Writing nonfiction books is different from writing fiction books. Nonfiction is made up of real-life events, places, and people, unlike fiction where the places, people, and events are made up by the author.
This, therefore, implies that the facts written in a nonfiction text can be verified by others, including the readers.
As a result, there is a need to ensure the correctness of every fact in the text. Let’s guide you through the steps to writing nonfiction books.
Choose a Subject Matter
Writing non-fiction involves writing about things, people and places that really exist.
In your day-to-day activities, there are so many things that could pique your interest. You can write about such things. There are also several people whose lives could interest you, so much so that you decide to document them in your nonfiction book.
Choose someone or something to write about. It is best if you choose a subject matter that you have substantial information on.
Brainstorm
Having chosen a subject matter for your nonfiction book, your next move is to brainstorm. What does it mean to brainstorm? Brainstorming is the act of thinking about an idea.
When you brainstorm, your perspective should be all-encompassing, particularly if you intend to capture every aspect of the chosen topic. For effective brainstorming, stay in a quiet place by yourself, and concentrate on the topic at hand.
Write down all ideas that come to mind as you brainstorm. You may find some of those ideas useful as you go about the business of writing nonfiction books.
Draft a Skeleton
The next step to writing nonfiction books is drafting the skeleton. The skeleton of your book is the framework that guides you through the sequence your text will take.
In order to have a skeletal framework for your book, write down ideas and facts that come to mind during your brainstorming session. After writing down those ideas, arrange them sequentially.
Having a framework for your book makes your writing more organized. It also helps ideas flow.
Conduct a Research
Bearing in mind that your book is a nonfictional text, you have to research the people, things, places, and historical times that you would discuss in your book. History books would be very useful to you, for this purpose.
You could also interview scholars of history, people who experienced the events you are going to discuss in your text, as well as the people who are the actual subject matter of your nonfiction book.
Dates and times must be correct, and so must names and places. Verify facts using several sources. Stay away from embellishments of facts, as this could destroy the credibility of your content.
In-depth research is one of the steps that makes writing nonfiction books unique.
Write the First Draft
You now have the materials you need, and you have your skeletal framework. Let the writing begin. Using your skeletal framework as a guide, start writing about the topic you have chosen.
Write as it comes to mind. Don’t constrict the flow; just write without reservations. Ignore the incorrect spellings, there will be time to correct them later.
When writing your first draft, don’t worry about whether the subtopics follow each other cohesively or whether you need to rearrange them. All that will be taken care of at a later time.
Your focus at this stage of writing your nonfiction book is to get all your ideas out on paper or computer, as the case may be.
Add to the First Draft
After writing the first draft of your book, you are likely to get more ideas. New information may come your way, and you may get some infographics to add to your nonfiction book, in order to boost it and make it a more reliable source of information.
At this stage, you could write more chapters and add flesh to the chapters you have already written. More ideas will come to you in the process of writing nonfiction stories.
Read Through
It is important to read through your manuscript after writing nonfiction books or any other kind of book for that matter.
Go through your manuscript, when you are satisfied that you have put down all the ideas and information you want your nonfiction book to contain. Read from page to page, and from chapter to chapter.
Check if your book says what you intended to say, when you began writing it.
Are your chapters appropriately named? Does one chapter repeat what the previous one has already said, such that it is better you merge the contents into one chapter?
Do your ideas flow in a cohesive manner? Does your book title capture the essence of your content? These are questions that you should ask yourself at this stage of writing your book.
The purpose of reading through your manuscript is to look at it critically and with unbiased eyes, like a critic or a reader would. Make corrections in areas where ideas are unnecessarily repeated or subtopics do not flow cohesively.
Your book cover, dedication, and other secondary parts of your book should be ready at this time. Think of this as your last chance to make your book what you want it to be, before moving on to the next stage.
Send your Manuscript to an Editor
Some writers skip this step after writing nonfiction books, only to find out that editing is a very vital part of the writing process.
When you have written all that you want to, and you are done arranging, rearranging, deleting and adding content, it’s time to invite another pair of eyes.
Send your manuscript to professional editors like us at My Sharp Pen Editing Services who would pore through every word and every page of your nonfiction book to ensure that misspellings, lack of punctuation or misused punctuation marks, grammatical errors and other mistakes that may be in your manuscript are corrected.
In the course of editing your manuscript, the editor is likely to contact you from time to time, so keep the communication lines open.
Publish your Nonfiction Book
This is the final step you would take when writing nonfiction books.
After your manuscript has undergone the scrutiny and corrections of an editor, it is time to hit the publish button. You could have your book published as a hard copy, an ebook, or in some other format.
It is also possible to have various formats of your book published at the same time.
You are officially a published author, once your book is published. Congratulations.
Writing a nonfiction book is like documenting information that is common knowledge. It takes verification of facts and even the tiniest details.
Hopefully, this article has given you some guidance on the steps to writing nonfiction books.
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