How To Write A Non-Fiction Book©
by Tira Brandon-Evans

Elder Grove Press is actively seeking submissions from new authors. Maybe you would like to write a book but don't know how to get started. Many folks hold the mistaken idea that writers are a special breed, born with mysterious gifts and talents that enable them to write books. Nothing could be farther from the truth. While it is true that some writers are especially gifted and talented, almost anyone can become a wordsmith and write a book. The main qualifications are:

If you feel you have these qualities, here is a quick and rough guide you may find useful in writing your book.

GETTING STARTED:

First decide what the book is actually about. If you can write one sentence stating what you want to accomplish in the book then you can write the book with little problem.

If you can't do that then you should just start writing.

A book generally goes through several stages and drafts. At each stage you will shape and polish your book.

ROUGH DRAFT: STAGE ONE

Write, write, write. Don't worry that what you are writing today does not seem to be connected with what you wrote yesterday. Just write everyday. Try for two pages a day. You will probably have to toss 90% of what you write at first. But that is okay. The thing is that a writer writes -- and reads.

At this rough draft stage don't worry too much about facts, spelling, grammar, etc. That comes later. Just write whatever you feel like writing.

After a few days you will start to see where you are going. Maybe not clearly at first, but you will start to get an inkling of what the book is about. Keep on writing. When you get to the end of what you have to say you will know it because you won't be able to write any more.

ROUGH DRAFT: STAGE TWO

You will feel a tremendous need to organize. Go back to earlier pages and make changes. This is when you start to shape the book. But you still aren't ready for spelling and grammar. At this stage you want to be sure that you have all your facts straight. There are few things more embarassing than publishing a book or article and realizing that you allowed a glaring error to get by you.

During this stage, while you are engaged in your research, write down the following for every one of your sources:
You will develop your bibliography from this information. If you are quoting directly from a book you will need the page number(s) and Address of Publisher so you can get permission to use their words in your book -- (you can usually get their URL on-line too with a bit of searching). I usually keep all this information in a single file so that when I have completed the book my bibliography is already done and I have all the information I need to contact other publishers for permissions.

(Permissions are a bit scary to think about but really easy to obtain. I have never had anyone turn me down so far. You do not need to worry about this step until the final stage of the writing process.)

FIRST DRAFT

Once you have organized your material and checked your facts, the real writing begins. Go back over all that you have written, page by page, clarify your thoughts by adding to what you have written where your meaning is unclear and throwing out the bits that no longer seem to fit.

Again, don't worry about spelling, grammar, etc., at this stage. This first draft is just to get the material into some kind of rational shape. At this stage you should start to see pretty clearly where the whole thing is going and what you really want to accomplish.

SECOND DRAFT

This is the polishing draft. Now you look at spelling and grammar. Read your pages aloud. By reading aloud you can hear where the grammar is awkward, where you have failed to express yourself clearly, where you could make your thoughts flow more freely and communicate your ideas more fluently.

THIRD DRAFT

This is where you make everything as structurally sound as you can make it. Break the book up into sections. Organize the sections into chapters. Remove extraneous but necessary material from the main text and place it in footnotes/endnotes or appendices.

Footnotes/endnotes generally contain 'asides' -- interesting facts and information that don't really fit into the text, definitions, credits regarding quotations, and other references. An appendix contains a lot of information about a single subject. For instance, you may discover that you have a lot of footnotes about the ogham alphabet. Instead of leaving all that information in notes you may want to organize it into an appendix.

You will also want to create your bibliography during this stage of development. This is easy if you have kept track of all your references and sources. Next, decide where you are going to place illustrations, figures, graphics and tables (providing you need any of these).

Footnotes, appendices, and bibliographies all sound quite intimidating and a lot of writers throw up their hands at this stage and give up because they aren't sure they understand all the ins-and-outs of structuring these things into their book. If you are worried or confused at this stage, go and look at other books. Compare three or four books. Look at how the footnotes, appendices, and bibliographies are formatted. This formatting is fairly standard throughout the industry. Almost any non-fiction book will have footnotes, appendices, and a bibliography. If you just look at what others have done and copy that formatting you will do quite well.

FOURTH DRAFT

This is the tightening up stage. Read the manuscript again, right through from start to finish, just the way you would read any book. You can, if you like, read it aloud, but I usually don't unless I come across some sentence or paragraph that does not make sense or does not 'sound right'. Make notes in the margins and don't worry about making changes until you are done.

FINAL DRAFT

This is the loose ends stage. Run your spell check and your grammar check -- if you have MS Word you have a spell and grammar check. Then print the manuscript. Read the manuscript from BACK to FRONT. Start with the last word, last sentence, last page and read the words backwards. When you get to the beginning of the last paragraph read that paragraph forwards.

Then start with the last word, last sentence of the next paragraph up and read the words backwards. When you come to the beginning of that paragraph read it forwards, etc. Why do you read the manuscript like this? You read the words backwards for spelling. You read the paragraph forward -- one last time -- for sense and meaning.

COMPLETING THE MANUSCRIPT

Now that all the drafts are done and the book is as perfect as you can make it, you add the subject index (providing you need one), table of contents, and title page. If you are not sure what an index, table of contents and title page should look like, look at other books. The formatting for these things is fairly standard throughout the publishing world.

SUBMITTING THE MANUSCRIPT

Now that you have completed your book, you want everyone to read it. Most publishers have guidelines for submissions. The bad news is most p-publishers, (ink on paper publishers), will not even look at your book unless you have an agent. Unfortunately, most agents won't look at your book unless you are published. The good news is that many e-publishers will publish the works of new and unknown writers.

Elder Grove Press is actively seeking submissions from new and unknown authors. Here are our guidelines:

SUBMISSIONS TO ELDER GROVE PRESS
  1. All books must be definitely Celtic in theme and subject. Celtic history, Celtic heritage, Celtic spiritual traditions, Druidry, Celtic Shamanism, the Culdees, Celtic deities, and other topics of this sort are welcome and will be considered.
  2. You must query first with a short synopsis – ie. a letter telling me what your book is about.
  3. Your query must be sent by email. Click here to email me.
  4. If your book is of interest we will reply, asking you for an outline and sample chapters.
  5. Do not send your outline and sample chapters until we ask for them. We do no receive unsolicited email attachments. Messages with unsolicited email attachments are automatically deleted from our inbox.
  6. Upon our request, your outline and sample chapters must be sent as email attachments.
  7. Attached outline and sample chapters must be in MS Word, MS Wordworks, or MS Wordpad. For technical reasons, no other formats can be considered for any reason whatsoever, there are no exceptions.
  8. Your proposal must refer to a book length work. Except for poetry (see below), a book, when published in PDF, will be at least 100 – 8”x 5” single spaced pages.


What about poetry?

We will consider poetry for publication. A book length for poetry is at least 30 short poems or at least 20 long poems. A short poem is one of 15 lines or less. A long poem is one of 16 lines or more.

What about fiction?

Novels and book length collections of short stories will be considered. They must conform to our submissions guidelines above.

What about non-fiction?

Non-fiction includes book length works on a single subject such as the Ogham, megalithic cultures of Celtic lands, Arthurian myth, Celtic deities and myths, etc., AS WELL AS book length collections of: (a) shamanic journeys, (b) articles or essays, (c) shamanic journals or diaries, (d) book length travelogues on trips to Celtic countries and other works of that sort.

What sort of thing do we really hate?
FINALLY

There is absolutely no mystery in how to write a book. You just write it and try to make it as good as it can be. That's all there is to it. Not mysterious -- but very, very magical and fulfilling.

Tira Brandon-Evans is the Founder and Moderator of the Society of Celtic Shamans and Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of Elder Grove Press. She is a Faery Shaman and a Chartered Herbalist. She presently has three books in publication: The Green and Burning Tree, Portals of the Seasons, and Healing Waters. Visit her at the Society of Celtic Shamans homepage.

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