How To Use Mind Maps To Outline Your Nonfiction Book

Have you decided to write a book, but don’t know where to start? Creating a mind map can be the solution to your writer’s block. This visual thinking tool lets you generate a lot of ideas rather quickly. It’s a simple way for you to go from a blank page to a well-outlined plan. Mind maps are utilized as a way to get information out of your brain, so you can get it organized … and working for you.

HOW CAN A NONFICTION WRITER USE A MIND MAP?

Is a mind map for you? This is how it can help your nonfiction writing project:

• Brain dump your ideas. Convert your thoughts into chapters and headings. Often the most difficult part of the writing process is getting started. Nonfiction writing offers the additional challenge of knowing how to best order the information being presented. A mind map lets you organize your ideas and put them into a visual sequence.

• Develop your content calendar. Identify and plan what social media channels you want to use to reach your audience. Use a mind map to brainstorm where your ideal reader spends time online and create a content strategy around it. Choose 2 – 3 social media channels to get started.

• Plan your posts.  Mind map the topics and sub-topics for your blogs and vlogs. Instead of creating a new posting strategy each week, develop a plan where you can batch content. You can create a series around a theme (your subtopic) and write an individual post for each subtopic. This makes internal linking easier and will be a real-time saver.

• Evaluate your competition. Find your comps, so you know where to position your nonfiction book in the marketplace. What are the books in your category doing well? What are the gaps? How is your book different? Read their customer reviews on Amazon and look for any comments that give you insights into what information people are wanting.

• Create your book launch strategy.  Write down all of your ideas, prioritize, and choose a few to focus on. If you Google “book launch”, you will come up with thousands of how-to blog posts. Knowing where to focus your time and marketing budget can be confusing. Mind map a bunch of ideas and then pick the ideas that work best for you. You can always execute some of the other ones later.

• Leverage your book. Where do you want to go from here? Write more books? Speaking engagements? Additional product offerings? Bring awareness to your business? With nonfiction, the book is usually just one part of a business plan. Many non-authors are publishing a book to increase their platform and reach with their customers. Generate a list of next steps for your business.

WHAT ARE MIND MAPS?

They are a way to visualize and show the relationship between various ideas. Instead of jotting down notes on a sheet of paper, you can link and group similar thoughts together. It’s a wonderful tool for abstract thinkers. Mind mapping starts with the main theme. From there you work your way down into ideas that are smaller.

The big idea is like the matriarch on a family tree, each idea a child, each sub-idea a grandchild, and so on down until you get to their children. You can always follow the lines back up the tree to get the connection to the head of the family. In this case, your lines or arrows are used to create connections between a string of thoughts … or in this case … your book idea.

Then you can take this information and group them into chapters, sub-headings, or even a series of books. And in the end, every idea ties back into your big main idea or theme.

Sounds great, right?

Then let’s get started. For this example, let’s mind map your next great book idea. But don’t forget that mind mapping has many uses in a writer’s life. It’s a tool meant for creative thinkers. 

HOW TO CREATE A MIND MAP FOR A NONFICTION BOOK:

• In the center of your paper, draw a circle, and write your book’s main topic in the middle of the circle.

• Off to the side of your main idea, and write a word or phrase that first comes to mind about your subject. Draw a circle around this phrase. This is your first subtopic. Connect this circle to your main idea with a line.

• Repeat this process until you have 7 – 12 subtopics.

• Next, go back to each subtopic and repeat this process adding circled ideas for each subtopic. Aim for 10 – 15 ideas for each. These are your sub-sub topics.

• Convert each subtopic into a chapter heading.

• Arrange these headings into a table of contents for your book.

• Now take your sub-sub topics and turn them into subheadings to be used within your chapters.

• Congratulations! You have a book that is outlined and ready for you to write.

Keep in mind, you can create a mind map in many ways. Instead of drawing circles on a sheet of paper, you can use Post-It notes on a wall or poster board. Use one color of Post-Its for subtopics, and a different color for sub-sub topics. Move the notes around until you have everything in the order you want them. Or, you can use a template from canva.com as I did for the graphic above.