Today’s successful how-to authors establish a platform—a reputation and a built-in audience in a particular topic or niche—and focus their writing in just one or two areas. The more you build your platform in your niche, the more money you will make. Therefore, the first and most important decision you must make as a how-to writer is choosing the

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Research and Knowledge Acquisition

The content hierarchy—information, knowledge, wisdom—should not be obvious in your writing. Content is not organized according to the hierarchy. Good how-to writing contains a mix of all three: information, knowledge, and wisdom. Just as the ingredients in a sauce or stew are well mixed to create a great dish, the three content elements are mixed

One way to reduce

The highest level of the how-to writing content hierarchy is wisdom. Wisdom helps the reader determine a course of action or a choice. It is based on years of accumulated experience, analyzed so that rules and guidance may be extracted from it.

Research and knowledge accumulation.

When in doubt, clip and save material you might want to refer to some day for a writing project. At the same time, don’t be like the famous Collier brothers, who saved every newspaper they ever bought in their Manhattan brownstone until it became a rat-infested fire hazard. When you want to save something, tear it out of the magazine or newspaper,