GenresNon-fiction
Philosophy
Clear thinking about how to live and what is real.
A philosophy book for the general reader is an invitation to think more slowly about a question they are already living with. How to act, what to believe, what a good life can reasonably contain, what we owe each other. The tradition is large, and you don't have to summarise all of it before you are allowed to start. Pick a problem, be honest about the people who have thought about it before you, and write sentences a willing reader can follow without feeling they are being examined.
Practical philosophy, the kind that sits near self-help, still needs arguments rather than quotations in nice type. Stoicism and its neighbours are popular because they offer a way to meet trouble, and a book in that vein should admit the trouble it cannot tidy. History of ideas and political philosophy need context, or the old arguments turn into slogans. Disagree with famous names if you have a reason. Agreement is not a requirement, and neither is novelty. Clear thinking, carried all the way through, is rarer than a new theory.
The kinds of book inside it
Ethics
The question is how to act, and the examples should be hard enough that the answer isn't obvious before you have made the case.
Practical / Stoic
A practical tradition is being offered as a way to live, so it needs exercises and honesty about pain, not only calm quotations.
History of ideas
Ideas are followed through time, and the book should show why those ideas mattered to the people who had them, not only how they look now.
Political
Power, justice, and the state are the subject, and the reader should be able to see how the argument touches ordinary arrangements.
When you want a first sketch, Storywell can draft a contents list in this vein. You are still the one who writes the book. Compose an idea.