8 Writing and Publishing Your Book
aspiring writer, it proved to me that I’d already developed the core skills
required of an editor. (I continue to cultivate two other requisite skills: diplo-
macy and tact.) That conversation also demonstrated the dynamic synergy that
results when an author and an editor collaborate. Since then, I’ve worked with
and learned from hundreds of authors. Much to my regret, I couldn’t take
every one of them out for coffee, so I developed the following self-guided
method. Now I want to share it with you.
YOUR ARGUMENT
You want to draw the blueprint for your book as soon as you’ve done enough
research to determine that your project satisfies the criteria presented earlier
in this guide. With this blueprint, you can identify the gaps in your research
and avoid gathering material that doesn’t fit. I often compare a book to a
machine that transports readers. By giving them new knowledge, teaching
them new skills, opening new experiences to them, urging them to act, or
generally enlarging their perspective, a book moves them from one mental
space to another. This machine consists of articulated modules, called chap-
ters, which themselves are little machines built from several integral compo-
nents. The engine powering this whole apparatus is the argument. Let’s
begin, then, with your book’s engine.
Think back to the origin of your project. What questions enticed you to
search for answers? What problems compelled you to seek solutions? As you
conducted research and gathered information, you began to formulate an
argument. An argument does more than answer the research questions or
describe the findings. It persuades readers that you correctly identified cor-
relations or cause-and-effect relationships.2 In terms of the machine meta
phor, because fuels your book’s engine.
A description of the European Union’s immigration laws sputters in the
driveway. An argument that specific historical and social factors in estab-
lished European democracies and former communist states determine the
differences in their respective immigration laws roars down the highway. A
chronicle of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) taxis, taxis, taxis. An argu-
ment about the ways in which certain events and persons prominent in the
Spanish Civil War shaped the outcome of World War II zooms into the sky.
From these examples, you can see how enlarging the scope of your research
and situating it in a meaningful context converts a mere description into an
intriguing argument. You can also see how scope and context define the tar-
get audiences. A scholar interested in the foreign policies of former commu-
nist states will pick up the book on immigration laws even if he’s not interested
in immigration per se. Military historians and military history fans fascinated
by WWII will notice the book on the Spanish Civil War.
