If you want to share your story with the world, are you writing a how-to book or a memoir? As your bestie in the book business, Meghan Stevenson, expert in traditional book publishing, former editor at Simon & Schuster and Penguin, and founder of Meghan Stevenson Books, is going to break it all down for you.
The short answer: if your book tells readers what to do — through advice, a method, key takeaways, or a plan — you are likely writing prescriptive nonfiction, not a memoir. Your book can absolutely include personal stories, client examples, case studies, and testimonials. But stories do not automatically make a book a memoir.
What Is Prescriptive Nonfiction?
Prescriptive nonfiction tells readers what choices to make and what activities to do. It gives rules, directions, or orders for how something should be done, rather than simply describing how something currently is.
You may call this type of book:
Advice
Self-help
How-to
Business
Personal growth
Spirituality
Entrepreneurship
Lifestyle
In traditional publishing, those categories all sit under the broader umbrella of prescriptive nonfiction.
If you are writing a book designed to help readers solve a problem, make a change, develop a skill, or take action, you are likely writing prescriptive nonfiction.
How Is Narrative Nonfiction Different?
Narrative nonfiction explains how things are or how they are used. In publishing, narrative nonfiction can include books about:
Politics
Social issues
Current events
History
Biography
Science
Memoir
A narrative nonfiction book may teach readers something important. But the author is not necessarily giving readers a direct method, step-by-step plan, or specific actions to take.
A useful way to tell the difference is to ask: Does the author directly tell the reader what to do with what they have learned?
If the answer is no, the book is likely narrative nonfiction.
An Example: Learning vs. Being Told What to Do
Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara is a great example. You can learn a lot from reading it, but you would need to shape the writing into advice for yourself. The book does not give readers a step-by-step method or a set of takeaways at the end of each chapter.
Instead, Will tells stories to demonstrate his points — or, more accurately, to describe them.
That is what narrative nonfiction does. As a reader, you may learn something, but there is nothing specific for you to actually do unless you decide for yourself how to apply what you read.
By contrast, prescriptive books such as Atomic Habits or The Let Them Theory give readers a method, plan, core idea, and key takeaways. The author is trying to help readers solve a problem or take a particular action.
Can a How-To Book Include Personal Stories?
Yes. In fact, every prescriptive book I’ve worked on contains stories.
Entrepreneurs, experts, and creators often get confused because they know their book will include stories — either their own stories or stories from clients, colleagues, friends, or other people in their lives. They may assume that having stories means the book is a memoir.
It does not.
Advice books, self-help books, and how-to books all rely on story. Stories can show readers what to do through:
Case studies
Examples
Testimonials
Client stories
Personal experiences
Your own story is also essential for establishing trust, especially in the introduction. An effective prescriptive nonfiction book helps the reader understand:
Why you care about the topic
Why you are knowledgeable and trustworthy
Why the reader should follow your advice
How your experience connects to the problem you are helping the reader solve
Those stories support the advice. They do not change the book into a memoir.
If you want to give advice, you are not writing a memoir.
If you are writing about business, entrepreneurship, money, health, parenting, relationships, leadership, work, personal growth and development, achievement, or spirituality, your book is likely prescriptive nonfiction.
And that is great news if you want a traditional nonfiction book deal.
The New York Times even has a bestseller category for this kind of work: the Advice, How-to and Miscellaneous list. Created in 1984, the list covers a broad range of prescriptive nonfiction categories, along with cookbooks, lifestyle books, humor and gift books, and religious books. It was created when self-help books began dominating the broader nonfiction bestseller list, giving other nonfiction categories — including biography, history, and memoir — a better opportunity to appear on their own list.
If you want to find out whether we are a fit, take the free quiz at meghanstevenson.com/quiz.
Questions Answered in This Episode
What is prescriptive nonfiction?
Is a how-to book the same as prescriptive nonfiction?
What is the difference between prescriptive nonfiction and narrative nonfiction?
Is a memoir considered narrative nonfiction?
Can a book contain stories without being a memoir?
Can a self-help or advice book include the author’s personal story?
How do I know whether my book idea is a memoir or a how-to book?
What makes a book prescriptive?
Do prescriptive nonfiction books need a step-by-step method?
What kinds of topics are usually prescriptive nonfiction?
Are business and entrepreneurship books prescriptive nonfiction?
Are books about money, health, parenting, leadership, relationships, and spirituality prescriptive nonfiction?
Why are stories important in an advice or self-help book?
What is the New York Times Advice, How-to and Miscellaneous bestseller list?
Why was the New York Times Advice, How-to and Miscellaneous list created?
