Five Essential Things to Do When Writing Your Self-Help Book

A professional self-help book editor’s top tips for authors (at any stage of writing)

1. Read other self-help books!

Specifically, read other self-help books that you admire, or admire the authors of. This is arguably the BEST way to get a sense of how to write and structure your book. When you write a self-help or psychology book, you’re entering into the conversation that is the broader genre/market, so it’s important to know what the current conversation is!

And even more importantly, other books in your genre will show you what sort of things work best for your content. They can help you figure out things like whether you should have exercises for your readers, what those exercises should look like, whether your book could benefit from features like tips or text boxes or chapter summaries.

In short, they can help you get a sense of what you like and dislike in books like yours: how they talk to the reader, how they organize things, how much evidence they have, how much practical advice and actionable steps — whatever you’re unsure of, seeing how other professionals do it will help you figure out your own path.

2. Write an outline.

I know, I know, you probably don’t want to do this! But honestly, making an outline is extremely useful for most people — even if you’ve already started writing. In fact, I’d argue that writing an online is extremely helpful no matter how much you’ve written or edited.

Why? It’s simple: writing an outline forces you to sit down and see the structure of your book. In fact, it lets you cut everything else out so that you ONLY see the structure. That gives you the chance to really hone in on what works and what could work BETTER.

After all, you know everything that you’re going to say — but your reader doesn’t. So, it’s important to make sure that you explain everything in the way (and especially in the order) that will make the most sense to your audience.

3. “Speak” to the reader personally.

There are not a lot of people who want to get life advice from a textbook — and that’s all the more true in psychology and self-help, where are lot of readers are really struggling, overwhelmed, or scared.

So when you write your book, really speak to your readers — their needs, their wants, their fears. Write your book like you’re writing to someone you care about. Create rapport! Be warm and direct, and reassure your reader that you are there to help.

And perhaps most importantly, write in a way that’s authentic to you. Don’t make up whatever hyper-cheery, incredibly effusive persona you might think you need — that doesn’t help anyone, not you and not your readers. Be the genuine version of yourself that’s warm, personable, direct, and helpful — whatever that looks like for you.

4. Create some reader profiles.

What’s a reader profile? It’s what it sounds like! A reader profile is a short and sweet bio for a hypothetical person in your target audience. And they’re amazing for making sure that you stay focused on what your readers need and how you want to talk to them.

Making a reader profile is simple. First, nail down some demographics. How old is this person? What is their gender, race, religion, and/or cultural background (whatever factors are relevant)?

And more importantly: Why are they reading your book? What need do they have that you can help fulfill? How much do they already know about your topic? Are they comfortable picking up a self-help book with your topic, or are they feeling anxious or self-recriminating about it? And this part is so key: if it’s the latter, how can you comfort them?

Once you’ve done all that, congrats, you have a reader profile! Ideally, you’ll want to make three or four of them. And as you write and edit your book going forward,

5. Do some fact-checking.

This probably also doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, but it’s so essential, especially in an age of so much misinformation. If you’re not a licensed practitioner, you’re going to have a lot more to fact-check — but even if you are, statistics basically guarantee your book contains information that you’re 90% sure (or hey, maybe less) is correct. And that information is worth double-checking.

Misinformation can be extremely harmful, especially when it comes to psychology — and there’s a lot of mental health misinformation out there. A recent study of mental health videos on TikTok found that 84% of videos contained misinformation, and 14.2% of videos included claims that were so incorrect they were potentially damaging. Don’t be like them!

Do your research. Know that you are giving your readers the best, most accurate information you can.