Writing Successful Self-Help and How-To Books (Wiley Books for Writers)
Jean Marie Stine has created perhaps the ultimate how-to book:Writing Successful Self-Help and How-To Books. Among the many editorial positions Stine has held in her 15 years as an editor (and sometimes ghostwriter) of self-help and how-to books is editor in chief at the esteemed self-help publisher Jeremy P. Tarcher. She edited more than 50 self-help titles, includingWomen Who Love Too MuchandDrawing on the Right Side of the Brain. If an author's qualifications, as Stine says in her book, are of utmost importance for a book's credibility, she is supremely qualified to write such a book.Writing Successful Self-Help and How-To Booksis less about writing than about every other element that goes into making a successful self-help/how-to book. Since "publishers," as Stine says here, "buy 90 percent of their books based on proposals," she addresses in detail every element of the book proposal, from overview ("mak[e] your book sound like a must-have") and analysis of the competition to sample chapter and annotated table of contents. Her insider information on everything from title creation--"the right title alone," she confides, "can make your book a success"--to the importance of including interactive elements such as checklists, quizzes, and exercises is invaluable. Still, for the beginning writer--and Stine seems to assume that the reader of this book is an expert in a field other than writing--there is surprising little, given the book's title, about the writing process itself.--Jane Steinberg