nonfiction writing
Nonfiction Authors: Make Your Content Actionable
September 14, 2010
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by Shennandoah Diaz
There are many qualities that make a piece of nonfiction great. Style, voice, and organization all come together to form asolid work that flows well and educates the reader. However, to truly be powerful, the content of your nonfiction piece must also be actionable.
Actionable content tells readers what they need to do to incorporate the information in your book into their existing habits. It’s what takes your work from being insightful to being truly educational, which is what will ultimately be of the greatest benefit to the reader. In this respect the author is a teacher, showing people ways they can improve their businesses, get healthier, stay out of debt, or solve some other problem.
There are many different types of actionable content you can develop to include in your work:
- Quiz. Test the reader on key concepts by posting a small quiz at the end of a section.
- Self-assessment. Have readers assess their current behaviors and compare them to the habits you’ve introduced. You can then introduce them to ways to change their behavior (if necessary).
- Activity. Give readers an activity that engages them in the process of applying the information you just shared. For example, a health book could ask readers to pick one unhealthy food to eliminate from their diets that week. A business author could create a team-building exercise that the manager could apply at work that week.
- Sample problem. If you are educating people on ways to solve certain issues or make certain judgments, give them sample problems. For example, if you are writing a book on flipping houses, give your readers a scenario in which they would need to evaluate a property’s earning potential compared to the cost of improvements.
- Next steps. Now that they have the tools and ideas you introduced, give your readers the next steps they should take. Do they need to do more research? Then direct them to additional resources. Do they need to reallocate time or some other resource? Then tell them exactly how do go about doing it.
You can weave this actionable content throughout the work, placing in different areas depending on what makes sense for your book. For example, you can try the following approaches:
- Close each section with an assignment. After you have introduced the reader to a new concept or strategy, give them an activity they can do to either asses how they are working now or to start incorporating a new habit or thought process.
- Sprinkle them throughout. Have readers slowly build their skills throughout the book by having them do activities before, during, and after the introduction of each new concept.
- Put them at the end of the book. You can group all activities at the end as part of a “Next Steps” section or an appendix.
- Direct people to an accompanying workbook. You can group your book with a workbook. Special note: Workbooks don’t work well as standalone products. A book that thoroughly explains the concepts and strategies behind the activities you are teaching should accompany your workbook.
- Get interactive: Send readers to a website or other online destination that has activities for the reader.
Remember, when a reader is comparing your book to that of your closest competitor, he or she is looking for the one with the most value. Make readers’ decisions easy by giving them content they can immediately use to improve their business or personal life.
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Make Your Nonfiction Book Marketable: 4 Simple Ways to Craft Examples That Don't Bore Your Readers to Tears
September 12, 2007
by Lari Bishop
We've all had moments, often when talking to a parent, when a story veers off course and we have to suffer through a longwinded tale about the latest find at a yard sale, the pie Aunt Margie made, or an amazing new way to make money just by forwarding an email. (Sorry, Mom!) The story isn't relevant, illuminating, or engaging, so the listener checks out. Well, the same thing happens when an author makes readers wade through pointless, unimaginative, clichéd examples in the course of trying to learn something from a book. Many writers fail to realize that the elements that make an example or case study good are the same elements that make a story good.
Using examples in most works of nonfiction is a great way to illustrate a point, particularly when those examples follow the rules of good storytelling. Here are a few guidelines to help you offer your readers a chance to be informed, engaged, and maybe entertained.
1. Avoid Adding Fluff: If you aren't revealing something informative or interesting about your topic, why include an example at all? There's nothing worse than an irrelevant example that's thrown in because the author knows she needs examples and this is the best she could do. It's loosely tied to the subject, but readers quickly lose interest when they realize it's the written equivalent of dryer lint. Examples are only worth including if they enhance your reader's understanding of the topic or present a unique perspective on how to apply the information in the real world. If they're amusing, interesting, and engaging, all the better, but they must at least be relevant.
2. Try to Give Everybody Something: Think about your intended audience. While there may be a single unifying characteristic (interest in the love life of Albert Einstein, for example), there is also incredible variety in terms of interests, life experiences, basic demographics, and how much they care about what you're saying. Use your examples to reach that broad and varied audience, not to exclude or annoy readers. A key benefit of using examples is improving how readers relate to the information. So make sure your examples are engaging by including a variety of situations, characters, backgrounds, and perspectives.
3. Don't Overdo It: Yes, examples are great and can really enhance a reader's experience. And it's important to include a variety of examples to make sure that you aren't speaking to one potential reader. But if every other paragraph in your book is an example, readers will start skimming, no matter how good the examples. Readers bought your book because they want to learn something, so the majority of the content needs to be original thought and ideas on the subject. Examples should be supplemental, not the core of the content (unless your book is just a collection of case studies).
4. Be Original: There are some very funny stories out there about successes or failures and the strange things people do, but if you ever saw the story in a mass email, your probably shouldn't include it in your book, even if you've confirmed that it's true (unless your book is a collection of urban myths). If you've heard the story a few times and you can't remember exactly where, everybody else has probably heard it too. If the story has been covered repeatedly by every major newspaper and magazine, you may want to come up with a better option. The best examples and case studies are those that have people talking at cocktail parties--naming your book as the source. When it comes to examples, tried and true is not the safest route.
Follow these rules, and you'll be one step closer to an informative, engaging book that will have people talking.
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Keep It Clear: Nonfiction Writing for Clarity, Not Condescension
August 2, 2007
by GreenleafBookGroup
Anytime you’re writing nonfiction, it’s nice if you know a lot more about your topic than your audience does. That isn’t usually a problem—most of us write what we know. But how do you know your audience will get the point? And how do you avoid explaining too much and losing their attention? There’s a fine line between clarity and condescension—but you need to know where it is.
The best way to be sure that you haven’t over- or underexplained your topic is to find a couple of members of your target audience and have them read the part of your work in question. After they’ve read it, ask them a few questions—how long did it take? Did they ever lose interest or get lost? Is there any part that needs more explanation? Ask them to explain the concept back to you, then rework the piece to correct any problems.
This method is almost foolproof. But unfortunately, often a deadline doesn’t allow for focus groups and three rounds of revisions. When that’s the case, you still need to make sure your point is clear. Read the piece over yourself and imagine you have the same level of knowledge as your audience. Look at these specific areas:
Are there passages with heavy use of buzzwords or specialized vocabulary? Try to break up or rephrase them. Even readers familiar with the material can get lost in too much specialized language, and one misunderstanding on what the particular word of the moment means can unravel your entire argument for that reader.
Take a sample paragraph completely out of context and read through it. Does it still make sense? Is it clear why this information is being presented? If not, revise it, and do a few more spot-checks on other paragraphs. Readers who get lost need to be able to find firm ground to stand on soon after to help them work out what they don’t understand, and an argument that depends on immediate knowledge of pages and pages of information isn’t going to get your point across.
If the argument is complicated, try to keep your prose simple. There’s no reason to complicate it more with involved language. If you’re making a particularly crucial point, rephrase it or give an example of what you mean in the sentence immediately following to reinforce it.
To avoid sounding condescending, don’t define words or terms more than once. Give the explanation, then reinforce the meaning by using the word in context soon after and using synonyms in the surrounding text if you haven’t used it for a while. Repeat your key principles, but keep your reader engaged by using different words or making the key point a sort of “punchline” at the end of an example. The idea is to present the same information with enough variation that a reader who got it the first time won’t be bored, but a reader who didn’t has another chance to catch on. As a test, read the piece yourself. Do you find yourself skipping over certain passages? Condense them.
Finally, there’s really no substitute for a fresh pair of eyes. If you can’t get a member of your audience or a real live editor, ask someone you trust to tell you the truth. (This should not be Microsoft Word’s spellcheck function.) Don’t get upset if your pages come back covered in suggestions. You don’t have to take them all—you just have to think about them. Your reader stopped to tell you she had a problem. In the interests of clarity and respect for your audience, you owe your piece a second look.
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