How to Write a Self-Help Book in 5 Easy Steps

Self-help books are a sub-genre of non-fiction books meant to inspire and adapt people's teachings in their daily lives. They are written in primarily conversational styles, depending on the author's choice. Still, they are otherwise read in a textbook format that encourages instructing its readers with things they have problems with. The best thing about self-help books is that they have their own ever-growing target audience, no matter what your topic for the book is.

With every problem on the face of the earth that none of us are taught in school or in general about, for example, time management or quitting a bad habit, we can have a self-help book written for it. Most of these books provide do-it-yourself or guidelines on life-related problems.

You must keep one thing in mind before you start writing your self-help book: you must be well-qualified to write the book. Since self-help books are mainly meant to solve, you must be accountable for your writing. 

As the saying goes, one must write what one knows. Therefore, while writing a self-help book, it's best to write from your own experiences or through detailed research rather than to put in misleading and false information for your audience.

1. Choose a Topic - 

The first step seems straightforward. Given that you are considering writing a self-help book, you may already have some idea about the topic you want to write about. The key is to write about something you know you can manage more quickly than you used to, owing to your unique methodization to the madness that is your problem. 

For example, say you want to write about time management for students who have paid jobs and are studying to balance and juggle between.

2. Choose Your Target Audience -

Once you've chosen your topic, a portion of the target audience interested in reading your self-help book would then be pre-determined based on the problem you will be addressing through your book. 

If we take time management as an example, narrowing it down to students, especially those working on their studies, will be your target audience. You can narrow down the niche of your topic and the people you will be addressing. 

Like, you can focus on those students who are not doing academically or financially well, explaining to them which sphere of their life they should concentrate on most. But again, it depends on your liking and the amount of information you can offer on the topic.

3. Research - 

Remember that you must hold yourself accountable for the information you write and ensure that there might be mismatched results depending on different situations and that the method has worked for you. 

Still, it does not necessarily mean that it would work for everyone. The best way to not risk false information or misleading your readers is by thoroughly researching the topic and the factors that affect your chosen target audience.

4. Define Your Motive -

It is imperative to define your motive. One reason is that it will help you in your ongoing research and writing your self-help book because then you'll know what you must pen to meet your end motive. 

The second reason is that once you understand your motive, you will steer away from topics that do not help your reason for writing and will keep you motivated to offer additional methods of solutions to the problem. Also, showing your readers your motive for writing this book can be very efficient. 

Let's take another example of writing about issues faced by differently-abled people. In that case, you can also address caregivers of the people facing the problem. Your motive here could be to ease the difficulties faced by differently-abled while managing both the patients and the caregivers.

5. Outlining and Writing -

Be it a fiction book, a non-fiction memoir, or even, in this case, a self-help book, every book needs outlining and writing, at least to some extent, to provide clarity in thought for both the person writing and the readers. 

Of course, there's no right way of outlining a book, but some of the most common and efficient steps of outlining and writing a self-help book are given down below:

• Causes -

The first portion of your book should be a nicely explained introduction and understanding of the problem, the root cause, and the common factors that induce these problems. 

Then, you can take a step further by writing about how these problems affect people and why the said problems matter to your target audience. While explaining the situation and other things, you must remember while writing that most people who pick self-help books may need more detailed information about the problem, which is why they resolved to your guidance in the first place. 

In that case, it is best to assume that your target audience knows nothing about the problem and spare the technical, difficult words for some other crowd, and instead, explain everything to the readers as simply as you can.

• Instructions -

One main reason why some people resort to reading self-help books is that they promise them a step-by-step guide on their path of personal improvement against the problem they are currently facing. 

This is why it is considered to write this book genre with an instructional tone of command. Once you've explained the problem in detail, you must explain how you understand the problem can be solved.

• Tried and Tested Methods -

While addressing the problem in an instructional tone, as said before, writing instructions related to tried and tested methods that you know have worked for you is imperative. This is also the part where your Research will come in handy. Ensure that the ways you've mentioned do not neglect or seem offensive to anyone or even harm anyone by any chance. 

For example, say you're writing about mental health. Writing something that worked for you may not always help someone else. What if your instructive exercises only make it worse for their mental health? 

In cases like these, it is crucial that you refer to credible sources or even ask a professional to beta-read your book so that you don't run into trouble writing something wrong that will eventually harm your readers. Research as much as you can and hold accountability for everything you write.

Based on your Research and second opinions from credible sources, you can also give your readers DIY assignments. Go back to the time management example; you can explain a method that worked for you in managing studies and work simultaneously, and then give them a task that will test their ability to control the same problem with your instructions.

• End on a Positive Note -

Once you are done writing what you think works best for the problem, you should also address the possibility that these methods may not have worked for your readers. As it happens, we're all different people and can't have a similar way of working things out. 

So the best way to tackle that problem is if you have run out of evidentiary advice and tested methods, you must end on a positive note so that the reader does not give up trying even if they don't get the results right away.

We trust that this guide will assist you on your writing journey. If you discover this article beneficial, please share it with others, or you can choose to follow us for additional content.