Before you embark on your nonfiction book project, you need to learn the best writing strategies in the genre to ensure that you don’t spin your wheels in unnecessary rewrites and instead create a solid manuscript that closely aligns with the needs and desires of your target audience.

If you’re a first-time author, the 5 strategies below will ensure that you stay on track on your journey while minimizing the chances of making rookie mistakes.

Let’s get started:

Strategy 1: Learn From the Masters

Nonfiction is a mature genre, which means that there are well-established success formulas that have been perfected over the years. While nonfiction content has evolved over time along with changes in society, the way that content is communicated to readers has not changed significantly.

Here’s the best part, you don’t have to go to school to learn these powerful formulas. All you need to do is learn directly from the masters by buying their books and reverse-engineering their techniques.

Your first task then is to do research on Amazon to find the bestselling titles in your niche. Once you have a short list of 3-5 books, buy them and read them cover to cover.

For your first pass, put yourself in the shoes of a reader looking for the solution to the problem that the book addresses. Make notes about how those books make you feel and about your emotional response to different chapters.

Also note the choice of language and the approach that different authors use to connect with their readers (e.g. are they using empathy? personal stories? supportive language?). When you finish reading the books, note if you feel you “know” the author, if you feel “connected” to them, if you feel like they’re your “friend.”

Chances are you will. Even though you never met those people, you’ll feel as if you knew them. This is the magic of good nonfiction and the effect that you want to emulate with your book.

Now reread the books through the filter of an author. Take a bird’s-eye view of the content and make notes about the different approaches used to elicit emotions (e.g. do they use personal stories? client stories? descriptive language? dialog?).

These are the techniques you’ll be emulating in your own book to create a compelling narrative that connects with readers, instead of dry informational text that’s devoid of emotional connection.

Strategy 2: Divide and Conquer

Once you’ve learned the tricks of the trade, it’s time to create your first draft. Now, sitting down staring at a blank page is not the best approach to writing a nonfiction book, even if your mind is overflowing with great ideas. In fact, it’s a sure fire way to becoming overwhelmed over time and to lose the joy of writing.

The best way to write a nonfiction book is to use the “divide and conquer” approach. Basically, you need to kick things off with a fully fleshed-out outline of your book (read this article on mind-mapping and this article on book outlining to get you on the right path). Your book outline is the precursor to your table of contents and it’ll show a breakdown of the different topics and subtopics covered in your book.

Then, simply choose the topic that you feel most inspired to write about that day and begin writing — don’t worry if the section in question is in the middle or even at the end of the book: order doesn’t matter at this stage.

Writing a book in strict sequence is usually not the best approach anyway. You could do it if you wanted to, but the end result isn’t necessarily going to your best writing.

On the other hand, writing about what most inspires you in that moment will result in much more compelling writing, even if it feels disconnected from the whole. There’s nothing wrong with skipping five chapters and then going back three, provided that the writing feels inspired.

What you want to avoid at all costs is making your writing feel forced into a strict sequence: in other words, to write for the sake of writing. Keep in mind that at the end of the writing process you’ll be enlisting the help of a nonfiction editor to polish your writing, help you with transitions, and even re-organize the order of your chapters.

Strategy 3: Write From a Stream of Consciousness

When you do sit down to write, guided by your book outline, don’t spend too much time thinking about what you’re going to be writing about. In fact, try to think things through a little as possible. Choose the section that inspires the most and begin to write from a stream of consciousness.

Remember that your nonfiction book is already inside of you. Even though it hasn’t been written yet, all of the content is stored in your brain. Your task at first is simply to channel that content out of your brain and onto the written page.

When you write based on inspiration instead of by force, you’ll find that your ideas flow effortlessly, without having to think much about what you’re going to write. At this initial stage, don’t judge your choice of words and don’t fall into the trap of self-editing as you write.

Don’t linger in thought trying to first formulate in your mind what you’re going to be writing about — that’s not conducive to the creative flow of ideas.

Will you make a lot of mistakes using the stream of consciousness approach? Most likely yes (unless you’re a masterful writer with decades of experience) and that’s totally okay. Your goal at the beginning is to write down your ideas. You’ll have plenty of opportunities later on to shape your writing, but not before you have a solid body of text to work with.

Strategy 4: Create an Advance Reader Group

Nonfiction books should never be written in isolation. Unlike fiction, you’re not writing a made up story for the purpose of entertaining your audience. You’re writing to problem-solve, and for your solution to work it must align with the needs and desires of your target audience.

Not only do you need to know what makes them tick and what keeps them up at night (which is part of your preliminary audience research) but you also need to check regularly with them as you write to ensure that your message resonates with your audience throughout your book project.

What you don’t want to do is to write your entire manuscript first and then give it to members of your audience to read at the end of the process, because if it went off track early on you’ll find yourself rewriting a big chunk of your book, which is not only inefficient but also frustrating and demoralizing.

Instead, establish an advance reader group before you begin your book project, made up of members of your target audience that you know and trust, and enlist their support to help you along your writing journey.

Then, as soon as you finish each chapter, pass it along to them for feedback and comments (the chapters don’t need to be in sequence for this approach to work). What you’re looking for is first impressions — is your writing connecting with your audience at an emotional level? — and also for fit — is the content resonating with your audience, their needs and desires?

If you find a disconnect you can then react and adjust your course early on. In fact, you may find that this approach may even alter the flow that you had initially anticipated for your book into one that’s better aligned with the needs of your audience.

Strategy 5: Hire a Professional Editor

After your manuscript is completed to the best of your ability – that is, you’ve written all the required sections, you’ve incorporated your audience’s feedback and you’ve made a sufficient number of rewrites to improve the flow and quality of the text – it’s time to hire a professional editor.

When readers have a need and search Amazon for books, the majority will search for a solution to their problems and not for a specific book title. Therefore, it’s quite likely that your book will come up in the search results along with traditionally published books on the subject.

And guess what? Every single one of those books will be professionally edited! So, in order to compete you’ll need to establish a level playing field by having your book professionally edited as well.

In fact, the use of an editor is a staple for all professional authors. Even recognized authors with a long history of success would never dare publish an unedited book.

The book you’ll be publishing will act as an extension of your professionalism, credibility and reputation, so this is an area where you can ill afford to cut corners by either self-editing or outsourcing the editing job to a friend or a relative.

Nonfiction professional editors are not only great wordsmiths but also have a deep body of knowledge about the art of persuasion, winning sales and marketing copy techniques as well as reader psychology. They’ll become a crucial ally to generate success on your publishing journey.

In Conclusion

A nonfiction book project can be a very rewarding experience because you’ll be capturing your life’s work into a format that’s easy to consume, highly ubiquitous and broadly accessible to the masses.

By following the above five strategies, you’ll be laying out a foundation of success for your book project that’ll ensure that your message closely aligns with your audience, that’s based on best practices and that’s on a level playing field with popular books in your niche.

All the best on your publishing journey!

If you enjoyed this article and are considering creating a nonfiction book, be sure to check out my free nonfiction success guide, drawn from years of experience editing books for bestselling authors (including a New York Times bestseller) and ghostwriting for CEOs and politicians. Simply click here to get instant access.

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 posts I highly recommend:

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

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

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

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder 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, marketing, printing and distribution.

When it comes to nonfiction, there are many different types of writer, depending on the niche. Nonfiction is a very specialized genre, and even though the common thread is telling the truth and focusing on facts, the delivery of content can be very diverse.

You may have some writers who choose to focus on problem-solving, others who prefer to focus on teaching, then others who like to entertain, or inspire, and so on.

The type of nonfiction writer you want to become will depend on what drives you inside, what you’re passionate about and what your skill-set and specialized training look like.

In this article I’ll share the characteristics of the different types of nonfiction writers that exist out there, their strengths, and the type of writing category that they best fit, along with examples of bestselling books in every listed category.

The 8 Types of Nonfiction Writers

Although nonfiction is a very broad genre (Amazon lists more than 3,000 nonfiction categories and sub-categories), there are primarily eight different types of nonfiction writers that you can aspire to become. No one type is better or worse than the other or has more or less chances of success in the market.

Naturally, some types of writers choose to work in very large niches, which command much larger audiences, but they’re also subject to a lot more competition.

Some cater to narrower niches and as a result they’re subject to lower competitive forces. In the end, the writer that you want to become (incidentally, you don’t have to be limited to a single type) will depend on your personal interests.

Here are the eight different types of writers in the world of nonfiction:

1) The Scientific Writer

The scientific writer is someone who typically has a professional accreditation and has trained for many years on a specific profession: e.g. lawyers, academics, physicians, engineers, scientists, economists, etc.

The type of books that they write need to be thoroughly researched, since often times they’ll be based on studies and research that needs to be portrayed with 100% accuracy. These books tend to be more complex and therefore require multiple editing and proofreading passes before they’re published.

Scientific writers tend to be highly educated and have a thorough grasp of the facts in their field of study. They also tend to be perfectionists and pay attention to every detail, which often results in longer publishing cycles.

They usually need to enlist the help of and work in partnership with scientific book editors who understand their area of expertise.

Often times, these types of technical writers come from fields where it’s common practice to publish articles in peer-reviewed publications as part of day-to-day work, so they tend to be very well equipped to make the transition into a nonfiction author.

Nonfiction categories that are ideal for scientific or technical writers, with some bestselling book examples, are shown below:

• Health (e.g. Eight Weeks to Optimum Health by Andrew Weill)
• Medicine/Therapy (e.g. The Body by Bill Bryson)
• Science (e.g. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson)
• Academic/Textbooks (e.g. Basic Nursing by Caroline Bunker Rosedahl & Mary T. Kowalksi)
• Technology (e.g. Web Analytics by Avinash Kaushik)
• Economics (e.g. Freakonomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner)

2) The Business Writer

The business writer is someone who typically has many years of experience working in a large business, often times in a leadership position, as business owners, or even as academics who teach in business schools.

These writers tend to be less rigid and yet still fact-based, although often times their facts are more experiential than scientific. Since they deal in many cases with human behavior, these books tend to be based on observations and experience rather than hard facts and they can also be more inspirational in nature.

Business writers typically use their books to help and support their public-speaking careers, which in many cases can command substantial fees, especially if their books have achieved bestseller status. Also, business books are often purchased in large numbers by corporations to be used for personnel training purposes.

Many times, business writers, especially those with busy schedules, will compile notes for their book, create the main outline and then give the writing task to a ghostwriter. Those who are avid bloggers will often compile their books by threading together multiple blog posts.

Nonfiction categories that are ideal for business writers, with some bestselling book examples, are shown below:

• Business Management (e.g. Double Double by Cameron Herold)
• Leadership (e.g. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell)
• Finance/Investment (e.g. Financial Statement Analysis by Byron Lund)
• Corporate Culture (e.g. It’s Your Ship by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff)
• HR (e.g. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni)
• Business Training (e.g. New Conceptual Selling by Stephen Heiman & Diane Sanchez)

3) The Spiritual Writer

The spiritual writer is someone who has studied and practiced in a spiritual field for many years and has developed their own interpretations or techniques that they feel are well-suited to their target audience.

Often times, the spiritual writer is someone who has studied a philosophy from outside their own culture for many years and writes a book to introduce it to their own culture in a way that’s easy to understand.

Other times, they take on a difficult philosophy or practice and choose to also write a book in order to break it down in a way that the lay-person can easily digest without requiring years of prerequisite study.

Since many spiritual books are based on philosophical concepts, they aren’t as hard-fact based as the prior examples, but this type of writing still needs to abide accurately by every tenet of its spiritual discpline. Keep in mind that spiritual authors write books only after several years of concentration in their spiritual practice.

Nonfiction categories that are ideal for spiritual writers, with some bestselling book examples, are shown below:

• Religion (e.g. The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel)
• Spirituality (e.g. The Power of Now by Ekhart Tolle)
• Meditation (e.g. The Mindfulness Code by Donald Altman)
• New age (e.g. A Course in Miracles by Marianne Williamson0
• Mysticism (e.g. The Essential Kabbalah by Daniel C. Matt)

4) The Problem-Solving Writer

Problem-solving writers are the most widely published types of nonfiction writers. The vast majority of nonfiction books are written by problem-solving authors because they cater to a broad range of needs of the reading population.

Problem-solving writers focus their energies on helping their target audience resolve a long-standing, typically painful problem that has afflicted them for a long time and for which they haven’t found a solution yet.

These types of writers typically have a private practice where they see clients on a personal basis, and choose to write books that are based on their client experiences in order to expand their reach. In this way, they’re able to help people who aren’t in the same geographical area and thus are unable to attend a live session.

Like business writers, problem-solving writers tend to become highly sought out public speakers and many become favorite guests of TV and radio producers.

The problem-solving nonfiction field is very broad and it encompasses a very large number of subjects, from self-help to psychology, to parenting, to fitness, to how-to, and so on, catering to the many needs of the population at large, addressing personal needs as well as consumer needs, business needs, organizational needs, and many others.

Nonfiction categories that are ideal for problem-solving writers, with some bestselling book examples, are shown below:

• Self-Help (e.g. Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins)
• Weight Loss (e.g. Dash Diet by Marla Heller)
• Fitness (e.g. Yoga Fitness for Men by Dean Pohlman)
• Relationships (e.g. Getting the Love you Want by Harville Hendrix)
• Parenting (e.g. Becoming the Parent You Want to Be by Laura Davis & Janis Keyser)
• Psychology (e.g. Reinventing Your Life by Jeffrey Young & Janet Klosko)
• Personal finances/Money management (e.g. The Wealthy Barber by David Chilton)
• How-to (e.g. How to Make it In the Music Business by Ari Herstand)

5) The Journalistic Writer

The journalistic writer tends to be someone who developed their literary chops working as a journalist for a mainstream publication, or sometimes has been elected to public office. They tend to focus on subjects that are controversial or highly charged, whether in politics or in the court of public opinion.

Journalistic writing requires a significant amount of fact-checking, especially when they’re basing their books on evidence from others that needs to be corroborated. This can be a painstaking process, especially when their evidence-based facts are not easy to check.

Although there are exceptions (e.g. Ronan Farrow), most journalistic writers tend to be older since it typically demands a long career in their fields in order to build the relationships and connections that are necessary to develop trusted sources that can provide valuable information when reliable facts are hard to come by.

Nonfiction categories that are ideal for journalistic writers, with some bestselling book examples, are shown below:

• Politics (e.g. Let Me Finish by Chris Christie)
• Opinion (e.g. Fear by Bob Woodward)
• Expository books (e.g. Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow)

6) The Biographical Writer

The biographical writer includes people who focus their writing on memoirs, biographies and autobiographies.

A memoir is a historical account of a particular personal experience, therefore it’s usually written in the first person. Examples of popular memoirs are Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and Becoming by Michelle Obama.

A biography is an account of someone’s life, as told by someone else. When the subject of the biography commissions the work and actively participates in the production of source materials, it’s considered an authorized biography. An unauthorized biography is created without the involvement of the subject, and often times against their wishes.

An autobiography is the account of a person’s life written by the subject (or ghostwritten on behalf of the subject). The difference between a ghostwritten autobiography and an authorized biography is that the former carries the name of the subject as the author (e.g. The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump, which was actually written by Tony Schwartz) and the latter carries the name of the writer, not the subject (e.g. Bill Gates: A Biography, by Michael B. Becraft).

Nonfiction categories that are ideal for biographical writers, with some bestselling book examples, are shown below:

• Memoirs (e.g. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight)
• Biographies (e.g. Good Neighbor by Maxwell King)
• Autobiographies (e.g. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama)

7) The Narrative Writer

The narrative writer is a cross between a nonfiction and a fiction writer. while the focus is on facts and truths, it’s told using the power of narrative and storytelling. The most popular styles of narrative nonfiction writing are creative nonfiction, historical nonfiction and true crimes, although there are others as well.

Creative nonfiction writers focus on true events that are told in a way that reads like fiction, with compelling imagery and sensory detail. The goal of creative nonfiction is to make factual stories as interesting and rich in the eyes of readers as fiction can be.

Like creative nonfiction writers, historical nonfiction writers focus on actual events re-told in the style of fiction, except that those events are from the past, sometimes recent and sometimes distant. Since historical nonfiction is rooted in fact, it can be much harder to write than historical fiction, where the writer has much more creative freedom.

True crime is a style of writing that borrows from the narrative of fiction to examine an actual crime that has taken place in the near or distant past.

The aim of these types of writers is to capitalize on the public’s thirst for the motivations of the criminal mind. True crime is not only highly popular in written form but also on television and film.

Nonfiction categories that are ideal for narrative writers, with some bestselling book examples, are shown below:

• Creative nonfiction (e.g. The Girls are Gone by Michael Brodkorb, Allison Mann et al.)
• Historical nonfiction (e.g. The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre)
• True crime (e.g. The Pale-Faced Lie by David Crow)

8) The Lifestyle/Entertainment Writer

The lifestyle and entertainment writer type is also very popular in the book industry. This category includes writing about food, hobbies, travel, fashion, home, and so on. This is another broad category of writers that covers a large variety of interests.

Lifestyle/entertainment writers don’t require years-long careers specializing in one area in order to succeed. Instead, they need to be engaging, humorous, candid, and offer real value to their readers.

In fact, many writers of this type are quite young in relation to the first seven types of writers, and in many cases are also avid bloggers with a significant presence online as well as a large following on social media.

This is also a great area in the world of nonfiction where one can turn a long-standing hobby into a business by teaching other people who practice the same hobby the tricks of the trade that you’ve learned over time to make their lives easier and more enjoyable.

For instance, if you’ve been developing recipes for a specific type of diet for many years, you can turn them into a cookbook that’ll be of interest to those people who follow the same diet but who don’t have the time to experiment.

Of perhaps you’ve developed gardening techniques to create the perfect rose garden or the perfect vegetable garden and you can now turn this knowledge into a book that will help fellow hobby gardeners by saving them precious time and aggravation.

Nonfiction categories that are ideal for lifestyle/entertainment writers, with some bestselling book examples, are shown below:

• Wine & Drink (e.g. Wine Simple by Aldo Sohm & Christine Muhlke)
• Cookbooks/Food (e.g. Half-Baked Harvest Cookbook by Tieghan Gerard)
• Home Decor (e.g. Inspire Your Home by Farah Merhi)
• Gardening (e.g. Peonies by Jane Eastoe)
• Home improvement (e.g. Household Hacks by Ace McCloud, Joshua Mackey, et al.)

In Summary

The world of nonfiction writing is extremely diverse and can be very creative as well. There’s a sub-genre for almost every possible area of endeavor. As stated before, Amazon has over 3,000 categories and sub-categories of nonfiction books in their online store, and every area affords nonfiction writers with countless opportunities to express themselves.

Nonfiction is also one of the most profitable types of writing, not necessarily due to high book sales – at least, not immediately – but because of the many other streams of revenue that a nonfiction book can generate for its author.

From opening doors to great opportunities, to launching highly-paid public speaking careers, to acting as a great funnel for new leads for a service business, to becoming a calling card to land new clients, to establishing your bona fides as an expert in your field, and so on, nonfiction writing can be a huge career boost.

Becoming a nonfiction writer is also very rewarding because you’ll be helping other people improve on an aspect of their lives, you’ll open their minds to new and exciting knowledge, and help them solve deep-seated problems that seemed intractable before they got their hands on your book.

This article has shown you the main types of writers that are prevalent in the nonfiction genre to give you an idea of the different styles of nonfiction that are popular in the market, but don’t feel that you have to limit yourself to just a single type. In fact, many authors will move between types depending of their book ideas.

For example, a business writer may write one book about effective management techniques in the corporate setting, and later on may write a self-help book to inspire people to better manage their time and get more enjoyment out of life.

All you have to do is to focus on an area you’re passionate about and learn about the type of writing that best fits your publishing goals, keeping in mind that your ultimate aim is to be of service to others. You’ll be able to do so by informing them, teaching them a skill, entertaining them or using creative nonfiction to tell them a powerful story.

But above all else, whatever types of nonfiction writer you wish to become, make sure that you have fun in the process!

If you enjoyed this post and would like to learn more about how to excel in the writing craft be sure to check out my free nonfiction success guide, drawn from years of experience editing books for bestselling authors (including a New York Times bestseller) and ghostwriting for CEOs and politicians. Simply click here to get instant access.

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 expert status as well as to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

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

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder 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, marketing, printing and distribution.

If you’re writing a nonfiction book for the first time, you need to know what to do as well as what not to do in order to succeed.

Book writing is a multi-faceted endeavor with a lot of moving parts. The lack of understanding of this complexity is partly at fault for the 97% of people who start books but don’t finish them.

To make sure you become part of the remaining 3%, follow the dos and don’ts shown below to build a strong foundation for a nonfiction book that can be of service to your audience as well as to your business or career.

Do #1: Create a Mind Map of Your Book

Creating a 200-page book from scratch may seem like a daunting task, and it will be if you don’t have a clear roadmap. Willing a book into being armed with laptop and staring at a blank page is one of the most difficult ways to write a manuscript.

Fortunately, as a nonfiction author you don’t have to follow this painful path because you have a secret weapon that’ll make your book come to life organically.

This secret weapon is effective due to a simple premise: your book is already inside of you, ready to be typed out word by word. It’s just sitting in your brain with content based on your many years of professional experience.

All you have to do now is to find the right methodology to download this information from your brain and onto the written page in a structured way. This is where your secret weapon comes in.

This weapon is called the Mind Map, popularized by British author Tony Buzan. This is a simple yet powerful technique for mapping information from your brain onto a chart, in this case the entire structure of your upcoming nonfiction book.

Mind mapping is so effective because it mimics the way your brain stores and retrieves information. How does it work? In simple terms, you begin by writing the main idea of your book in the center of a large piece of paper (or a whiteboard, if one is available).

Then you break down your main idea into its components, and for each one you draw a branch going radially out from your main idea. You’ll draw as many branches as you have components.

Next, you take each component and break it down into its sub-components, drawing sub-branches in the same fashion. If needed, you can repeat this process for the sub-sub-components.

As an example, here’s the mind map of one of Tony Buzan’s nonfiction books:

For detailed instructions on creating your mind map, read this article:

“How to Use a Mind Map to Create a Great Book for Your Business”

Do #2: Create a Book Outline

Once your book’s mind map is drawn, what you have to do next is to turn it into your book outline. This is a simple process that ultimately generates a fully fleshed out table of contents.

In order to create your book, all you have to do is to write prompted by each section and sub-section in your table of contents, and before you know it you’ll have a manuscript on your hands without ever experiencing writer’s block.

For detailed instructions on converting your mind map into a book outline, read this article:

“How to Create a Book Outline Step-By-Step: A Guide for Nonfiction Writers”

Do #3: Write For An Audience of One

If you’re writing a nonfiction book to enhance your business or your career, chances are that you’re writing it to solve a problem for your audience. You’ve been solving problems for clients face to face for years and now you want to expand your reach.

Problem-solving nonfiction books tend to be very personal in nature because they address personal problems. For this reason, your book needs to be targeted to each member to your audience.

Whenever you read a nonfiction book that truly resonates with you, you’ll find that the entire book is actually addressed to “you.” In most cases you even feel a direct connection with the author, as if they know you and have decided to write their book to help you.

This can only be achieved when you use words such as “you” and “your” to address your reader. If instead you address readers as being part of a group (“us”, “we”, “our”, etc.) your message will become anonymous and your connection will get diluted.

Write your nonfiction book as if you were addressing it to each reader individually and your message will be delivered much more effectively.

Do #4: Write to Connect First, Then to Communicate

When you write a problem-solving nonfiction book, you’re doing more than just communicating your ideas or teaching new techniques to your readers. You’re creating a bridge of knowledge between their minds and yours.

The reason you want to build this bridge is that you want to establish a relationship with your readers that’s more than just academic.

You want them to know that you can feel their pain – perhaps you’ve been in their position before – and that you’ll help them overcome it. Your ultimate goal isn’t just to each your readers something new but to entice them to take action.

For this to happen you’ll need to gain their trust. Knowledge without trust leads to suspicion, not action. Write your book primarily with the intent to connect and with the intent to communicate as a secondary goal.

You’ll need to establish these links of trust through:

1. Your authenticity: always be yourself in your writing
2. Your compassion: make your readers know that you’re on their side and aren’t there to pass judgement on them
3. Your selflessness: you’re writing your book as an act of service and you don’t expect anything in return

Then weave your knowledge and your message through this connective tissue. For instance, you could teach new concepts using storytelling techniques or anecdotes from clients that readers can easily relate to.

Do #5: Have Your Manuscript Professionally Edited

Finally, when you complete your manuscript, make sure you hire a competent nonfiction editor to polish it and make it market-ready.

Follow the example shown by accomplished nonfiction authors who still hire editors even after years in the book publishing business.

The thing is, you’re an expert in problem-solving while editors are experts in written communications. These are two very different skill sets.

When you ally yourself with a professional nonfiction editor, you’ll get the best of both worlds: great content and great delivery. And in the competitive nonfiction market this collaboration is critical for success.

As a nonfiction author, you’re expected to be an expert in your field. Therefore, you’ll be measured against a high bar for quality. If you self-edit your book or farm out the job to an English major you risk being perceived as amateurish.

Even if they do a “good” job in your eyes, when compared to the work of expert editors with years in the book business it’ll come across as sub-standard.

Editing is not just about fixing typos and grammatical errors; it’s also about:

• Knowing what works and what doesn’t with nonfiction audiences
• Creating an optimal flow of ideas
• Understanding your readers’ psychology
• Knowing what makes readers engage and disengage
• Knowing how to connect effectively with them

Only experienced professional editors are trained to fulfill all of the above requirements.

Don’t #1: Begin Writing Your Book Before Researching Your Target Audience

Once you decide to write a nonfiction book, it’s very easy to get carried away by the excitement and begin writing as soon as you’re capable of (e.g. once you have a completed book outline).

You have a great idea and you’re certain what you want to write about, so what’s stopping you? The advice from every major nonfiction author!

Never invest time on a book-writing project before you take the time to fully understand your market. Specifically, you need to understand your audience and their needs. Otherwise, you’ll be shooting darts while blindfolded and spun around.

If you’re extremely lucky you may land one dart on the board, but it’ll be a totally random and unrepeatable shot.

Before you put pen to paper, you must first understand:

• Your audience’s likes and dislikes
• Their hopes, dreams, challenges and fears
• What keeps them up at night

Once you get to know your target audience intimately you’ll be able to identify the most pressing problem that your book can help them solve. You’ll also know what to say and what not to say to keep them engaged.

Don’t #2: Write Without a Book Outline

We’ve already stated the importance of creating a book outline before you start writing your manuscript. But this takes a fair amount of effort to achieve and it might be tempting to start writing your book without one.

While you might feel motivated to start writing right away, you’ll find a number of significant roadblocks with this approach.

Some days, you’ll know exactly what you want to write about, while others you’ll come up empty. But writing a book requires consistency day in and day out and it’s hard to write when you’re not inspired.

When ideas simply refuse to come up, you’ll either try to force yourself to write something, which will likely not be your best work, or you’ll end up frustrated and give up for the day, chalking it to writer’s block.

The reason you’ll hit regular “dry spells” is that even though you know that all the information for your book is somewhere in your brain, by using the blank-page approach you’re going about accessing this information the wrong way.

Your brain doesn’t store information sequentially but rather by association, and the most efficient way to retrieve it is by mapping it out on paper using rules of association.

By using the mind-mapping approach, you’ll be able to create a book outline that’ll contain the entire structure of your book.

Once your book outline is completed, you’ll have all the writing prompts that you need to create your entire book without ever experiencing writer’s block.

Don’t #3: Be Inauthentic – Try to Be Someone You’re Not

If you’re a first time author, you may find it challenging to find your voice right away. Unlike working in your business, where you deal with clients face-to-face, writing a book provides you with a shield of anonymity.

At first you’ll be tempted to try to be someone you’re not simply because you don’t yet know how your “written” voice is supposed to sound – this isn’t your default mode of communication.

While this is normal, it’s not conducive to creating a strong connection with your audience. The information in your book may be 100% correct, but your delivery will feel too technical and uninspiring.

What’s the solution? Be willing to become vulnerable in your writing as a pathway to your authenticity. Your audience craves connection because they’re in a vulnerable place, and they need an author who’s willing to be vulnerable as well.

Write from the heart, not the mind, and your message will truly connect with your audience.

Don’t #4: Self-Edit As You Write

For your writing to be fresh and exciting, you need to allow yourself to write from a stream of consciousness. The goal with this approach is to generate as much text as you’re inspired to write, without judging it.

While this style of writing will generate lots of ideas, it’ll be a bit messy as well. But this is a fine trade-off because you want to edit from a position of abundance and not lack. The more information you can produce, the better the final edited product will be.

Having said that, what you don’t want to do is to self-edit as you write (i.e. write a sentence then edit it immediately), because this is highly disruptive to the way your creativity flows.

Creative writing is mostly ruled by the right side of your brain and it requires continuity without interference from your critical left side.

My best advice is to complete an entire section of a chapter before you do any self-editing.

Don’t #5: Write in Isolation

The process of book writing is solitary by nature – it’s just you, your thoughts and your laptop or your notebook. Therefore, it can be tempting to want to write and then rewrite your entire manuscript before showing it to anyone else.

Sometimes this may be motivated by perfectionism – you don’t want to show your writing until you feel it’s ready, other times it may be motivated by self-consciousness – you’ve never written a book before and you don’t feel that your writing is good enough to show to others.

In either case this is a mistake, and the reason for it doesn’t have anything to do with the way you feel about your writing.

If you don’t involve your target audience in your writing from an early stage – even if your writing isn’t your best – you run the risk of creating an entire manuscript that, although on point in terms of content, completely misses the point in terms of audience alignment.

If your audience doesn’t connect with and resonate with your text in its entirety, your book will have a very short life in the market.

The best way to ensure that your book is ideally written for your target audience is to use your network to recruit an advance reader group of people made up of its members.

Every time you finish a book chapter you’ll email them a pdf copy and ask for feedback.

This way you can make the necessary changes in your manuscript to keep your audience engaged as your book develops, without having to backtrack and do major multi-chapter rewrites later on.

Next Steps

Now that you know the dos and don’ts of nonfiction book writing, you’re ready to embark on the exiting world of book publishing To make this ride more enjoyable, I’ve written a companion article that shows you the roadmap you need to follow to go from book idea to printed books: “How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors”.

If you enjoyed this article and are in the process of writing a nonfiction book, be sure to check out my free nonfiction success guide, drawn from years of experience editing books for bestselling authors (including a New York Times bestseller) and ghostwriting for CEOs and politicians. Simply click here to get instant access.

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 posts I highly recommend:

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

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

The 10 Must-Have Writing Skills for Nonfiction Authors

The 7 Key Rules for Writers of Outstanding Nonfiction Books

Learn 10 Powerful Writing Habits to Fast Track Your Nonfiction Book

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder 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, marketing, printing and distribution.

In this article, you’ll learn the best book writing advice available for new nonfiction authors. You’ll learn how to develop consistent motivation, how to ensure quality writing throughout your book project and how to get to the finish line with a product to be proud of.

1- Set a Firm Publishing Deadline

When it comes to writing nonfiction books, one of the hardest things for authors to do is to achieve a consistent level of motivation throughout the project.

While time always seems to fly at the beginning, driven by the excitement of writing a new book, things can become more complicated as the writing drags on and you reach the dreaded “middle” of the book.

This is the place where most authors lose steam and become demotivated. In fact, it’s estimated that 97% of people who start books don’t publish them, with many giving up halfway through.

So, how can you keep yourself out of this conundrum? By learning from the pros.

Let me explain: traditionally published authors are required to sign a publishing agreement, part of which sets a clear timeline to deliver a manuscript.

Since they’re legally bound to a deadline, they don’t have much of a choice when it comes to finding motivation when they don’t feel like writing, because there are clear negative consequences to their inaction.

This is what you have to emulate in your own book project. By self-publishing, you won’t be subject to a deadline, unless you impose one yourself. How? By scheduling an event with a firm date a year from now where you’ll be unveiling your book.

Examples of Firm Deadlines

Here are some examples of events you can arrange for your book:

• A public-speaking engagement with a professional or trade association
• A seasonal event in your industry
• A trade show panel or workshop
• A conference
• A professional gathering

In some of the above cases you’ll have to sign an agreement, especially if there are speaking fees involved, so you’ll be in the same boat as professional authors.

And even if you’re not required to sign a formal agreement, now you have a public commitment to fulfill with a third party. That’ll become the driver for your motivation to complete your project within the right time frame.

2- Write Every Day

Book writing, like any other creative endeavor, requires practice in order to get good at it.

In the same way that sustained practice with a musical instrument allows you to develop the muscle memory necessary to play it with mastery, sustained writing practice allows you to develop the writing muscle required to produce quality content at speed.

If you want to succeed as a nonfiction writer, then you need to train like the pros train. Even when they’ve been around for decades, professional writers still schedule time to write every day.

Why? Because, like any other muscle, the writing muscle needs to be exercised continuously to remain conditioned. This involves a period of exercise (a daily writing block of time) balanced by a period of rest and recovery.

Writing sporadically won’t allow your writing muscle to develop and, at the other end of the spectrum, going on writing marathons will lead to creative exhaustion.

The best balance is to find a length of time every day that’s sufficient for exercising your writing muscle but that also takes into account your other responsibilities in work and life.

The ideal daily block of time for a new nonfiction author is two hours, 6 days a week.

How Long Will It Take You to Write a Book?

At this rate, and making sure you don’t have any distractions, you’ll be able to produce between 400 and 500 words per hour of raw (unedited) text, or between 800 and 1,000 words per day.

If you write six days per week, you’ll be producing between 4,800 and 6,000 words per week.

If you’re aiming for a 50,000 book (approximately 200-pages long if you include images and other graphical elements), then you’ll require between 8.5 and 10.5 weeks to do all your raw writing.

Then you should double this amount to take care of self-editing and rewrites plus time to allow for holidays, illness, etc., and you’ll be now in the 17-21 week range, or approximately 4-5 months.

Beyond this range, you’ll need to allocate time for a professional edit and book production (typically another 4-5 months).

3- Protect Your Writing Time

The creative writing process requires a quiet environment. If you get regularly interrupted by either people or electronic devices, you’ll never be able to achieve cruising speed.

For thoughts to become ideas and for ideas to flow from your mind to the page, you need a continuous stretch of peace and quiet. Once you choose your 2-hour daily writing block, you’re going to have to take measures to protect it.

First off, you’ll need to enlist those around you to support your project by not interrupting you during your two-hour writing block, save for an emergency.

Any phone calls need to go to voice mail or be handled by someone else. You also have to refrain from checking, reading or answering any email, text messages, or any other type of direct communications.

For this purpose, you’ll need to mute all your electronic devices for the duration of your writing block so that you’re not disturbed by the sounds of notifications. Also, you’ll have to refrain from going online during this time.

Your writing time is strictly for writing, not for researching. Any type of online activity must be conducted outside of these hours. If you do need to check up on something that you’re writing about, make a note to do it later.

Why? Because the unending character of Internet searches makes it a rabbit hole, and it doesn’t take much for a five-minute search to extend to twenty minutes, or worse yet an hour, and all of a sudden half of your writing block is wasted.

Ideal Places to Write Your Book

Now let’s talk about your writing place. You may prefer the intimacy of a private location or perhaps you get more inspiration from a public space. Either is good, just make sure that whatever place you choose brings you an underlying sense of joy.

You want to use a space that’s conducive to creativity. For instance, having a nice view out of the window helps, or perhaps you have a favorite spot in the house you enjoy spending time in.

For those who like the outdoors, some people enjoy writing from a park bench or from the botanical gardens or other type of public gardens if there’s one near where you live. Some other people enjoy writing at their favorite coffee shop.

Once again, any place is good, provided that it brings you a sense of joy.

4- Assemble an Advance Reader Group

This is one of the best pieces of advice for nonfiction book writers: don’t write in isolation. Remember that you’re not writing a book for yourself but for your target audience, therefore it’s wise to enlist their help to give you feedback as you write your manuscript.

How? By assembling an advance reader group before you start writing. You’ll need to tap into your network to recruit these members from your target audience.

You don’t want to include your own family members or close friends in this group, but family and friends of your friends is okay. You’ll want between 5 and 10 people that are preferably at arms-length from you, but people that you can trust will commit to your book project.

You should thank them by giving them a signed copy of your printed book as soon as it comes out, and mention their name with some kind words in your acknowledgments.

The advance reading process is quite simple. Just email your readers a pdf of each chapter in your manuscript as soon as you finish it and ask them to give you feedback.

Then you need to take their feedback and implement the best ideas. Sometimes you’ll get a great comment from an individual and sometimes you’ll see a consensus pointing out the same issue. Use your best judgment – you’ll learn as you go.

Why not wait until your manuscript is finished before soliciting feedback? Because you want to ensure that every chapter resonates with your target audience.

You don’t want to finish all your writing only to find out then that in the middle of chapter 3 people started tuning out, forcing you to rewrite three quarters of your book in order to bring it back into alignment with your audience.

Your advance reading group may take some time to assemble, but it’ll be one of the best things you can do for your book.

5- Have Your Manuscript Professionally Edited

The final piece of book writing advice is to have your manuscript professionally edited. Every professional nonfiction author has an editor and so should you.

An expert nonfiction editor will help you not only gain perspective on your writing by bringing in a fresh pair of eyes, but they’ll also know the best practices for communicating effectively with nonfiction audiences.

They’ll know from experience what works for them and what doesn’t, helping you reshape your flow of ideas to pack more punch for your audience.

They’ll do all of the above in addition to making sure that your grammar and syntax is correct and that your text doesn’t contain typos.

Now, nonfiction editing is composed of a number of stages. Some editors may be able to perform all stages, but more often than not you may be required to hire different specialists.

The 4 Stages of Nonfiction Editing

Below, you’ll learn about the four stages of nonfiction editing, beginning at the highest structural level and ending with a final word-by-word quality check:

• Developmental Editing: This editing pass looks at the overall structure of your book. Its goal is to ensure that your message is being successfully delivered to your target audience.
• Content Editing: This editing pass has more to do with readability than structure. It ensures that paragraphs and sentences in your manuscript are well-constructed and that the flow of your ideas is clear.
• Copyediting: This editing pass is required to make certain that you’re using accurate language in your manuscript with no spelling, punctuation, capitalization, syntax or grammatical errors.
• Proofreading: This editing pass is the fine-tooth comb check that catches any typos that were missed in all prior stages to ensure your book is error-free before going to print.

Next Steps

Nonfiction book publishing is a very rewarding endeavor if done right, but it can become very frustrating if you don’t follow the best practices. The above advice will set you on the right path and make sure that you build a strong foundation.

To build further on that foundation, I’ve written a number of companion articles that’ll guide you through the publishing process and help you avoid costly mistakes:

• “How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors”
• “The 10 Must-Have Writing Skills for Entrepreneurial Authors”
• “The 7 Most Effective Writing Strategies for Entrepreneurial Authors”

Best of luck on this exciting journey!

If you enjoyed this article and are in the process of writing a nonfiction book, be sure to check out my free nonfiction success guide, drawn from years of experience editing books for bestselling authors (including a New York Times bestseller) and ghostwriting for CEOs and politicians. Simply click here to get instant access.

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 posts I highly recommend:

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

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

How to Become a Great Book Writer in Business Nonfiction

The 7 Key Rules for Writers of Outstanding Nonfiction Books

Learn 10 Powerful Writing Habits to Fast Track Your Nonfiction Book

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder 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, marketing, printing and distribution.

If you’re looking for a set of book writing rules to improve your nonfiction skills, you’ve come to the right place.

In this article, you’ll learn the five cardinal rules, or best practices, for nonfiction authors to ensure that your book has a solid foundation for market success.

Rule 1: Don’t Write Until You Know Your Target Audience Inside and Out

There’s an age-old saying in the marketing world: “Market to everyone and sell to no one.” Interestingly, this expression couldn’t be more apt in the nonfiction genre.

If you write a nonfiction book for a general audience, unless you’re already a famous author with a large built-in following, you’ll find it nearly impossible to find success.

For example, if you write a book with strategies for weight loss and market it to those in the general public who want to lose weight (hundreds of millions of people), you’ll encounter the following problems:

• What you’re writing about has been written about before by authors with much more credibility and name recognition than you
• It’s extremely expensive to market to a large and highly fragmented market with multiple and differing needs
• You’ll be out-competed by deep-pocketed behemoths in a $212 billion global market. For example, Weight Watchers alone spent nearly $200 million in advertising worldwide in 2018.

For new nonfiction books to find success, they must be written exclusively to help a specific “niche” audience. The more specific this audience and the more targeted your solution, the higher your chances for finding success in the market.

Thoroughly Research Your Target Audience

Once you find the right audience that could benefit from your expertise, your next job is to get to know them intimately.

Before you can define what your book will be about, you need to find out what’s the most painful problem for your target audience which is aligned with your area of expertise.

Your goal then is to create a unique solution for this problem.

But this isn’t enough to find success.

Once you’ve nailed down your target audience, their pressing problem and your unique solution, you need to be able to build a bond so they can trust you. And the only way you can gain their trust is by getting to know them at a deep level.

Once you learn what keeps them up at night, what they worry about and what they fear the most, you’ll be able to craft a message that truly resonates with them.

If you don’t take the time to do this preliminary research, you’ll have at best a 50/50 chance of connecting with your audience.

Where Do You Find This Information?

Start by interviewing your own clients. Tell them that you’re writing a book and what your subject is, and also tell them that their answers will be anonymous and only used for statistical purposes.

Another way to obtain this information is through online forums (if available in your niche). Forums often have an introductory thread for new members to relate their experiences, their key problems and their aspirations.

These threads can be a treasure trove of target-audience information. Many times you’ll find important demographic details, such as age, gender, profession, number of children, etc.

This aggregated profile information will be used in the following step.

Create Your Target Audience’s Avatar

Now it’s time to merge the above information into a single profile (or two if your target audience has members of both genders). This profile will represent your “ideal” client and you should complete it as follows:

• Make up a name
• Get a headshot from a free stock-photo site
• Pick the average age and most prevalent marital status
• Use the most common profession and income level if available
• Average number of children, their status and their living arrangements (single, married, working, studying, living at home, living away)
• Home ownership
• Any pets? Hobbies?
• Are there any common health or other issues?
• Is there anything they worry about?
• List their hopes, dreams, fears and challenges
• If available, list their main aspirations

This “avatar” of your ideal client will be whom your book is addressed to.

Rule 2: Don’t Write Until You Have Gathered Solid Social Proof

There’s an expectation from the market that all nonfiction authors are subject-matter experts. In fact, you’ll be granted this status the minute your book is published. However, you’ll also be expected to demonstrate your expertise.

Before you present your unique solution to your target audience, you have to make sure that you’ve thoroughly tested it with clients first. Unless you can show clear evidence of your results, your readers will dismiss your findings as unsubstantiated.

In preparation for writing your book, you’ll need to accumulate a significant number of testimonials from clients that you can then weave into your text as case studies, anecdotes and stories.

Not only will your audience need to see your social proof so you’ll be considered a credible expert, but also you want them to identify with your clients. If they can see themselves in your clients’ stories, they’ll be willing to believe in your solution.

Rule 3: Always Write for an Audience of One

Nonfiction readers get attracted to the genre because they’re seeking help. They’re afflicted by a painful problem and are actively searching for a solution.

Now, personal problems demand a personal solution. Therefore, when a member of your target audience picks up your title, they’ll expect that you’re addressing your entire book to them.

For example, when you read an excellent nonfiction book in an area of need or interest, you’ll invariably feel that the author is engaging with you directly. You’ll feel a direct connection with the author, almost as if they knew you.

The reason you feel this deep connection is twofold. First, it’s an indication that they really know their target audience (you) intimately. Second, it’s an indication that they’ve written their book for an audience of one (for your eyes only).

When you write your book, make sure that you don’t address it to an anonymous group of people by using words such as “we, our, us” but instead addressing your audience of one in the second person: “you, your.”

Rule 4: Use the Power of Story to Connect with Your Readers

Given the personal nature of problem-solving, nonfiction books require a high level of connection with readers. One of the most powerful devices for connecting with an audience is storytelling.

Our brains seem to be pre-wired to be susceptible to storytelling. When a story is well-constructed, it’s nearly impossible to not suspend our disbelief and become engrossed in it.

This human tendency has been the fuel that’s driven the tremendous blockbuster success of the fiction genre. For example, the stories told by its two most successful authors, William Shakespeare and Agatha Christie, have resulted in the sale of over 4 billion books!

In order to create a deep level of connection with your target audience, you’ll be taking a page from the world of fiction.

By using the power of storytelling to deliver your message, you’ll reach much deeper levels of connection than by using informational techniques.

The works well because storytelling allows you to connect with audiences at an emotional level, whereas the acquisition of information relies exclusively on the intellect which is much more filtered and constrained.

Rule 5: Be 100% Authentic

Finally, in order to enhance your connection with readers, you need to allow yourself to be vulnerable in your writing, because vulnerability is founded on authenticity, and authenticity is a magnet for human connection.

It’s nearly impossible to develop trust with an audience when you’re not being yourself. Inauthenticity is paper-thin – readers will see through it and be turned off by it. On the other hand, the most successful nonfiction authors have a level of authenticity that pervades their writing.

Authenticity will also bring out your authentic voice. When you use your own voice, instead of trying to sound like someone you’re not, you won’t be afraid to be yourself and your reading experience will feel like a breath of fresh air.

For example, if you weren’t authentic with your business clients you wouldn’t be in business in the first place. Your writing career should be no different.

Next Steps

By learning and applying these rules, you’ll be off to a good start in your nonfiction book project. Your next step is to complement the above rules with the writing skills nonfiction pros use to create great books.

My companion article “The 10 Must-Have Writing Skills for Entrepreneurial Authors” will teach you the skills you need to develop to become a top-notch nonfiction writer.

All the best!

If you enjoyed this article and are in the process of writing a nonfiction book, be sure to check out my free nonfiction success guide, drawn from years of experience editing books for bestselling authors (including a New York Times bestseller) and ghostwriting for CEOs and politicians. Simply click here to get instant access.

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 posts I highly recommend:

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

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

The 10 Must-Have Writing Skills for Entrepreneurial Authors

The 7 Key Rules for Writers of Outstanding Nonfiction Books

Learn 10 Powerful Writing Habits to Fast Track Your Nonfiction Book

How to Come Up With Great Book Ideas For Business Owners

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder 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, marketing, printing and distribution.