I’ve read non-fiction books (specifically writing advice books) that spent more than half of the pages trying to hammer home why the reader needed to adopt a specific mindset (planning vs pantsing) and left very little space to actually cover the strategies that I was there to read. It all seemed a little foolish to me.
After all, the book in question was called Story Engineering (yes, I’ve referred to it here several times). It’s not a title that you pick up if you’re a dedicated pantser that needs to be persuaded to consider planning, right? Pretty much anyone who gets past the first chapter is there because they want to plan and want to know more about how to do it.
I’m trying to keep that in mind as I write my current non-fiction book, a how-to manual on a specific part of a scholarship application process. It has an even more specific title than Story Engineering, starting with the words “How to. . . “, so I can safely assume that if someone is dropping $10 on the book, that they are already sold on the idea that they need to do the thing in the first place. In fact, I don’t want them buying the book if they aren’t already convinced (they should be reading my free blog articles instead at that point).
So, I tried to keep my “Why you need this” section under 1000 words out of a target 50,000 word manuscript. It’s purpose is less to persuade than it is to assure readers that they’re in the right place!