Nonfiction books and ebooks sell very well these days. Now, more than ever, people want information in the quickest and easiest way they can absorb it.

So if you have something to teach, writing a nonfiction book or ebook is a great way to get it out there. But it’s not as easy as it looks and there are many pitfalls. Here are some of the common ones.

Not having a clear message

When I meet an author with a manuscript in their hands, I ask “So what’s the book about?” And then I wait. Because, often, the author can’t verbalise in 25 words or less what their book is about. But they should.

If you’re familiar with business, you’ll know the importance of an elevator pitch—a short, compelling explanation of what you do.

Having one clear message for your book is vital to keep you on track. It ensures you have a specific goal, a direction and an audience. If you can’t explain what your book is about, you risk going off topic, and confusing or disappointing a reader who is expecting one thing and getting another.

Not having a clear structure

I can’t stress this enough—without a great structure, all the great writing in the world won’t help you. You must construct the skeleton before you start filling in the guts.

Some writers actually can’t stop restructuring. That’s because they didn’t sort out the structure before they began. So they don’t know where it’s going, where to stop or what the point of it all actually is.

The table of contents is the key to success here. This isn’t something you write at the end when you look back over your book and see what you’ve covered. You write it at the beginning—it’s your plan for the book.

The contents page enables you to make decisions up front—what’s in and what’s out? It allows you to play around with the order of your chapters until you find what is most logical and easy for your readers.

Not understanding copyright

Copyright issues can be more prevalent in nonfiction books than almost any other writing genre due to the many possible components.

As well as plagiarism issues that can affect all writing genres, nonfiction books may contain graphs, tables, illustrations, quotes, photographs and other features that need attention.

While a decent editor will flag potential copyright issues, you’re responsible for ensuring you have permission to use anything in your book that doesn’t belong to you.

The Australian Copyright Council has a great collection of fact sheets with clear FAQs on a range of topics.

Getting permissions isn’t as hard as it sounds. You can just email a website owner or publisher to let them know what you’re planning and ask if that’s alright with them.

Some copyright owners will want to charge a fee and it’s their right to do so. It’s up to you whether you want to pay it or move on.

The main point to remember about copyrighted material is that just acknowledging the copyright owner in a caption or footnote doesn’t give you permission to use the material. This is probably the biggest misconception I see in both print and online publishing.

Not having a great team

As a self-publisher, I think getting books self-published is brilliant. Traditional publishing in Australia is very difficult to break into and a lot of great content has seen the light of day only because self-publishing exists.

However, good content can be buried under bad writing, design and layout. I’ve put aside books that I just couldn’t read anymore because the language was stilted or childish and the layout or structure was difficult.

Yes, every person may have a book in them, but they need a great team to bring it into the world. When you hire your team, make sure they’re experienced in the type of book you’re producing. Ensure your editor knows:

  • how to get copyright permissions
  • the various levels of editing
  • how to buy ISBNs if needed
  • how design and editing work together
  • how to edit for a particular audience without losing your voice.

Anyone can hang out a shingle and call themselves a designer or an editor, so do your homework and make sure you get the best team you can for your budget.

And remember—good publishing costs money. You’ll need to get used to that idea.