You need to follow a clear writing plan in order to write a nonfiction book to increase the profile of your business or your career. The right writing plan will allow you to develop the discipline and focus necessary to get the job done in the most efficient way, eliminating unnecessary time wasters and frustration.

Not surprisingly, 97% of people who start a book never complete it. Now, there are many reasons why this happens and they vary from person to person. But if you were to look for patterns you would find that the lack of a proper writing plan had a lot to do with it.

In this article, I’ll show you a three-part plan to develop good writing habits that’ll enable you to continuously generate content for your book, day in and day out.

I’ll also show you how much time your book project should take, so that you can set the right expectations for yourself from the get-go.

Part 1: Plan Your Writing Space

The first part of your writing plan consists of setting up your writing space. We’re creatures of habit, so in order to develop consistency in your book writing, you need to surround yourself with an environment that is conducive to a positive outcome.

You want your writing to be something that you look forward to every day, not something that is a drudgery you’d rather avoid. Therefore, you want to choose an environment that makes you feel good to be in.

Some people feel most inspired in an atmosphere of peace and quiet. If you’re one of those people, then you’ll likely choose a space with privacy. Some others need the constant buzzing of life around them in order to get inspired. If you’re one of those folks, then a public place will be more ideal.

Writing at Home of in the Office

If you work best in a private space, choose a place at home or in the office that you really enjoy hanging around in. Here are some options:

• Choose a space with window views that are aesthetically pleasing, like a beautifully landscaped garden or the view of a treed park.
• Choose a room where the color of the walls is calming and where the decor is uplifting.
• Or maybe you have a great writing desk with a high-quality chair where you can sit for hours on end with no discomfort.

Just make sure that you choose a place that feels inviting. For some people, it’ll be their home office, for others it’ll be a nook in the kitchen or a small sitting area off their bedroom. Or perhaps it’ll be a glass enclosure in the back patio or, weather permitting, a space out in the garden under an atrium.

Writing in Public Places

If you’re the kind of person who can’t write in total silence, then you’ll be joining the throngs of writers armed with laptops calling their favorite coffee shops home. Here are some options:

• Patronizing your favorite coffee shop
• Going to a public library
• College libraries can be very inspiring when you’re surrounded by beautiful architecture
• Some people like to write sitting on a park bench at their favorite city park or at the botanical gardens.

In all cases, make sure you find seating that’s comfortable, an electrical outlet nearby in case your battery runs low and a location with little glare so you don’t strain your eyes looking at your screen.

Part 2: Plan Your Writing Time

The second part of your writing plan is to select the amount of time that you’ll be devoting to writing your manuscript. Since you’re already busy running your own business, writing your nonfiction book will have to adapt to your primary work schedule.

The ideal writing block for most people in your circumstances is two hours long. Writing for less time won’t allow you to get up to “cruising speed,” and writing for longer may lead you to creative fatigue.

What’s important is that you don’t try to bank hours by writing for, say, five hours straight one day because you feel inspired, and then skipping the next day. This won’t lead you to success because it lacks the focus that can only be achieved with consistency.

Also, you want to make sure that your writing blocks always start and end at the same time. A killer of discipline is to write one day in the morning, the next day in the evening, and the next day in the afternoon.

Developing your writing muscle is no different than developing any other muscle in your body. After you exercise it intensely, you need a period of rest and recovery before you exercise it again.

Translating Your Writing Plan to a Word Count

Once you get into a routine, you’ll find that you’ll be able to write between 400 and 500 words per hour for a daily total of between 800 and 1,000 words. Writing for six days a week will translate to between 4,800 and 6,000 words per week.

Now, if you’re aiming for a 200-page book, with an average word-count per page of 250 words to account for images and other white space, you’ll be writing 50,000 words in total.

At 4,800-6,000 words per week writing two hours per day, six days per week, it’ll take you between 9 and 10 weeks to complete your manuscript.

To be conservative, let’s add a safety factor of 50% to allow for disruptions, illness and holidays and you’ll be finishing your manuscript in 13-15 weeks, or approximately three months.

Part 3: Plan Your Writing Schedule

The final part of your writing plan is to set up your writing schedule. Ideally, you’ll want to write for two hours every day including weekends. Your goal is to carve out two hours outside of your daily responsibilities.

If you have young kids and you need a full family day set aside for activities, then it’s perfectly fine to bring your daily writing schedule down to 5 days. But don’t make it less than 5 days, otherwise it’ll become difficult for you to fully develop your writing muscle.

Professional authors follow a daily writing habit for this very reason. They know that if they stop exercising their writing muscle it’ll lose strength. When it comes to writing, repetition and consistency is key.

Another key is to eliminate any type of distractions that could interrupt your creative flow. When you set your writing schedule, it’s imperative that you enlist the support and cooperation of your family, friends and work associates.

If you choose to write at home or in the office, make sure that no one comes in the room during your two-hour writing block for any reason outside of an emergency.

The same applies to your friends. Let them know that you’ve set up a protected schedule to write a book and that during those times they’re not to reach out to you through texting, phone calls or any other type of direct messaging.

Writer Distractions You Need to Avoid at All Cost

As stated above, when you sit down to write it’s imperative that nobody can disturb you outside of force majeure. But while those are external distractions, there are internal distractions that you need to avoid as well.

Here’s a list of things to avoid:

• The beeps and dings of notifications: set your phone to do-not-disturb and mute the sound on your laptop.
• The ringer on your phone: turn it down so that you don’t get startled if someone tries to contact you in case of emergency.
• Checking your email or your text messages: if someone must reach you right away, they can call you or simply walk in the door. Make sure people always know where to find you.
• As an extension of the above: don’t reply to emails during this time! If you promised someone a reply earlier in the day, then wait until after your writing block ends to do so.
• Browsing the Internet when you’re writing: if you need to do some research for your book, do it outside of your writing blocks. The last thing you want is to fall into a Google search rabbit hole that ends up eating half your writing time.

Next Steps

The worst enemies of writers are lack of consistency, lack of focus, lack of discipline and external and internal distractions, which includes the most powerful time sinkhole of all time: the Internet.

Whenever you work on your book, you have to make sure that you go “off the grid” during your writing blocks. Short of an actual emergency, you need to set up your schedule so you can eliminate all disruptions to your creative flow.

Professional writers swear by this writing plan because it works. Remember that when you complete and publish your nonfiction book and you begin to leverage it to get paid public speaking gigs plus back-of-the-room and bookstore sales, you’ll be a professional author too.

So, make sure to follow their best practices well before your book begins to generate revenue!

If you’d like to develop an expanded set of writing habits, I have a companion article that you might find beneficial: Learn 10 Powerful Writing Habits to Fast Track Your Nonfiction Book.

Good luck!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

How to Come Up With Killer Book Titles for Your Nonfiction Book

How to Write a Compelling Book Introduction That Will Move the Needle

How Much Does it Cost to Self-Publish a Nonfiction Book?

 

Bennett R. Coles is the author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

When you help your audience solve a problem through a book, you’ll need to use descriptive writing to connect with them. Problems are by nature experiential – people tend to feel them deeply. Since these feelings are uncomfortable, they become a motivating factor to search for a solution. The more pain a person feels, the higher their urgency for a solution.

And here lies a dilemma: when solutions are delivered through a book like yours, they’re one step removed from experience. Your information won’t be “experienced” immediately because it must first be read and then processed by your reader’s critical mind – yet in order to make a difference with your readers your solution needs to be experienced, not just understood intellectually.

How do you solve this dilemma? By using descriptive writing techniques to bypass the critical brain and create a direct channel to your reader’s experiential mind.

What Is the Purpose of Descriptive Writing?

You know when you go to see a really good movie, how you feel transported to the world that the movie is depicting? And then when you exit the theater, your mind is still “living” in that world for a little while, making the reality of the present moment clash with the fiction in your mind?

A good movie is able to make you feel the “experience” of being transported in time through the use of visual details, by using the colors and sounds of that space and time in a very powerful way.

This is the purpose of descriptive writing in the book world. You want to engage the reader’s imagination with the use of descriptive language in order to transport them to a place and time where you can offer your solution and its effects in an experiential way.

You can achieve this by making use of specific language structures that encourage your readers to suspend their disbelief and bypass the filter of their critical mind.

What Are the Elements of Descriptive Writing?

Over the centuries, thousands of popular fiction writers, from Shakespeare to J.K. Rowling, have perfected a number of descriptive writing devices that are very powerful for conjuring up images in people’s minds. We’re going to focus on three of them below as they apply to your nonfiction book.

Use of Descriptive Words

The primary aim of descriptive writing is to paint a picture in your reader’s mind. In order to do so, you use words that are rich in detail; words that contain more information than just a mere concept.

What you’re looking for are words that are colorful, vivid and detailed, not average and overused everyday words devoid of personality.

The purpose of descriptive writing is to breathe life into the pictures that you’ll be painting in your reader’s imagination in order to bring about a specific mood. You want to stay away from generic terms and instead focus on words that are specific and precise. You also want to use strong action verbs and avoid passive verbs.

For your reference, here are some examples of different kinds of descriptive words that you can use as prompts:

Examples of Descriptive Adjectives:

• Accomplished
• Brave
• Bright
• Charming
• Composed
• Concerned
• Condescending
• Discerning
• Focused
• Joyful
• Ornate
• Ordinary
• Puzzled
• Gregarious
• Questionable

Examples of Descriptive Adverbs:

• Angrily
• Amusingly
• Blissfully
• Cowardly
• Eagerly
• Frivolously
• Hastily
• Intelligently
• Lively
• Methodically
• Orderly
• Quickly
• Seriously
• Tragically
• Vividly

Examples of Descriptive Gerunds:

• Crying
• Charming
• Eating
• Hammering
• Hearing
• Joking
• Laughing
• Preparing
• Striking
• Swinging
• Thinking
• Trying
• Wallowing
• Waiting
• Wasting
• Writing

Use of The Five Senses

In order to paint a picture in your reader’s imagination, you need to use descriptive words that engage their five senses. You want them to be able to experience feelings.

When you engage your reader’s imagination in order to present your solution experientially, you want to make them be able to taste the food you are describing, feel the texture of the upholstery, hear the music on the radio, see the multi-colors of the forest, smell the scents of the lilies, feel the anguish of the problem, and so on.

You want to transport your reader to the world you’re creating on the written page so that they can “experience” what it is to find relief from their problem through the use of your solution. Simply describing your solution will not get the job done; they have to experience it in their mind’s eye.

Figures of Speech

Another powerful descriptive writing technique is the use of figures of speech to paint a picture by drawing a comparison with an object or situation that is more vivid in the reader’s mind than the use of everyday words.

Here are some figures of speech that are commonly used in descriptive writing:

Metaphor

Metaphors are used to paint a picture in the reader’s mind by replacing a common verb or noun with another one taken out of context, making the statement more expressive.

Example:

He was fishing for compliments.

Simile

Similes are used to paint a picture by drawing a direct comparison between a common word and a word taken out of context, with the goal of evoking rich visual imagery in the mind of the reader.

Example:

That baby was as cute as a kitten.

Analogy

Analogies are used to paint a picture by highlighting the similarities between two different things, with the goal of stimulating the reader’s imagination.

Example:

Life is like a box of chocolates.

Personification

Personification is a figure of speech where an object is described as if it had human characteristics.

Example:

My computer throws a fit every time I try to use it.

Hyperbole

Hyperbole is a figure of speech that uses exaggeration for emphasis.

Example:

Do you feel like you have a million things to do today?

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia is a figure of speech where an action word approximates the sound it would make in real life. This can be used as an effective technique to engage one or more of your reader’s senses.

Example:

Time just keeps on ticking.

Things to Stay Away From

Finally, let’s discuss some situations where the overuse of descriptive writing will backfire:

• Using metaphors, similes or analogies too close to one another will undo the picture you are trying to paint and make your text sound amateurish.
• Overusing descriptive words such as adjectives, adverbs, and gerunds will make your writing feel “heavy” and unappealing.
• Same goes for the overuse of onomatopoeia and hyperbole.

When it comes to figures of speech, always strive for balance.

Next Steps

Descriptive writing techniques can be a very powerful ally to writers. When used correctly, they can make your nonfiction book feel as memorable and experiential as a good movie.

Happy writing!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

How to Use All 4 Writing Styles to Create an Exciting Nonfiction Book

The 10 Must-Have Writing Skills for Entrepreneurial Authors

How to Write a Compelling Nonfiction Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Business Owners

5 Narrative Writing Steps to Bring Your Nonfiction Book to Life

 

Bennett R. Coles is the author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

If you want to write an effective nonfiction book you’ll need to learn persuasive writing strategies to entice your readers to take action.

Providing your services face-to-face requires that you convince clients to adopt your viewpoint and take steps toward it. But when your ability to persuade is limited to the written page, you’ll need to develop a new set of skills to make up for the fact that your expressions, tone of voice and body language are no longer part of the equation.

Fortunately, there’s a lot of expertise in the nonfiction world on how to use persuasive writing strategies to bridge this gap. Let’s summarize them below.

Why Do We Use Persuasive Writing?

When you identify a problem your readers have and you want to help them solve it using your knowledge and expertise, you have to consider it likely that many of them tried different solutions in the past that didn’t work.

As a result, your audience’s search for a solution will probably be tinted by a healthy dose of skepticism. Now, the fact that they’re still searching means that their problem is persisting, but in order for them to choose your solution over others, you’re going to have to be good at communicating persuasively.

First, you’ll have to take the stand that your solution is unique from any other and that it’ll produce the desired result where others have failed.

Then you’ll have to build your case using the best available arguments to convince your readers of the uniqueness of your solution. You’re going to have to back that up with proof in the form of research, data and perhaps the support of a known authority in your field. You’re going to have to counter your reader’s objections and you’re going to have to convince your readers to take action.

This process isn’t dissimilar to the dynamics in the world of advertising, where persuasive writing is one of its most valuable assets. In fact, since the publication of the seminal book The Theory of Advertising by psychologist Walter Dill Scott in 1903, human psychology has played an outsize role in the development of persuasion techniques, and with good reason – in order to influence someone’s decision to take action, you’re going to have to involve their psychology more than their intellect.

How Do You Persuade Readers?

Before you can persuade your readers that they need to adopt your solution, you first need to dig deep into their psychology. You need to find out what their fears, challenges, hopes, dreams and goals are. You need to walk in their shoes, empathize with their plight and understand their motivations.

In short, you have to clearly figure out what their needs are, sometimes even more clearly than they understand them themselves. Why is that? Because their decisions are highly influenced by their worldview and if you don’t know what their worldview is, then you’ll have a tough time persuading them to side with you.

Fortunately, luck is on your side because chances are, if you’ve been in business for years already, you’ll have developed a deep understanding of the psychology of your clients. It’s this knowledge that will allow you to incorporate persuasive writing into your book in a way that’ll produce results.

How Do I Become a Better Persuasive Writer?

In order to transition the persuasion techniques that you naturally developed in your business onto the written page, you’ll first need to become acquainted with the persuasion strategies developed in the field of advertising.

What Are Effective Persuasive Strategies?

Let’s borrow the top ten strategies from the world of advertising and apply them to your nonfiction book:

Strategy #1: Authority

People automatically give more credence to figures of authority. Try to mention support of your solution (or at least the foundation underpinning your solution) by someone who is widely recognized in your field. Coming from their mouths, your arguments will be much more convincing.

A good example is highly popular diets and nutrition programs. It’s often celebrities who make them popular, but their credibility comes from the authority of the doctors or nutritionists who originally developed them.

Strategy #2: Power of Story

Story telling is one of the most widely used methods of persuasion in advertising. The most successful ads, whether in print or in video, are based on the power of story telling to affect people’s emotions and motivate them into action. Purchasing decisions are primarily driven by emotions, and story telling, if well done, can open a direct portal into people’s hearts.

Strategy #3: Exclusivity

At a primal level, humans are tribal beings. There’s something alluring about being part of a group, especially the promise of belonging to a select group that is free of the problem your audience has. Portray your solution as an opportunity to join an exclusive group.

Strategy #4: Being Relatable

People will find it much easier to identify with your viewpoint if they can relate to you. Those ads where a parent tells other parents (the audience) the merits of a product are more persuasive than if it was the scientist who developed the product doing the talking. Whenever you’re trying to influence your audience you have to appear as an equal and show you have the vulnerability to reveal your personal struggles to them.

Strategy #5: Power of Logic

Another powerful persuasion strategy is to present your case with facts and figures that cannot be disputed by logic. Your goal is to establish beyond the shadow of a doubt that your solution simply “makes sense.” Clear logical arguments backed up by facts are very hard to refute and are very easy to embrace.

Strategy #6: Testimonials

This strategy is an extension of Strategy #4. In order for people to make a commitment or a purchasing decision, they first need to hear from other people they can relate to. Client testimonials are an extremely powerful persuasion tool and should be used throughout your nonfiction book in the form of client stories and client case studies.

Strategy #7: Fear of Missing Out

This is a relative of our primal tribal tendencies: we just fear being left out of the tribe. While this strategy is used to great effect in advertising with techniques like time limited offers, it’s something that could also be used in the context of your nonfiction book by highlighting the uniqueness of your solution and the benefits your audience will miss out on if they ignore it.

Strategy #8: Micro-Commitments

This is a powerful persuasion strategy that entails asking your audience for a small “yes” first, something that they can easily agree to, and then scaling up through slightly bigger yeses until your audience is conditioned to be open to the big “yes” at the end of the book.

Strategy #9: Trust

People are much more easily persuaded to buy from those they trust than from those they don’t. Here you have the upper hand because as the author of a book you’ll be perceived automatically as an expert, which translates into implicit trust.

Strategy #10: Urgency

A sense of urgency is a great motivator to take action. Depending on the level of pain experienced by your audience, some topics will lend themselves to this strategy more than others.

Here are some examples of topics where urgency can play a big role for persuading audiences to take action: health, fitness, activism and certain time-sensitive financial investments.

Persuasive-Writing Questions

To help you develop your persuasion muscle, here are some questions you can answer as you develop your book:

1. Is the thesis you’ll be presenting to your audience clear in their eyes?
2. Do you have solid reasons why your solution is better suited to your audience’s needs than other solutions?
3. Do you have well-thought-out reasoning to overcome key objections to your solution?
4. Do you have evidence to back up your claims?
5. Have you developed a good understanding of your audience’s viewpoint? Have you put yourself in their shoes?
6. Do you fully understand your audience’s pain points and what triggers them?
7. Do you have a good set of testimonials to use in your book?
8. Do you have a number of client stories and cases studies that best exemplify your solution?
9. Do you have a clear closing argument with solid reasons for your conclusion?
10. Have you anticipated questions about your solution that you audience may have?

Persuasive-Writing Words and Phrases

Here are some typical words and phrases from persuasive writing that you can use as a reference or as writing prompts:

• I believe that…
• Do you really think…
• Just think about…
• What would happen if…
• This will cause…
• This will mean that…
• Do you want to be part of…
• Join…
• Discover…
• Create…
• Unquestionably…
• Certainly…
• Definitely…
• Undoubtedly…
• For that reason…
• Naturally…
• You can see how…
• To this end…
• On the other hand…
• Nevertheless…
• In spite of…
• Specifically…
• In particular…
• With this in mind…
• As a result of…
• In conclusion…
• Additionally…
• Equally as important…

Next Steps

Persuasion strategies are central to nonfiction books of a problem-solving nature. Although in the world of adverting the goal of these strategies is to sell you something, the use of persuasion strategies in your book isn’t meant to be that overt.

Persuasion can be used in your book for a more holistic reason. Throughout the course of your book you’ll be empathizing with your audience, you’ll be feeling their pain, establishing a strong connection and finally taking your audience along a journey of discovery where your solution will be slowly revealed.

In parts of your book you’ll use story telling through the power of narrative writing in order to create an emotional connection with your audience. In some parts you’ll paint pictures to help your audience absorb information better through the power of descriptive writing. In other parts you’ll use expository writing in order to establish your credibility as an expert and earn their trust.

But in the end, unless your audience puts your solution into action, your book will be no more than a reference manual that’ll sit on a shelf most of the time – it won’t be enacting meaningful changes in your audience’s lives. That’s the reason you need to master the science of persuasive writing: so that your readers can actually benefit from your solution.

The strategies, questions and prompt words and phrases in this article are here as a guideline so that you can understand the power of persuasion to enact change in people’s lives. In order to get good at persuasive writing, you’ll have to put them to practice.

For your persuasion to be truly effective, it has to be delivered in your own voice. Persuasive writing devoid of personality will feel manipulative and deceptive. But when mixed with authenticity, it becomes a very powerful device in your writer’s toolkit.

There’s nothing more alluring for a reader than an author that they feel understands them deep inside. An author who has their best interests in mind. An author who inspires them to act through well constructed and reasoned arguments.

It’s this ability to move people into action that makes great problem-solving nonfiction such a powerful agent of change.

All the best on your writing journey!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

How to Use All 4 Writing Styles to Create an Exciting Nonfiction Book

The 10 Must-Have Writing Skills for Entrepreneurial Authors

The 7 Most Effective Writing Strategies for Entrepreneurial Authors

 

Bennett R. Coles is the author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

If you research what the basic rules for writers are, you’ll read about proper punctuation, proper use of adverbs and adjectives, sentence and paragraph length, and so on. While these mechanical writing rules are all valid and must be observed, I’ve chosen to focus today on the behavioral rules of writing instead.

On the surface, the job of the writer is to create helpful content that readers will consume and enjoy. But the true job of a writer is much deeper than that. Stephen King put it very eloquently when he said: “The job of a writer is to transfer the ideas inside your head into the heads of your readers.”

Let’s explore this further. People like to compartmentalize things in order to make sense of the world, so we create labels – you’re a writer and I am a reader. As a writer you’ll decide what you’re going to write about, and as the reader I’ll decide what to read. But when you think about it, while labels may make for a nice intellectual construct, they’re not very useful for describing human connection. If anything, they’re more about separating than unifying.

At its core, writing fulfills the much deeper need to learn from each other, to enrich each other’s lives and to be of service to others.

This is what writing really is at its foundation: a vehicle to create a deep connection between human beings – one the writer, the other one the reader.

So, let’s now focus on the type of “human” rules that’ll help you create a nonfiction book for your business or career that strikes a deep bond with your readers.

Rule #1: Write Every Day

This is the cardinal rule of successful writers, whether they have 5 books to their name or 50.

Developing writing mastery is no different from developing mastery in a musical instrument. Very few professional musicians people born with a gift – the vast majority are people that worked really hard at it, practicing every single day.

You have to create a daily writing routine that’s independent from your work life and your family life. If you’re running your own business and want to write a book to establish yourself as an expert in your field, create a two-hour writing block 6 days a week where you’ll be able to write without interruption. Enlist the help of your family and/or staff to make this possible: no phone calls and no one walking in on you.

Rule #2: Write Honestly and Authentically

Now you’re ready to begin your journey. Here’s my advice: it’s critical that you learn to communicate in writing in the same way that you communicate directly with your clients. In all your interactions, you must have a foundation of honesty and authenticity; otherwise you wouldn’t be able to stay in business, right?

Let me re-frame it this way: writing your book is really an extension of your business. You’ll be communicating in a different medium and to a much larger audience, but your goal remains the same – you have to be transparent and you have to be yourself at all times.

Readers can sense dishonesty and a lack of authenticity from a mile away. It won’t take long for them to sense that something is “off” with the author.

On the other hand, when authors use their authentic voice and aren’t afraid to be themselves, warts and all, the reading experience becomes refreshing and the connection with the reader becomes much deeper.

You can’t really connect with someone who’s trying to be someone else.

Rule #3: Don’t Hold Anything Back

As an extension to Rule #2, once you’ve decided to write a book to support and grow your business or career, you have to go “all in.” Don’t try to protect your ideas from theft by just offering a teaser of your knowledge.

To write truly successful nonfiction, you have to be able to bare your soul on the page. Don’t hold back any information that could be of help to your readers.

The more you give they more you’ll get in return. Your book’s word of mouth marketing will be stronger, you’ll attract more readers, you’ll get better reviews, and in the end, more doors will open for you.

Authenticity in your writing is a great selling tool. But if you combine it with generosity and selflessness-you’ve now created a game changer.

Rule #4: Do Your Writing off The Grid

We’ve already established in Rule #1 that you’re not to be interrupted when you sit down to write. Now, those are external interruptions. Equally critical, however, are internal interruptions.

Having so much technology packed into your laptop or tablet, it’s tempting to regularly switch away from our writing app whenever we hear the ding of a notification – perhaps an email you’ve been waiting for, a new post that caught your eye, an incoming text, etc.

All of these distractions, even if you don’t act on them immediately, disrupt your creative flow – the direct link between your mind and your typing fingers. You need to learn to treasure this connection because it’s from this state of creative thinking that your best writing ideas will come.

My suggestion is to go “off the grid,” on your device, and what I mean by that depends on your writing tools. If you’re using a native app like Word, which doesn’t need to be connected to the Internet in order to operate, then turn Wi-Fi off for the entire duration of your two-hour writing block. This will stop all notifications from popping up.

If you’re using an online writing app like Google Docs, then mute the sound on your computer instead. In either case also set your smartphone to “do not disturb.” If there’s an emergency that requires your presence, just make sure people know where you are.

Rule #5: Focus Just on the Text In Front of You

When you work on a project as complex and multi-faceted as writing a book, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But when you’re sitting down to write, you need to put the blinders on and focus exclusively on only what you’re writing about at that moment.

You can’t be thinking about the other 200 pages you still need to write and you can’t be thinking about whether the chapter you wrote yesterday needs more work.

Now, this will take some discipline and you’ll have to go through a bit of a learning curve. But you can’t write well and have distracting thoughts at the same time. Worrying about a past or future event will take you out of a state of presence and your writing will suffer as a result. Why? Because creativity requires a state of presence in order to flow. And this flow of thoughts and ideas from your mind down to your fingertips gets blocked if you’re focusing on the past or the future.

Rule #6: Don’t Write to Exhaustion

Never exceed your two-hour writing limit. If you push yourself to write until you’re creatively spent, say for 3 or 4 hours straight, you’ll begin to resent the act of writing because you’ll be setting an impossible expectation for the future.

It’s much more effective to write for two hours and leave behind a ton of ideas to write about another time. Just capture these ideas on a notepad in bullet form and use them as a seed for inspiration the next day.

Also, you don’t need to worry about ever running out of ideas, because as a nonfiction author writing about your professional life experience, you’re not creating an entire new premise from scratch like a fiction author. You’re simply downloading information you’re already familiar with from your brain onto the written page.

Rule #7: Always Go With the Flow

Finally, your book needs to be written with a sense of “flow.” Everything you write must flow because readers don’t sense “writing” – they sense flow. Author Elmore Leonard once said: “If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.”

If all readers “see” is just the writing, they won’t feel a connection with you. If you use words that aren’t essential to the text, words that don’t add anything to your message, then remove them.

How do you know if you’ve written a non-essential word? Here’s a simple test: if the passage retains its full meaning after removing that word, then it’s not needed.

Also, don’t be afraid to cut out writing that took a lot of effort to create but that doesn’t feel right. Usually things that are hard to write tend to go against the flow. On the other hand, things that are easy to write, where your fingers seem to be moving on their own, tend to flow.

From experience, I can tell you that trying to rewrite something that clearly doesn’t fit the narrative will hardly ever make it fit. If it’s proven hard to write, it’ll prove hard to rewrite – you can’t fit a square peg in a round hole.

Bonus Rule: Don’t worry about quality – at least at first

I’ll leave you with a bonus rule that works wonders, especially for first-time authors. Now, what I’m going to say next is definitely going to sound counter intuitive: to produce a quality book you can’t focus on quality while you’re writing it!

The reason is that when you sit down to write you’re working from a stream of consciousness. You may already know what you’re going to be writing about – today’s section will be about the X, Y and Z lessons you learned working with one of your clients – what you don’t know is what you’re going to actually write.

Your goal in this initial writing stage is to establish a direct and unfiltered connection between your brain and your fingertips so that you can capture this “torrent” of information on the printed page. You goal isn’t to give it shape yet.

So if you’re thinking, “I need to write something with quality,” then that’s a sure-fire way to turn off your creative tap. You’re now letting your critical thinking get in the way of your creativity and your writing will become stale.

Leave the quality control for the multiple rewrites you’ll be doing after you’re done with the initial creative phase. When you switch hats and become your own editor, your critical thinking will step in to give your creative writing the shape and the quality it needs to pass muster with your readers.

Practice these seven rules plus the bonus one every time you sit down to write your book and you’ll be pleasantly surprised with your end product!

All the best,

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

The 10 Must-Have Writing Skills for Entrepreneurial Authors

How to Become a Great Book Writer in Business Nonfiction

How to Write a Compelling Nonfiction Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Business Owners

How to Come Up With a Killer Title for Your Nonfiction Book

The Most Effective Writing Exercises for Busy Business People

 

Bennett R. Coles is the author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

Hiring a writing coach is not that much different than hiring a sports coach. People who play competitive sports recreationally, like ice hockey, soccer or basketball rarely (ever?) hire coaches to help them improve their game. Yet every single professional athlete who participates in the same sports does – without exception. Why is that?

Because no matter how good an athlete may be in their mastery of the sport, their complete immersion in playing the game prevents them from taking the necessary distance from the field to assess how they’re playing. It can be hard for them to see where they’re getting stuck, what could be improved, how to play faster, with more accuracy, with better angles of attack, etc.

The same applies to nonfiction writers – especially those who are writing a book to improve their career or business profile, to reach out to more clients or to be recognized as experts in their field. If you’re such a writer, your book will become an extension of your professional life, a calling card that’ll communicate your skills, your experience and your subject knowledge to the world – and above all, your personal reputation.

For this reason, it’s imperative that your book be the best possible quality you can produce, in the same way the professional athlete is expected to always be on the top of their game.

This is where the writing coach comes in: to help establish a routine that is conducive to producing good results with consistency, to help shorten the learning curve in order to perfect new skills faster, to offer new perspectives and to help develop the focus and discipline that is necessary to succeed.

What Is a Writing Coach?

A writing coach, not unlike a sports coach, is there to help you develop a writing routine that works for you based on your personality and your style. Their goal is to help you reach a stage where you can consistently write from a place of joy without experiencing drudgery.

A writing coach will offer you ideas and tools so that you can create a personal structure that allows you to stay focused as you access the creative side of your brain. They’ll also help you develop techniques to speed up your writing while at the same time enhancing the quality of your output. In short, they’ll help you get better at your game.

A Writing Coach Is Not The Same as an Editor

What a writing coach is not there to do is to edit your manuscript. What they do instead is help you gain clarity on what you’re trying to achieve with your book, fine-tune the message for your target audience, find the right tone and style to communicate and organize your book project.

An editor, on the other hand, will focus strictly on your manuscript. In addition to taking care of the basic tasks of checking for your grammar and spelling, they’ll also make recommendations about your book structure from top to bottom, will take care of the overall flow, developmental issues, word choice and sentence construction.

The editor focuses on the product. The coach focuses on the process and the person.

Fiction Vs. Nonfiction Writing Coaches

Now, if you’re writing nonfiction, it’s really important that you work with a nonfiction writing coach. Although a coach that specializes in fiction writing will have certain elements in common with a nonfiction coach, what they won’t have is a deep understanding of the psychology of nonfiction audiences.

The audience for your book will be motivated by the need to solve a problem or challenge that they have, which your book will address with your unique solution. They’ll have certain pain-points that they’re seeking to eliminate and are actively looking for relief.

In order to work in this field, the writing coach needs to have not only a deep understanding of the market forces in the genre, but also compassion and empathy for an audience that is seeking to move away from that pain.

A writing coach that specializes in fiction may lack these skills, because their focus is on creating a product meant to entertain and to help readers experience a break from reality by becoming immersed in the lives of the book’s characters. This is clearly not in your best interest as a nonfiction writer.

How Do You Find a Good Nonfiction Writing Coach?

Writing coaches work in an industry that isn’t regulated and you need to be very alert when you research candidates. To make sure you find legitimate writing coaches that fit your requirements, you need to look not just for nonfiction experience but also for a long resume.

In the world of sports, coaches are always older than the athletes because it takes a long time to develop strong coaching skills. In fact, it’s quite common for coaches to have been athletes in their youth.

It’s no different in the world of writing. You’ll find that many of the best coaches are authors themselves who have spent years guiding and mentoring younger authors (not necessarily in age but in experience) to become better writers.

Check the coaches’ websites and read all the testimonials. A good writing coach will list 10 or more testimonials. Learn about what those authors say about their coaching experience. Check what kind of books they’ve written to make sure that they’re in the nonfiction genre (in most cases the titles will be listed along with their full names in the testimonials), and finally visit the authors’ websites and get in touch with them to find out more about how the coach works.

Writing Coach Rates

Rates for writing coaches vary quite a bit, based on demand, experience and genre. Most coaches will charge you an hourly rate, but many offer multi-hour packages at a discount, provided you pay in advance.

A good nonfiction coach will charge anywhere between $100-$125 per hour and a highly sought-after one will charge between $200-$300 per hour. A typical engagement can range anywhere from a single one-hour session to five or more sessions, depending of the writer’s needs.

What Questions Should You Ask Before Hiring a Writing Coach?

Most writing coaches will agree to meet you for a free initial consultation, usually lasting fifteen minutes. This can be conducted over the phone or via teleconferencing. Use this time to assess rapport and to ask questions.

To make your job easier, here are some handy questions that you may want to consider asking during your interview:

• What is your past training as a coach?
• Do you have experience with nonfiction books written by professionals, consultants or entrepreneurs?
• What is your coaching style? How do you work with writers?
• How do you communicate with writers? Phone only, video call, both?
• Based on my goals, how many coaching sessions do you recommend?
• Do you provide a contract outlining your services, fees and terms?
• Could you provide me with two references I can talk to?

Next Steps

The best time to hire a writing coach is at the beginning of your book project. This will allow you to develop a game plan for the entire project, discuss the project details before you put pen to paper and create a writing routine that works best for you.

If you’re at the beginning of your book project, I have a companion article entitled: The 10 Must-Have Writing Skills for Entrepreneurial Authors that might be of help. In it, I’ve compiled a list of skills from successful nonfiction writers that you can borrow from to craft a great nonfiction book.

Best of luck in your search!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Nonfiction Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Business Owners

The 7 Key Rules for Writers of Outstanding Nonfiction Books

 

Bennett R. Coles is the author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.

You’ve decided to write a  book to support your business and you’re now looking for effective writing exercises since you’ve never written a nonfiction book before.

So you do an online search to learn what the best practices are for effective nonfiction writing, because you don’t want to spend a lot of time with countless rewrites until you’re happy with the end result.

But there’s a problem. Nearly all the search results that come back show writing exercises for fiction writers or for creative nonfiction. There’s next to nothing for entrepreneurial authors like you who want to write a practical nonfiction book with strategies to help your readers solve a problem.

Most writing exercises out there will teach you how to use creative prompts or how writing about an experience from your youth will help you develop your writing muscle. However, little of that will be of much help to you.

What you need are clear strategies and the right guidance to help you develop the writing chops necessary to create practical, compelling nonfiction for your target audience.

This is the reason why I felt the need to create an article specifically for entrepreneurial authors like you, so you can calibrate your existing and diverse writing experience towards the task of writing your nonfiction book effectively.

Instead of spending time doing exercises that have little relevance to the content of your book, I felt it would be much more effective to break down the key teachings of most writing exercises into practical strategies that you can use right away.

How Do I Write Effectively?

The main goal of entrepreneurial nonfiction books is two-fold:

1. To identify a core problem with your target audience
2. To provide clear, actionable strategies to solve that problem

In order to do this effectively, your writing must be able to:

• Communicate
• Persuade
• Train
• Compel readers to take action

Also, you want to achieve all of the above by using a personable, engaging and clean writing style, while staying away from impersonal, academic and complex language (the later can work very well for textbooks and professional journals, but it ‘s detrimental for practical nonfiction books).

The good news is, if you’re an entrepreneur, small business owner, professional, practitioner or coach, you’re already naturally conditioned to communicate, persuade, train and compel people to take action, except that you’ll typically do that through direct contact with your clients.

So, all you have to learn how to do now is to transfer these abilities into your writing.

How Can I Improve My Writing Style?

As mentioned above, the best style for the type of nonfiction book you’re writing is conversational.

Whenever a reader picks up a nonfiction book written by a specialist who can help them solve a problem they have, they expect to develop a close relationship with the author. In fact, they subconsciously expect the book to be written exclusively for them.

If you, as the writer, use language that is addressed instead to a group of people (your target audience as a whole), then your book will lose its effectiveness.

Why do readers expect problem-solving books to be written just for them? Because most problems are personal by nature and as such they require a personal approach to solving them. Perhaps your target audience is ashamed of their problem, or feels self-conscious about it, perhaps they haven’t told anyone about it, or a myriad other reasons.

So, what you have to do, whenever you sit down to write, is to always think “one-to-one.” In other words, you need to frame your writing as if you were sitting down to work with a client without anyone else present in the room.

Now, how do you reconcile the fact that you’re actually alone when you write? You have to represent both your own voice as well as your client’s voice in your writing.

In essence, your own voice becomes the voice that communicates, persuades, trains and compels, and your client’s voice is symbolized by the use of statements of acknowledgment followed by rhetorical questions (e.g. you would first write: “Healthy fats eaten in moderation actually condition your body to burn fat at a much faster rate,” and posing as your client you would then write: “This is a radical idea, isn’t it?”).

Your ultimate goal is to develop a close one-to-one relationship with your audience to the point where each reader thinks that you’re just talking to them and no one else.

How Do I Improve Clarity In Writing?

Since the entire premise of your writing style is to have a personal conversation, you have to avoid obscuring this conversation with the use of writing crutches that muddy the waters.

For example, don’t over-explain things. Since writing is such a solitary endeavor, without having your subject in front of you giving you visual cues that they “got” what you just said, it’s common to make a point and then to keep remaking the same point again and again from different angles. When you’re alone with your thoughts, there’s no one there to stop you but yourself.

So, what’s the strategy to improve clarity when you write? By writing your sentences as they comes to you (even if you over-explain things) and then reading them back to yourself but switching hats as your client. It’ll become obvious pretty quickly if you’re overwriting.

Here’s another example. Sometimes writers confuse clarity with communicating like an instructor. The danger is that this style, though clear, can easily be perceived as condescending. This will break the one-to-one bond with your readers because no one likes to be talked down to, especially about their problems.

What’s the counter strategy? Seek to write with compassion – always put yourself in the shoes of your reader whenever you’re communicating your solution.

Final example. Some writers are so passionate about their solution that they unknowingly try to evangelize readers – don’t fall into this trap. In order to communicate effectively in written form, you always need to position yourself at the same level as your target audience.

If you position yourself high up on the expert’s podium, your audience will feel that you’re so much more evolved than they are that they’ll never be able to get there on their own and give up reading your book.

Remember, clarity has two sides. On one hand, you have to be clear when you convey your thoughts and ideas in writing. On the other, you have to meet your reader at the level where they are because clarity is also in the eyes of the beholder.

How Can I Write More Concisely?

A more technical extension of clarity is conciseness, or the ability to communicate clearly by using an economy of words. Sentences that are too wordy can become a big turn-off to readers.

Now, you do want to convey your thoughts in a personable, conversational way which sometimes requires the use of casual expressions, but you want to stay away from:

• Using “flowery” language (e.g. “There’s no doubt in my mind, or for that matter in the minds of most other people, that…” instead of “It’s obvious to most people that…”).
• Making excessive use of adjectives (e.g. “This approach is clearly and absolutely more advanced than…” instead of “This approach is clearly more advanced than…”).
• Unnecessarily embellishing sentences (e.g. “This is a mighty problem that is faced by the vast majority of people out there” instead of “This is a big problem that afflicts countless people”).
• Making unnecessary use of metaphors. If you can state matters clearly, you don’t need to use metaphors. Use them only if you have to mention a complex concept that is necessary for your thesis but which is unrelatable to the reader. You can then choose a metaphor that they can relate to.

How Do I Become More Eloquent?

To persuade your target audience to take action, you need to be eloquent in your message. Your book won’t be very effective if your calls to action aren’t compelling enough.

Here are some techniques you can use:

Paint a Clear Picture

Describe what your reader’s future will feel like when your solution is in place. Focus on their feelings and not just on the surface changes they’ll experience.

Teach by Telling Stories

Our brains are pre-wired to respond to storytelling – that’s why the most successful authors the world has ever seen are all fiction writers (the top three alone, William Shakespeare, Agatha Christie and Barbara Cartland, sold a combined 7 billion books!).

Since you’ve been helping clients for so long, you’re bound to have a lot of really good stories you can share with your readers. Just remember that unless you’re re-telling a story that’s in the public domain, or you have written permission from a client (rarely granted), make sure to fictionalize your client stories to disguise identities, places and events in order to protect their privacy.

What you want to do is to communicate the spirit of the story and its lessons for your reader – you’re not required to document the facts.

As an extension of the above, make sure that you choose stories that reflect the current state of mind of your readers (i.e. use client stories that will resonate with the way your readers feel right now).

Address Objections Effectively

Your readers do want to hear about your solution – otherwise they wouldn’t have picked up your book. But they’ll likely have lingering objections in their minds and will read your book through a filter of skepticism. This is because there’s a good chance that they’ve already tried something else in the past that failed to produce results.

To be persuasive, you’ll have to show them clearly why your solution is different from the others, and one of the best ways to do so is to address and refute the most common objections one by one.

How Do I Write With My Voice?

Since the most effective nonfiction books are written in a personable and conversational tone, you’ll need to master your ability to communicate with your own voice.

What you don’t want to do is to stand on the lectern and become an orator, a professor or a guru. These are all labels that will disguise your true voice, which is the voice your readers want to hear. Remember that all readers of nonfiction want to develop a one-to-one relationship with the author.

How do you write with your own voice? By being authentic and sincere in the way that you communicate through the printed page, which incidentally is no different than the way you already communicate with clients.

If you were unauthentic and insincere with them, you’d be struggling in your business because problem-solving relationships only work when they’re built on trust.

You’re not selling an entertainment product so people can live vicariously and forget their problems. You’re selling a solution that addresses people’s problems head on.

Your strategy is to always think deeply about your relationship with your clients as you write your thoughts down for your readers. Always write with empathy and your sincerity and authenticity will automatically come forward.

Writing Strategies

Now we’re going to get a bit more technical. Aside from writing using a personable and conversational style, while writing with clarity and using your own voice, you have to develop a good writing technique.

To be quite honest, this is something that can only come with practice and there are no shortcuts for spending “time at the wheel.” However, to help you along the way, here’s a short list of writing techniques you want to keep in mind:

• Avoid using phrases such as “literally, ” “I mean,” “You know,” “It’s like…” Let’s call them “lazy language.”
• Use contractions as much as you can, otherwise you’ll sound less conversational and more academic.
• Don’t make excessive use of exclamation marks to make a point or you’ll risk being perceived as too “pushy” or “salesy.”
• Minimize the use of expressions that can “clutter” your writing (e.g. “In actual fact…,” “First and foremost…,“ “Needless to say…”).
• Minimize the use of the passive voice (e.g. “It was decided by our team to…” instead of “Our team decided to…”).

What’s Next?

If you’re writing your first book, you may encounter some challenges as you embark on this uncharted journey. To help you navigate these waters problem-free, you’ll need a solid map that removes much of this uncertainly and safely guides you from beginning to end.

For this purpose, I’ve written a companion article entitled: Learn 10 Powerful Writing Habits to Fast-Track Your Nonfiction Book. In it you’ll find solid techniques that successful nonfiction writers use to create great products.

Last but not least, I wish you the best on your exciting journey!

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business

How to Come Up With Killer Book Titles for Your Nonfiction Book

How to Write a Compelling Introduction that Will Move the Needle

 

Bennett R. Coles is the author of 6 books published through Harper Collins (NY) and Titan Publishing Group (UK). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press and the founder/CEO of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, printing, distribution and marketing.