In some ways, it’s best to think about the finished product before you start writing the book. Every successful non-fiction book can be summed up in one sentence. That’s your big idea. It’s like a 10-second pitch that would “hook” a reporter on the spot — or a book publicist! Once you know your big idea, create a structure that can be grasped at a glance. This will become your table of contents. 10 Steps. 5 Strategies. 7 Lessons. In this age of short attention spans, you need to create a skeleton that has an internal logic that can be easily understood before you flesh it out.
More Insider Tips for a Great Non-Fiction Book
Your readers will pick up your book to get motivated — motivated to take action in some area of their personal or professional life. Give them lots of goodies throughout the book: quizzes, lists of tips, myths and facts, interactive tools they can download for free from your website, discussion guides, journaling exercises, illustrations, activities to try. You get the idea. And guess what? A non-fiction book that includes these fun, helpful, user-friendly elements will be easy to publicize. That’s because producers, editors, and reporters love tips and tools and strategies that are easily excerpted and adapted to their specific audience, whether it’s business leaders or women, parents or salespeople, patients or teens.
Create a Commercial Non-Fiction Masterpiece
If this all of this seems super commercial, it is. After all, why bother writing a nonfiction book that solves a problem if no one reads it? To read it, they have to find out about it first. To find out about it, you need the help of media — your own social media, sure, but also the wider world of media. Map it out. Create your outline. And make it commercially viable. You can single-handedly create a resourceful bible for your chosen subject, jump start your reader’s dreams, inspire someone’s success, and ultimately change many people’s lives for the better. Your inspired non-fiction work can have an enormous, positive effect on a vast audience — and become a resource with much more substance, influence, and longevity than its fictional counterparts.