by AnnSheybani | Jul 6, 2024 | Reading, Writing, writing lessons
Given my profession, I’m often asked about my favorite books on writing. Before I answer, I tend to want to know WHY someone wants this information, mostly because I’ve noticed the tendency to read extensively on the topic, as opposed to doing the...
by AnnSheybani | Jul 1, 2024 | Writing, writing lessons
Our job as writers, particularly prescriptive nonfiction writers, is to take our readers on a journey. A very specific, personal journey that takes us from Pain Island to Pleasure Island, as Vrinda Norman puts it. Pain island represents failure, pain, and frustration....
by AnnSheybani | Jun 16, 2024 | Writing, writing lessons
Remember when I said that your book title has two jobs and two jobs only: 1. To sell your book 2. To help your book get discovered through search engines Well, it’s time to talk about those search engines for a hot minute. You have hundreds and thousands of books to...
by AnnSheybani | May 6, 2024 | Writing, writing lessons
As much as we’d like them to, our readers don’t tend to remember strings of concepts, statistics, or cold, hard facts. Especially page after page of them. The best way to make information sticky is to tell them a story, to deliver the necessary points, at...
by AnnSheybani | Apr 21, 2024 | Writing, writing lessons
Have you written a complete draft of a book, one with tons of bugs still in it? Are you wondering what comes next; what you’re supposed to do, specifically, during revision? If you’ve written a book that doesn’t require a narrative arc—motivational, self-help, or...
by AnnSheybani | Mar 17, 2024 | Writing, writing lessons
There’s something wonderful about writing a non-fiction book—how-to, self-help, or motivational, just to name a few of the business-building genres. You get to use all sorts of formatting tricks a memoirist or novelist would kill for. What do I mean by formatting...
