Step One on this journey of writing a book is to figure out what you want to write about. Step Two is writing and editing the book. Step Three is sharing it with readers and the world. This article series is all about Step One, but it will also get you a long way toward finding your superfans and readers in Step Three. In part one and two, we covered what you’ll write about and why you’re credible to write it. If you’ve not read either, I recommend you read them first. In this part, we’ll tackle the key ingredient for selling your book — what’s in it for the readers. When you sit down to write a book, the one thing you must never forget is the reader. They are, after all, the end consumers of the product. You want them to not only read it, but love it, share it, highlight it, recommend it to others, and hear your intended message. So, how do you get them to do that? You answer the question of why readers should read your book. You answer their ‘why’ in what you discuss and how you discuss it. So, what does that look like?

Why Do Readers Pick up a Book?

Reading is subjective. What one reader likes, another could hate, be it your cover, your writing style, the formatting, or the stories you share within. You’ll never please all the readers all the time, and that’s okay, because there are plenty of readers out there. However, something you want to keep in the forefront of your mind is this: readers are selfish. People read books because of what it does for them, what they gain from content, not what writing it does for you. In fact, in a 2012 study by Pew Research entitled “Why People Like to Read,” 26% of respondents who had picked up a book said, “what they enjoyed the most was learning, gaining knowledge, and discovering information.” While it’s an old study, its findings are still valid today, especially for nonfiction books. If you fail to ask yourself what that reader will take away knowing, thinking, or having learned from reading your book, you’ll not only fail your readers but also yourself. Self-absorption is great when you’re brainstorming your book, but not so great when you’re actually writing it. Readers don’t care about you; they care about themselves and what they get from your book. After all, it’s their hard-earned money they’re spending. You have to keep that in mind when presenting your material or you could end up confusing, boring, or annoying them. Those three outcomes are the quickest way to alienate your reader.

Tell Them Stories

While the reader is important when picking the topic of your book — after all, you want an audience with interest in it — keeping the reader in mind when you’re writing the book is crucial. And the key way to do that is to make sure you include stories. Human beings are hardwired to learn from, retain, and identify with stories. Stories:

• Engage the listener at an emotional level, which helps retain attention and keeps information flowing into their brains;
• Transport the reader, which increases the possibility for empathy and creates trust; and,
• Change attitudes, beliefs, values, knowledge, and behavior.

When you craft your chapters, don’t forget the stories. These could be your stories or other people’s stories. These could be hypothetical stories or a composite of multiple stories created to illustrate your point. It only matters that you include them. And yes, this applies to theory- or research-heavy nonfiction as well. If you want to reach readers and have them retain your content, you have to tell them stories.

Give Them Takeaways

The other key thing you want to include in your book are the takeaways. This is the gumball that drops after the reader puts a quarter in the machine. Don’t be that author that lets the reader walk away empty-handed. For memoirs, readers will learn from your experiences, even if they never face something similar. They also can be empowered or inspired simply by reading your story and processing how you handled your life. Yes, they may be more entertained than educated, but they will still walk away with having learned something. For creative and standard nonfiction, how you present the material depends on how the lessons appear. The lessons could be woven into the chapter material and presented as answers to questions you have that you’re answering or that you think the reader may have. Other times, they could be questions you ask the reader to think about or specific tasks you ask them to undertake. In short, the takeaways could be explicitly or implicitly stated. It doesn’t matter if it’s one or the other, or a mix of the two. It only matters that you include them. Also, reiteration is your friend. Repeating the chapter’s lesson at the conclusion of the chapter and the book helps the reader retain the lessons much easier than if you just state it once. It’s even better if you’re able to weave lessons into the chapters in subtle ways and build upon them (but don’t keep hammering them home; it can be annoying for the reader). If you don’t tell the reader what they should get from your book, if you don’t give them the core thoughts you want them to walk away knowing when they’re done with your book, you’ve not created a book that will stick. If it doesn’t stick, the reader won’t recommend it, share it, talk about it, or think about it again. You want readers to remember your book, but more importantly, you want readers to be impacted by it. Including takeaways will do that for you.

Final Thoughts

There are many reasons someone will put down a book. It could be the tone, the perspective, the way you approach the topic, or that life got in the way and they didn’t pick up your book again. Some of this is subjective and personal to the reader and you can’t control it. What you can control is your why. If your goal is to put your story out there and you don’t care who reads it or if they get anything from it, great. Stop reading and go publish your story. However, most nonfiction writers want their readers to gain something from the telling — to learn something, to feel something, to be inspired, uplifted or to look deep within and explore their own thoughts and feelings. If you don’t know why your readers should read your book, if you fail to think of them when you craft your message, you’ll be less likely to hit that goal. If you don’t know what it is about the topic that inspires you to plonk away at a keyboard for weeks and months, you’ll be less likely to finish the book. And if you don’t give your readers a reward, some dopamine, or even a cookie for reading your book, the message you’ve spent months crafting will go unheard. Good nonfiction is relatable and is written for the reader, not the writer. Great nonfiction entertains, enthralls, creates discussion (internal or external), and is written with the reader in mind. It doesn’t take long to determine why this book, why you, and why someone should read it. Ask the why questions so that readers hear what you have to say and can feel it. Or do it so that your book won’t be one I decide to dissect on my editing table. I’m very good with my (metaphorical) scalpel.

---

Cassandra Stirling writes about nonfiction, memoir, and fiction writing tips, book reviews, and random deeper thoughts on writing. You can find all her writing at cassandracstirling.medium.com. Her urban fantasy series, The Space Between, is available at all major retailers.

We all want to write a book people will read. For fiction authors, the goal is to entertain, enthrall, and occasionally educate. For nonfiction authors, the goal is (usually) to impart some wisdom, help a reader who may be in a similar situation, help the reader improve themselves, or educate. In Part 1 of this series, the big question to answer is: what is it about this topic that makes your perspective unique? Or in business speak, what is your unique selling proposition? If you haven’t read it, I recommend you go back and do so. In this part, I’ll cover the second question: why are you writing this book? Knowing what you’re bringing to the table will keep you motivated to not only write the book but also to sell it. Yes, you not only sell the topic when you market the book, but also yourself. Writing a book is scary. Not only is it a big undertaking requiring many hours of work, but you also have to put it out there for others to read. While writing a manuscript and giving it to an editor, beta reader, friend, or anonymous stranger to read, you’ll most likely face the big writing fear — impostor syndrome.

What is Impostor Syndrome?

Even when you know the content going into your book, you can still question your ability to write it. Most writers, except for those unicorns out there, face impostor syndrome at some (okay, many) points in their careers. Impostor syndrome can be as small as “I don’t think my grammar is good,” to as large as “my writing sucks,” “I have nothing to say,” “no one will read it,” “who will listen to me,” etc. It also sneaks up on you just when you think you have it foiled and/or just had a big win. Individuals facing impostor syndrome feel “their achievements are undeserved and worry that they are likely to be exposed as a fraud,” according to a 2011 study by Jaruwan Sakulki and James Alexander entitled “The Imposter Phenomenon,” which is based on Dr. Pauline’s groundbreaking study in 1985 on the topic. Intellectual fraud is an obstacle many writers I have worked with have faced, even if they have spent their entire careers working in the field in which they are writing. I’ll say that again — they are successful at their topic and still feel like a fraud when they sit down to write about it. It’s a tricky beast and can paralyze you from finishing your book. While this article isn’t about how to overcome impostor syndrome, reminding yourself why you are an authority on this topic can help combat it. Remember your successes — that first chapter, finding the perfect piece of research, or nailing an interview — and use that as a springboard to keep you moving forward. I also recommend making sure you have a support system in place to remind you how much you’ve accomplished. This can be another writer, a family member, a friend, a mentor, or a combination thereof. The person(s) in this role can give you examples of what you’ve overcome, your successes, and your desire for the book you’re sitting down to write. Knowing why you feel qualified to write your book will go a long way to help you combat impostor syndrome. It will also give you a better idea as to how much external research you’ll need to do to make the book credible for your readers.

Authority & Credibility

If you ask any random human out there what makes one book credible over the other, they’ll always start with the author and their credentials for writing about the topic. Being a respected contributor in the field is one way to determine that, but you can also be credible if it’s your life story, your experiences, and/or you’ve done the research. When you get to this part of the question, what you want to ask yourself is: What is it about your experiences, life, way of thinking, or perception of the world or this topic that makes it necessary for you to write this book? What is it that makes your idea and the way you present it special? If you’ve read the first article in this series, I’m sure you’re wondering how that is different from the unique selling proposition of your topic. The difference is this: the answer to the first question is what you’re writing about; the answer to the second question (this one) is how you’re going to write it. It’s about your voice, your perspective, and what your experience brings to the content, rather than the uniqueness of the content itself. To add clarity, let’s look at a few examples. Writer A and writer B are both writing about the sex life of ants.

• Writer A wants to discuss how the ants’ behavior impacts their society in the colony.
• Writer B wants to discuss the biological implications of an ant’s sex life across the forest in which they live.

It’s the same topic, but not the same approach — the unique what of the book. Now, let’s break down the two writers and their credibility to write them — the why you part of the discussion.

• Writer A is a sociologist, who has studied a variety of sociological topics, including those of insects.
• Writer B is a biologist, who has studied the long-term impacts of the natural world.

Let’s add a nuance:

• Writer A is a PhD student. They’ve published a few papers and are working on their dissertation. They’ve done the research and they’ve extrapolated the data, but have no real world experience outside of their university years.
• Writer B has a Bachelor’s in Science. They’ve spent their careers working in research institutes and have helped out on numerous studies. They also have access to some of the top scientists in the field to interview and add to their research material in their book.

Are both credible? Yes. Your credibility to write about the topic doesn’t have to be a degree or years of study, even though you (and your impostor syndrome sidekick) may think you do. For those writers who don’t have experience in the field (either research or work experience), you can still be credible as long as you include people who are authorities in the book. This could be quotes from their work, books, or appearances, or you could also conduct interviews. In other words, you get your authority by the credible sources you include in the book. For memoir writers, you have the easiest response to this question, because you’ve lived the experience you’re writing about. You may still want to interview those who were in your life at that particular time, though, to make sure your memory of the moment is as accurate as possible. For creative nonfiction writers, you fall somewhere in the middle and it depends how creative you want to be. If you lean more heavily on the narrative side, follow the memoir writer’s advice. If you lean more on the nonfiction side, follow the nonfiction’s advice. It’s more about balance in your case, since you straddle the line. The most important thing to remember when tackling this question is why you feel you have what it takes to present the topic properly, no matter how you get there. As long as you have the goods, readers will see you as credible.

Final Thoughts

One of the key roles I play as a writing coach and development editor has nothing to do with the writing and everything to do with the writer. I’m there to cheer them on, nudge them when they’re not getting the work done, and remind them of how much they’ve accomplished so far. And it almost always includes their authority on the topic, which is why this question is just as important as what topic they’re writing about. Now that you know why this topic and why you, the next question is crucial. The most important part? It’s not about you at all, but it’s arguably the most important one of the bunch. Stay tuned for the last and final question in this series: Why should readers read your book? (aka what’s in it for them?). It’s a doozy.

---

Cassandra Stirling writes about nonfiction, memoir, and fiction writing tips, book reviews, and random deeper thoughts on writing. You can find all her writing at cassandracstirling.medium.com. Her urban fantasy series, The Space Between, is available at all major retailers.

I have random piles of books scattered throughout my house that I’m planning on donating. Some were gifts, some impulse buys, but most (unfortunately) are nonfiction. I’m a re-reader, whether that is fiction, mystery, or nonfiction. I’ve got nonfiction books on my shelf that, when I first read them, I poured over the first part, skimmed the second, and cherry-picked points out of the third. Only to find myself returning years later in a different point in life where the second and third parts spoke to me instead. That’s the beauty of nonfiction (and fiction too). Sometimes the sections of the book that appeal to you when you first pick it up won’t appeal to you later, but something else will. What I don’t like, however, is picking up a nonfiction book and thinking it is the topic for me, only to put it down after I read most of the first chapter. When this initially happens, I give the book another chance at a separate time. It could be my current mindset or that it doesn’t resonate with me yet. If the second read also fails, then something else is wrong with the book (for me). At this point, I peel it apart with my editor tools and typically find that it wasn’t my perspective or mindset that stopped my engagement; it was the entire book. But what wasn’t working, and how can it be improved? @cass

Intent & Failure to Capture

When writers craft a nonfiction novel about their experiences, life events, or research, their intent is (I hope) for good. They want to share their story, thinking, or experiences and hope others can learn from it. How you as the author present that material — creative nonfiction, memoir or general nonfiction — is important not only to convey your ideas but also to appeal to the reader. You can have all the best intentions in the world, but you will fall short if you forget who you’re writing for and why you are writing it. This is what I find to be the biggest mistake nonfiction writers make — they don’t ask their why questions: Why you, why this book, and why readers should read it. Fail to answer any of these and you can end up with a so-so book that readers like me set down after the initial thrill and never pick up again. Fixing a disconnected nonfiction book is boiled down to answering a few important questions before you start writing. You can do this by journaling, navel gazing, taking a walk, or being tortured by a toddler. The questions are these:

• Why are you writing this book?
• Why are you writing this book?
• Why should readers read your book?

In the first part of this article series, I’ll tackle the first question on why you’re writing about this topic. It seems simple, but there is more than one question to answer about the topic you have chosen. You want to know why you picked the topic, because knowing the motivation behind the choice of topic will keep you on track to finish the book. Second, it will frame the way you write about the topic, or your author’s voice. And third, it will determine the type of material you’ll need to gather in order to write it. Let’s get into it.

Motivation & the Finishing Line

There’s a statistic floating around the web that has no attributing source, but it’s this: Only 3% of writers ever finish their first draft. While the statistic might be inaccurate, the reasons behind it aren’t. Writing a book is hard. Sitting down to pound out word after word on your computer can be arduous. Writer’s block, distractions, and not knowing where to even start are compounded by life, family, and work. Add to that a topic you’re not very enthusiastic about, or a topic requiring a lot of research (some of it tedious), or a topic with which you don’t emotionally connect, or any other reason that makes sitting down to write difficult, and you’ve created a procrastination monster. Let’s say, however, you power through and get that first draft done. Great! Except . . . the first draft is just that — the first draft. It’s where you figure out how you want to write about the topic and what you cover. Then, you have 1,572 thousand edit passes in front of you to tighten the language, rearrange the content, clarify your points, and fix those pesky grammar errors. (It’s not 1,572 edit passes, but it’ll feel like it when you’re done). Add in an idea you’re not jazzed about . . . and you get the idea. Before you begin to write, you should ask yourself the following:

• What is it about this moment, this topic, these stories, this research, etc., that begs you to put it down on paper? Does it inspire you? Thrill you? Make you want to a spend hours down a research rabbit hole?
• What’s your unique selling proposition for your book? I.e, what is it about your perspective that makes the idea unique? What will make your book stand out from the others like it on the shelf?

If you can’t answer these questions within a few minutes of asking them (even if you’re not completely coherent), then you shouldn’t write the book yet. Spend more time and break the idea down or split it into different parts to see what it is that really excites you. And then, go write the book about that. Your passion and enthusiasm for your topic will be tested throughout the writing and publishing phase, so if you’re choosing a topic because it’s trendy but aren’t excited about, you might want to think again. Thus, be clear on why you’re writing this book specifically and not some random book on the sex life of ants. What is it about the topic, the way you want to present it, or the experiences you’ve had that make it worth your time to write? Once you’ve gotten that down, the next question is what narrative type will the book be.

Structure and Materials

Knowing what kind of book — memoir, creative nonfiction, nonfiction — and the topic you’re writing about will guide you as to narrative style, what your initial stories could be, and what materials you need to gather for it. The narrative could be heavily personal (memoirs, for example), partially personal (creative nonfiction, for example), heavy research and/or interviews of credible sources in the space (nonfiction), or a mix of personal stories and research. Once you answer this question or at least attempt to, the next part of the journey is made more clear — what material you need to have at your fingertips as you begin to write. Preparing for your writing session will make them more productive and keep you going back for more. For example, a memoir will be filled with personal stories, but you may need to talk to the people in your life to refresh your memory, read your journals, dig through travel research, etc. For creative nonfiction, it could be personal stories and also research on the topic (either external research or interviews). For nonfiction, you may need to do a lot of research first before you sit down to write. A formula that has always helped me get my butt in the chair is this: Action (writing your first nugget or story) equals momentum (the ability to keep going) and momentum equals passion (the desire or eagerness to do it more than once). This is how you get that book finished. One last thing. You don’t need to know what the book structure (narrative style, chapters, themes, etc.) will be before you start writing it. Many writers figure that out along the way or when working with a development editor. It will help you, however, to figure out what kind of stories to write and what materials you’ll need to gather before you start. This, in turn, will help you figure out how much time each week you’ll need for writing and how much you’ll need for research. Knowing how much time you’ll need to set aside to write the book will keep you on track. If you don’t set aside time on a consistent basis, you’ll make inconsistent progress and won’t create the momentum you need to finish. While writing every day is ideal, you don’t need to write every day to finish a book. However, you do need to be as consistent as possible when writing so you finish the manuscript. Neil Gaiman wrote Coraline while writing another book. He didn’t have a lot of time, so he wrote it with just fifty words a day. If you’re aiming for a 40,000 word book, that’s just over two years of work. It’s not fast, but it will be finished, which is the goal, right?

Final Thoughts

There are many reasons someone will put down your book. It could be the tone, the perspective, the way you approach the topic, or that life got in the way and they didn’t pick up your book again. Some of this is subjective and personal to the reader, and you can’t control it. What you can control is your why. Most writers I work with are jazzed the more they discover about their topic when writing their manuscripts. It fuels them when they get stuck, are overwhelmed by life, or mired in the saggy middle of the book. It keeps them going when they’re on their third revision and sick of reading their own words. It’s something to celebrate when they finally see it in print. Writing is hard. Finishing a book is even harder. If you don’t know what it is about the topic that inspires you to plonk away at a keyboard for weeks and months, you’ll be less likely to finish the book. Knowing what you want to write, preparing yourself for the writing process, and being consistent in getting the words down on the paper will help you achieve your goal of writing a book. Being clear on why this topic will keep you motivated to come back for more, even when you don’t think you can. I really want you to finish the book you’re dreaming up, even if I’ll never read it. Because someone else out there needs it, wants it, or will learn from that book, and if you don’t write it, they can’t. Pick your topic wisely and go forth to do great things. In part two of this series, we’ll cover the second question: why are you writing this book? This won’t inform the topic, but it will inform how you tackle the materials and what you bring to the table.

---

Cassandra Stirling writes about nonfiction, memoir, and fiction writing tips, book reviews, and random deeper thoughts on writing. You can find all her writing at cassandracstirling.medium.com. Her urban fantasy series, The Space Between, is available at all major retailers.