Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book: Plan and Pitch Your Big idea

by Jennie Nash

Top book coach Jennie Nash teaches you how to define a winning idea, pin it to the page, and pitch it to the people who can bring your book to life.

“Jennie Nash may just be the best nonfiction book coach around. She offers up a proven method that helps writers to find their voice, identify their readers, hone their message, and organize their thoughts. Jennie is something of a magician. Her clients consistently produce excellent proposals sure to garner attention from literary agents who can help them to land that coveted publishing deal. I will recommend this book to all my clients." —Joelle Delbourgo, President and Founder, Joelle Delbourgo Associates Literary Agency

Would you start a business without understanding your customer? Or launch a new product without studying the competition? Of course not, but this is exactly what many experts, educators, and entrepreneurs do when they decide to write a book: they leap over the fundamentals and go straight to putting words on the page. The result is a half-baked book that doesn’t capture their brilliance and will never get the attention from agents, publishers, and readers that it deserves.

Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book is a step-by-step process for defining your big idea, developing a compelling book proposal, and making the pitch to the industry professionals who can bring it to life. It’s where vague “I want to write a book someday” sentiments turn into “I love this book and I am writing it” proclamations. All you need to take advantage of the Blueprint is a book idea you want to share with the world, an audience you hope to reach, and the willingness to figure out the best way to pin that idea to the page.

Jennie Nash is the creator of the book coach certification program at Author Accelerator and has taught hundreds of book coaches and thousands of writers how to use the Blueprint for a Book system to help them produce their best work in the most efficient way. She is the author of Blueprint for a Book: Build Your Novel from the Inside Out; Read Books All Day and Get Paid for It: The Business of Book Coaching; and eight other books.

“This process saved me YEARS of bumbling about in the dark!” —Michelle Dempsey-Multack, podcaster and author of Moms Moving On: Real-Life Advice on Conquering Divorce, Co-Parenting Through Conflict, and Becoming Your Best Self

“Jennie's Blueprint system makes writing a lot less painful and a lot more productive.” —Michael Melcher, partner and executive coach at Next Step Partners and author of Your Invisible Network: How to Create, Maintain, and Leverage the Relationships That Will Transform Your Career

“Worth its weight in gold.” —Monica Holloway, instructor at the Writers’ Program at UCLA Extension and author of Remarrying Michael: My Second Marriage to my First Husband

“The Blueprint showed me that it wasn’t enough just to teach my readers a new mindset and a new skill: I also needed to tell a compelling story.” —Dan Blank, founder of wegrowmedia . com and author of Be the Gateway: A Practical Guide to Sharing Your Creative Work and Engaging an Audience

“Jennie’s value doesn't just come from knowing the nuts and bolts of writing, it's from coaching ALL sides of what a book entails from her head and her heart. She brings out the best of both from the writer.” —Jenn Lim, co-founder and CEO of Delivering Happiness and author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller, Beyond Happiness: How Authentic Leaders Prioritize Purpose and People for Growth and Impact

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Crafts

150 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2022

About the author

Jennie Nash is the founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, a company that trains book coaches to help writers bring their books to life. For twelve years, writers serious about reaching readers have trusted Jennie to coach their projects from inspiration to publication. Her clients have landed top New York agents, national book awards, and deals with houses such as Scribner, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette. Jennie is the author of 9 books in 3 genres. She taught for 13 years in the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program, is an instructor at CreativeLive.com and speaks on podcasts and at writing conferences all over the country. Learn more about being coached or becoming a coach at bookcoaches.com or authoraccelerator.com

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclosure: I am a certified book coach through Jennie’s company, Author Accelerator. I was well familiar with the Blueprint for fiction and memoir, but less so with its application in nonfiction.

Reading this book made me want to write a nonfiction book. With actionable items that are both tangible and easy to understand, Jennie lays out the steps to write a nonfiction book from start to finish, making the process accessible to more writers. This informative guide deserves a place on every nonfiction writer’s bookshelf.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a low 4-star, as there is a lot of insight for the journey here, but making a formula of the steps seems like a stretch. For me, I would think that I have an idea in my head, and would not know the full outline of the book before starting it - but with this, you have to, and not all book writing works like it. It may make wonders if you have a clear idea of a structure, but one usually does not - it's about the content, and the idea is often fuzzy and becomes clearer as it is written. But, I trust Jennie Nash knows a thing or two more about this than I, so I'll go with it, and I agree that it is kinda a good blueprint, or a starting point to try out. I liked that often two examples were given so as to give two ways of doing it, but sometimes the examples could have been more different. Anyhow, it was pretty good.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book as a Good Reads Giveaway. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review it. This is a great book for aspiring writers. Chock full of examples, case studies and most importantly a step by step guide to planning, organizing, pitching and marketing your book. More importantly the author gives you questions that you need to answer in order to clarify your goals, identify your audience and how best to accomplish your goal of a finished, sellable manuscript. I’m am so excited and motivated to use these tools and principles as I work toward my own writing goals. This is a book you don’t want to miss out on.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good advice written with clear direction

I've read several books trying to get my ideas out of my head and onto a page. This book helps connect what you WANT to write about with what will actually SELL once you do. It guides you in the process of the industry aspects while tightening up your ideas so you can present them in a successful manner. There is less HOW to write about your topic and more exploring WHY and for WHOM you are writing about your topic. If recommend it to anyone who desires a more traditional publishing experience, and to those who wish to self-publish quality books. The process will guide you to a better end product.

[Elaine Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought the Kindle version of this book and it was great value for money. The 14 steps are the perfect guideline for getting your book going. Jennifer honed in on the details especially in providing examples and case studies to illustrate the required type of material in every section. Help with a professional book proposal and publishing are a bonus at the end of the book. Jennifer’s passion to help the author succeed is palpable.

[Eric Nehrlich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful guide to thinking through the critical aspects of preparing to write a book. The exercises helped me to clarify my book structure and I look forward to seeing how it helps me translate that into a book.

Note that I don't plan to pitch to agents or try to get a book deal so I only quickly skimmed those sections.

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book with lots of pertinent information in it! The author offers concrete steps and additional tips to plan, organize, publish, pitch, and market your nonfiction book. She also has case studies with real-world examples. This book is a must-have for anybody who wants to publish their nonfiction book.

[Veronica Schwarz]

Excellent and very detailed manner of writing a book but from my experience, the time and effort Jennie Nash recommends putting in before you start writing a nonfiction book, pay off in saved time and confusion further on in the process. It would not suit most fiction writers if they are 'fly-by-the -seat-of-their-pants' writers, which I am when it comes to writing fiction.

[Leanne Shelton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was actually blessed to have been offered a book publishing contract before I started reading this book. However, it really helped me when it came to reviewing my chapter outline and reading case studies was interesting.

Fantastic book for anyone wanted to pitch a book!

[David Crow · Rating 5 out of 5]

The smartest thing you can do before writing a book is to learn how to write one. Easier said than done but this book will give you all you need to write a book, land an agent, and find a market.

[Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really helpful

I learned a lot from this book and it was very easy to understand and it's helped me a lot so far.

[Shelley Âû · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 I really liked this book it was laid out well even in e book and gave examples that made sense

[Odyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have read about writing a book, pitching, and getting published traditionally. It has all the steps we, writers, need!

[Lisa Wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear, concise, practice advice from a seasoned author, editor and coach.