Why do people enjoy a book and recommend it to friends? One motivation is that they find it makes them better. It improves their lives. It makes them want to make the world better.

Film director Jon Turteltaub says as much about films. In an interview, he once said, “A lot of people seeing my films leave thinking they can be better. Not, ‘Yeah, the world stinks,’ or ‘Yeah, someone else is horrible,’ but saying, ‘What can I do, for me, to make me better, so that I’m going to make the world around me better. I’m going to be happier, without blaming anyone else by looking inside to see what can I do to make myself a happier person.’”

Turteltaub directed The Kid, Cool Runnings, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and other films.  If you’ve seen these films, or other inspiration ones, think about this effect. Have you recommended them because somehow they spurred you to making yourself better?

Author Kathy Sierra, who has written a number of top-selling how-to books about technology, makes the same point in an O’Reilly Media conference video. People don’t talk about a book, she says, they talk about what it did for them, how it made them act better. Her words: “How is this helping the reader kick ass?”

“People don’t buy the book because they like the book,” she notes. “They buy the book because they like themselves. They recommend the book because they like their friends.”

During book development, keep that in mind. Ask questions to stay focused on your audience. Who am I writing for? And what “superpowers,” as Sierra says, can my book give them to better themselves? If you give them superpowers, you have figured out how to create passionate readers—readers that will tell their friends.

[Revised January 2020. Originally published July 13, 2012]