Over the years, I have worked with many writers who dream of writing a book that will help serve humanity. Much of the time, the writer has experienced some sort of deep trauma, gone through a healing journey because of that trauma, and then come out on the other side with a unique perspective on everything they experienced. Usually in these cases, the writer realizes that what they’ve learned could greatly benefit others who are currently going through the same sort of trauma they experienced, and that the best way to get this knowledge into the hands of other people is to write a book that contains all of the insights the writer learned the hard way.
However, it can be confusing to write this kind of book that serves the world when you have no idea what direction you need to go in to even start. Some writers feel it’s important to include extremely personal pieces of their own journey (memoir), and some want to focus more on learning strategies for the reader (self-help). Some feel like they might want to do a mix of the two, but they’re unsure about how to pull that all together.