how something went bad, command a strong response. The old classic Harvard case study format is still effective: problem, recommendation, results. Testimonials can be effective stories. Even a classic quotation can be useful.

We’ve dragged many stories out of our client authors’ experiences, and doing so helped them write the book they knew they needed. Visit our site, www.businessbookghostwriters.com, to learn more about how we can help you write the book you know you need.