What are some of the essential tips to write a successful self-help book? If you are thinking about writing a self-help book, then we have some amazing tips for you. Firstly, you will want to know how self-help books differ from others.
For instance, you should know that the primary thing that separates self-help from other book categories is its implicit objective to help its readers to fix their overall life. Start by generating topics for the book, such as advice, experiences from your own life, and interesting anecdotes about others. Keep it brief and straightforward so that each reader can add it to their list of things to accomplish and get started.
Essential Tips to Write a Successful Self-Help Book
For your first self-help book, you will want to consider the following tips to become successful at it.
1. Choose a Broad Subject
First, you shouldn’t be worrying about opting for a broad subject. The thing about self-help books is that they don’t have to be specific. Self-help books tend to be more about style, so instead of focusing on a very specific theme, you will want to focus on the things that you want your readers to walk away with.
Many self-help books have very general concepts, such as mindfulness and confidence – and still, they fly off the shelves. Most self-help books with general concepts tend to stand out and sell more because they have been written skillfully enough to imbue the readers with the confidence that they can do whatever the authors did.
Though the advice in these books could have been easily accessible from other sources, the readers walked away feeling confident about themselves and about the authors. So, you will want to be specific in your blogs to drive traffic to your book – that is if you are self-publishing.
You might as well want to know your options for choosing the best self-help publishers as a source of motivation and to know how other self-help writers have become successful at their craft. Nonetheless, the thing that you will want to focus on is that when it comes to writing a non-fiction category, choosing a general topic can be the ultimate reason for your book to sell and land in the hands of your intended readers.
2. Integrate Mandatory Action Steps
To write a self-help book successfully, you will want to ensure that each chapter comprises an action step. As an author of the self-help book, you have actively taken the job of guiding the readers to help themselves. And your readers obviously don’t know how to help themselves already.
With that said, for every chapter, you will want to give your readers an actionable step to follow so they can start their journey toward the endpoint that you promised them in your book.
Even though it might seem super obvious to you what your readers are supposed to do – it might not be that obvious to them, which is why they are reading your book. So, you will want to guide your readers through each chapter with actionable steps.
3. Don’t Avoid Repetition
When it comes to writing a self-help book, repetition isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The thing about self-help books is that, typically, these aren’t read in a single sitting. Self-help books are different than novels, and people like to take their time reading self-help books.
Often, the readers of self-help books will read this genre when they are commuting on public transport, in the doctor’s office waiting for an appointment, or right before bed. You get the point – your reader will be reading a chapter or a section of the book at a time and put it away before picking it up sometime in the future.
As an author, you will want to consider this aspect when structuring a book.
Because of the typical way that self-help book readers read their books, there is a great chance that they might need a gentle reminder about the things that you said in your previous chapters or when you are jotting down your actionable steps – you might want to consider that they might be reading about this actionable steps in the doctor’s office.
While designing your chapters, you will want to ensure that you make it easy for your readers to pick it up and go back to where you were giving your instructions and let your readers do the exercise at some later time.
When it comes to fiction, repetition is something that you will want to avoid at all costs. However, when it comes to non-fiction, especially self-help, you shouldn’t be afraid of repetition – especially – when you are guiding your readers through actionable steps.
4. Come Off as Relatable
When it comes to being successful with your self-help book, the thing that you will want to focus on is being relatable. It doesn’t matter what subject you have chosen for your self-help book; you will want to be relatable to your intended audience because if you aren’t relatable, then they will be turned off and will not want to continue reading your book.
You will want your readers to benefit from your book, which is where the importance of being relatable comes in. Your audience isn’t necessarily picking up your book to read about you – but about your theme. With a self-help book, this, however, becomes more about you because you are presuming to give instructions and advice to your readers.
You get the point – the success of your self-help book greatly depends on the aspect that your readers should find you relatable and should be able to relate to your struggle.
The Takeaway
You will want to understand that writing a self-help book is completely different than writing another genre. Typically, you present yourself as an expert in something, and you set out to give advice and instructions to your audience.
With that said, you will want to ensure that you have done outstanding research on the topic that you have chosen to write about. Before you decide on your chapter titles and the point you want to make in your book, you will want to invest time and effort in doing your research and bolster your overall advice.
When it comes to research, you will want to create a strong bibliography that includes periodicals, newspapers, and academic research. If applicable – you will also want to include personal interviews.