Stage 1 — Position: The Two Days That Decide Whether Your Book Works

Most failed expert books fail before a word is written — they're books about a topic instead of books for a reader. Stage 1 exists to make that failure impossible.

The Reader Value Canvas

In the first two days we lock four answers, drawn from your intake and sharpened on your kickoff call: the immediate value your reader gains (V1), the deeper value beneath it (V2), the transformation they'd describe to a friend (V3), and the thing that's uniquely yours in delivering it (U1). Those four answers compress into a single sentence — your Unique Author Offer — and every chapter of the book will be tested against it.

Why positioning is a deliverable, not a vibe

Stage 1 also produces title and subtitle directions and a scan of the competing shelf: what's already published for your reader, and precisely how your book differs. By the end of Day 2, the book has a job description. Books with job descriptions get finished — and more importantly, get read.

One more thing Stage 1 quietly does: it tells us — and you — whether the book is ready to exist at all. Occasionally an idea needs a different shape than its author assumed. Far better to discover that on Day 1 than in month eleven of a ghostwriting contract.