How Do You Know if Your Nonfiction Book Idea is Good?

Wondering if your fiction idea is worth pursuing? Check out this post instead!

If you’re wondering if your nonfiction book idea is good, you are probably really asking these questions: Is my nonfiction book idea marketable? Can I make a whole book out of it? Is it worth my time to write it? This post will help you answer those questions before you commit yourself to writing. What’s more, exploring these concepts now will help you avoid common pitfalls throughout your writing journey.

Is Your Nonfiction Book Idea Marketable?

Does your nonfiction book meet a need or desire for your audience?

You might have an encyclopedic knowledge of acorn weevils in Northern Ontario that you’re eager to share with the world. But is the whole world interested in reading about it? Not if they aren’t already affected or intrigued by your subject.

Ask yourself who would benefit from knowing more about acorn weevils. Are they causing problems for foresters or woodlot owners that you could help them solve? Does solving those problems offer enough scope for a whole book? And is the audience large enough to make book sales worth it? If it isn’t, you might be better off pitching an article to a magazine that reaches your target audience. Or, if writing a book is important to you, ask yourself how you can change your idea to occupy a more broadly relevant niche. A wider geographical focus, a whole-ecosystem approach, and/or collaboration with other experts could all widen your appeal.

How similar are other recent nonfiction books on the same subject?

If a book for the same audience that covers the exact same ground is selling like hotcakes right now, you might need to tweak your idea. The market is already saturated, and by the time your work is published, it will be too late to ride that first book’s coattails. On the other hand, if you find a number of successful books that target the same audience and are just somewhat related to your idea, that’s a great sign.

For example, Norman Doidge’s book The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science introduced the science of neuroplasticity to millions by telling stories about patients whose lives were changed by breakthroughs in it. Then Bessel Van Der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma became a bestseller exploring neuroplasticity through the lens of healing trauma. Both books appeal to the same readership and have the same general subject of neuroplasticity, but the trauma-specific angle of The Body Keeps the Score meant that there was room in the market for both of them.

Is Your Nonfiction Book Idea Structurally Sound?

Do you have a clear thesis for your nonfiction book?

By “thesis,” I don’t mean an academic dissertation. The word also means a statement or premise that someone is setting out to prove, and every nonfiction book that isn’t pure reference has one, even if it’s subtle. The biography Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life makes the case that viewing Beatrix Potter’s life through the gardens she loved deepens our understanding of her. The how-to book Mend it Better: Creative Patching, Darning, and Stitching posits that using fun, attractive mending techniques will make it a joy to maintain your old clothing instead of replacing it. Once you define your thesis, you can organize all the content of your book around it. Anything that doesn’t serve it should be cut out.

For a deeper exploration of theses in nonfiction books, read the post “Rescue the Structure of Your Nonfiction Book.”

Have you chosen the right type of nonfiction for the subject matter?

There are many kinds of nonfiction writing. Choosing the best one for you depends on what kind of information you want to share and how you want people to use the book:

Narrative Nonfiction

Biographies, autobiographies, memoir, and other approaches that use storytelling to convey true facts

Examples: a biography of a scientist who made a breakthrough in our understanding of acorn weevils; a memoir of the author’s summers planting trees as a teen

Expository Nonfiction

Informational texts that explore an idea in depth, including everything from instructional manuals to literary children’s nonfiction

Examples: a guide to insects of Northern Ontario; a how-to book on how to manage your woodlot; a children’s book about the life cycle of a weevil

Persuasive Nonfiction

Books with explicit theses where the author is striving to convince the reader to agree with them, such as political and social commentary books and many books in the categories of self-help, health and wellness, sustainability, history, biography, and business and finance

Examples: a connected series of essays that argue for the importance of the acorn weevil in its ecosystem; a popular history book that looks at the economic development of Northern Ontario through the lens of forestry

Descriptive Nonfiction

Books like travel guides that prioritize conveying to the reader a rich sensory experience of the subject matter

Examples: a guidebook of twenty-five must-see former logging towns in Northern Ontario; a book for foodies that describes agroforestry-based cuisine in enticing detail

Can you make an outline for your nonfiction book?

The quickest way to know if your book will hold together is to write a full outline before you begin. The outline will vary depending on the type of book you’re writing; consider the structural differences between a collection of twelve essays and an instructional book of woodworking projects. In any case, a good place to start is with a one- or two-sentence summary of the content of each chapter or section. Reading those over, you’ll be able to discern if each of them successfully supports your central thesis. Then you can add more detail about what kind of information will show up throughout the chapters in sidebars, graphics, and other features. Read over your notes and make sure those details all align with the summary of the chapter you’ve assigned them to.

Once that stage is done, you can assess whether you have covered all the important aspects of your topic, then add whatever back matter would best support the reader experience. This might be a glossary, an index, resources for further reading, a list of works cited, appendices, or all of the above.  

Is This Nonfiction Book Worth Writing?

Are you the right person to write this nonfiction book?

Do you have personal experience or expertise with this subject matter? If not, can thorough research make up for that? Do you have good research skills, or are you willing to acquire them? Many excellent nonfiction books are written by journalists who have spent years chasing stories and speaking to experts in a niche that interests them. Others are written by people who have studied the subject, who have immediate life experience with it, or who have access to a unique primary source.

If you plan to write nonfiction, it’s important to be able to do so with authority and integrity. Faulty or incomplete information can cause harm to readers in a range of ways—from prompting foragers to eat toxic plants to perpetuating narratives about a group of people that encourage others to treat them with prejudice. You can also get yourself into legal trouble if you misrepresent an individual who might sue you for libel. Make sure you’re ready to put in the work of writing an honest and accurate book.

How does this nonfiction book fit into your life/career goals?

Writing a book is a big commitment, and so is marketing it. Few books sell well just on the momentum of their launch, so authors spend years promoting what they’ve written. This is often fairly seamless if expertise on this subject matter is part of an author’s day job. Having a published book can get you speaking opportunities at conferences, with special-interest groups, and on radio shows or podcasts. You can run workshops and sell your books to attendees. It might give you clout and authority in professional spaces. Building up your book’s success automatically builds your career.

On the other hand, if you are considering writing a book about a subject that doesn’t align with your present life, you might find promotion more onerous. You will have to take time away from one set of pursuits to attend to another. If that’s something you think you will enjoy, well and good. If not, you can likely expect more modest success with sales simply because you won’t be driving as much momentum.

If you decide to go ahead with your book idea, you have two potential paths before you. One is to self-publish. If you do, remember that you should invest in the expertise of an editor and get fact-checking input from other subject-matter authorities. When you self-publish, the responsibility to put out a clear and accurate book rests solely on your own shoulders.

If you pursue traditional publishing, you will write a book proposal instead of writing the whole book, because the publishing company that eventually acquires it may have a different vision for what kind of approach will help the book reach its audience. Your book proposal should include a multi-page overview of the book’s intended contents, an author biography that focuses on why you are the right person to write this book, some sample chapters, and an extensive marketing section that includes a description of the intended audience, a list of competitive titles, and a promotion plan. For help with comp titles, check out the post “Find Comp Titles Faster with These Publishing-Industry Tools”.