How To Write A Motivational Self-Help Book

Writing a self-help book is somewhat like writing a novel. At least that’s how I organized it when I wrote my book.

You can write your own story. But you need to motivate your reader to follow though with the lessons you learned from your own life.

You need to keep the reader's attention as you continue to make your point. How is this done? There has to be a plot of some sort. And your story needs to conclude with a meaningful outcome.

This is the way to make sense out of complicated issues that help the reader relate and learn.

When I wrote my book, I started out by setting the stage. I did that with a short story of my past experience. I had to explain the plot. Then I gave explanations and elaborated on my thoughts and feelings.

I broke up various topics with chapters explaining examples from my own life to thicken the plot. I maintained focus on the plot, just as if I was writing a novel.

Finally I pulled it all together with a conclusion that leaves the reader satisfied that they learned something they can take with them. At least that is what my intention was.

Only my readers can say if I succeeded at that. I hope I did. I self published the book, so I had to put much more effort into making sure I got it right.

When you publish your own book you need to be willing to do much of the work on your own. There is no publisher to tell you it's no good. I had a couple of psychologists proof read my book. That was in addition to having several friends check it too.

I feel that anyone who is good at writing and has learned something important from their own life experiences can help others benefit by writing a book on the subject.

Write Online First

One important thing that I wish I had done before completing my book was to write online first. At least I took the time to proofread a zillion times and rework my manuscript over and over.

I had many people read and comment of it, each time guiding me to improving the book. But even after I published it, I came up with new ideas and better ways to say something. But it was too late since once it’s published, it can’t be changed.

Advantage of Writing Online

The nice thing about writing online is that you can test the results. Some websites, such as HubPages, provide the venue to write on-line and allow reader comments.

These comments are useful to show the author how well received their work is. It also helps provide better ways to express oneself. Because the feedback will indicate how well readers understand what was written. You’ll know if you did a good job at communicating.

When writing on HubPages, other information becomes available to, such as your score on each Hub. This gives a good indication of how useful your written material is to your readers. From this alone you’ll get an idea of what subject matter you’d want to use in your book and what might be a waste of time. I am discovering all this by writing online on HubPages.

I did it backwards. My published my book before I became aware of online writing and discovered HubPages. I wish I new about the flexibility of writing online before I completed the book. It would have given me a chance to test various topics. Getting reader feedback in comments can help tremendously too. Those comments help by giving me clues were I need to elaborate. Writing online and getting reader feedback is a useful tool to use before putting it into a permanent book.

Even though I did it backwards. I will continue writing online now. Life goes on and I keep learning. And I like to share what I’ve learned. Which is why I like to write.

How To Go From Online Writing To Book Publishing

You have the advantage that you haven’t published your book yet. When you write your own book you can test the water, so to speak, by writing articles of 500 to 1000 words about various thoughts you might later use in your book.

After you have written a number of articles and feel you have discovered what is useful to your readers and what’s not, you can take it to the next step and create a book. But you need to carefully organize the material in a flowing manner. First by introducing the issue, then making your point, followed by as many examples as you can write about to help your reader grasp the importance of what you yourself had learned.

If you're thinking of writing a self-help book, take advantage of writing small segments online before attempting to put it into book form. Believe me, I wish I had done it that way. I’ve learned so much from writing online. And I would say it empowers anyone who is intending to write a book.

Copyright © 2011 Glenn Stok

How To Publish Your Own Book Without A Fee

All the steps involved to create and self-publish a book - by Glenn Stok