How to Write Non-Fiction: Types of non-fiction books
It’s important to consider up front what type of book you’re writing, and there are broad types that can help you shape your own. These sit above genre or sub-category in the bookstore; some books, of course, will span multiple types.
The important thing is to identify where your work might fit into the ecosystem and find examples you can use as models for your own book.
Go through your bookshelf. What are the books you like and why? Where do they fit in the publishing ecosystem?
Here are some of the main types of non-fiction book.
How to/instructional books promising a clear transformation for the reader
This includes the broad categories of Self-Help, Art & Photography, Business & Investing, Cooking & Food, Crafts & Hobbies, Health & Fitness & Dieting, Sports, and Travel.
It’s easy to identify a target market, and the reader may not even care much about who wrote the book. For example, How to Use an Air Fryer to Cook Simple Healthy Meals for Kids. Do you care who wrote this? If you just bought an air fryer and you want some help with ideas for kids’ meals, you’d buy it.
Motivational books like How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life by the Dalai Lama and The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Jack Canfield also fit into this niche.
Most of my non-fiction books fit here, as they have a clear transformation for the reader implied in the title.
Inspirational/personal stories / memoir / narrative non-fiction
“There’s a difference between writing non-fiction to showcase a business (as a calling card) and writing heart-based non-fiction to teach deep wisdom.”
—Dr Karen Wyatt, from The Creative Penn survey
These books are about the personal journey that an individual has been through and help readers by providing inspiration to overcome challenges and transform their lives.
Prescriptive information is useful, but the personal story of transformation can be more motivating.
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is a memoir about finding happiness after a painful divorce, but could also be compared to books in the category above like The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, which includes personal anecdotes but offers more prescriptive how-to information than Gilbert’s book.
My memoir, Pilgrimage, fits here because, while I offer practical tips about solo walking, my thoughts about midlife are at the heart of the book.
Narrative non-fiction uses more overt storytelling to engage the reader in the book and perhaps has more in common with an engaging documentary film. While the material is rooted in fact, the reading experience feels more like entertainment than a lecture.
Examples include The Big Short by Michael Lewis, which was turned into an Oscar-winning film, as well as The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
Deep-dive books on a single topic
These are books readers turn to for information, though they are written for a general audience as opposed to academic specialists. Often, these books are evergreen, meaning the topic or information might be relevant for many years. Examples include a biography like Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, a social science book like Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, a finance book like Money: Master the Game by Tony Robbins, or a history book like Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.
Shawn Coyne, author of The Story Grid, calls these Big Idea books and explains why they can be so successful:
Academics appreciate the research cited to support the Big Idea. How-To readers take away actionable steps that they believe can better their lives. And Narrative Nonfiction readers are captivated by the storytelling. This is why Big publishers love the Big Idea book… it can become a blockbuster bestseller.
Academic textbooks / technological / trends / manuals
Books in this niche have a specific audience — for example, universities, schools, libraries, or specific industry professionals.
They can support higher prices per unit, and they can be sold in bulk, so are not even measured by bestseller lists. They often need to be updated to stay current, so there are frequently multiple editions over time.
The need to update material regularly can be difficult for the author — if you have more than one book, you may feel like you are constantly updating your backlist. For example, if you write a book on TikTok marketing, it will probably be out of date on the day of publication, as they change the algorithm regularly and what worked last week might not work this week.
The same applies to books on software or hardware, as well as books focused on medical, legal, technological shifts, or anything written in a field where advances are made on a regular basis.
It’s also applicable for political books that fit a zeitgeist. For example, the British Brexit vote gave rise to a new political sub-genre of books, but the political landscape continues to evolve. The same could apply to the Trump administration in the US. If the political shift becomes more of a cultural movement, the books could be evergreen, capturing a moment of personal experience in an ever-changing environment. But it’s certainly worth considering shelf-life when you’re looking at book topics if you are aiming for a long-term career.
Questions:
• What kind of book do you want to write?
• Can you identify at least five books that your book might be similar to?
• Which categories do they sit in? Where do they fit into the publishing ecosystem?
• Is your topic likely to result in a book that is evergreen, or one that needs to be updated frequently?
Resources:
• Shawn Coyne on The Story Grid blog. Breakdown of non-fiction genres: www.storygrid.com/nonfictions-big-genre-silos
• The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know — Shawn Coyne
