Why You NEED A System To Write How To Book or other Non-Fiction Books

Sorry about the title … somehow I’ve messed up my SEO so I need to fix it   So I apologize if the following blog entry uses some pretty iffy grammar and spelling! The good news is that I’m still not going to write anything whether how to book or blog entry or article without providing you some useful information! So there mighty Gods of Traffic!

Anyway,  a question that often comes up is “Why do I NEED a system in order to write a how to or non-fiction book? After all, I write articles and blog pieces all the time.”

Having to write a non-fiction blog entry is entirely different from having to write a how to book.  With a blog entry, my own excepted, it isn’t usually necessary to spend a lot of time organizing one’s thoughts. After all, in 200-400 words you really can’t write a great deal of how-to information. Just knowing what you want to say in general terms is good enough to fill in 2 to 4 paragraphs. After all, you only need an opening, 2 to 3 points you want to make and a closing. And boom, you’ve got 400 words with just a little bit of writing. For 200 words you only need one point!

Not so when you write a how-to book!

To write a small how to book (such as a non-fiction eBook), you need roughly 60 pages or 15,000 words. That’s roughly, 150 paragraphs to write a non-fiction book.

That’s at least 150 points that you need to make in order to write a small how to book. And given that we have a cognitive limit of 5 to 9 that makes the chance of organizing the points to write a non-fiction book entirely in our heads highly unlikely. Like no chance!

Secondly, to write a how to book is a long task (even our system doesn’t change that) and whenever you are doing a long task it makes sense to break it into controllable chunks. Why? Because then you can look for ways to improve it, and manage it, and understand it.  And most importantly, so you don’t waste any time when you write your how to book.

And any system you choose to write a how to book should have these features in order to give you the benefits. A system to write a non-fiction book should

• help you to organize writing your how to book before putting words to paper.
• help you to write your non-fiction book quickly without wasting time going off into unprofitable directions.

After all if a system can’t do it’s basic functions it isn’t a very good system!