GenresNon-fiction
Reference
Look-up knowledge, organised for use.
A reference book is organised so that someone can find a thing, and then, if you have done it well, stay to read the next thing. Handbooks, encyclopedic surveys, and directories are not failed narratives. They are a different promise. The promise is that the information is trustworthy, current enough, and arranged according to the reader's task rather than according to the author's enthusiasm.
Entries should be consistent. If one is a short essay and the next is a caption, the book feels accidental. Say how you chose what to include and what you left out, especially in a directory, where omission looks like a judgment. Credit sources. Date the facts that will rot, and design the pages so a person in a hurry can see the heading they need. Voice is allowed. A reference book doesn't have to sound like a form. It does have to be more reliable than a search the reader could have done themselves, or there is no reason for it to be a book.
The kinds of book inside it
Handbook
A field is covered for use, with procedures, definitions, or examples a practitioner could return to, not only read once.
Encyclopedic
Breadth is the point, held together by a consistent way of treating each subject, so the whole is a work and not a pile.
Directory
The value is selection and accurate detail, who, where, and why they are included, kept current enough to be worth opening.
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.