Tips on Writing a Motivational Self-Help Book

Prabhash Karan is an expert in writing motivational self-help books. He leans more towards social engineering as a genre, but in between, he infuses good dozes of inspiration for his young readers to follow. He writes simplistically so that he can get through to the youth. He primarily writes in English and Bengali, and talks about Mother Nature, and encourages people to become more involved in their work and career. He has eventually become well-known for his writing and his messages now resonate with many of his readers, so much so that now he has successfully published 5 books. Here is one excerpt from his book Of Human Nature and Good Habits under chapter “Aim In Life”

“Every man is an architect of his own destiny! So, be your own architect: do your homework, make your framework! Be totally informed and take the guesswork out. Write two hundred words on the “Aim in Life.” Just write it. Write it on paper with a pencil. It’s not a writing on the wall, nor a graffiti, either. Erase it, edit it, spend time with it, and then make a final draft, if possible, before the age of sixteen. Think it aloud. Consult separately with three wise old men, not limited to your parents. Like a preamble to the constitution of the country, this “Aim in Life” document is the preamble of your life. Add value to it time to time. The process will be so convenient to you that you will sail a smooth ride through the ocean of troubles. So, write it down on one page. The page is your script. The next step is page to stage—the action. Commit to your “Aim in Life.” To juniors: Never let yourself drift through life. Be the author of and anchor to your life yourself. To seniors: You are not too late to set a goal for the rest of your life. To both: Your ambition is not that what you are doing now, rather what you would do from now. You are never too late to be, what you would like to be.”

Here are some writing tips that he uses to write a good motivational book:

Make an outline

To be able to write well, you need to present your thought logically. Your thought process needs to be in order and have meaning. A logical flow of thought is very important to get right. It will allow the reader to understand the points that you are trying to make. You might have a complex idea that would need building up in a simplistic manner. A lot of the readers tend to skip around on passages and so it might be difficult for them to follow what you are saying. Hence, it is necessary that you develop a logical flow of thoughts in an outline because the reader will not always read in the same flow as you have written. One thing you can do to help this situation is to reference something in the previous chapter or page. This will instill the belief in your readers that they need to read everything before they move on.

Publish online

Before you set about writing a book, you can experiment with your writing tactics beforehand. This means that you can publish a small article online to gauge how your readers react to it. You can also make use of Google Analytics to let you know what topics have worked well and what haven’t. There are several online-based editors who would be happy to check your work for you and give you the advice you need.

Research online for other writers

There are several books that have been written online, which you can take hints from. You can observe the flow of the sentences and what content the writer puts out. The reason for this is that especially if the writer has written on something you are planning to write about, you will be able to see what works and what does not. You will need to decide on who your target market is and write in a manner that would be more understandable to them.