How to Outline a Nonfiction Book | Dead Simple Process

About this video

Dale shares the outlining process behind, he says, more than 40 nonfiction books under his own name plus many more under pen names. Three pre-game steps come first: identify the specific reader (writing for everyone reaches no one), research keywords and niches so the book uses the language readers actually search — his example is ‘workouts’ in the US versus ‘bodybuilding’ elsewhere — and pick a tentative title to define what belongs in the book and what does not. Then a timed 30-minute brain dump: write everything relevant on paper with the inner editor switched off. Next, organise the dump into a logical order, generate questions for each concept from the questions people actually ask him, and mine Google autosuggest and related searches for questions he had missed. Organise those questions into a flowing sequence, then cut extraneous ideas — material big enough for its own book gets saved for a later project, which he credits for his prolific output, since one outline often yields two or three books. Each concept-plus-questions cluster becomes a chapter, questions become subchapters, and he then writes by answering them in full paragraphs. The outline, he stresses, needs to be useful, not textbook-perfect.

Key takeaways

• Pre-game: name the reader, research keyword language, set a tentative title
• Do a timed 30-minute brain dump with no editing allowed
• Build chapters from real reader questions, mined via Google autosuggest and related searches
• Cut oversized ideas into future books instead of bloating this one
• An outline needs to work, not to be pretty or academic

Episode details: published May 28, 2019 · 9:06 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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