CHAPTER 1

Plotting & Planning

Everyone, at sometime in their lives, needs to learn how to dosomething they have never attempted before. From planning awedding, preparing an after dinner speech, considering a careerchange, writing a stage play, taking up a new hobby, organisinga holiday, improving a life-style, joining a horseracing syndicate,making a WWII Woolton pie, down-sizing a home ... the list isendless. And if anyone has ever asked how we managed toachieve any of these things, then we have something to writeabout.

Wherever we live in the world, How-To writing can run frommagazine fillers on how to organise a successful car boot (yard)sale to a full-length self-help book on, for example, ExploringSpirituality. Or as one online contributor commented in aninterview in the Daily Telegraph:

"A lot of us have expertise without realising it. Put a questionabout something you know well into an online search engineand you'll be surprised how many people have asked thesame question before. If other people don't know how to dosomething and you do – then you could write about yourexpertise."

It goes without saying, of course, that to write convincingly on asubject and be able to impart the appropriate information meansthat we are following the old adage of 'writing about what weknow' for the benefit of our readership.

Write About What We Know

As we mature, and gain more experience, then our How-Toguides will develop further in-depth insights into our variousfields of expertise. For example: when I wrote my first writingguide I was editing a magazine, and with one published full-lengthbook to my name, the aim being to produce a practicalnuts and bolts guide to starting a writing career, with plenty ofadditional advice from other tutors, editors, authors andfreelance writers. The second guide was written to support theincreasing number of writers' workshops I was tutoring; as thefirst book had passed its sell-by date and out of print, anothercompletely different book was required. Life-Writes, was my thirdcreative writing book, and written to coincide with my acting ascommissioning editor for Compass Books, so that as an author Ialways have something new on offer and not stuck in the time-warpof constantly regurgitating previously published material,or resting on my laurels.

My specialist genres are the countryside and the mind, bodyand spirit market, so the next title was Exploring Spirituality,which catered for the growing interest in alternative religionsand the decline in both traditional religious and spiritual values.Having discovered the successful formula for writing andpresenting How-To books, the next on the list was The GoodDivorce Guide, followed by WLTM: The Dating Game, which grewout of the long conversations with a close friend who runs anintroduction agency for country people. Signposts For CountryLiving is a guide to avoiding the pitfalls often experienced by 'incomers'trying to establish themselves in rural communities.These will be followed by How To Write for the Pagan & MB&SMarkets and How to Write for Countryside Publications.

Other writers from around the globe with various differentlevels of expertise, will be able to tackle How-To subjectspertaining to their own life-styles – for example:yachting/canal/river boating; restoring a vintage 57 Chevrolet;learning to surf; backpacking in the Outback; where to studyabroad; overcoming personal or social problems, culture shock –and each country will have its own publishing houses that caterfor How-To, Self-Help and Self-Improvement titles. This doesnot mean that we can only write for publishers or publicationswithin our own borders – our market is the entire English-speakingworld.

Qualified by Life

As we can see from my own personal selection, How-To bookscan cover every aspect of Life - family, hobbies, career, life-style – and,needless to say, our expertise is drawn from our own experiences,or the experiences of those close to us. The particular hook(or spin) that we put on the narrative to cater for a specific targetmarket, however, will depend on where we see ourselves fittinginto the picture. It's not enough to write on a subject with mereenthusiasm because all How-To, Self-Help and Self-Improvementtopics need to reflect 'life as it is lived' by thosewho have already lived it. And imparted to the reader in a waythat will encourage them to follow our guidelines or example.

In fact, when reading a proposal or preparing a reader'sreport, I study the author's biography before turning to the text – regardlessof how intriguing the title or synopsis. I want to knowright from the start, the writer's antecedents and whether theyare eligible to write on the appropriate level for the subject inquestion. Many writers attempt to pass themselves off as beingmore knowledgeable or experienced than they really are – andthis can be a minefield for a publisher's reader who may not becompletely au fait with the subject under discussion. This doesn'tmean to say...