Defining Your Topics For A Book

Once you have your list and can think of nothing else to add, it will be time to sort the list under the chapter headings. You may find that some topics fit under more than one chapter, at this point, choose the best place. You will have enough topics to go around. At the end of this exercise, you may find that some chapters have far too many topics. This may mean you have to divide that chapter into two chapters. You will also find that other chapters will not have enough. In this case place the topics under other chapters and delete that chapter. You need to keep working this process until you have twenty chapters with a minimum of fifteen topics.
This process is not the easiest one to follow but it does work well for some writers. If you prefer a simpler method use the one in this next topic.
How do you create your topics?
Once you have your chapters in the order you prefer, it is time to work on the topics that will be inside. You have between ten and fifteen pages to fill which will include diagrams and other illustrations. You should plan on defining at least eighteen topics for each chapter. If a chapter does not warrant at least eighteen topics, then you will need to replace that chapter with a new one. You do have five extra chapters to use in case this happens. For example, you want to have a chapter that shows you how to write a marketing plan. You will then brain-storm all the things that you can write about that have to do with writing the plan. Generally you will come up with more than eighteen topics and that is good. Once you have your topic list, do the following:
Sort the topic list in order of the most important to the least important
Look at the list and see if there are any topics that cannot be described in three paragraphs or more.
Take the topics that do not fit the three paragraph rule and see if they can be part of any other topic, if yes, combine it, and if no, remove the topic
When you have finished working the topic list, pare it down to fifteen or sixteen final topics
Each chapter will need to be worked the same way. Brain-storm the topics, order and sort them and finalizing which ones will stay. This is close to finishing the foundation of your blueprint.