How to Write Books that Inspire Change

If you want to write a book that inspires change in your readers, write it. The most important aspect of any inspirational book—one that inspires someone to action—is found in your desire—to write the book and to inspire others.

The authors of books that create positive movements feel called to do so. They feel a strong sense of purpose or mission. These feelings come across on the page as well as when they speak about their causes or their beliefs.

If you, too, feel this internal calling, this sense of purpose, this strong desire to write a book that creates positive change in  the lives of others or in the world, fulfill your purpose—and your potential.

You may still wonder, though, how best to write your book, how best to structure it. The  easiest way to figure out how to write a book that inspires change is to study books that have done so in the past. Consider picking up a copy of:

• The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism  by Andrew Harvey
• A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose  by Eckhart Tolle
• Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives by Dan Millman
• 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life by Cami Walker
• An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It by Al Gore
• Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life by Susan Forward and Craig Buck
• Embraced by the Light by Betty J. Eadie
• Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Consider their:

• Tone
• Tense
• Number of chapters
• Chapter length
• Page count
• Genre

Then consider your book idea. Begin working through the proposal process to determine its focus, unique angle, table of contents (list of chapters), and then write chapter summaries. (If you need help, check out this workbook.) Make your book unique to you and to your subject, but model it after some successful books that have inspired change.

If you would like to learn more about writing books that inspire change, listen to a recording of the recent teleseminar Deborah Levine Herman and I offered on the subject.  (Scroll down the page just a bit…)

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