You are about to read a how to article about how to write a how to book! Writing how to books is no different than writing any other kind of book. You need to know your audience, know your subject and know how to entertain your audience when writing about your subject.
Creating how to books from scratch can be a big job. You don't have to do it all by yourself though. This is a great time to team up with an expert in the field you wish to write about. They give you the info and the insights and you do the writing. Everyone loves a good how-to book. The success of the "For Dummies" series is proof of that. This series also proves that you can write about a subject that might be as dry as a piece of toast with humor and creativity. Check out their dummies.com site where you can subscribe to their free newsletters.
First decide on your 'how to' subject. Consider the following topics:
- Dutch oven cooking
- Gardening
- Stamp collecting
- Yoga
- Soccer
- Decorating
- Scrapbooking
- Downloading
- Relgion
- Screenwriting
The topics are endless and can be for anything you know how to do, or play, or fix, or whatever. How-to books that are written in clear, concise language do the best. They appeal to the mass market instead of to a more experienced segment. That is why the dummies series has done so well.
Once you have a topic, and you aren't the expert in it, go shopping for an expert. You'll have to find someone that is busy enough that it shows they are successful but not so busy that they can't spend time with you. If you haven't been published before you might want to try submitting short how-to articles to magazines and other specialty publications first. This will give you the practice, experience and ability to list it on a resume. When you approach your expert bring a resume along so they can see you are a serious writer. You will need to decide how the royalties and payments will be split or if you are paying him or her a flat fee. Query a publisher ahead of time so that you are writing with the ability to sell it quickly. Good luck.