I’m helping a book coaching client outline her nonfiction book this week (we’re smack in the middle of the Story Map Intensive part of the book coaching engagement), so my mind is buzzing with ways to organize a book.
I’ll be doing a deep dive later on the different sub-genres of nonfiction books (and how they’re organized). But for today, we’re starting with the basics.
There’s no hard and fast rule that you need to outline your non-fiction book before you start writing. But here’s why I think you should:
- Outlining lets you spot problems before you’ve spent weeks or months working on a draft that’s headed in the wrong direction.
- Outlining strengthens your argument and focus before you even start writing.
- Outlining gives you a roadmap that keeps you on track (and making progress).
- But most of all, outlining makes writing a nonfiction book feel way more manageable.
Some people find outlining reassuring—it makes the book more concrete. Others find it constricting—they want to explore as they write! If you’re in the latter camp, don’t worry. You’re not locked into anything; the outline is just a guide.
I like to think of a nonfiction book outline as a route suggestion.
I’m I’m planning a road trip from Portland to Chicago, I’ll rough out my route ahead of time. As I get going, though, I’ll come across road closures. I’ll hear about interesting new locations I want to visit. I’ll get a great deal on a hotel somewhere off the main route.
My route will change along the way—what won’t change is the destination.
In the same way, your outline will change and shift. You’ll refine it as you go.
But having that route suggestion in place before you head out will save you tons of stress along the way.
Let’s dig in.
First, a Caveat
There are many types of nonfiction books, but they fall into two larger categories.
Is your book meant to be more informational and expository? Or is it a narrative non-fiction piece that tells a specific linear story from start to finish?
Examples of the former include most self-help or educational books like The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, The Big Leap by Gay Hendrix or my own From Chaos to Creativity. Almost any business or self-help book is going to fall into this category.
Narrative nonfiction books include personal memoir, business memoir, and history books. These are (generally) structured much more like a novel would be, with an inciting incident, rising action, a mirror moment, doors of no return, etc.
Keep in mind that memoir doesn’t necessarily need to be told in order, either. There are plenty of successful collections of memoir essays (think, David Sedaris) or memoirs told in more advance literary forms (like Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House).
I’ll tackle narrative nonfiction in a later post. In this essay, I’m going to be talking specifically about outlining self-help, business books, and other educational nonfiction.
Further Reading: A Simple Nonfiction Book-Writing System
1. Get Clear On Your Book’s Promise
What are you trying to say, and who are you trying to say it to? Nailing this can be the most difficult part of the outlining process, because when you first start thinking of writing a book, the idea will probably be very amorphous.
For example, when my current book coaching client and I first started talking about her project, she had multiple audiences in mind.
On the one hand, she wanted to speak to individuals and help them using the methodology from her day-to-day business.
On the other hand, she’s passionate about certain things her industry gets wrong, and wanted this book to educate other business owners.
The more we talked about, though, the more she realized the biggest lift would be in helping individuals. This doesn’t mean the book won’t be useful to other business owners in her industry—just that we’ve chosen a single audience to focus on.
Which let us choose a single message to convey with the book.
Further Reading: Write a Book to Grow Your Business
2. Organize What You Already Know
With that audience and message in mind, it’s time to get organized.
We’re not worried about coming up with a perfect outline or final table of contents at this stage—we’re just seeing how all the pieces fit together.
Here’s how to do this.
Brainstorm
Start by taking everything you already know you want to include in the book, and get it out in front of you. Everyone has a different process, so pick the mind mapping tool that suits your brain.
- If you’re visual and tactile: Use sticky notes and a blank wall or whiteboard. You can also work directly with markers on a whiteboard or large sheet of paper, but I like the ability sticky notes give you to move them around.
- If you’re digital-first: Use a tool like Scapple or MindMeister to sketch out your ideas.
(Scapple is a fantastic mind-mapping tool, and one of the best that I’ve found for digitally mimicking the free-form joy of using a marker on a white board. I also love that it’s a one-time payment, and your work is saved directly on your computer instead of somewhere in the cloud.)
Group Your Ideas
Write big ideas or chapter themes on large sticky notes, then jot down stories, examples, frameworks, or research on smaller ones. Cluster them around each theme.
As you work, try to get a sense of how these major themes flow into each other, and arrange your work in a rough order.
Sometimes the order will be very clear. If you’re writing a book about your proprietary framework, there are probably concrete steps that go in a specific order. It will probably also be clear which concepts need to be explained before getting to the main framework, and which should come after.
Even if your book isn’t centered on a framework, there will likely be a flow: setting the stage —> exploring key ideas —> offering solutions —> guiding the reader into action.
Balance The Structure
The nice thing about mind-mapping is that it lets you see at a glance if one section feels overloaded and other feels light.
If that’s the case, play around with different ways to break apart the material or combine it to create more robust sections.
It can be helpful to spend a few separate sessions on this step. This is another reason I prefer sticky notes—every time I walk by the wall in my office where I’m starting to map out a new book project, it spurs my subconscious to mull it over.
We’ll refine balance and flow as we continue to outline and draft, of course, but the closer you can get now, the more headache you’ll save later.
Create a Bullet Point Outline
When you’re feeling good about this general map, it’s time to turn your mind map into an outline. Jot down the chapters, with sub-bullets for different stories, examples, research, etc.
Once again, don’t worry too much about getting the outline perfect—we’re going to stress-test it in the next step.
3. Spot the Gaps and Fill Them
Now that you’ve mapped out a rough structure for your book, you should be able to see more clearly what’s missing. Maybe Chapter 2 is light on stories. Maybe Concept X needs to be more fully explained. Maybe a whole section needs more research or outside input.
In this step, we’ll identify those weak spots and fill them in. Believe me, it’s way easier to make huge changes to a book’s structure before you’ve drafted it. That’s why we’re doing so much heavy lifting in the outline stage.
Take a good look at your bullet-point outline. For each chapter or section, ask:
- Do I have enough examples to illustrate this idea?
- Do the concepts flow in an order that feels natural?
- Are there questions my audience might still have?
This is a great time to get input from your ideal audience. Share your outline with a few trusted people who understand your work or fit your target reader profile.
Ask them:
- What else would you want to know about this topic?
- Is there anything you expected to see that’s missing?
- If you saw this book on a shelf, what would you hope to get out of it?
- Do these chapters seem like they’d deliver that?
You can also use AI tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity for this step. Paste in your outline and use this prompt:
“Here’s the working outline for my business book. It’s for [target audience] and the goal is to help them [transformation or educational message]. From a reader’s perspective, what gaps or missing pieces do you notice?”
You can also prompt AI to ask devil’s advocate questions or simulate a skeptical reader. This can be a great way to help you find blind spots.
Further Reading: Writer’s Block: The Voices in Your Head
4. Write a Narrative Outline
Now it’s time to turn your rough outline into a strategic tool that will guide your drafting process—and ensure your book delivers real value to your readers.
Most people think they’re done outlining when they have a quick bullet list of what they’ll write in each chapter. That’s fine as a starting point, but I recommend creating two versions of your outline:
- A bullet-point outline to organize and structure your content—which we did in Step 3.
- A narrative outline that explores the flow of each chapter.
Why both? Isn’t this overkill?
The bullet version gives you a great overview—but the narrative version forces you to think like a guide. It helps you step into the reader’s shoes and ask, “What do they need right now? What will keep them turning the page?”
This is where you can really make sure your book is providing maximum impact.
If you’re planning to submit your book proposal to a traditional publisher, you’ll need this as part of the package. But no matter how you’re planning to publish, don’t skip this step.
Like I said before, it’s so much easier to make big structural changes before you’ve written the entire draft. Think of the narrative outline as a final systems check before you launch yourself into the weeds of writing the first draft.
Take your stress-tested bullet-point outline and go chapter by chapter, writing a few paragraphs describing what the chapter is about, what it will do for the reader, and how it fits into the overall arc of the book.
Use language like a guide leading someone through a journey.
For example:
“In Chapter 2, I’ll walk the reader through the biggest mindset blocks that stop entrepreneurs from launching their SaaS startup. I’ll use client stories—including [specific examples] to normalize those fears and offer a three-step reframe that will give them confidence. I’ll also explain the [framework name], a valuable tool the reader can use to shift their mindset. This chapter will set the emotional foundation for everything that follows.”
Once you have your narrative outline written, this book should be feeling a lot more solid in your mind.
And that’s it!
Overall, this process could take you as little as a couple hours, or as long as a few weeks. Now, it’s time to start writing.
And, of course, if you want some help with this process I’d love to chat! Learn more about nonfiction book coaching and schedule a discovery call with me here.