Writing a self-help book can be an extremely rewarding experience. You’re sharing your experience and knowledge to help other people improve their lives. When writing a self-help book, ultimately the content you produce will be dependent on the goals of your book and how you want to help your audience, whether it be to inform, educate, motivate or influence, or perhaps a combination of these.
There are a few core techniques, however, to keep in mind when writing a self-help book. Read on to find more.
1. Write in an Easy to Understand Manner
When readers read a self-help book, they expect the advice and tips in it to be easy to understand. Indeed, a self-book that confuses readers has ultimately failed in its impact. Therefore, use simple English and straightforward sentence structure. There isn’t anything wrong with using a conversational tone when writing a self-help book.
2. Explain Jargon
For all the efforts you make to keep your language easy to understand, there will be certain terms and acronyms that you won’t be able to avoid. All fields of interest have certain terminology unique to them. Therefore, when you’re explaining certain concepts and need to mention sector-specific terminology, remember to describe the meaning of the term simply. If there are many such terms, it might be worth including a glossary in your self-help book.
3. Explain the What and the How
Ever read a self-help book which promised wonderful insights? You know the one where you started to read it and the writer had you hooked right from the start. The material explained 25 things that you should do to improve your life.
You continued quickly reading through the book until you came to the end, and 250 pages later you didn’t actually learn how to improve your life? Well, the market is flooded with such self-help books. They can be a wonderful source of motivation. However, they lack the desired explanations of exactly what the reader needs to do.
When writing a self-help book, remember to describe what the reader needs to do to improve his/her situation and a description of practical steps to implement the actions needed. This can include lots of exercises, which the reader can do in his/her own time.
4. Provide Lots of Examples
When you are describing self-help concepts, providing simple, real-life examples is of the utmost importance. It is at this point to include anecdotes from your own life (if you’re sharing how you overcame the struggles you know your reader is facing), to really bring the material to life. Use examples of other people, either in your own life, or well-known individuals who have applied certain principles in their lives, and how their situations improved.
5. Make Use of Hypothetical Characters
Another way in which you can use examples is when you’re describing a practical technique, which the reader can do. Not only include a detailed description of the steps the person needs to take, also make use of hypothetical characters carrying out the same steps and the outcomes they achieved. This will enable your readers to relate to the characters.
Image credit: Lisa Padilla on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0