You have to address your selling points indirectly. If you have several editions of your book, your preface is also where you discuss why there is a new edition, and what’s different from the old edition.Īn author’s preface requires tact you can’t be too self-promotional. Without delving into the book matter, it gives the author a chance to talk to the reader and let them know your story, why you decided to write this book, why the world needs this book right now (helpful if you’re writing about something that’s been written about several times before, such as the hundredth biography of a famous figure,) where you got your information from, and why you are the best author to write this book. The purpose of a preface is to let the reader know how you came to write the book. It doesn’t go into the subject matter, the point of view, or arguments that the book presents.
What it doesn’t do is talk about the meat of the book. The author and/or editor of a book can write a preface, but no-one else can.
Though they may initially seem the same, and serve the same purpose, a preface is different from an introduction. What is a preface?Ī preface discusses how the book came about, the scope of the book, why the book was written, its limitations, and any acknowledgments the author or editor has. So, what are the differences between an introduction, preface, and a foreword? Where do you use them? Can you use several of them? We’ll go through these questions in detail. Who would want to read a book (or many) from someone who can’t get even the introduction right? While this difference might not seem like much to you, mislabelling this section will signal your book as an amateur piece of work to your reader, harming your author brand and sales in the long run. If you aren’t careful it might be a preface or a foreword instead, and these are different than an introduction. What’s the Difference Between a Book Introduction and a Preface or Foreword?īefore you write an introduction and dive in on writing the rest of your book, you first have to check if what you’re writing is actually an introduction. But first, head over to our book outline generator to grab your template–including an introduction outline! Readers will pick up your story and make a decision about you as an author and your book based on those first few paragraphs.Īnd we’re about to show you how to do just that with a complete 8-step process. This is why, if you’re writing a nonfiction book, your introduction is crucial to your book’s ultimate success. This means you’ve been given the opportunity to grab their attention and make them reach for their wallets.
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