It may seem that this moment was never going to arrive but now that the research is complete, the material is organized, and you have a plan established, it's finally time to write. Everything you learned in Chapter 4 applies as you write your book. At the onset, you must determine your voice and writing style. As you have seen, if you are writing in a specific genre, you must adopt the voice and style required in that genre. If it's a scholarly book, you'll write in a professional tone with a first or third person point of view whereas if it's a how-to book, you'll write in a conversational tone from the first or second person point of view.

Regardless of the type of nonfiction book, your chief objective is to convey information and you must do this in a way that won't put the reader to sleep. The facts must be presented in a “readable” style. Remember, you're writing a book and presenting a large amount of information, so you have to take care not to overwhelm the reader at any given time. You don't want to be like the professor giving a lecture, going on and on, reading from pre- pared material, in a monotone, and never once deviating from a litany of facts. It's the same with your book — except all the reader has to do is put your book down if it gets too boring.

Finally, keep in mind that consistency is critical. It is not as difficult to avoid shifting points of view or changing tone when writing an article as it is with a book. Not only is it a matter of maintaining the same voice and point of view over hundreds of pages but you'll be doing so over a period of months or even years during the course of writing.