Let's take a look at all of the things that must go into a how to book. You first have the title page, the copyright information, the Table of Contents, the Preface, the Introduction or acknowledgements, List of Illustrations, the Chapters, References, Web links, Index and perhaps a listing of other publications you can order. The list is huge. The average How to book is three hundred and thirty pages in length. This is just the average. This means that you will have to determine how many pages to leave for each of the sections. The following is a suggested page count for each of the sections.
Title Page: 2 (front and back) - Copyright information is usually on the back of the title page
The Table of Contents: 4 to 6 pages depending on the detail
The Preface: 2 pages
Acknowledgements: 2 to 4 pages
List of Illustrations: 2 to 4 pages
References: 8 to 10 pages (including Web links)
Index: 8 to 10 pages
This leaves approximately 175 pages for the 15 chapters or 15 pages per chapter. However, 20 chapters should be the maximum - more than often a book with 10 to 15 chapters works best.
This will give you a general idea of what you are up against when writing your book. Each of these sections does have to be written or generated by the computer but the meat of the book requires more information. Each chapter needs to have a main theme that is tied to the overall genre of the book. Within the chapter, you should give details by using 15 or so topics that relate to that chapter. These simple rules are a good way to begin. When you get more experienced, you can change the rules to suit your own style.
Bette Daoust, Ph.D. is a speaker, author (over 170 books, articles, and publications), and consultant. She has provided marketing, sales, business development and training expertise for companies such as Peet's Coffee & Tea, Varian Medical Systems, Accenture, Avaya, Cisco Systems to name a few. Dr. Daoust has also done extensive work with small businesses in developing their marketing, training, and operational plans. You may contact Dr. Daoust at http://BizMechanix.com. You may also view her latest publications at http://BlueprintBooks.com. Dr. Daoust also writes for the National Networker http://theNationalNetworker.com.
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