Writing a non-fiction book is a tedious process to get through. What’s even more difficult than getting through the process is actually getting started with it. You have a domain that you know so much about and would like to educate others on the same. So how do you translate this extensive knowledge into a unique book? There’s a step-by-step method to book writing that most first-time non-fiction authors aren’t aware about. You don’t begin by diving straight into the actual writing. You’ll be missing out on a few crucial preparatory steps if you do so. Here we take you through the process of non-fiction book writing, showing you the ideal way this process should unfold.
- Define What the Big Picture Means for You
With the fiction books the major goal for the author is to entertain the audience with a compelling story. With the non-fiction books the goal goes beyond than just entertainment. Before you go any further you should have your goal for writing the book, or the big picture that you’re trying to achieve with the book, clearly outlined.
Maybe you have exclusive insights and expertise in a subject, information that has never been put out there before in books dealing with the same subject. Maybe the book that you want to write co-relates with what you do for a living and you’re hoping for the book’s popularity to open up new professional opportunities for you. Or maybe you simply want to share your own knowledge and personal experiences to make a subject easier to understand for people. Whatever your overarching purpose may be, now is the time to define it.
- Confirm The Audience for Your Book
You only want to sell a product for which people are willing to pay money. The same principle can be said to apply to your non-fiction book as well. Before you begin putting more concrete efforts into writing the book, you want to be sure that there is an audience that would be interested enough in the book’s subject to shell out a couple of bucks for it. It’s easy to sell the book when there is already a market and demand present. In case you’re not sure about the audience yet, you can stick to blogging for now. Keep on publishing meaningful posts on your blog on the subject, amassing readers, and assessing their interests. Then when you’re sure enough about your audience, you can get to the book writing.
- Create Some Sample Writing First
You want an agent to confide in your idea of the book and take it to the right publishers? You want a publisher to give you the platform you need to take your book to the masses? Well, this is easier than done. You need to start by earning the confidence of your agent and prospective publisher, which you can do by producing a few chapters for showcasing as samples to these critical stakeholders. As interesting as your idea for the book may be, you still need to supplement it with some evidence that gives more credibility to the idea as well as to your ability in presenting that idea.
- Don’t be Shy of Asking for Mentorship
Prior to getting any more busy with the book, seek out a mentor that you can rely upon throughout the journey. It could be someone who is an established author or publisher, or someone who belongs to the same field that you’ll be writing the book about. Essentially what you want is a person who can guide you whenever you feel stuck at any point, whether it’s during the writing process or the publishing process. Having this mentor figure by your side can serve as a source of big motivation as you go ahead.
- Plan Your Route to Book Publishing
There are two basic ways to getting your book published: with the help of a publisher or via self-publishing. Each method has its own set of advantages and disadvantages that you’ll need to evaluate for your case.
If you want to go the traditional route of publishing, through a publishing house, you’ll need to come up with a solid proposal for your book to begin with. This proposal should do more than just explain what your planned book is about. It should also convey to the publisher the reason why your book deserves their time, money, and publishing efforts. Some of the important things to include in your proposal are potential audience and readership, sample titles for the book, how your book is going to be different than other similar existing books, planned topics for the book, your authority for writing on this subject, and so on.
With the help of your agent you can then send your final proposal to publishers and settle on a deal that works for you. The benefit of traditional publishing is that publishers have the resources and experience to ensure that your book is published, marketed, and sold well. Plus having the name of a renowned publishing house attached to your book certainly is attention-grabbing for the critics and readers.
A significant step in getting your book published by a reputed publisher is finding a good book agent with the right connections. From taking the book to various publishing houses to negotiating and managing the contract, a book agent is someone who can make the life of an author a lot easier.
If you can handle being publisher as well as author, you can go with self-publishing the book. In doing so, you can take the help of a self-publishing platform as well. Publishing the book on your own puts you in charge of everything, from content to budget to design to timeline. Self-publishing could also mean limited audience reach for your book. A notable advantage of self-publishing is that whatever money you do make from the book sales, there won’t be any agent or publisher to share that money with.
- Work Out a Plan for Ahead
You’re now getting close to starting with writing the book! Just a couple of things that you should do before you start typing out the words. Work out a detailed content plan for the book, and this should be more than just a collection of topics to cover in the book. This content plan should lay out everything, like what sub-topics will come under each major topic, how you want to order the topics within the book, how should the content within each topic be sequenced, and so on. Reading the content plan should immediately tell you what you need to write at any given point.
While doing research work and writing the book can go hand-in-hand, you’ll thank yourself later if you can get at least some research done prior to beginning with book writing. Whether it’s interviews or references, do whatever research work you perceive will be needed for the book beforehand. Additionally, get whatever hardware and software tools you’ll be using for the writing ready now.
- Time to Get, Set and Go!
You’re all set now to begin with the part that you’ve been waiting for all along, the actual writing. This is the most time-consuming part of your book writing process and you want to take your time with it. While you can set a goal to finish writing the book within a given span of time, you still need to remain flexible, patient, and persistent if this timeline gets extended for some reason. Don’t forget your first draft may not be as good as you thought it would be. It may need to undergo several revisions before it’s closer to your vision. This just means more investment of time and energy into the book.
Because book writing is one big project that will take a good amount of time to complete, you have to find a way to break this project down into a simpler and more manageable form. If you’re not a full-time writer, you may have a job to keep up with. Apart from job too, there could be plenty of other things that leave you with limited amount of time for writing in a day or a week. Regardless, you don’t want to keep writing every second of every day either lest you get physically and mentally exhausted.
What you should do is set up a writing schedule for yourself. It could be something like writing 2 hours every day from Monday to Friday. This is just an example though. Your writing schedule should be something that fits comfortably into your life. Make sure that whatever time you do allocate to writing, you are making the most productive use out of that time. Be honest to your schedule, it is what’s going to get you closer to the finish line.
The thought of writing a complete book can be overwhelming, whereas the thought of writing just a chapter or two isn’t all that scary. This is the ideal way to approach your writing process. Instead of thinking about completing the entire book within a year, set a goal of completing 2-3 chapters in a month. Each finished chapter will serve like an achieved milestone encouraging you to keep working on.
Every once a while take stock of the work done so far and the work still remaining to do. This is important because you want to ensure that you are making measurable progress towards getting the book completed. Always remember that self-discipline will be integral in helping you stay on track with the writing. You will get there as long as you keep working!
This article was in part inspired by the following article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/10/smarter-living/how-to-finally-write-your-nonfiction-book.html
