Here’s a full list of punctuation marks to add structure and clarity to your writing. Below, you’ll find detailed information about their usage with plenty of examples to use as a reference.

Role of Punctuation Marks in Language

Punctuation marks are symbols that add clarity and order to written language. But they’re often misunderstood and misused by writers. The comprehensive list of punctuation marks that follows will help you avoid common mistakes that can lead to reader confusion.

List of Punctuation Marks

Punctuation Marks that are Used at the end of Sentences:

1) The Period: This punctuation mark is used to indicate the end of a sentence containing a statement of thought, opinion or fact, a story or any written account of events. It’s also used at the end of abbreviations (e.g. “Johnson Ave.”)

2) The Exclamation Mark: This punctuation mark is used to express strong feelings, a strong emotion, for emphasis or to indicate screaming or shouting (e.g. “Apologize right now!”)

3) The Question Mark: This punctuation mark is used to end interrogative sentences. In works of fiction it can also be used to express doubt (e.g. “I’m supposed to say that?”)

Punctuation Marks that are Used in the Middle of Sentences:

4) The Comma: This punctuation mark is used:

• To separate three or more elements in a sentence that are related in some way (e.g. “The grocery list included apples, bananas, strawberries, grapes, and oranges.”)
• After introductory words before stating a main clause (e.g. “In other words, the best way to find it…”)
• To create a pause (e.g. “She implied that, without any doubt, he was going to be the suspect.”)
• To separate two interchangeable adjectives (e.g. “He moved that large, bulky load down the street.”)
• To separate two independent clauses that are joined by the connectors “and, but, for, or, nor, so, and yet” (e.g. “She went away, yet her heart never did.”
• After a dependent clause that’s used to start a sentence (e.g. “After a thorough review, she published the report.”)
• To separate the name of a city from the name of its state (e.g. “I was born in San Diego, California.”)
• To separate a statement from a question (e.g. “They all came home in the end, right?”)
• To introduce or to end a direct quotation (e.g. “Call her again,” he insisted)
• When necessary to eliminate confusion (e.g. “The travelers, who missed their connection, were given meal vouchers”–i.e. all travelers were given meal vouchers–has a completely different meaning than “The travelers who missed their connection were given meal vouchers”–i.e. only some travelers were given meal vouchers.)

5) The Colon: This punctuation mark primarily follows an independent clause with more information that expands on the original clause.

Colons have many applications in written language. For example, they can be used:

• To separate a title from a subtitle (e.g. “The Space Race: From Sputnik to Spacex”)
• To explain a subject (e.g. “This is how to mix the batter for better results: first, you…”)
• To describe a situation (e.g. “There are two alternatives to this approach: assemble the parts first and then paint them or paint all parts at the factory.”)
• Before a definition (e.g. “Here’s what XXX means: <explanation goes here>”)
• To create a list of items (e.g. “This recipe requires: 3 eggs, ¼ lb of butter, 2 cups of flower,…”)
• For literary references in some religious texts (e.g. “Genesis 1:2”)
• To highlight statements made by characters in literary works (e.g. “To all of you: I never said that!”)
• To separate hours, minutes and/or seconds (e.g. “9:30 AM,” “10:45:12”)
• After a salutation (e.g. “Dear John:”)
• To express mathematical ratios (e.g. “1:3”)

6) The Semi-Colon: This punctuation mark is primarily used to combine two independent clauses that are related into a single sentence (e.g. “The doctor saw the patient immediately; the slightest delay would’ve proven fatal.”)

They can also be used to separate items on a list that contain commas themselves (e.g. “On this tour we’ll visit Belgrade, Serbia; Minsk, Belarus; and Bucharest, Romania.”)

Semi-colons create a kind of pause that is longer than the pause of a comma but shorter than the pause of a period at the end of a sentence.

Quotation Marks:

9) Double Quotation Marks: This punctuation mark is used:

• To make words or phrases within sentences stand out (e.g. The best approach is to “ease” into the spot slowly)
• To highlight a quotation (e.g. I wonder where the expression “Money doesn’t grow on trees” comes from.)
• To show dialogue in literary works (e.g. “Do I enter the room now?” whispered Simon)
• To show titles of books, movies, essays, songs, headlines, etc. (e.g. “The Art of Living”)

8) Single Quotation Marks: This punctuation mark is used in a small number of special circumstances, specifically:

• When there’s a quotation within a quotation (e.g. The sign read: “To swim in the ‘Restricted Area’ you must always wear an approved flotation device”)
• To denote technical terms in specialized fields (e.g. “The ‘villi’ are responsible for the absorption of nutrients in the small intestine.”)

Brackets:

9) Parentheses: This punctuation mark is used to add secondary context to the information in a sentence—e.g. “The main thruster (which was designed to be expendable) was not recovered.”

10) Square Brackets: This punctuation mark is a specialized form of parentheses that is used:

• To show parentheses within parentheses—e.g. “(this study was published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers [IEEE])”
• To quote text that has been altered from the original—e.g. “She accused the hospital [staff] of wrongdoing.”
• To show incorrect text in a quote through the use of the latin term sic—e.g. “She accused they [sic] of wrongdoing.”
• To show the phonetic pronunciation of a word—e.g. “Kazakh or Qazaqşa [qɑˈzɑqʃɑ] is a branch of the Turkic language that’s spoken in Kazakhstan.”

11) Curly Brackets: This punctuation mark is used to show a list of equal choices (e.g.” Choose a color: {red, green, yellow, blue}”)

12) Angle Brackets: This punctuation mark has very little use in written language and it’s mainly used to write code in computer languages. Sometimes it’s used to show a placeholder text (e.g. “Enter your account ID: <your email address goes here>”)

Dashes:

13) Hyphen: This punctuation mark is used to join words together.

For example, you should:

• Hyphenate multiple words that are grouped together as a single modifier to a noun (e.g. “This is a best-in-show category.”)
• Hyphenate multiple words indicating a period of time that are used together as a modifier to a noun (e.g. “That thirty-year-old man is looking for work.”)
• Hyphenate numerical fractions when spelled out (e.g. “Two-thirds, three-quarters, etc.”)
• Hyphenate family relationships (e.g. “She’s John’s great-grandmother,” “Peter is Susan’s brother-in-law”)
• Hyphenate compound words to eliminate confusion (e.g. “You should re-sign this check.” instead of “You should resign this check.”)

14) Em Dash: This punctuation mark is used to create a break in a sentence in order to add more context. They can be used as a pair, just like commas, or as a single occurrence. Here are some examples:

• Use of single em dash: “This is a good example of the use of em dashes—the longest in the dash family.”
• Use of pair of em dashes: “This is a good example of the use of em dashes—a useful punctuation mark—to illustrate a sentence break.”

15) En Dash: This punctuation mark is used mainly to show ranges of figures (e.g. “$200–$500”) and when the first part of a compound adjective is an open compound (e.g. “He’s a New York–based photographer.”)

Slashes:

16) Slash: This punctuation mark is used:

• To denote numerical fractions and dates (e.g. “2/3” and “10/11/19”)
• To denote an option (e.g. “and/or, “his/her,” etc.)
• To denote prose, such as lines in poetry or song lyrics (e.g. “Imagine there’s no countries/It isn’t hard to do/Nothing to kill or die for/And no religion, too.”)
• To denote abbreviations (e.g. “c/o for: in care of,” “n/a for: not applicable”)

17) Backslash: This punctuation mark is used strictly to code computer languages and has no use in written language.

Other Punctuation Marks:

18) The Apostrophe: This punctuation mark is used:

• To denote possessive forms (e.g. “John’s baseball bat”)
• To denote contracted forms (e.g. “don’t”)
• To denote abbreviated years (e.g. “She was born in ‘82”)
• To denote certain plurals (e.g. “He was born in the 60’s”)

19) The Ellipsis: This punctuation mark is used:

• To add a pause in speech (e.g. “I think so… do you?”)
• Or to show an omission (e.g. “… as I was saying the worst is finally behind us.”)

20) The Asterisk: This punctuation mark is used:

• To refer readers to a footnote (e.g. “This information was obtained from the 10K report*”)
• To denote an inappropriate word (e.g. “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”)
• To denote a disclaimer (e.g. “Restrictions apply*”)

In conclusion

Punctuation marks are symbols used to add clarity and order to written language.

Now that you have a clear understanding of the different types of punctuation marks and how to use them properly, you’ll be able to craft sentences and paragraphs that’ll enhance the reading comprehension of your audience.

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

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

The 10 Must-Have Writing Skills For Nonfiction Authors

How to Become a Great Book Writer in Business Nonfiction

 

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.

This article will focus on the different types of paragraphs that you can use in nonfiction writing with clear examples for your reference.

There are four types that are ideally suited for this genre. Each has different characteristics that’ll work best in different areas of your book, as explained below:

Expository Paragraph Type:

This type is used to inform and educate the reader (however, it’s not meant for you to express your opinion).

Descriptive Paragraph Type:

This type is used to paint a picture in the reader’s mind.

Narrative Paragraph Type:

This type is used to bring the reader along your character’s emotional journey.

Persuasive Paragraph Type:

This type is used to convince the reader to side with you and your beliefs.

Each one of the four paragraph types fulfills a different purpose:

• The expository paragraph type is used to convey well-researched findings to back up your solution in a way that establishes you as an expert in the reader’s eyes.
• The descriptive paragraph type is used to paint vivid pictures in your reader’s mind of someone like them, both before and after they apply your solution.
• The narrative paragraph type is used to take your reader through an emotional journey from problem to solution, as lived by the characters in your case studies.
• The persuasive paragraph type is used to convince your reader why your solution will be different than any other than they might have tried in the past.

Let’s now go over each paragraph type in detail:

Characteristics of the Expository Paragraph Type

The expository paragraph type is used to build your credibility as an expert. You’ll achieve this goal by presenting facts, statistics and other data required to back up your solution.

What is This Paragraph Type Not Used For?

This paragraph type is not used to express your opinion or to influence your reader. Try to stay away from “loaded words” that carry a high emotional charge, since they’ll create a conflict with the factual nature of the type.

Expository Paragraph Example

“The fundamental question of work and leisure raised by Weiss is particularly relevant as a generation called Millennials moves firmly into the workforce. I know many Millennials and in general they’re hard-working, passionate young men and women who are eager to work, but they want to enjoy and draw meaning from their jobs.

Most are sensible enough to have a day-job to pay the bills, but many have a “side hustle” – a hobby or a business idea into which they pour their passion and hope to one day monetize.

Weiss recognizes this trend in workers, but an interesting disconnect between Weiss’ article and today is the discussion of self-employment. Weiss notes that self-employed workers are generally most satisfied even if they earn less, but also makes the observation that self-employment has significantly declined.

In this example the author is using expository paragraphs to present and analyze research findings by a recognized expert in the field.

Characteristics of the Descriptive Paragraph Type

As the old adage says, a picture is worth a thousand words, and this is where the descriptive paragraph type comes in handy. One of the best devices to engage your reader’s senses is to paint a clear picture of how your solution will work in their life.

The descriptive paragraph type is not only used to engage your audience’s five senses but also their feelings. Your goal is to engage your reader so closely that they feel they’re actually “there.” This is a powerful literary device used to great effect in the fiction genre and you’ll be borrowing from it for your nonfiction book.

What is This Paragraph Type Not Used For?

This paragraph type is not used to narrate. In other words, the descriptive type is never used to tell a story or to give insights into the thoughts or the emotional state of characters in your book.

Descriptive Paragraph Example

“Coming down to Bridge Park had been a good idea, he decided. Leaving the crowded mass of the city behind he’d ridden the train south, through the razed land and out onto the delta.

Rice paddies stretched to every horizon, blurring the line between land, river and sea. And then, in the shadow of the ruined supports of the bridge, the park rose like a garden oasis above the lowlands.

He obviously wasn’t the only person with the same idea today, and the park was lifted by the shrieks of children playing on the bridge replica fun zone behind him.”

In the above passage, the author is using the descriptive paragraph type to paint a picture in the mind of the reader by using specific adjectives and adverbs that appeal to the reader’s senses.

Characteristics of the Narrative Paragraph Type

Narrative writing can be used very effectively in problem-solving nonfiction through the power of story-telling. Nonfiction books without any story-telling are not as engaging as they could be.

Use stories to create an emotional connection with your readers by making them become invested in characters that they can relate to – characters that also “feel their pain.” They could be about yourself, past clients, or fictional characters that combine the experiences of multiple clients.

What is This Paragraph Type Not Used For?

The narrative paragraph type is not used to introduce facts and figures and it’s not used to influence or persuade your audience.

Narrative Paragraph Example

“Christopher Reeve was one courageous person who fully accepted an unexpected change in direction in his life. The icon of superhuman strength in the 80’s, he was the quintessential Superman. An actor of great appeal and talent, he represented the ideal combination of manliness, strength, seeker of justice, and savior of humankind.

In May 1995, he was riding his horse and had a serious fall. The accident damaged his spinal cord such that he was left a quadriplegic and had to use a machine to help him breathe. The accident sent shock waves around the world. How could Superman be rendered a quadriplegic? It was unfathomable.

After many months of grueling physical therapy, he learned how to function in this new altered state. The emotional toll was great as he and his family struggled with the changes this accident brought into their lives.

Within a year, however, he had founded a charitable organization called the Christopher Reeve Foundation in order to raise money for research on spinal cord injuries and made it his mission to find a way for all victims of these devastating injuries to walk again.”

Here the author is using the narrative paragraph type to portray the dramatic fall in the fortunes of a celebrity after a traumatic life event, and how he resolved the conflict in his life to become a real-life superhero in the eyes of his followers.

Characteristics of the Persuasive Paragraph Type

The persuasive paragraph type can be used to great effect in problem-solving nonfiction books. Your goal is not just to communicate and teach new skills, but also to persuade your reader to take action and implement your solution in their lives.

You want to persuade readers by appealing to them on an emotional level and using your connection and your credibility as an expert to convince them to side with you. The aim of persuasive writing is to align your reader’s goals with your own.

What is This Paragraph Type Not Used For?

Doing anything that takes your reader out of the plane of reality – such as by going into a detailed description of places, circumstances or events or into a deep narrative.

Persuasive Paragraph Example

“‘I’m too old’ or ‘It’s too late to change’ are nothing but limiting beliefs. Like any other beliefs, they’re fully under your control and are totally replaceable. In the end, you’re the one who truly runs the show, as much as you’re taught to believe the opposite. When it comes to making changes in your life, you have the ultimate say. If you end up doing what others think you should, it’s only because on some level you’ve made the decision to believe that their ideas are more worthy than your own.

If you want to change, you have to start believing in what you want to do, no matter what other people’s ‘opinions’ are. And you have to believe that the changes you want to make are worth it, regardless of your age or your circumstances.

Life consists of a collection of ‘moments.’ This very moment and every moment after it are what your life is made of. If you live your life worrying about the future, regretting the past or even living how others tell you to live, then you aren’t living ‘your’ moments.

All it really takes to become in charge of your own life is to simply decide to do so. Your process of reinvention is 100% yours. Don’t be afraid to use it fully to our advantage. Don’t be afraid to think big thoughts. Remember, you can make a difference: you are the difference!”

In this example, the author is using persuasive writing to influence readers to take action by changing their belief system through replacing limiting beliefs with empowering ones.

In Conclusion

The use of the above four paragraph types will add more texture to your nonfiction writing, and when used strategically it’ll make your writing much more engaging for your readers.

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

 

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 good writing skills article to help you develop as a nonfiction writer, you’ve come to the right place.

In this article you’ll learn a number of powerful guidelines to help you develop into a nonfiction author who knows how to connect with your audience and who knows how to communicate effectively with them to help them bring positive change to their lives.

Guidelines to Develop Good Nonfiction Writing Skills

Developing good nonfiction writing skills is something that you can learn with practice. Good nonfiction authors are not born; they are made. The following guidelines will help you develop these skills methodically over time.

They’ll help you become a better communicator and a more grounded writer. Follow these guidelines with focus and intention and soon you’ll producing quality nonfiction content that you’ll be proud of and that will truly connect with your audience.

The 7 Key Questions

Most nonfiction books are centered on helping an audience solve a problem, so I’ll assume that this is your goal as well. This first guideline will help you fine-tune your writing to your target audience to ensure that your message comes across clearly.

Before you sit down to write a new book section, and also right after you finish it, ask yourself the following 7 questions:

1. Who is the ideal member of my target audience? Describe this person in as much detail as possible. Do research to discover their fears, challenges, desires, hopes and dreams.
2. What do I want my target audience to learn from this section?
3. Am I communicating my thoughts clearly? Am I writing concisely and using an economy of words?
4. Is my message as eloquent as it could be?
5. Am I using “You” instead of “We,” “Us,” “They” or “I”?
6. Did I present my ideas in a logical way?
7. Did my writing flow naturally throughout the section?

Focus on Good Writing Technique

This guideline will show you a set of basic rules that you need to follow in order to develop good writing technique:

• Avoid never-ending paragraphs. Break down your thoughts into bite-sized pieces that are easy for readers to consume. We live in an area of short attention spans. Long paragraphs will cause your readers to lose interest in your book fast.
• Your writing needs to be clean and stay on point. Avoid embellishing your sentences with extra words that don’t add anything useful to your message. Writing that sounds pretentious will break the connection with your readers.
• Minimize the use of adverbs unless they’re necessary to add context (e.g. write “That was difficult to learn” instead of “That was quite difficult to learn”).
• Minimize the use of adjectives unless they’re necessary (e.g. write “That was really good” instead of “That was really, really good”)
• Learn and follow proper rules of grammar, punctuation and capitalization. Here’s a good article that you can use as a starting point:

https://www.grammarbook.com/english_rules.asp

Divide and Conquer

When it comes to the process of writing your manuscript from your book outline you may feel overwhelmed by the sheer size of the task ahead.

You’re planning to write a 200-page, 50,000-word book and now you’re staring at a blank page. Fear sets in…

But you may not know that you have a secret weapon in your writing arsenal. A weapon that will jump-start your writing journey and will be there at your beck and call throughout your entire book.

This weapon is your brain. Now you might say, but wait a minute; everybody has one! Sure, but not everybody is an expert in a specific subject like you are, with years of practice, skill development and satisfied clients.

For example, the difference between a fiction writer and you is that they have to dream up a new fantasy every time they sit down to write a new book. You, on the other hand, don’t need the muses in hope that a good idea will come to your rescue.

You need no rescue. All you need is a good book outline. This is a structured summary of information that’s already sitting in your brain, ready to come out on command.

What’s the command? The title of each section on your outline. The beauty of a nonfiction book is that it doesn’t have to be written in a linear fashion. In fact, it’s much more efficient to divide the job in order to conquer it.

All you have to do is to pick any one section from your book that stimulates your thoughts, that inspires you at that precise moment to start writing.

When you finish that section, your inspiration may shift to the following section or perhaps you’ll need to skip a couple of chapters to find another section that inspires you at that time.

If you follow this approach every time you sit down to write, you’ll never feel overwhelmed and you’ll never experience writer’s block.

Use Concise Language

When you write a nonfiction book, you’re creating a bridge of knowledge between your mind and the mind of your readers. In order for this transfer of thoughts to be fluid, you’ll need to use concise language.

In other words, don’t be tempted to use jargon or complex wording. They’ll just act as speed bumps.

Always try to use as few words as necessary to convey your message. Don’t fear that you’re going to be too simplistic. You won’t, what you’ll be doing is simplifying your message.

Simplistic means eliminating not just words but context as well. Simplifying means making your message clear; it means removing the fat without cutting out the muscle.

Keep in mind that your words are packets of information that need to be deciphered in the minds of your readers. If this process is complicated, your message flow will slow down or stop altogether, breaking your connection with the reader.

If there’s a phrase that you’re very proud of writing, but that doesn’t add value to your message, then you should set your ego aside and cut it out. You might be a bit sad but your readers will appreciate it.

Write Every Day as if You Were Being Paid

The hallmark of a professional nonfiction author is the discipline to sit down to write every day, rain or shine. Whether they’re feeling great or lousy that day, they still put in the time and make every effort to always give it their best.

As in all other creative endeavors, there’s no substitute for “rubber to the road.” There are no shortcuts here, so in order to succeed you’ll have to develop professional writing habits.

Writing with frequency and discipline is the only road to the completion of a nonfiction book that you’ll be proud of, and also a book that’ll truly move the needle for your business and your career.

And this is the part where you need to write as if you’re being paid to do so, because even though you’re not being paid right now, you will be soon enough.

Once your nonfiction book is published, you’ll be immediately deemed to be an expert. With this “title” come many financial benefits. For example, you’ll be able to secure paid speaking fees for talks and keynotes, and you’ll begin to attract media who will want to interview you for your expert opinion.

You’ll also develop a competitive advantage when you bid for contracts, because most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t publish books. You’ll be deemed an expert through your book and that added credibility will often sway granting decisions in your favor.

Finally, you’ll increase your pipeline of leads significantly for your business as word about your book spreads through the international channels developed by Amazon, opening up new markets for your services around the world.

Make Your Writing Audience-Friendly

When you write nonfiction, you may be tempted to become “professorial” in your language. You’ve been practicing in your specialty for many years, maybe you’re even teaching about it. Resist this temptation.

Instead, you need to maintain a personable and conversational language. For example, if you refrain from using contractions, your writing will sound too staid. Wherever applicable, use contractions and common abbreviations because that’s what your readers expect.

Your goal is to communicate with your readers in a way that makes it easy for them to acquire your knowledge. You need to write for them and not to them.

For your book to succeed you need your readers to be able to relate to your writing, to your style, and to the stories that you share with them. Talk to them through your writing in the way they like to be talked to – as a peer communicating at their level, not as a scholar standing at the lectern.

For example, use active verbs, don’t embellish your text with complex-sounding words, don’t use adjectives or adverbs excessively and write in a way that creates bridges not chasms.

Be Yourself

Finally, be yourself in your writing. Don’t try to be someone you’re not, because your audience will see through it. Authenticity sells, insincerity turns people off. This is no different from when you work face-to-face with clients in your business.

If this is your first book, say so in your writing; don’t imply that you’ve been doing this for a while. Your goal is to get readers to know you, like you and trust you and you can only achieve it by being authentic.

Always strive to use your voice when you write, don’t use language that could be perceived as condescending or pretentious. Find the common humanity with your target audience and build your relationship from that foundation.

You audience will really appreciate what you’re doing for them if you meet them where they are. You want to help them, not to lecture them. So, be honest, compassionate and clear in your writing, and before you know it you’ll be developing lifelong fans.

Next Steps

If you’re ready to set sail with your nonfiction book, let me share with you a number of articles to get you going in the right direction:

• “How to Come Up With Great Book Ideas For Business Owners”
• “How to Come Up With Killer Book Titles for Your Nonfiction Book”
• “How to Use a Mind Map to Create a Great Book for Your Business”
• “How to Create a Book Outline Step-By-Step: A Guide for Nonfiction Writers”
• “How to Write a Compelling Book Introduction That Will Move the Needle”

Best of 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 posts I highly recommend:

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

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

 

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.

To learn how to improve your nonfiction writing skills, you need look no further than the best practices of the successful authors who have preceded you.

I’ve written this article to condense this knowledge into nine easy steps that you can follow, to develop into a compelling nonfiction author in your own right.

Step 1: Study the Masters

If you want to become a good nonfiction writer, you’ll need to read a lot of books. Take the time to read the top nonfiction books in your niche to learn from the masters in the trade.

These are writers who over the years have developed a deep understanding of who their audiences are and how to connect with them effectively.

They know the best ways to use nonfiction devices to draw their readers in and take them on a journey of discovery and learning. By reading their books and dissecting their writing you’ll discover how they use:

• Metaphors, to explain a complex subject in a way that stimulates a reader’s imagination.
• Questions, to hook readers in and to create anticipation.
• Analogies, to teach readers new concepts by drawing similarities with concepts that they’re already familiar with.
• Stories, to take readers on a journey that engages their emotions instead of their intellect.
• Social proof, to establish credibility by weaving testimonials and client stories throughout the book.
• The second person, to make readers feel like they’re being addressing in a personal and direct way.

Step 2: Learn the Basic Rules of Grammar, Punctuation and Capitalization

Knowledge of the basic rules of grammar, punctuation and capitalization are essential for good nonfiction writing. You want to be able to write freely, without being distracted by awkward sentence construction and improper use of language.

You want to develop enough knowledge to write confidently without second guessing yourself every few words. Your goal in this step is not to become an expert – later in the process you’ll be hiring a professional nonfiction editor who is.

Instead, you want to develop sufficient language proficiency to create the best manuscript you possibly can, so that your editor doesn’t have to spend valuable time fixing basic errors and unnecessarily increasing your cost.

There are many free resources available on the Internet to gain a basic understanding of language rules; here’s a resource that you can use as a starting point:

https://www.grammarbook.com/english_rules.asp

Step 3: Use all 4 Nonfiction Writing Styles

There are four nonfiction writing styles that are instrumental in delivering your message effectively to your audience. They are:

• The expository writing style. This style is used to establish your credibility as an expert. You’ll make use of this style in order to provide your audience with the necessary background information required to support your solution. Some techniques used in this writing style are the use of facts, data, evidence, research, charts and tables.
• The descriptive writing style. This style is used to engage your audience’s five senses and also their emotions. You’ll use this writing style to paint a vivid picture of your unique solution and how it will manifest in their lives.
• The narrative writing style. This style is used to create a deep emotional connection with readers through the use of storytelling. You’ll narrate stories relating the experiences of characters that your audience can identify with to show them how they were able to transition out of their problem and into your solution. These characters could be you, your clients or a fictional one that’s a combination of both.
• The persuasive writing style. This style is used to persuade your audience to take the required action or actions to implement your solution. This style works by appealing to your readers on an emotional level and takes advantage of your connection to convince them to align their goals with yours.

Step 4: Take Advantage of the 3 Paragraph Writing Strategies That Pros Follow

The following three strategies from professional nonfiction authors will help you take your paragraph writing skills to the next level:

1. Tip #1: Use a Single Idea Per Paragraph. Try to stay away from developing more than one idea per paragraph. Multiple ideas will end up confusing readers, since they won’t know where you’re taking them. Nonfiction readers need to follow a clear path from problem to solution. Any obstacles on this path will cause them to stumble and begin to lose interest in your book.
2. Tip #2: Don’t Write Statements – Paint a Picture. Instead of describing your solution in an academic or scientific way, try instead to weave your teachings through a narrative, using descriptive language to paint a picture of the results that you want your readers to experience in their lives. This is much more effective than just describing an outcome in clinical terms. Readers will connect with your writing if it makes them “feel” the results that they aspire to achieve.
3. Tip #3: Write for Your Readers, Not for Yourself or for Your Peers. Finally never write your book for yourself or for your colleagues. You need to clearly establish ahead of time who your target audience is, and then you must address your book to them. If your target audience demands a much lower level of abstraction than what you’re used to when communicating with peers, then you must bring yourself down to their level in order to truly connect with them.

Step 5: Create a Strong Book Outline with Clear Writing Prompts

Create a mind map for your book so that you can generate a strong outline. A mind map will allow you to download the contents of your book from your brain to paper and format it as a content tree.

This tree will contain the structure of your book’s sections, its sub-sections, sub-sub-sections, etc. Once you’ve laid out this structure into a proper outline you can then use the subject of each section as an idea generator for its initial sentence, or prompt.

For example, if your section explains “how thoughts become beliefs” (i.e. your section name), then your writing prompt could start with something like: “On any given day there are hundreds of thoughts crossing your mind…”

This sentence will be the writing “starter” that will light the flames of your inspiration for this particular section. Your job then is to create a unique prompt for each section and sub-section contained in your book outline.

By using this powerful technique, you’ll be able to jump-start your writing at any time and never have to face the dreaded “writer’s block.”

Step 6: Write for an Audience of One

The best-written nonfiction books are laser focused on their target audience. Furthermore, they’re focused on a single member of this audience – each reader.

Whenever you fall in love with a nonfiction book, the kind of book that you highlight heavily and go back to often, you’ll notice that it’s written purposely to an audience of one: you.

You’ll almost feel like the author knows you (because they know their target audience intimately) and you’ll also feel like they’re talking directly to you, almost as if they were a friend who wants to help you live a better life (because they know how to connect with their readers).

This is your goal as a nonfiction author. You have to write most of your book in the second person, and your mission over the course of your book is to get readers to know you, like you and trust you.

If you address your book to a group of people instead (e.g. by using “our,” “we,” “us”, etc.) your bond will be diluted into the anonymity of the group and your readers will feel disconnected from your writing.

Step 7: Write Every Day

Like with any other creative endeavor, practice makes better. The more often and regularly you write, the better that you’ll get at it.

In fact, having the discipline to write for a few hours every day will do miracles for the development of your writing muscle.

So, make sure to carve out a two-hour writing block every day (six days a week minimum) beginning and ending at the same time every day. Then take measures to protect this creative time by eliminating internal and external distractions.

Internal distractions are the sounds of notifications from your electronic devices, or the temptation to answer emails or browse the Internet during your writing time.

External distractions are people trying to reach to you electronically or in person (outside of an emergency situation, of course), thus interrupting your creative flow.

The creative writing process requires peace and quiet, and also single mindedness, in order to flourish. While multi-tasking can do wonders for certain mechanical tasks, it causes havoc for your inspiration.

You’ll need to enlist the help of those around you when you’re writing to make sure that they don’t disturb you for any reason other than force majeure. Then, find a place to write that brings you joy.

This place could be found at home or in the office, or perhaps at your favorite coffee shop of even on a park bench. Choose a venue that appeals to your senses and to your sensitivities. The right place will open you up to your best writing.

Step 8: Make Every Sentence Count

Part of connecting with your target audience is to keep them engaged throughout your book.

There’s nothing that disengages readers more than writing that doesn’t add value to them, text that’s there to “fill” space to achieve a certain word-count target.

Every sentence that you write must have a purpose and must be meaningful to the reader in the context of your subject. If you have a sentence that expresses a thought in fifteen words but you can achieve that same result with ten words, then do so.

For example, don’t write “There’s no doubt in my mind, or for that matter in the minds of most other people, that…” when you could be writing instead “It’s obvious to most people that…”) to convey exactly the same thought.

Going down to the word level, if you mean to say “…proximity…” don’t write “…close proximity…” or if you mean to say “…surprise…” don’t write “…unexpected surprise…”

All successful nonfiction books use an economy of words that’s intended to keep the reader’s attention at all times. Doing so will not only make your writing more crisp, it’ll also help you get more clear on your ideas by distilling them down to their essence.

Step 9: Rewrite Until You Get It Right

When you initially sit down to write the first pass of your manuscript, you shouldn’t censor your writing in any way and instead write from a stream of consciousness.

Your goal in this initial pass is to “download” thoughts and ideas from your brain to the computer screen or notepad. You want this process to be as unfiltered as possible – your main focus is to get content out of you and into the page, not to “massage” it in any way.

At this stage you don’t need to overly concern yourself with economy of words, rules of grammar, choice or words, etc.

You actually want to produce a lot of content, because that’ll give you much more flexibility later when you get to the self-editing and rewriting stages.

This is not unlike to the way movies are shot. Multiple takes are often done not necessarily because something is wrong but to have more choice when they get into the editing room.

It’s not uncommon for a director’s favorite scene to end up on the cutting floor when a movie is being assembled, and to end up splicing secondary scenes that they originally thought wouldn’t work.

Similarly, the real magic in nonfiction book writing happens in the rewriting stage – this is your editing room. Ideally, you want to complete and then rewrite one chapter at a time before you start working on a new one.

Your chapters make up your overall idea thread and often a significant change in direction in one chapter will influence the chapter that follows it.

So, when a chapter is ready to be reworked, put on your “editor” hat, get a cup of your favorite beverage, settle down and begin the creative process of shaping and re-shaping your writing until you get it just “right.”

How do you know when you achieve this milestone? You’ll just know it: something will click and you’ll feel that you’ve achieved what you set out to accomplish in that chapter.

Now your language doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect at this stage – you’ll hire a professional editor when your manuscript is completed – but it has to be purposeful and clear to your target audience.

Next Steps

Now it’s time for the proverbial rubber to hit the road!

For this purpose, I’ve created a companion article to show you the roadmap from original idea to published book so that you can navigate the waters of nonfiction publishing without having to spin your wheels in frustration:

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

I wish you the best of luck on your nonfiction book-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 just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

Learn 10 Powerful Writing Habits to Fast Track Your Nonfiction Book

The Most Effective Writing Exercises for Busy Business People

The 10 Must-Have Writing Skills for Nonfiction Authors

The 7 Key Rules for Writers of Outstanding Nonfiction Books

The 7 Most Effective Writing Strategies for Entrepreneurial Authors

 

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, printing, marketing and distribution.

If you want to learn the steps to writing a book that’ll help you grow your business or increase your career profile, you’re making a wise choice. Nonfiction books are one of the most cost-effective means of promoting your business and your career, plus they create a legacy that will last a lifetime.

For example, let’s compare nonfiction books with a more traditional form of promotion, advertising:

Ads:

• Have a short life cycle
• People have a low regard for them
• People don’t consider them to be a credible source of information
• Must be continuously funded to produce results
• Do not establish you as an expert in your field

Nonfiction Books:

• Have a very long life cycle, measured in years
• People have a high regard for them
• People consider them to be a credible and trustworthy source of information
• Need funding one time only and can take advantage of earned media and paid speaking engagements for free promotion
• Establish you as an expert in your field

Now, you may think that writing a book from scratch is a tall order. In the world of fiction or creative nonfiction this can be true for many first-time authors.

But if you’re writing a nonfiction book based on your professional skills and experiences in order to solve a problem for your audience, you won’t encounter this problem. In fact, you’ll soon discover that your book will practically write itself.

The book you’re about to write is already inside of you and waiting to come out. All you need now is the roadmap that’ll unlock this information in your brain and transfer it to the written page. You’ll find this roadmap in the steps to writing a book below.

How Do I Become a Successful Writer?

Successful nonfiction writers are those who are able to create a deep bond with their audience. They can achieve that level of connection because:

1. They know their audience intimately
2. They know what problem keeps them up at night
3. They have a unique solution for that problem

Let’s now run this test with you in mind and see how you do:

First, you need to know who your audience is and know them intimately. When you think about it, you already have a solid audience made up of your current clients, and you already know them very well because you’ve been in business for several years. – check.

Second, you need to know the problem that keeps them up at night. Well, you already know your clients’ problems because they’ve hired you to solve them in the first place – check.

Third, you must have a unique solution for that problem. Your unique solution is the very reason you’re in business – check.

If you’re a business owner or entrepreneur, a professional, a practitioner or a coach, you’re the perfect candidate to become a nonfiction book author and you have a very good chance to be successful.

How do you measure success? By your ability to leverage your book through earned media, speaking engagements or simply by using your book as a calling card for prospects in order to generate new business.

There are plenty of stories from first-time nonfiction authors who managed to land lucrative contracts for their businesses simply because their competitors didn’t have the cachet of a book to back them up.

How Do You Begin to Write A Book?

As a first-time author, the book writing process will probably seem a bit confusing. There are so many resources out there that even doing online research can become an overwhelming task.

Yet, when you boil it down to the basics, writing a book is quite a simple process. Once you know what steps to follow, you’ll realize how much sense this process makes and you’ll also realize that you don’t require prior experience in order to create a successful outcome.

The only difference between you and someone with your credentials who’s already published a book is that they can go through the steps below faster. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll produce a better book.

Your solution is unique in the same way that your business is unique – nobody else will be able to duplicate what you bring to the table because you and your book are one and the same.

So let’s introduce the simple steps that will allow you to write a great nonfiction book.

What Are The 7 Steps to Writing a Book?

The following seven steps will guide you through the process of creating a powerful nonfiction book that will open new doors and markets for your business and raise your professional profile to the level of expert:

Step 1: Read Before You Write

The first step in the process is to learn from the masters. Before you begin to write your own book, you need to learn the best practices in nonfiction by reading the leading books in your field.

Pick two or three bestselling books in your niche and read them armed with a highlighter. What you’re looking for is:

• How did the author connect with you as a reader? What hooks did they use to get your attention?
• How did they make the book engaging? Did they use story telling? Did they make use of any visual elements to paint a better picture of their content?
• How was the book organized? How did the table of contents flow for you?
• How powerful was the book’s introduction? Did it convince you to keep on reading?
• What was it about the book cover and title that caught your eye?
• What kind of language did they use? Was it personal and conversational or technical and academic?
• Was the book a page-turner or more reflective in nature?

When you’re done reading those books, make a list of the best practices that you were able to extract from them and keep them in mind when you write your own book.

Step 2: Choose Your Book’s Main Idea

Now it’s time to turn the focus on you. During the course of your business, you probably solve a range of issues for your clients. But when it comes to nonfiction books, you’ll need to choose a sub-niche that allows you to focus on a single problem.

With very rare exceptions, books that focus on more than one problem at a time don’t do very well in the market. They’re more confusing than helpful. The rule of thumb is to identify the most significant problem that your audience faces and then focus just on that problem.

Step 3: Create Your Table of Contents

Once you know what your main topic is and how your unique solution will solve the one big problem you’re focusing on, it’s time to gather all the relevant information from your brain and “download” it to the written page.

To achieve this, you’ll be making use of the “mind mapping” technique. This is a powerful technique that allows you to map your brain onto a chart where you can organize your thoughts around your book’s main idea.

I’ve written a separate article to help you create the mind map for your book here. The great thing about mind maps is that the way they organize your thoughts around your main idea can be easily translated into a table of contents.

I’ve also written a article on how to create a book’s outline here which will walk you through each step. The mind mapping technique will not only allow you to generate the table of contents of your book – your main roadmap – but also create the writing prompts to help you begin writing each section.

These prompts are the reason I mentioned earlier that your book will write itself, because they’ll prompt you to recall information from your past experiences – client anecdotes, personal examples, success stories, and so on – stored in your long-term memory.

Thoughts and ideas will begin to flow, so it’s now time to create the right environment to more easily capture this information.

Step 4: Establish Your Writing Routine

In order to develop a writing routine you need to make the following choices:

• You need to choose a writing spot that inspires Some people like to work at home, some in the office, and some in a public place like a coffee shop or a public library.
• You need to write for an average of two hours a day, no less than six days a week. Make sure that you schedule the same time to write every day.
• Finally, you need to commit to a daily word count. If you’re a first-time author I recommend that you write between 400 and 500 words per hour, so that’s a maximum daily word count of 1,000 words.

Now come the caveats:

• Make sure your family or employees know that outside of an emergency, you’re not to be disturbed for any reason during your writing blocks.
• Eliminate all types of electronic distractions as well. Make sure you turn on the do-not-disturb feature in your phone and mute your computer. If someone really needs you, they’ll know where to find you.
• When you schedule your writing blocks, make sure that they fall outside of business hours and family time. Also, make sure that you don’t go on the Internet or check email inside your writing blocks.

Step 5: Write from Your Roadmap

Your book outline and table of contents combined are your writing roadmap. The table of contents will give you the logical flow of ideas in your book and the outline will provide you with the prompts to get you going.

When you sit down to write, simply browse your outline and choose a section or subsection that inspires you at that moment. If you feel inspired to write a section in the second-to-last chapter first, then do so. Nonfiction writing doesn’t need to be a linear process – your table of contents will keep things straight.

Step 6: Do Multiple Rewrites

Write from a stream of consciousness. Don’t “plan” what you’re going to write about, just begin writing with the aid of your prompts and don’t stop until you run out of juice. We aren’t looking for quality at this point, just quantity.

Let a day pass to gain some distance and go back to your original writing to rewrite it from top to bottom. This is where the quality comes in. Be prepared: at the beginning you’ll be doing a lot of rewriting!

With experience, the number of rewrites will decrease gradually as nonfiction writing becomes second nature.

Step 7: Set Up an Advance Reading Group

Last but not least, you need to create a feedback loop for your writing process. Remember that you’re writing for your audience not for yourself, so you’ll need to create an advance reading group made up of members of your target audience (current and past clients who are good at providing constructive criticism are ideal candidates).

To make sure the feedback you receive is valuable, try not to include family members of colleagues in your advance reading group unless they happen to fit the profile of your target audience.

You’re certainly welcome to invite your family and colleagues to read your writing separately; just take their feedback with a grain of salt – they’ll want to support you, not criticize you.

What’s Next?

Once you’ve completed the first draft of your manuscript, let a week or so pass and then begin a full top-to-bottom rewrite. During this self-editing phase, you’ll discover that some chapters or sections may need to be re-arranged.

You may also discover that you need to create a new chapter or a new section in order to improve the flow of your book. Sometimes, you may choose to remove a section altogether. This is an excellent time to check for message clarity and to tighten your writing.

I recommend that you repeat this full rewrite one or two more times before you’re ready for the final stage of the writing process: handing over your manuscript to a professional nonfiction editor. To find out why this is a critical part of the writing process, read my article entitled: How to Find A Book Editor That’s Perfect For Your Nonfiction Book.

I wish you 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 just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related articles I highly recommend:

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

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

How to Find the Perfect Writing Coach for 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.

As someone running your own business, you need the best writing strategies to write your book because time is always in short supply. You want a book to grow your business, to attract more prospects and to increase your profile, but you don’t want to spin your wheels in the process.

So you do a Google search for the best writing strategies, only to find that most articles are addressed to bloggers, students and fiction writers. To your surprise, there’s next to nothing for entrepreneurial authors who want to write a nonfiction book.

I’ve written this article with you in mind, because busy business people need to be able to quickly find actionable strategies that produce results.

What Are Effective Writing Strategies for Nonfiction?

Strategies for good, professional nonfiction writing are quite different from those for any other kinds, such as creative, historical or autobiographical nonfiction.

As a professional, business owner, consultant or coach, you make your living by solving problems for your clients and your nonfiction book will reflect this.

As a result, your book will be written with one goal in mind: to solve a problem for your readers – you won’t be describing events (historical nonfiction), you won’t be sharing the emotional journey of a fictional character (creative nonfiction), and you won’t be sharing your life path in detail (autobiographical nonfiction).

Instead, you’ll be devoting your book to understanding, commiserating with, empathizing with and enlightening your audience while solving a painful long-term problem that they suffer from. Your book will be for them, but above all, it’ll be about them.

The writing strategies required to achieve this goal must allow your readers to “see” themselves in your book. More specifically, you’ll be targeting your writing to a single member of your audience – each person reading your book.

The main goal behind your writing is to establish a one-to-one connection with a single member of your audience (each reader), and to use this channel of communication to solve a painful problem they have. If you do this right, you’ll have a successful book in your hands.

What Are The Different Types of Writing Strategies?

Below you’ll learn the seven most effective strategies for writing a problem-solving nonfiction book:

1) Define Your Book’s Main Idea

The key to a successful problem-solving nonfiction book is to focus on a single problem. If you are in a multi-faceted profession, where you’re trained to solve a number of different problems, you’ll need to choose a specific niche to tackle.

If you try to solve many problems with your book, you’ll end up confusing your audience, or worse yet, you’ll be addressing multiple audiences and breaking the “audience of one” rule.

If you think a single problem is too limiting for you, given your wealth of experience, then you could write a series of books which each address a unique sub-niche.

Now it’s time to choose your book’s main idea. Choose a single, very painful problem to solve that a significant number of people have. You don’t have to search far to find it – begin by looking at your own clients: what’s the largest group of clients that have benefited from your solutions? Begin there.

2) Map Out Your Knowledge

Now, it’s time to get your relevant knowledge downloaded from your brain onto the page. You’re not writing your book yet; you’re simply dumping the information you need to write about from your memory bank onto a chart in order to organize it for your book.

One very effective technique to achieve this goal is Mind Mapping (read my companion article How to Use a Mind Map to Create a great Book for your Business for detailed instructions). This technique will allow you to easily “map out” the knowledge you hold in your brain by emulating the same technique that it uses to store and recall information.

When your mind map is completed, you’ll have a chart that will have your book’s main idea at the center, connected to all of the relevant information needed to write it.

3) Create Your Book Outline

The next step is to turn your mind map into an outline for your book. This outline will be the precursor of your book’s table of contents and it’ll contain the topics for your chapters, sub-chapters and sub-sub-chapters.

Your outline will also contain background information in bullet points that will act as the prompts for you to begin writing the different book sections (for more details, ready my article: How to Create a Book Outline Step-By-step: A Guide for Entrepreneurs).

Your book outline will be the most important part of your book project because it’ll become the roadmap to get your ideas organized before you begin your writing journey. It’s the foundation upon which your house will be built.

If this foundation is weak the house will collapse, so it’s critical that you get this part right. If your outline isn’t structured in a way that’ll make sense to your “audience of one,” then they’ll become confused and lose interest in your book.

Not only does your nonfiction book need to solve a painful, long-standing problem for your audience, but it also has to be structured in a way that takes them through a journey that makes logical sense to them.

To keep your reader engaged, you must have a clear roadmap so they can understand where it is they’re going to be taken. If “How am I going to get there?” is answered by the content of your book, then “Where am I going?” is answered by your book’s outline.

4) Create Your Audience’s Avatar

Now that you have a fully fleshed-out roadmap, it’s time to focus on your audience.

As I stated before, for a problem-solving nonfiction book to be truly effective, you’ll have to address it to an “audience of one.” You’re clearly targeting your book to an audience of many, though, who you hope will one day become clients of yours.

So how do you solve this paradox? By creating an “avatar” of your ideal customer and addressing your book to this one person. What do I mean by an avatar? I mean a composite of the many prospects that make up your book’s audience.

For example, you may find that the ideal target audience for your book is made up of women 35-50 years old afflicted by a specific problem. Next, you have to research this group to find out their challenges, fears, hopes and dreams and then create a profile for a single composite person that encapsulates all of this information.

Finally, you give this composite person a name, age and a profession, you describe their status (married, single, divorced, widowed) and their living situation: are they homeowners, how much do they earn? Do they have children? How many? What are their ages, names, education level, etc.? Do they have pets? Do they have hobbies? You now get a headshot from a free stock photo website and paste onto your profile.

This will be your avatar. Whenever you write your book you’ll be addressing this person directly in the second person, you’ll be empathizing with them and you’ll be solving their problem.

Now, what do you do if your audience is composed partly of women 35-50 but also partly of men in the same age group? Then you have to create two distinct avatars, one for each gender. However, when you write your book you’ll still address it to an “audience of one.” You just have to be thinking about these two avatars at the same time, so your book will no longer be gender-specific (which shouldn’t be a problem since you’ll be writing it in the second person).

In other words, whenever your avatar “Jim” reads the book, he’ll have to believe that you’re having a conversation just with him, and whenever your avatar “Susan” reads it she has to think exactly the same thing.

5) Tune into WIIFM (“What’s In It For Me?”)

You have your book’s outline and your avatar (or avatars), so now it’s time to tune into WIIFM. When people read a problem-solving nonfiction book there’s only one question in their minds: What’s in it for me?

If your book doesn’t address this question every step of the way – that is, if your book veers off from your audience at any point – there’s a strong chance you’ll lose them.

Make sure that as you write you’re always making your avatar or avatars front and center and that you use language such as:

• You
• Your
• Yours

Instead of:

• I
• Me
• We
• Them
• Our
• Ours

Don’t share a client’s story unless your audience can relate to them and their experiences. Don’t talk about yourself, your experience and your credentials unless you do it in relation to your audience and how they’ll benefit from this information.

Any part of your book that doesn’t directly address your reader’s needs will become a roadblock. After a number of these they’ll quickly lose interest in your book.

Now, you may think that this is selfish behavior, but think about how you behave yourself whenever someone presents you with new information for your consideration. As busy as you are, the first thing that subconsciously comes to mind when you assess whether this is worth your time or not is: what’s in it for me?

6) Write Using Your Authentic Voice

When you begin writing your book, make sure you write with the same authenticity that you use when you communicate with clients in person.

Being inauthentic during the course of your business would naturally be the death knell of client trust. But writing is likely a foreign way for you to conduct business. So, when you do, it’s critical that you make a concerted effort to come across as “yourself” on the page as you do in person.

Don’t try to disguise your personality by using an academic tone, or by trying to sound like a “guru on a mountaintop.” Your audience will quickly detect your lack of authenticity and be turned off by it. Perhaps they’ll feel your writing is condescending, or maybe authoritative but they’ll perceive you as unreachable.

Your goal when communicating as an author/expert is to solve a problem for your audience in a way they feel is attainable. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable and tell your audience how you struggled with the very same issue in your own past.

Successful writers always bare their souls onto the page. That’s how they’re able to connect so well with their audience (successful musicians do the same). So, be honest, be authentic, be vulnerable, and never hide behind your writing.

7) Get Feedback

Finally, make sure you get feedback on your writing from early on. There’s nothing worse than pouring your heart and soul into a book only to discover when it’s finished that it doesn’t resonate with your audience. You thought you knew how they felt, but you never bothered to check with them first.

From the book outline stage onward, create an advance group or readers from member of your audience – they could be current or past clients, acquaintances, someone referred by a colleague, etc.

Share with them a simplified version of your outline to see if your roadmap needs to be adjusted, and also share with them each chapter as you complete it.

This feedback will prove extremely valuable and will inform your writing in fresh new ways. This step is critical to align your message with your audience and will result in a much more refined and effective end product.

Naturally, you need to choose people you trust who’ll provide you with honest feedback. Family and friends may provide valuable feedback, but you should take it with a grain of salt. Often times, their feedback will be toned down because they want to support you while not hurting your feelings. People you trust that are at arms-length will prove a better fit for your advance reading group.

Next Steps

You now have the strategies you need to embark on your nonfiction book-writing journey. If you’re ready to begin, I’ve created a article that compiles the ten writing skills successful nonfiction authors rely on to create great book after great book. It’s entitled: The 10 Must-Have Writing Skills for Nonfiction Authors, and it’ll help you gain in-depth knowledge about the specific writing techniques these authors use to great effect in order to connect with their audiences.

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 Find the Perfect Writing Coach for Your Nonfiction Book

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

The 7 Key Rules for Outstanding Business Writing

 

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.

Have you noticed whenever you read a blog post created with poor writing skills that you immediately feel a loss of respect for the writer?

Fair or not, the written word is a powerful proxy for who the writer is. As people read your writing, a mental picture of who you are is drawn in their minds – a picture that’s shaped by their personal filters.

Your credibility is then established based on this filtered image. If this image projects excellence, thoughtfulness and attention to detail, then you’ll be labelled as credible. If it projects a lack of consistency and inattention, then you’ll be labelled as amateurish and even untrustworthy.

As a writer who wants to publish a nonfiction book in order to increase your personal and business profile, your goal is to put out the best product you possibly can. In order to do that, you need to be armed with the best writing skills available to you.

In this post, I’ve compiled the 10 best writing skills that you need in order to develop into a top-notch nonfiction writer. These are the skills used day in and day out by the most prolific authors in the genre – the “special sauce” that allows them to be so successful.

Learn them, master them, and watch the quality of your writing reach new levels.

Skill #1: Reverse-Engineer the Top Books In Your Niche

When you go into business for yourself, you may need to know your customers well but you need to know your competitors even better. You don’t want to spend your time learning what works through trial and error when others have already figured it out.

It’s no different with nonfiction books. Now, I’m not suggesting that you copy others without bringing distinguishing features of your own. What I’m suggesting is that you first figure out how the best in the business do it and then reverse-engineer it. Once you have a good idea of what already works in your market, then add what’s unique about you.

When you read books from your top competitors pay special attention to:

How They Use Hooks

Successful writers are experts at grabbing the reader’s attention at the beginning of each chapter and keeping it all the way through to the end. They accomplish this goal with the use of a “hook” or an opening statement engineered to captivate readers.

You’ll notice that some writers use hooks in the form of a question that addresses a burning challenge. Some use the power of story-telling to illustrate the reader’s pain points, and some use key facts and statistics that are somehow unexpected (e.g. “According to the National Department of XXX the second leading cause of death is not YYY as most people think but ZZZ” – which happens to be a pain point that readers want to eliminate).

Read several bestselling books in your niche and analyze the different hooks they use at the beginning of each chapter; then take notes. A hook is a powerful device to glue readers to the page.

Chapter Titles

Successful nonfiction writers use chapter titles in the same way advertisers use headlines – to entice people to pay attention and persuade them to take action.

There are many techniques used for the creation of strong headlines in advertising, but the most effective ones are:

• Using a “How To” statement (e.g. “How to Win the Game Without Knowing the Rules”)
• Using a memorable phrase (e.g. “One More Thing”)
• Using a question (e.g. “How Green is the Grass on Your Side of the Fence?”)
• Making a controversial statement (e.g. “Why Diets Never Work”)
• Using comparisons (e.g. “Setting Goals Instead of Expectations”)

A very effective (and free) way to do great headline research is to use the Look Inside feature in the Amazon online bookstore, which shows you the book’s table of contents. The vast majority of nonfiction bestsellers have this feature enabled.

Book Structure

All nonfiction bestsellers have a well thought-out structure. At the beginning of the book they’ll always acknowledge the reader’s awareness of the challenge they want to overcome, and then they proceed to slowly unveil the unique solution that takes care of that challenge.

In reading these books, you’ll find that their structure is designed to take readers through a calculated journey of discovery. They never reveal too much too soon and they never leave all the “goodies” for the end.

Read them, study their structure and take notes to help you trigger ideas to develop your own book structure.

Writing Techniques

The aim of nonfiction is to bring lessons the writer learned throughout their life onto the page to show readers how they too can overcome a difficult experience, provided they apply those lessons.

In order to do this effectively, bestselling nonfiction authors often make use of story telling to convey their lessons, because this technique allows readers to relate to the author as a fellow human being instead of perceiving them as an unreachable guru speaking from a mountaintop.

Here are three writing techniques commonly used by nonfiction authors:

• They engage readers through the power of story telling from the very beginning of the book. This is either achieved through a personal story, the story of a client, or a fictional story which is a composite of many different clients.
• They use language that takes readers through an emotional journey. Borrowing from the power of fiction writing, they make readers “feel” the lessons instead of just “teaching” them content.
• They use the element of surprise. Bestselling nonfiction books are known for introducing something “unexpected” into a topic that people haven’t thought about before (e.g. the 10,000 hours required to achieve mastery, according to Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers, or the 4-hour workweek in Tim Ferris’ book of the same title).

Flow

Bestselling nonfiction doesn’t take readers through a dry and linear lesson plan. It “flows” readers through an engaging journey that just happens to be littered with lessons.

But flow is an abstract concept that’s hard to capture into a formula. So, in order to develop a good flow in your book, it’s easier to focus on those things that can stop the flow so you can avoid them. Here’s a short list of flow-stoppers you want to stay away from:

• Run-on or confusing sentences. If readers need to figure out what a sentence means, the flow breaks.
• Writing that feels labored. If your writing is too formal or too intricate, it creates a detachment for readers that impedes flow. Bestselling nonfiction is always easy to read and conversational in nature.
• Over-explaining. While repetition can be a good device for helping readers retain information (if it’s well-executed), over-explaining stops flow because it can be perceived as condescending. Readers want to connect with the author on a level playing field, and being exceedingly “detailed” in your explanations can make you appear as a guru ministering to their disciples.

Skill #2: Write Like You Are Being Paid

The key to becoming a prolific writer lies in your ability to develop the discipline necessary to be constantly evolving your craft. This is the an area where there are no shortcuts.

If you’ve ever taken music lessons you know first-hand how there’s no shortcut to getting good – no alternative to practice, practice, practice. That’s the only way to develop the muscle memory required to hit the right notes and get the right feel with consistency.

It’s no different with writing. The only way to get good at it is to write frequently. You can certainly learn writing skills through research (like by reading this blog), but you can’t develop those techniques without practice.

Professional authors have an advantage over you – they’re getting paid to write, and that works in two ways: as an enticement (the carrot) but also as a motivator (the stick) because advance money usually comes attached to contractual deadlines that are legally binding.

Since you’re not getting paid to write, you need to rewire your brain to take your writing as seriously as if you were. Now, you may not have an advance from a publisher right now, but think of the future revenue your book will generate for your business once it comes out – revenue that would not be attainable without the cachet of having published a book.

An effective strategy to achieve this goal is to line up a speaking engagement in the future, such as participating in a panel discussion or a paid speaking event where you will be unveiling your book.

This is the type of hard deadline that’ll get your creative juices flowing because it forces you to make a professional commitment where your reputation will be on the line (plus, in many cases, you will get paid, so you’ll actually have to sign a contract).

Skill #3: Get Your Writing Cues From Your Book Outline

Here’s the strategy that allows bestselling nonfiction authors to create book after book after book with seeming ease – they never sit down to write a book by staring at a blank page, they first create a detailed outline of their future book before they dare put pen to paper.

The most effective way to create an outline fast is by using the Mind Mapping technique.

This technique allows you to do an organized “brain dump” of your knowledge onto a chart or diagram that maps directly to the way your brain organizes and stores information (I explain this technique in detail in my post: How to Use a Mind Map to Create a Great Book for Your Business).

This concept is predicated on the fact that the book you’re about to write is already inside of you – it’s contained in your many years of expertise and your many years of helping your clients achieve their goals.

Writing your book then comes down to getting it “out” of you and onto the page.

Once you have a fully fleshed-out outline that lists your book’s main idea, the main topics (chapters) and all the sub-topics (sub-chapters), all you have to do then is to pick one item at a time and let the thoughts stemming from your own experience flow down to the page.

As an added bonus, you’ll find that you won’t have any problems with writer’s block; on the contrary, you’ll be flooded with thoughts and recollections. Aided by a strong outline, you’ll find that your book will practically write itself.

Skill #4: Write Every Day

This is an extension of Skill #2. Like all professional nonfiction authors, you need to create a daily writing habit. Now, since writing isn’t your primary way to earn a living, you won’t be able to write for extended periods of time (say six hours a day), nor do you want to do that.

What you’re aiming for is to set aside an uninterrupted writing block of, say, two hours per day, six days a week. You can make it seven days if you wish, buy don’t make it less than six.

Your goal is to write for two hours straight guided by your book outline and then stop to resume the next day. If you’re still overflowing with ideas after two hours, just capture them in your notebook or computer and use that information when you begin writing again the next day.

What you don’t want to do is to write for four or five hours straight until you’re creatively spent and then skip the next day – inconsistency is the death knell of discipline.

Make sure you let the people closest to you know not to interrupt you except for emergencies – this applies to family if you’re writing at home in the evening, or to your staff if you’re writing in the office before business hours – the expectation should be that you’re “not available” during this time.

Skill #5: Develop Your Own Writing Style

As you read several top-selling nonfiction books with your writer’s “hat” on you’ll discover that each author has a unique voice that comes out loud and clear. Each author brings their own personality and set of life experiences to the table and that’ll be no different for you. Make sure that you write the way you think and feel and don’t try to be someone you’re not.

Whenever you write, imagine that you’re talking to a client who’s sitting right in front of you – after all, the reason your clients do business with you is because of your authenticity. If they felt you were being inauthentic, they wouldn’t remain clients for long.

Now, writing authentically can be a bit harder to achieve initially, because when you write you’re sitting down alone with your thoughts. Unless you’re already an experienced writer, writing is likely not a natural mode for you to offer solutions in the course of your business.

With practice, however, you’ll learn to put yourself in your client’s shoes as you write, which will help you bring out your authenticity.

Skill #6: Write Concisely But Remain Eloquent

You’ll find that all bestselling nonfiction books have something in common: an economy of words. Those books seem to always be written very clearly, as if each word had a purpose for being there.

When you begin writing you’ll feel tempted to add words that aren’t really required. You’ll usually do this in the name of painting a more detailed picture – for example, you may write “close proximity” instead of “proximity” or “unexpected surprise” instead of “surprise.”

Even though these additions appear harmless, in the aggregate they make for an inferior product because they act as “speed bumps” in the flow of your book.

Your goal is to write concisely – using the minimum amount of words required to clearly convey your thoughts, avoiding not just redundant words but also flowery language, excessive use of adjectives, unnecessary punctuation and too much specialized vocabulary or jargon.

But you need to do more: while using an economy of words, you want to make sure that the words that you do use are eloquent. When you read nonfiction bestsellers, you’ll find that they tend to use words that are very descriptive, words that paint a clear picture in the reader’s minds; not words that are just there to simply communicate content.

What you want to do is to take your readers through an emotional journey by using words that evoke emotional states. Here are some examples of words that can evoke emotions: “Embarrassed, Uncertain, Vulnerable, Freedom, Courageous, Radiant.”

Another way to become more eloquent in your writing is to borrow some time-tested techniques from the world of advertising. For example:

• To be more effective, reduce multiple points you’re making to groups of three. For some reason, our brains are very receptive to internalizing information when it comes in packages of three.
• Use humor to make a mundane concept more memorable.
• When you’re driving home a point, focus on a single message at a time – don’t divide your audience’s attention.

Skill #7: Write For an Audience of One

Another key characteristic of successful nonfiction books is that whenever you read them, you feel like the author is talking directly to you. You actually feel like you’re getting to “personally” know them, that they’re like a “good friend” helping you out.

Naturally, this is a fictitious situation since you’ve likely never met them before, nevertheless it’s quite intentional. Unless you achieve this level of connection with your audience, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll take to heart the actions that you recommend.

For a nonfiction book to be successful both selling copies and, even more importantly, making a real change in people’s lives, it needs to “connect” with its audience, and the best way to achieve this goal is by writing the entire book as if it was addressed to a single reader – in essence, you’re writing a book for an audience of one.

To achieve this goal, you’ll need to create an “avatar” of your ideal reader, in other words, a composite of the many types of people that make up your audience.

In practice, an avatar is a written profile of your perfect client. For example, if your book is addressed to consumers, you’ll need to come up with a name, gender, age, marital status, children, pets, hobbies, fears, challenges, desires, hopes, dreams, etc.

If your book is addressed to businesses, then your avatar must reflect the decision maker that your book is targeting: their name, age, gender, title or position in the company, their business challenges they have to deal with on a daily basis, their worries (what keeps them up at night), their pressures, and also their hopes and desires for the business.

Finally, get a random headshot of a person that fits your profile from various free stock photo websites and paste it to your profile. This is the one person you’re writing for and addressing the entirety of your book to.

This person is your audience of one, and this is how you’ll be able to connect with your readers and create a personal relationship with each one of them, to the point that they’ll think that you truly understand them and that you’re their “friend.”

Skill #8: Rewrite, Rewrite, Rewrite

As I mentioned before, your writing will only get better with practice and one of the best techniques for sharpening your writing saw is by creating lots of text. Now, this might fly in the face of my earlier advice about being concise, but just hear me out.

At the beginning, you always want to write from a “stream of consciousness.” What I mean is you don’t want to self-censor your writing when you’re in this creative mode. You just want to sit down and write prompted by your book outline without engaging your critical thinking.

At this early stage, you’ll break a lot of the rules from this article: sometimes you’ll write redundantly, sometimes you’ll over-explain things, sometimes you’ll write unending paragraphs, and so on.

This is totally acceptable at this early stage, because your goal is to extract all the information jam-packed in your brain and bring it down on the printed page. But when you’re done with a significant enough section of your book – say a short chapter or a meaty sub-chapter, you’ll want to start from the top again and re-write it entirely.

You’ll notice that your second pass will be light-years better than your first pass. When you’re done with this rewrite, set it aside and after a good night’s sleep do a new rewrite the next day.

Over time, your technique will become more polished as your writing muscle gets stronger. After a number of rewrites, you’ll sense when it’s time to stop and move on to the next thing. The goal here isn’t to write the perfect book from the get go: it’s not about achieving perfection but about training your writing muscle.

At the end of the day, your writing will be handed over to a professional editor (more on this in Step 10) but you always want to hand over the very best you can produce, and this can only be achieved through multiple rewrites.

With practice, the number of rewrites you need to do to create a quality product will decrease substantially. This is equivalent to going to the gym for a workout. At the beginning it might take you an hour to do your routine, but if you stick to it, six months later you’ll be able to do the same routine in 45 minutes.

Skill #

 

This skill is key if you want your book to be successful in the marketplace. We’ve already talked about writing your book for an audience of one; but unless that audience is involved throughout your writing process, you run the risk of writing a book that you think is exactly what your readers need but in the end misses the mark because your readers need something different.

What might have worked in the past for many of your clients who know, like and trust you might not work for the strangers who are going to be reading your book. But if you involve members of your target audience as part of an advance reader group that can provide you with feedback as you craft your book, you’ll be able to adjust your messaging as you go and in the end create a much more powerful product.

This is a strategy that’s widely used in the creative field, not just for nonfiction but also for fiction books. Some fiction authors release advance copies of chapters to a closed group of followers and then ask them for comments so they can tweak their narrative.

Since your goal is to create an emotional connection with your audience, there’s no better way to check if you’re “on track” than by engaging them early on in the writing process.

Skill #10: Let Go of Your Manuscript and Hire a Nonfiction Editor

The final writing skill is the most critical to the success of your book: the skill of letting go. As a matter of fact, this skill is paramount to the success of every single bestseller in the marketplace, since behind every great book there’s a great editor.

No professional writer worth their salt would dare publish an unedited manuscript. It just doesn’t happen and for good reason.

Writers are the creative source behind the ideas in their book, but although those ideas are conveyed with words, that doesn’t make them expert wordsmiths.

That’s where editors come in. In addition to the more mundane tasks of checking your grammar, spelling, vocabulary and punctuation, editors are true wordsmiths who specialize in giving shape to words.

They know how words work together, how they can be arranged for best effect, how they can be made to flow more efficiently, and how to add a level of polish that’s very hard for authors, even famous ones, to achieve on their own.

A good analogy is music producers – famous rock bands may write famous songs by creating memorable lyrics, melodies, harmonies and chords. But with very few exceptions it’s the music producer who takes in all that information and then creates the trademark “sound” that bands are actually remembered for.

They are the “soundsmiths.” They know what kinds of sounds work better with different chords and harmonies in order to make the musicians shine all the time. If you were to remove the music producer entirely from the equation most famous songs would sound rather uninspiring.

It’s exactly the same principle that editors bring to their writers’ creations.

In closing, if you take these ten writing skills to heart, if you truly embrace them and master them, you’ll be able to create a nonfiction book you’ll be very proud of.

I have a companion article that might be helpful to you, especially if you’re in the early stages of your book project. It’s entitled How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors and it provides a clear roadmap that removes a lot of the uncertainty when producing a nonfiction book from scratch so you can focus on what matters most: the writing.

I wish you the best in your writing project!

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 Find the Perfect Writing Coach for Your Nonfiction Book

5 Essential Paragraph Writing Tips for Nonfiction Book Writers

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

5 Narrative Writing Steps to Bring Your Nonfiction Book to Life

How to Grow Your Business Writing a 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.

Not unlike running a business, in order to create good writing habits you’ll need to develop a strong discipline, a clear focus, persistence, and above all, the motivation to see you through your bad days.

Imagine you’ve made a set of contractual commitments with clients and you wake up one day with a cold that won’t go away. You still go to work to fulfill those commitments and then crash later. Right? That’s precisely what successful authors do.

Once you learn the habits these authors use to produce great book after great book, you’ll have no problem adding discipline, focus, persistence and motivation into your writing routine because that’s inherent in your “training” as an entrepreneur.

In this article, I will not only show you how to develop powerful writing habits, but I’ll also go into detail about the specific actions you need to take every single day in order to develop a strong writing muscle.

How Do You Develop Good Writing Habits?

In order to achieve this goal, you’ll need to master each one of the following four pillars: Discipline, Focus, Persistence and Motivation.

Discipline

Creating a book requires commitment to write regularly. Writing success depends on your ability to be consistent in your commitment to your book, day in and day out.

Whenever you sit down to write, you have to develop the discipline to say no to distractions and temptations – distractions that can range anywhere from house chores to taking care of business emails outside of your business day.

In my article How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors, I talk about compartmentalizing your time. You should never sit down to write your book during business hours and, by the same token, you should never conduct any business (or other non-business activities) when you sit down to write your book.

Now, since you’re already running a business, having the discipline to achieve a task or goal is second nature to you. All you have to do is to consider your book-writing project with the same serious business commitment you apply to any other contractual commitment you have with your clients. Once you make this decision, you’ll begin to set the foundation for developing great writing habits.

Focus

This is another area where you have the upper hand over most people, simply by being in business for yourself. Having laser-like focus and running a successful business go hand in hand.

The reason most “wannabe” entrepreneurs are unsuccessful is because they keep jumping from opportunity to opportunity, from shiny object to shiny object. Lack of focus is the top killer of new businesses. It’s not having a bad idea, being in the wrong niche or even a lack of talent.

There are plenty of people with great ideas, working in an under served niche and with lots of talent who are unable to get their businesses off the ground, simply because they’re unfocused.

This is also true when you sit down to write your book. There are thousands of websites, books and eBooks with advice, courses, webinars, tips, lists, etc. about book writing.

But, if you decide to choose one route when you begin writing your book only to switch gears when you get stuck to follow another approach (a different shiny object), this lack of sustained focus will kill your book-writing project.

Do spend the time on research. But once you commit to one path, stick with it all the way to the end.

Persistence

Persistence is the hallmark of entrepreneurs. If you were to give up when the going gets tough you wouldn’t be in business right now. So, this is another area where you have the upper hand over most people.

Being new at book writing (assuming this is your first book) you’ll have to deal with the uncertainly inherent in doing something rather complex for the first time.

Even with the best advice, you’ll get to a certain point in the writing process where you’ll be tempted to slow down (e.g. the dreaded “middle” section of your book) or to put the project on the back burner when things perhaps become much harder than you thought – after all, your main business is hard enough, and now you’ll have to handle two hard things at the same time.

It’s critical at times like these to let your persistence muscle kick in to help you grind through those obstacles so that you can stick to your writing schedule.

Make sure that you never join the ranks of people who started writing their book full of excitement and possibilities only to never finish it, simply because they lacked persistence in the face of adversity.

Motivation

The final pillar of writing success is motivation. Since the financial outcome of your book project lies way in the future, it’s sometimes difficult to be consistent in your level of motivation, especially when you have a bad day in your main business, or say you are coming down with a cold and your energy level is down, or countless other reasons…

So how do you keep your level of motivation up when the going gets tough in your main business? Simple. You have a number of binding contractual obligations to perform your services in order to get paid, and that alone (coupled with your professionalism) will ensure that you get the job done.

And it’s really not that different with your book project. In order to achieve the same level of motivation you afford your main business, you need to also enter into a binding agreement with a third party in order to ensure your book’s completion.

What you have to do is to set a hard publication deadline for your writing project. For example, you have to commit to a paid speaking engagement, say, a year from now, when you’ll be introducing your book to the public.

I provide more examples of hard deadlines in my 12 Steps article mentioned above, but in a nutshell, you need to get yourself into a public commitment where your professionalism and reputation alone will ensure that you stay on track.

How Do You Develop A Writing Routine?

Routine is about creating a set of behaviors that can be automatically repeated without having to think much about it.

When it comes to writing a book, as in any creative project, your routine has to be appealing to you so that you not only stick to it, but you look forward to it with anticipation.

Here are three guidelines to help you establish a routine that is both enjoyable and sustainable:

Choose a writing space that you find appealing and that you look forward to going to every day.

What this space or place is depends on your personal style. Some people have a favorite spot in their house, perhaps a writing room, a home office, a small desk or table near a bay window with a nice view. These are great choices if you require a quiet environment in order to think creatively.

Some people, on the other hand, need to be out of the house surrounded by other people in order to get the creative juices flowing. So, they’d prefer to go to a coffee shop, a library, or other public place. Whatever works for you is perfectly fine.

What you need to keep in mind, however, is that whichever space you do choose, make sure that you can work for an extended period of time (up to two hours) without any interruptions.

Carve out a set block of time each day for writing, and never change it.

This could be early in the morning before anyone else in the house wakes up, or it could be in the evening after you come home from work.

The key is to make sure that you never miss your writing block (outside of force majeure, of course). It’s like your morning coffee – you always have it at the same time and, just like coffee, your body craves it and expects it at that time every day.

Make your writing block fixed – say, two hours every day.

What you don’t want to do is to have a flexible writing block that could be one hour one day and five hours the next (even if you feel that you are “in the flow”).

If your writing routine is fluid then it’s not a writing routine. The risk here is that you’ll begin to be tempted by the death knell of good writing habits: Inconsistency (“I’ve written for four hours straight today so I think I’ll skip tomorrow”).

Be firm with your routine and make sure you stop at the end of your writing block. If you still have ideas flowing at that point, then write them down in a notebook for tomorrow. Don’t write until you are creatively spent every time, because you’ll then begin to resent writing.

How Long Should You Write Every Day?

You want to write for a set amount of time every day – and by the way, it’s perfectly okay to take one day off per week but not more than that. In my experience, especially for writers that don’t derive their income from writing, a 2-hour daily block is ideal.

One hour is not enough to get up to cruising speed and three or more hours will start to burn you out creatively. Two hours is the happy medium (or, at most, between 2-3 hours depending on your nature) which takes into account the fact that you also have a day job to take care of.

You’ll find that following this approach you’ll be able to comfortably write between 400 and 500 words per hour. So at this rate, you should be able to produce a 200-page nonfiction book, fully written, edited and published in about 10 months (for more details and a full breakdown of this timeline, read my article How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business).

What Are Good Writing Habits?

Let’s get now into the specifics. Below you’ll find a list of 10 powerful habits that are key to developing a strong writing muscle:

1. Establish a Clear and Immovable Writing Schedule – We talked about this already but it’s worth stressing again: keep your schedule consistent – don’t shuffle it around from day to day.

2. Practice Always Makes Better – It’s critical to be consistent and write every day in order to develop your writing muscle. If you are going to take a break from writing, make it only one day per week at the most.

3. Write As If You Were Being Paid – Don’t write as if it was a hobby of yours. Write as if you were a professional author (which you’ll be anyway the minute you close a new prospect as a direct result of publishing your book!).

4. Set Clear Boundaries With Those Around You – This is of particular importance when it comes to your family, should you choose your writing space to be at home. It’s very important that they understand that you’re not to be disturbed for any reason (short of an emergency) when you’re sitting down to write. This also applies to your friends. Ask them not to call, text or message you during your writing blocks. Make sure they understand that you’ll be setting the do-not-disturb feature on your phone so you won’t be able get back to them during this time.

5. Always Write For an Audience of One – Every sentence you write in your book has to be addressed directly to your reader. Successful nonfiction books written by entrepreneurial authors or professionals with a practice always establish a personal relationship with each one of their readers and you want to create this bond from your first paragraph to your last.

6. Read the Top Books in Your Niche – It’s imperative that you learn why the books from the pros in your business niche work so well. Read those books wearing your writer’s hat to find out how they manage to connect so well with their audience.

7. Edit Your Writing Regularly – Don’t self-edit as you write, as that can be counterproductive. Instead, at the end of each writing week make sure to set aside some time to self-edit the week’s work. This might take up a quarter to half of one of your weekly writing blocks, but it will dramatically improve the overall quality of your writing.

8. Focus Only on the Writing Task Right Ahead of You, Not on the Hundred Tasks that Follow It – Look at your book outline or table of contents to choose what you’re going to be writing about next, but once you’ve made that choice forget your table of contents and focus strictly on the one section you’re currently writing. Don’t think about what remains to be done – critical thinking will stall your creative juices.

9. Find Your Voice and Stick to It – Authenticity is key for nonfiction books. You are, after all, writing about your own life experience in your profession. Always write in a way that reflects who you are. Don’t try to be someone you’re not – readers will see through it.

10. Create a Reading Group Made out of People from Your Audience – This is particularly important for entrepreneurial writers. Enlist early on a small group of advance readers by drawing from people you trust and who happen to be part of your target audience. You’ll need their feedback as you finish different parts of your book, in order to make sure you are addressing their problems and challenges effectively. You don’t want to finish your manuscript, only to find out that as great as your solutions may be from your point of view, they missed the mark from the point of view of your audience.

Follow the above guidelines and you’ll be able to truly fast track the creation of your nonfiction book.

All the best in your writing project!

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 Most Effective Writing Exercise for Busy Business People

How to Grow Your Business Writing a 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.