How to write non-fiction is a book for writers that are beginners but also for those who want to learn more about writing a non-fiction book. 

The author, Joanna Penn, is a well-orientated author and independent publisher that has written several books about writing and publishing. She has also written a bundle of fiction books under the name J.F Penn. 

How to write non-fiction is divided into five parts, and it starts with the mindset you need to have before you start writing. Followed by business thinking and how to reach the readers. Part three is about writing and editing. And part four is about how you create the product and the different ways of publishing it. The last part is about how you marketing non-fiction. We can see that the parts cover the entire process. 

Throughout the book, you understand that Joanna Penn is a businesswoman. Her entrepreneurial view of the book business is there all the time. It is more of a concept of making business, building a brand and an author’s platform or, as Penn call it, an ecosystem around the author. 

The book is divided into small sub-chapters with around five pages of text and ends with some questions the reader can ask themself, and a list of resources that are often linked to Penn’s own books and ecosystem. 

So do not be misled by the title, How to write non-fiction, I think you have a brilliant use for the book, but if you are looking for a book with a focus on the writing process; how you structure the book and more text related ideas, then you might look for another book. 

I will say the title for this could be more pointed to the entire process from the point you start to think about writing a nonfiction book until it is on the market

Visual Thinking – The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns and Abstractions

Author: Temple Grandin

Non-Fiction – Personal Development

Rating: 5/5

Temple Grandin clarifies the difference between the verbal and visual thinkers and why it is important that we are aware of the various way of thinking.

The book gives the reader an answer if they think in patterns, picture or words, or at least the reader will think about it, because they might think in all these ways and not lean that much to a certain style. Grandin goes deeper into this and question, for example, the educational institution to favour the verbal thinkers. 

“Visual thinking is the ability to see associated images from your “visual memory files” and access them to different ways to problem solve, navigate, and interpret the world.”

She explains the advantages for visual thinkers and how they can contribute to our society. She also describes the different between an object visualiser and a spatial visualiser. 

It tells us about people that are leaving school for different reason, due to how they think differently from others. Grandin self tells us about being screened out from some classrooms. And the importance of have room for everybody in school despite their area of intelligence, such as thinking styles as verbal, spatial and object visualisers. 

What I liked with this book is of course that she brings it up at all. It is important for our future and for our well-being to be aware of this, especially for those that are in the outskirts of the continuous and are heavily embossed by their way of thinking.

Grandin is into engineering and that where the focus is, even do she mention other professions she tells most of the examples from her own background and what is missing might be a broader explanation from other areas where visual thinkers are active or could be to an advantage. 

“Imagine if we catered to visual thinkers the way we cater to verbal thinkers.”

But the book still accomplishing the goal, and we can understand what the visual thinker can contribute with and the value of people in different styles of thinking. A mix is worth a lot in a group that having a problem to solve.

I believe it speaks very well to the targeted audience. Grandin herself say she is an object visual thinker and therefor it may lean into those who are similar. The spatial visualisers might go away with less meat on their legs after reading the book, but still with some more meat.

I believe you should read this book; I do not think there is many in this subject on the market. Visual thinking gives you awareness about yourself and how your brain works, and it does not matter if you are a verbal or visual thinker, you will understand things both about yourself and others. And that is of great value.