Nonfiction is a genre with many forms of writing, but all rely heavily on accurate, credible and oft-checked facts and research. Nonfiction pieces range from the satire of Shakespeare and humor of Mark Twain; the brilliance of Albert Einstein; the depth of Virginia Woolf; and the contents of your daily paper and favorite magazines.

Nonfiction is more than popular works by famous authors, just look around your house. You probably have a drawer full of instruction manuals telling you how to install software, put together a high chair, or work that new DVD recorder. As far as your book collection goes, you probably own more gardening, travel, history and textbooks than novels. That is because consumers purchase more nonfiction than fiction. If you don’t subscribe to a daily paper or magazine, then you probably get your news online or on TV. Millions of people requested free informational reports and ebooks online and chances are you’re one of them. If you’re reading this, then you’ve taken an online course. Millions of people surf the web and read content on web sites everyday and if want to learn about any event, entity or person in the world you can find a book at the local library. These are all examples of nonfiction in everyday life. As you can see, opportunities are everywhere for the freelance nonfiction writer.

While fiction writers use their imagination to create stories, nonfiction writers rely on interviews, facts, research, profiles, and writing skills. This expository form of writing covers events and people in history, politics, sports, as well as instructional information about hobbies, recreation,  humor, instructional, user manuals, etc. Nonfiction is factual and informative, but that doesn’t equal boring.

Now that you have been introduced to nonfiction, why do you think people read this genre? Why do people read books in general? Why do you read nonfiction? Name at least two reasons.