Seth Godin on writing: I spend 95% of my time persuading people to take action and just 5% on the recipes.
In Seth's blog post from last year, he talks about two components of any how to book:
- Recipes -- how to do it
- Persuasion -- why to do it
Most business books are mainly persuasion. The ideas in them are easy to summarize -- getting you to do something with them is the hard part. Most computer books are mainly recipes -- telling you exactly how to do stuff.
Even so, all computer books need to do some persuading. Before a cookbook presents a recipe, it has to convince you that it'll taste good: otherwise you won't bother to make it.
Books for beginners -- especially tutorials -- need more persuasion than books for professionals. Whatever your topic, find the sweet spot. How much time should you spend motivating the reader, getting them to try the next action, adopt the next best practice, or even just move to the next chapter?
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