As the population ages, books about aging and eldercare will proliferate even more than they have to date. There are essentially three types of books in this subgenre, and you only need to be an expert in one of the groups. If you are going to write about specific physical and/or mental conditions, you must be an authority. For example, you could not write The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for Persons with Alzheimer Disease, Related Dementing Illnesses, and Memory Loss in Later Life unless you possessed credentials similar to the book's authors, Peter V. Rabins, MD, a professor of psychiatry, and Nancy L. Mace, MA, a mental health professional.

However, if you want to write a resource book such as one that details sources available to the elderly in securing home care or health benefits, all you need to do is research and use the tools you learned in Chapter 5. Of course, some professional experience would help, as would blurbs and a foreword by experts.

The third area in this subgenre is books written by adults with elderly parents who are dealing with their own personal experiences. Essentially, such books are memoirs, and you'll learn more about this in Chapter 18.