Tips for Writing a Great Non Fiction Chapter

Do your chapters spell it out for the reader? When a reader gets to the end of your chapter, are they going, wow, what a cool idea? Reading a report from one of our writing coaches, I was struck by his comments that when he's content editing or coaching a client, so often he reads a chapter and goes, did this chapter deliver its promise of a solution for the reader? And he said, a lot of times it's just an idea. It doesn't have steps or there isn't even a core idea there. And he says this is very common with subject matter experts who know their material so well they forget to spell it out for the reader. So if you want to make sure your reader is going, aha, that was amazing. At the end of each and every chapter, well, this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the book broad. I'm a four time author, founder of Book Launchers and and your humble host here at Booklaunchers tv. Because it's mostly my face you see around here. You may not realize that there are more than 60 people on the team at book launchers. 14 are full time and in house working away and the rest are contractors who are also working away. But there are so many fabulous folks that work really hard to bring our books to life with our authors. Books like Rise of the Reader by Nick Hutchinson, Unstoppable Grit by Daniel Cobo, Head Trash by Renee Cavallari, In Better Hands by Brandy Cox, Manda's Beast by Man Spitler. There are a lot of experts working hard behind the scenes to bring a book to life. And early in the process we look at what your bigger picture goals are for your author positioning and your book positioning. And we explore your ideal reader and and then we figure out the hook of your book. From there we guide you to create a compelling outline. Why am I telling you all this? Because if you are not doing this, you could be missing the mark and you might not have chapters that are really compelling to a reader. Because all of these steps are instrumental to the writing process. You want not only to figure out what's in it for the reader as a whole for your book, but then with each and every chapter in each and every story or what is in it for the reader? Why did you make them read that? After Chad shared this insightful comment in his weekly report and Chad, by the way, is our in house pen to paper pro, I asked him to give me a couple other tips to help you write compelling chapters. So each and every chapter is a winner. So his advice during the outlining phase. You're going to do some mapping and here's what you're going to do. Over here make a list of topics that you want to tell your reader. Then over here make a list of what your reader would say they need. Finally, make a list right here of what your reader fears. Now take your list of topics and map it to at least one of your readers needs and or fears. And if a topic doesn't map to a need or a fear, it could be that your topic isn't something the reader needs. Now isn't that sort of a mic drop tip High five Chad. All right, before you write a chapter, I think this is a really great exercise because if what you're saying doesn't map to a fear or a need, why do you need that piece in the book? Also, writing this list could help you discover that there is a need or a fear you didn't realize your reader has, but you were addressing anyway because you inherently know who your reader is. Sometimes we find our authors are so dang close to their material they they don't even know all the cool stuff that they know. And getting close to your reader, understanding and knowing the fears and needs isn't just important to writing your book, it's vital to marketing your book. Because if you nail those pieces, I can assure you that when you're doing outreach or a company like Book Launchers is doing your outreach for speaking, podcasts, media and more, hitting those fears and needs hard with a pitch will make you stand out and be in demand with people who have your ideal reader in their audience. Now Chad also had some advice for when you're reviewing your draft, this is a pretty cool tip. Go through each chapter and highlight the sentence where you state the problem for the reader. Then in that same chapter, find and highlight the sentence where you provide the solution. If you can't find it, then you need to put it in and make it clear. Once you've ensured each chapter makes a promise and then delivers on it, you can of course remove the highlights. But how do you make sure your reader sees the olution? Well, add two to five bullet points at the end of each chapter that recap your main points, including your advice, suggestions and solutions. You don't want anyone to ever finish reading your book and go so what? The recap at the end works to make sure they don't miss the important points they need to take away from your manuscript. This is something I had to do with Self, Promote and Succeed because my chapters were so dense with strategy tactics, advice and stories to help you with your book marketing that it would be easy to finish a chapter and feel lost. So at the end of every chapter there's charts or points or bullet points of what you should take away. Perhaps more importantly, these recaps help your reader once they've read your book and are referring back to the chapter so they can apply that bit of wisdom you shared with them. Man, Chad is smart. I'm sure glad he's on my team. And and if you want him or some of my other incredible experts on your team, let's chat about your book. Go ahead and schedule a call@booklaunchers.com bookacall and let's see how we can help you bring your book to bestseller status and help you build a great brand with it. Okay, after this video, you might be looking for more writing support. This video is all about working with beta readers, which can be invaluable to your book's development if you use them well. Or this is the latest and greatest from the channel, so check it out or click on this one. I'll see you there.