If you feel called or compelled to write about a certain topic or you feel it fulfills your sense of purpose, you probably want to publish transformational or inspirational books. Maybe you want to start a movement with your book, or you hope your book will support a cause. You may want to write a book that helps individuals change their lives, that supports organizational improvement or that provides a solution to some world problem. This type of nonfiction book encourages meaningful and positive change on some level, and I call those who write them “authors of change.”
If you plan to become such an author, more power to you! The world needs change agents. But how do you “author change”? How do you write a transformational book, one you might find in the body-mind-spirit or inspirational category?
Here are a few tips to help you write just such a book. These tips apply to most prescriptive nonfiction book as well, which means any book that tells you “how to” do something.
Use Your Expertise
Experts usually write change-inspiring nonfiction books. However, your life experience might qualify you as an expert. These authors write with warmth and authority at the same time, providing a convincing argument for taking up whatever change they pose.
Thus, you must either have expertise or draw on the expertise of others. You could interview experts or draw on research if you are not a thought leader in your own right. Even a foreword written by an expert might give you and your book the credibility it needs.
The voices of these authors are authentic. They write from a place of true knowing and experience. You want to write in such a way that readers feel they know and trust you. Your voice should be one of a sought-after advisor or friend. That’s why they will do what you suggest—change, take up your cause, join your movement.
Find a Need
None of us like to change—even when we know we need to do so. Yet, there are lots of reasons to change. Take weight loss, for example. Most people who need or want to lose weight try many diets. Why? The diets don’t work because they don’t really want to change their habits. They may want to lose weight but they don’t want to eat differently or less. That’s why so many diet books exist.
No matter what topic you choose to write about, be certain you address a need in your target market. That need could be for a solution, for an answer, for hope, for inspiration, or for relief.
Address the Need in a Unique Way
Once you find a need, address it in a unique way. Another diet book just like 1,000 others isn’t going to convince anyone to lose weight. If you offer that particular target market a new way to lose weight, you might have a bestseller. Find a different way to ease readers’ pain. Angle your book so it’s becomes the one solution your target market has been seeking and has not yet been offered, the one answer they will pay anything to receive.
Create a Logical Structure
Now that you know the angle from which you will cover the subject of your transformational book, determine what content you’ll include. Although I suggest you write a business plan for your book to ensure you produce a marketable idea, the easiest next step involves creating a table of contents. This should provide a clear and logical map from your premise—the reason why readers should change and an explanation of how you will help them do so—through the actual steps required to change. No rocket science here. Keep things simple.
When potential readers look at your table of contents, they should easily discern the content your book will deliver and the benefit they will receive. If you accomplish this with your chapter titles, as well as with subtitles throughout your chapters (planned when you create your table of contents), you will have an easy time writing your book. It also makes the book and easy read.
In my book, The Author Training Manual: Develop Marketable Ideas, Craft Books That Sell, Become the Author Publishers Want, and Self-Publish Effectively, I tell writers to continue the planning process at this point with chapter summaries. This helps you flesh out your content further.
Inspire and Transform
Now it’s time to write. That means you must make good on your promise to inspire readers to change, to join your cause or movement or to be transformed in some way. Your manuscript must actually provide benefit and value. Make sure you actually give readers research, data, steps, ways, and generally sound information to help them change.
You can do this with an inspirational novel, a memoir, creative nonfiction, or prescriptive nonfiction. But do it…write your change-inspiring book. Transform lives with a book.
If you’ve wanted to do just that—to write a book that meaningfully and positively impacts readers’ lives, don’t wait even one more day. Join the Write-Your-Transformational-Book Challenge today.
This 3-month program offers you a do-able plan, accountability and live coaching so you complete the first draft of your transformational book by the end of July. No more excuses. Get one HUGE step closer to authoring the change you want to see in the world…in just three months.
Click here to register or to find out more about the Write-Your-Transformational-Book Challenge. But don’t wait. The course begins tonight, May 5, at 5 p.m. PT, and I only have room for seven more authors of change…Will you become one of them?
photo credit: SomeDriftwood via photopin cc
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