GenresNon-fiction
Self-Help
A problem, a method, a change the reader can feel.
Self-help makes a promise that the reader's life can change in a specific way if they do something the book is going to explain. That promise should be one a decent person can keep. You don't have to solve grief, marriage, and capitalism in two hundred pages. You do have to be clear about who the book is for, what problem it addresses, and what it is not going to fix. Readers of this shelf are hopeful and also, quite often, tired of being talked down to.
A method helps. Stories help too, especially if some of them show the method failing until it is properly understood. What doesn't help is a stack of slogans, or a theory that only works for people who already have money, time, and no dependents. Be honest about the limits. Give the reader something to do this week, not only a new way to describe their personality. And if the advice comes from research, say so in language that doesn't require a degree, without pretending a study of forty students is the secret of a happy life.
The kinds of book inside it
Habits
The book is about repeated behaviour, so the advice should survive contact with an ordinary week, not only a motivated Monday.
Confidence
Self-belief is the promise, and it is more convincing when the book deals with skill and circumstance as well as with inner talk.
Relationships
Other people are involved, which means the advice can't assume the reader controls the whole situation.
Happiness
A huge word, so the book should say what kind of happier it means, and what it is willing to leave alone.
Healing
Pain is the starting point, and the tone should be steady rather than triumphant, with practices a person can actually repeat.
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.