a single source, nothing corroborates it

Order the material by the reader's steps

Structure the thing around the sequence a reader has to move through rather than the topics you wanted to cover, and pitch it against the specific fear a beginner arrives with. One new idea per step, hung on a single running example, is what makes a hard subject feel survivable.

The method

1. 01

   Organise the book around the sequence of steps the reader has to take, not around the topics you want to cover.

2. 02

   Position a technical book against the beginner's specific fear rather than against the technology, and structure it as one real app with a single new concept per chapter

What it returned

• He threw out four or five pages of topic notes and restructured around incremental steps toward better onboarding

• Pitched as taming the framework's learning curve for beginners

Sources

• Making $12,500 in 3 months with a book on ember.jsNathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · Tell us about your book in a couple sentences · 2015-06-03
• How Samuel Hulick made over $37,000 with his self-published bookNathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · Really, really long hours: Writing The Elements of User Onboarding in three months · 2014-06-09