Sunday, May 29, 2011

Writing non-fiction?

I found a great list of Seven Tough Questions for Useful Proposals over at the Berrett-Koehler blog recently.

If you're writing any type of non-fiction, most particularly memoir, these are good questions to ask yourself.

9 comments:

Jan Markley said...

That's a lot of great advice. I'll share it with my FB and Twitter friends. Thanks!

Dr. Cheryl Carvajal said...

Fantastic resource! I have a book I've been mulling over, and this will really help.

Val said...

Good to know. Thanks for the non-fiction link. My niche is humor, which I could envision somebody requesting in a bookstore. The section on focus was the most helpful to me.

Feaky Snucker said...

I've often thought of writing a book about my experience as a biological child whose parents took in high needs foster children. There isn't a lot out there about the effect this can have on the natural children in the home. One of the girls made false accusations against my father,and that was a horrible experience, yet there have been many positive experiences as well. I'm just not sure that my book would appeal to many people; it seems too niche.

Janet Reid said...

Feaky, one of the great things now about the advent of electronic publishing is you can do books for very niche audiences. You might not find a general trade publisher for the project but that doesn't mean you can't do it yourself, or that a small publisher wouldn't take it on.

Explore your options!

Simon Hay said...

Thanks for the link. I was surprised by the 200 page length. I'm also exploring options!

Feaky Snucker said...

Thanks Janet. I'll keep at it. Not everyone has had 35 little brothers and sisters, with every disorder from FAE to Attachment disorder to brain damage. It sure has taught me to be patient in regards to customer service:P

In your opinion, would it be better to finish the book first, or just shop the proposal around, and see if it gets picked up? I could see some publishers having a strong opinion about the angle, and might want certain things from the book, which would be good to know before hand.

m----- h---------- said...

Thanks - I've enjoyed your nonfiction resources lately (meaning, the biography conference post... and the list of books!)

BK said...

A colleague told me that you had posted a link to my newsletter blog entry ("Seven Tough Questions for Useful Proposals"). I am very pleased that you felt that these were good questions, and more pleased still that your readers seemed to agree (based on the comments left above). Thank you!