Julie Broad walks through chapter templates for non-fiction books: hook your reader with an outcome of an outcome, then move through story, lessons, objections, and a payoff that sets up the next chapter. The structure helps you write faster and turn your book into a course.
Recently we ran Self Publish and succeed live, a 12 week course to help you write a no boring book that is set up to sell and achieve your goals. We had a fantastic group of authors gather for this session. We're excited to run it again in the coming weeks. But one of the topics that came up was templates. The authors wanted a template to follow. We hadn't run into a need for that before because our authors either work with coaches or with writers who you customize everything for each author. So I dug in and figured out some templates that worked. And if you're looking for some nonfiction book chapter template ideas, well then this video is for you. Hey, I'm Julie the book broad, founder of this fabulous full service self publishing firm called Book Launchers. After working with 400 different authors, we finally decided it was time to roll out some courses to teach authors what we've been doing one on one with authors for five and a half years. 3. The result is two courses, self publish and Succeed Live and Book Marketing Magic Mastery. You can get details@book launchers.com if you're interested in creating the course. The need for templates came up, but not just a template for a book outline, a template for a chapter. Your book needs a hook, but then each chapter needs a hook of its own too. And the hook in all these cases is always an outcome of an outcome. It's not just that this video will teach you how to create a template for a chapter, it's that you'll be able to write faster and with more confidence when you have a plan for each chapter. Right? So once you have that outline, which is essentially a list of chapter concepts, you then need to write to get to the reader outcome of the outcome or the story arc you're going to take your reader through to get them to that outcome of the outcome, depending on what kind of book you're writing. Once you have that, you now need to take a look at each of those chapter concepts or chapter stories and determine what the best structure for them is. Many people, including me, outline a book with bullets and that works to start, but the book never. Well, that's kind of conclusive. Let me say the book rarely ends up looking anything like those bullet points. And as I learned teaching the class, thinking your book is going to look like that outline is a recipe for feeling discouraged and unproductive. So instead, let's think of each chapter as a part of your story or an idea that's going to be explained. For some authors, this might be a concept behind your overall process. It might be a step in the process, or it could be an experience that led to a revelation. For my upcoming book on book marketing, I basically took the overall idea that book marketing isn't just about selling books, but about using the book as a tool to build your brand and grow your business. And I started at the beginning with where marketing needs to begin, which is before you start writing. And I took it through the whole process of writing a book to post launch when book sales may have stalled out and you have to try to ignite them again while the book isn't step one. Step two it takes you through all the concepts, ideas, and strategic thoughts you need to have to set your book up for success in each of the phases you'll find yourself while writing, publishing, and promoting a book. My own approach tends to be to tell a story or share an insight and then unpack it with the lessons, tips, or strategies that need to be explored to teach that concept. I guess I take kind of a lessons approach, kind of like each video I introduce it, try to get you excited about what's in store for you, and then share the steps, lessons, and examples you need to know to move forward from there. In essence, I take a concept and then I figure out what I need to share to teach you this, and I think about what you might not understand, what maybe you've already tried that didn't work, where you might have doubts or misconceptions, and I try to address all of that in the chapter before I move on to the next subject. So for this to be a template, you'd look at it like a lesson to be taught or a concept to be taught, and then you'd reveal the strategy, steps and examples to be shared to teach that concept. You want to make sure that in this template you're addressing concerns, fears, or misconceptions that might hold them back from executing or understanding, and then you lay the foundation for the next concept that will be taught. If you're writing a memoir, this would be more of a story to be told template. I still believe with memoirs there's an outcome of an outcome to be shared, but it's being shared via telling a story, and each chapter will have its own action, obstacles, and emotions, and there should be a story arc to each chapter as much as a story arc to the whole book. I've never written a memoir, but the ones I love to read often open with an inciting incident, dialogue, or a stunning revelation, and then tell the story from there. That then leads into the next chapter. So the final kind of chapter template that you might want to use as an approach is a talk to be given. One of your chapters may actually be your signature speech, but if you think of each chapter almost like a talk, you can structure them in that way. You introduce the concept in an attention grabbing way because this is the noboringbooks way, right? Then you're going to hit them with steps, bullets, or expand on each of those steps or bullets with stories or or examples or research and then wrap it all up with a promise of what is coming in the next chapter. In a way, a book done like this can become an online course really easily, which is also something we do at Book Launchers and we've even taken memoirs and turned them into online courses, which is a great way for your reader to really get deep into your message and get their own takeaways. Remember, no matter what, each chapter needs its own hook. Why does the reader need or want to know what's in this chapter and what is going to draw them into this concept, story or message? Is it going to be a story? A revelation? Something they didn't know before? Surprising Facts are one of my favorites, or even just a bold promise of how their life is about to be different in a way that matters to your reader as a result of what's about to unfold. Once they've got that hook, you share the story, steps, strategies, research, case studies, or other material to support the above. Ensure the reader has what they need to get the outcome of the outcome for that chapter, and then lay the foundation for the next thing. Even tease the benefits of what's to come and show why getting through this section was vital to the success success they're going to achieve from the next section. You know, kind of like the benefits of making sure that you've subscribed to the channel and commented the day a video is released so you're entered to win some of our fabulous Noboringbooks swag. That's an important thing for you as well. So go ahead, hit that subscribe button. I'll wait. Now, seriously, besides inviting you to join our next class of Self Publish and Succeed live students, which is so fun, or suggesting you get a copy of Self Publish and Succeed to read. Both great things to do. You should also watch this chapter right here on how to start your chapters out so they hook people in from the beginning, or this one on the four book writing myths you shouldn't believe both are guaranteed good watching, so let's hang out some more. Okay.
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