As an agent who\u2019s been taking submissions for over ten years, I\u2019ve seen authors make every mistake you can imagine \u2013 and a handful of really imaginative ones you honestly can\u2019t. But when it comes to non-fiction, there are a few that crop up time and time again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve invaded your regular Jericho newsletter this week to let you know the five mistakes I\u2019d most like all the non-fiction writers out there to stop making. Starting with\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t do this, because the vast majority of non-fiction books aren\u2019t acquired off the back of a full manuscript. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike in fiction, over here in non-fiction we primarily work with proposals. This is a shorter 35-50 page document that is effectively a business pitch for your book. It tells an editor what your book is<\/em>, what it\u2019s for<\/em> and who\u2019s going to read it, as well as including a decent amount of sample material to demonstrate that you can do all the amazing things you\u2019re promising to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Save yourself a lot of time by starting here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When you\u2019re writing that proposal, don\u2019t develop your argument in the process. I\u2019ve seen so many proposals that read as the author picking their way towards what they want to say, but there\u2019s nothing harder to edit into a completed proposal than purpose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Know what your book is for and use that purpose as the spine of your proposal, everything starts from there. I once turned to two writers co-authoring a book and told them that I loved their proposal, and that I could clearly see the journey they went on to figure out what they wanted to say. Then I told them to scrap it all and start again, with that end point as the new starting point. It wasn\u2019t what they wanted to hear, but the next draft of the proposal was terrific. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t write a book that someone else could write. The thoughts, ideas, experiences and arguments have to be content that can\u2019t be found elsewhere. Otherwise, they will <\/em>be found elsewhere \u2013 there\u2019s simply too much out there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Your book needs a USP if you\u2019re going to reach your market and a big part of that USP should be you. Maybe not you personally, but your unique research, interest or niche knowledge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And as a follow-on to this that I\u2019ve only had to add on in the last few years \u2013 don\u2019t write a book that a Large Language Model (LLM \u2013 generative AI) could write. If you\u2019re synthesising other people\u2019s ideas and research into an accessible format, and if those ideas are broadly available, then you\u2019re going to struggle. People go to non-fiction for unique expertise. If an LLM could write your book, it\u2019s not going to be easy to ask someone to pay to read it from you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s another one I see time and time again. Don\u2019t write a book that only feels useful in the hands of policy makers. Readers want books that are going to affect their lives, they want you to change their minds or change their behaviour, and they want your book to feel empowering. If you write 75,000 words about a specific aspect of how terrible the world is and then 5,000 words about the high-level global policy changes that need to happen to fix it, your reader is going to emerge from your book downhearted and disempowered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, give your reader things they can use. If your book is issues-led, let them know what they can do to address those issues (and I don\u2019t mean telling them to vote better!). If you\u2019re looking over your manuscript and can\u2019t see what the reader is meant to take away from it, then you might have more work to do. This needs to be a book that you can imagine every reader pressing into the hands of their neighbours, parents and colleagues. If you can\u2019t imagine them doing that, ask yourself how your book needs to change until you can. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, this one might seem counterintuitive but \u2013 don\u2019t build a platform. You\u2019ve probably heard people saying that platform is hugely important in non-fiction. And it is! But the kind of platform we\u2019re talking about is not something you\u2019re likely to be able to build on a reasonable timeframe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When we discuss platform, we\u2019re often talking about platform-led<\/em> books. That is to say, we find an author with a huge platform (a consistently top-ranking podcast, a popular business course, a food-themed Instagram with a hundred thousand followers) and we get them to write a book that appeals to their audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The important thing is that the profile comes first. It wasn\u2019t built for the book, the book was built out of it. If you don\u2019t already have that, there\u2019s nothing you can do about that, and trying to build a profile from scratch will likely work against you. In lots of ways, having no profile is better than having a small one, and profiles in the early stages of being built look a lot like profiles that aren\u2019t doing very well. Your time is better spent making your material so unputdownable that profile stops mattering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That was a lot of don\u2019ts. I want to leave you with some positivity. So yes, it\u2019s tough, but yes, you should do it anyway. Do<\/em> write the proposal. Do<\/em> edit and redraft and revise until you fall asleep at your keyboard. Do<\/em> remember why you love this subject and why it\u2019s so important that everyone else falls in love with it too. Do<\/em> bring us into a world we\u2019d never have access to otherwise and do let your passion for it sing out from every page. <\/p>\n\n\n\n People will tell you it\u2019s hard \u2013 it is. Do it anyway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Want more advice from Eli? He is available for one-to-one sessions<\/a> where you can chat about your book idea, next steps and potential publishing options. Book yours here<\/a>!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As an agent who\u2019s been taking submissions for over ten years, I\u2019ve seen authors make every mistake you can imagine \u2013 and a handful of really imaginative ones you honestly can\u2019t. But when it comes to non-fiction, there are a few that crop up time and time again. I\u2019ve invaded your regular Jericho newsletter this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38188,"featured_media":998272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[262],"tags":[29377],"class_list":["post-998269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-topic-creative-non-fiction-memoir","tag-non-fiction-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFiguring out your argument as you go <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Writing a book that someone else could write <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Writing a book that\u2019s not \u2018actionable\u2019 enough <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Focusing too much on social media <\/h2>\n\n\n\n