How to Start Writing a Non-Fiction Book

I have an idea, but I don't know where to start. I've been working on a book for a decade. I've started and stopped this book over and over. If you have said any of these things and you know you have a great book inside you but you're not sure how to get it out or how to start, this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the book broad from Book Launchers. We're your professional self publishing team helping you write, publish and promote a nonfiction book that will impact your reader, grow your business and make you money. Our superpower is caring more about you and your book. And what we do differently is we work incredibly hard to help you get your book into readers hands when it's done. And the best part, you keep all rights and royalties and have full control over your book. The biggest mistake most people make when they write a book is this. They get hit by inspiration one day and they just sit down and start writing. Here's why that's a major problem. That inspiration can quickly be replaced by a giant, and I do mean freaking giant, doubt and you'll start and stop the following cycle of doubt and inspiration. Doubt and inspiration and you'll be like those people who take 10 years to write their book. Or when you start writing without a plan, you don't have clarity of goals or a true picture of your audience. And you aren't clear on the impact you want your book to have on that audience. It's very inefficient and you'll probably write a mediocre to poke a book. This method can work. I've seen it happen. But too many books are written without clarity of how they're going to be sold, who they're going to be sold to, or what the hook is. And I don't want this to happen to you because I want you to actually sell books. So what I recommend is before you start writing a nonfiction book that's going to have impact and sell, do the following steps. Step one. Get clear on your goal. And let me caution you against setting a goal like I want to be a New York Times best selling authority or I want to sell 10,000 books. I'm not cautioning you against that because they're lofty goals, which they are. But I mean, I'm all for go big or go home. I'm cautioning you against it because I recommend you get clear on your goal, but you make that goal about your reader and not about you. When nonfiction authors set out to create a book, most of the marketing messaging out there is focused on becoming a bestseller, getting well known, making money. The problem with these as goals is it puts your ego in charge. And when you focus on these kinds of goals and put your ego in charge, the author becomes the product, not the book. And you set yourself up to face a lot of the monsters you have in the closet. Now, I can't speak for your monsters, but please allow me to introduce you to my monsters first. Yeah, this big mean dude, that's Fear of Judgment. That's my biggest monster. Right beside that monster is imposter syndrome. These two, they take turns picking on me, scaring me, and trying to keep me small in my life and my business. If they take a day off. I also have a little monster, a little one right here. See? Little one. And that's fear of failure. And I also have a little tinier one called fear of success. But mostly, though, being a nerdy, know it all little kid who is picked on a lot, that's me. My biggest monster is fear of Judgment. So I like to keep her in the closet. And focusing on service to others allows me to do that with a little more ease. Hey, get back in there. Go. When your book is the product and you focus intensely on a specific goal and a specific reader, you can focus on serving that audience with the most revealing examples and the secrets that must be shared for them to get results. Ultimately, you'll be focusing on what's going to happen for the reader and not what's going to happen to you. And that's a game changer for keeping those monsters in the closet. When I wrote More than Cash Flow, I wrote the book that that needed to be written, not the one that the publishers told me would sell or anyone else. Actually. We had business coaches that said this book wouldn't sell, too. I was the target reader at one point in my life, so I knew precisely what would have helped me make better decisions. And I think that was the driving force behind making that book go to number one on Amazon. Your first goal is what is the impact you want your book to have on your reader? What do you want them to know, do be have after they've read your book? You get clear on that. Step two, get clarity on who that reader really is. When you know who they follow, what books they already are reading, what problems they want to solve, and even where they're hanging out already, you have clarity of audience. Step three, look at the content and ideas you have and figure out how you can present it in a way that's unique. We have so many cool examples of this, but one of our recent favorites is from Imani Roberts. He has the Imani Experience podcast. He talks to creatives who have left the corporate world to pursue their creativity. As part of his company Media Experience, he leads team building events for corporate organizations, teaching people how to be a DJ as a team building exercise. So he's bridging that gap between creative and corporate and drawing lessons from it. And he loves to do that. So in analyzing his content and his message with my team, they came up with the idea to write a book about a night as a DJ and the corporate lessons you learn from that night. With that, his book DJs mean business. One night behind the turntables can speak been your company's success was born Step 4 if you've watched more than a couple of videos, you know the next thing is to create your hook. Your book might be about you, but it's not for you. And before you write anything, get clear on that hook. And that hook has to be something that is only about the reader. The benefit, the emotional experience, or the reason that they need to read your book needs to make a promise and clearly explain who this book is for. If you've done the steps above, you've already got the hook buried in there and you just need to pull it out. Scott Bradley has a great podcast called Hell Bent on Horror and he wanted to write a book. But how do you take a love of all things horror like he's a historian of all things horror? How do you take that and turn it into a book with benefits to a reader? Well, in explorations with our writing coach, he basically said one day, you know what? Horror makes me happy and healthy. And it turns out that's true. There's research that backs that up because horror allows you to explore and feel emotions that you don't normally feel or are kind of taboo to feel. So screaming for pleasure, how horror makes you happy and healthy was born. So find your hook. Step 5 Create a table of contents or an outline, making notes of the key points and stories you want to cover. Judge each of them with the filter of does this support the hook? If that story section or example supports the hook, great. If it doesn't, save it for a future book. And based on this, you create a plan. Write every week, or whatever you think is going to be reasonable. Carve out time in your calendar every week to make a writing habit, not just trying to write when you're inspired. Now, finally, step six we start writing see how many things there were to do before we get to writing. You can see where so many authors go wrong, because if you just go to step six and start writing, you've missed the foundation that's going to make your book great. It's way harder work than you realize, which is why you've been struggling to get your book done. And if we can help, just take a couple of minutes to tell us about your book@booklaunchers.com and our book consultant will get back to you with a time to chat or the next best step for you to take to achieve your goals and the goals you have for your reader. Now I'm curious. Who are your monsters? Introduce them to me in the comments below and when you comment on the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some sweet NoboringBooks swag like our oh so soft journal and our NoboringBooks mug coffee, tea and Hot Chocolate tastes better in it. It's a proven fact. So make sure you know when our videos are coming out by subscribing to the channel and turning notifications on. It's been so lovely hanging with you today and now that you know what to do, you might be looking for tips on creating a great table of content. So let's keep hanging out over at this video. You can watch my best tips on that. Or if you're going to sit down and start writing with your introduction, this video right here is a must watch because I give advice on writing introductions that I have never heard anyone else give. So go ahead. I've got the coffee brewing for you, so click on the next video and we'll hang out some more.