Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. – Steve Jobs

If you’re a holistic health and wellness author-expert who wants to write a nonfiction book about your expertise -- say you’re a yoga teacher, therapist or herbalist -- focus on these three steps to make writing faster and easier. .

The 3 Steps are:

1. Focus on an idea that solves a problem for your ideal reader. For example, if you’re a yoga teacher, you might want to write a book about poses that ease chronic pain. If you’re a dietitian, you could offer a Food is Medicine (FIM) approach to reduce inflammation and prevent chronic disease.

2. Define a repeatable method, step by step plan, program or approach that gets results. You’ve used it, you know it works with your clients or patients, and you want to share it with readers.

3. Create a structure that serves the contents of the book. An effective structure, a Table of Contents, helps ensure that readers take a transformational journey. This gives a book narrative drive, keeps readers engaged and helps them make positive changes in their lives.

What if You Don’t Have 1, 2 or 3?

I often write and talk about these three steps because it’s what I see in the successful non-fiction books that I’ve written, edited, and coached. If these three elements aren’t defined, it can lead to problems. You can have trouble getting started, get stuck in the middle or not finish at all. Get clear about all three and it will make writing your book much faster and easier.

1-2-3: Natural Remedies for Mental & Emotional Health 

In 2024, I co-wrote Natural Remedies for Mental & Emotional Health: Holistic Methods and Techniques for a Happy and Healthy Mind (Healing Arts Press) with Brigitte Mars, a founding member of the American Herbalists Guild and a teacher of herbal medicine at Naropa University. The book arose organically from Brigitte’s unique and effective way of using herbal medicine and other natural remedies to help her clients deal with everything from stress and anxiety to brain fog and ADHD. She identified her ideal reader, someone who wanted natural alternatives to mental and emotional health challenges and offered them  solutions.  

1. The Idea

Like Brigitte, your idea should – in most cases – connect to the work that you are doing with clients or patients. What aha! moments have you had in your work? Has the light bulb gone off when you tried something new, a practice, method, or plan? Does the idea reflect your unique point of view? For example, two different experts can approach say, treating allergies in two different ways, and still get solid results. The most important thing is that you are solving a problem for the reader.

2. The Method or Plan

Once you have a workable method, plan, approach, or philosophy, you can translate this real-life experience into a book. That’s because you know that if readers put your steps into action, they will get results. In fact, this may be what prompts you to write a book in the first place. Brigitte’s methods are based on years of effectively using herbal remedies in her own life and her work with clients. In both cases, she saw that her methods produced results. She knew that these results could be repeated.

Do you have a method, plan or approach that shows repeated positive results? Is it something that you can share with readers to help them transform their lives?

3. The Structure

With Natural Remedies for Mental & Emotional Health, the structure serves the content. Like most nonfiction books, it begins with a Foreward, in this case we were lucky enough to have herbalist Rosemary Gladstar do the honors, and an introduction which provides an overview of what is covered.

Each of the chapters that follows focuses on a problem, say stress in chapter 1 and the holistic solution, a variety of natural remedies. Chapters cover everything from low mood and depression to ADHD to insomnia and trauma. As a result of this, the reader is transformed in a meaningful way, the goal of all good nonfiction.     

1-2-3

Keep this in mind the next time you sit down to write your nonfiction book.

As Steve Jobs said, “Simple can be harder, than complex,” but if you do the work to define your idea, method and structure it will give you the clarity and power you need to move forward.   

Need help writing your nonfiction book?

📅 Email me at info@thenaturalhealthbookcoach.com to book your FREE 30-minute book coaching session. We’ll talk about your idea, see if we’re a good fit, and make a solid plan so that you can write the book you’re dreaming about.