How To Outline A Non-Fiction Book – Assignment 1

In the previous two posts I talked about the 7 Reasons Non-Fiction Writers Should Outline Their Books, and then I talked about the unique circumstances that led me to create (and subsequently refine) the dynamic outlining system for non-fiction that I use.

How To Outline A Non-Fiction Book

Over the next series of posts we’re going to dive into that system in enough detail so that if you want to write a book you can use this system to create a detailed structural outline that will maximise the chances of you successfully completing your book.

How To Use This Series Of Posts

The best way to learn anything – or test anything – is to actually use it. So I highly recommend that you copy and paste the questions to a new Scrivener project – or a word doc if you haven’t yet invested in Scrivener – and spend some time answering the questions.

Each stage of the process has a series of questions that you – the author – need to answer. Each of your answers will take you a step closer towards completing your structural outline.

The questions will be presented first – and then I’ll go through each of the questions and give you guidance notes on how to answer the questions

The Questions For Assignment 1

1. What is your book about?
2. Who is your book’s intended audience?
3. What will your book’s audience be able to do once they’ve learned what you’re teaching them in your book?
4. How will your book’s audience actually implement the teaching in your book?
5. Why are you writing your book?
6. What similar books have already been written/published?

Ok, so those are the questions. Let’s move on to the guidance notes.

Guidance Notes – General

These questions are designed so that the process of answering them solidifies the initial thoughts you have about writing a particular book.

Answering these questions before you start planning it will also make you think about other aspects of the book before you start writing it.

Each of the questions can be answered succinctly or at length. And I’ll write soon about the concept of a ‘slow outline’ and it’s important to realize that you don’t necessarily have to blaze through this material as quickly as possible.

If you take it more slowly, your subconscious will make more connections between your material and give you more ideas. If that happens then you can circle back and layer that material into the dynamic outlining process.

Guidance Notes – What Is Your Book About?

This question is intended for you to write down a few paragraphs answering what your book is about.

You can write down an overall summary. You can write down bullet points of topics you want to include – or think you should include at this stage.

Don’t worry about being ultra specific here – unless of course you already have an ultra specific and ultra targeted idea! – but concentrate on getting ideas on paper. Future assignments will focus on drilling down to the core idea and the associated topics needed to support that core idea.

Guidance Notes – Who Is Your Book’s Intended Audience

Understanding who your ideal audience is going to be for your book helps you outline a book that will meet their needs.

If you already have an existing audience – and even better, an existing list of customers – picking one of those people to write the book for will ensure that you write a focused book.

If you pick a person who typifies your audience then not only will your finished book be a good fit for the person you wrote it for, it will also be a good fit for your wider audience.

This process shouldn’t be confused with ‘avatars’ – it’s subtly different than using an avatar. The person that you write your book for is called a Target Profile.

One thing that is great about having a Target Profile is that you can contact them – via email or phone or Skype – and ask them questions about their level of knowledge on the topic that you are writing about.

Their answers – and their questions – will improve your outline.

Guidance Notes – What Will Your Book’s Audience Be Able To Do Once they’ve Learned What You’re Teaching Them?

This is an important question.

Write down what your audience will be able to do once they’ve learned what you are teaching and have worked out how to implement it.

This is the reason that people will be buying your book. Or investing their time in implementing what you are teaching.

It’s crucial to have clarity on what you want your audience to achieve with the help of your book.

Guidance Notes – How Will Your Book’s Audience Implement The Teaching In Your Book?

There are a gazillion non-fiction books out there that suffer from an implementation gap. (I’ll write more about this topic on The Spoon soon….)

An Implementation Gap happens once you read a book, get to the top of it, and there’s such a lot material in it that you simply don’t know where to start out to truly implement it.

When that happens here’s what 95% of your audience do: they put the book down or go on to another book and never put what you taught them into practice.

You want people to implement your material for two reasons: (1) if they implement your teaching and get results you’ll get repeat buyers for future books and courses; (2) if they implement your teaching and get results they’ll tell people just like them all about your book and the results they get.

Both of these reasons will lead to more sales in the future. If you have any commercial considerations or ambitions involved with your writing….you need repeat buyers and you need word of mouth.

So plan exactly how your audience will take your material and implement it. Make notes at this stage as to ways you can help them.

Guidance Notes – Why Are You Writing Your Book?

Make a list of the reasons why you want to write this book. Be honest.

Is it for money? Or fame? To leave a legacy? To teach a skill? What are the reasons you are planning to write this book?

Write them all down.

Then reorder them from the most important to you, to the least important. (This really helps if you have two or more ideas and are not sure which idea to proceed with.)

Guidance Notes – What Similar Books Have Already Been Written/Published

This is a market research question.

If there are already similar books out there then take a few minutes to make a list of them (and copy the URL where you can find the book at Amazon).

If one of your answers in the previous question – why are you writing your book? – included a commercial consideration then you might want to make a note of current Sales Ranking on Amazon.

This can be used to give you a rough guide as to the number of copies you might expect to sell.

The other notes you need to make are a brief description of how each of these books is similar to yours, what’s different, and what you think they’ve missed out. Reading some of the Amazon Reviews is good market research in this period.

Caveat – What To Do If You Have More Than One Book Idea And Are Not Sure Which One To Pick?

If you have several ideas you should repeat Assignment 1 for each idea.

When you have done the Assignment for each of the ideas that you have, then have a think and write down on a piece of paper your goal or goals when it comes to why you are writing non-fiction books.

If you have multiple goals for why you want to write the books you want to write, then order them from the viewpoint of what’s most important to you.

It should then be straightforward to compare each of the answers you’ve put under Question 5 – which is ‘Why Are You Writing This Book’ – with the most important goal on the goals list you just made.

And you’ll either have a clear winner or a tie.

If you have a clear winner…then you can safely move onto Assignment 2.

If you have a tie, then pick the project that you’re most passionate about. And move onto Assignment 2.

Summary

This is the first Assignment of my dynamic book outlining system.

There are 6 questions to answer – and the answers to each question are important for different reasons. The six questions are:

1. What is your book about?
2. Who is your book’s intended audience?
3. What will your book’s audience be able to do once they’ve learned what you’re teaching them in your book?
4. How will your book’s audience actually implement the teaching in your book?
5. Why are you writing your book?
6. What similar books have already been written/published?

This is a ‘brainstorming’ stage and is the first part of the process of taking the idea in your head and transferring it to your computer.

We also talked about what to do if you have more than one idea for a book and don’t know which one to work on first.

Assignment 2

Assignment 2 of the dynamic outlining process will be along in a few days.