This was an interesting question from a Writer to help him with a nonfiction work he’s trying to complete. I thought I’d share the advice in a blog post. I’ve blocked out some of the details of his project for his privacy and also his name and location as well, plus i paraphrased some items in bold.

Writers Question

My name is [writer], I live East of you in Ontario.

I am a writer and I belong to a dynamic writers group here….

I found your website because I am looking to put together my first book.      I’ve been at it for many years now and finally I want to begin to structure where/how  the chapters should be located.

I’m a self-appointed Military Historian and have made many visits to Normandy and have studied … for very many years and know my research well.

I was asked …to write a book as a passionate writer who cares about … my research, and now I need some advice to structure all my research into a volume for presentation to schools .

What I have are taped conversations …, reports by people, and hundreds of stories now ready for print,  and the time has come to put it together and let others know what I know.

Do you know of any site I can visit to get the information I’m looking for ….. I’ve picked my writing group’s brains clean and they have tried but don’t have answers to my questions even though many are published authors.  I have spent countless hours scanning books in my local library trying to get ideas on how to structure this book and so far have not found anything that resembles what I’m trying to accomplish.

Author Answer

the best advice I can offer would be to pick up Dan Poynter’s book called

Writing Nonfiction, 5th Edition

Dan Poynter

Best Price $7.08
or Buy New $9.09

 

And after you finish you can get:

 

Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual…

Dan Poynter

Best Price $7.44
or Buy New $13.57

even if you don’t plan on self publishing the book, he goes deep in-depth about how to put together a great non fiction book

these books are available at amazon or should be available at any of your local libraries.

Now if these books have already been suggested or read, please let me know and we can go further and see what else can be done to help you start to initialize your literary goal.

I hope this helps and please let me know if i can offer any more advice.

If you have more advice to offer him, please share below…