How to write a popular book

Having read innumerable popular history and science books, I want to consolidate a few thoughts on some all-too-common mistakes. I would not presume to offer anything as grand as a guide, just some observations on things that happen (or don't happen) too regularly to ignore. 

1) Bibliographic references go at the back, footnotes go at the bottom of the page

This is by far the most common and most irritating structural problem of the books I read. Yes, please, do give me references - sometimes even a lay reader like me does like to check the sources. And absolutely do give me footnotes as well. They're both generally a good thing.

But combining references and footnotes and putting them all at the back is daft. Why would I want to keep flicking back and forth between different sections, doing a really tedious lucky dip to see if I get some interesting extra text or just yet another reference ? I mean, IBID ? Again ? YOU MADE ME TURN 356 PAGES JUST FOR THAT ?

Look, it's perfectly simple. Supplementary information that's immediately relevant to the main text : same page please. References : at the back.

Why these points are so often overlooked  is something that confuses the heck out of me because it just seems so bleeding obvious. Yet probably about 90% of authors don't do this. And I can't understand how nobody else seems to want to complain about it.

2) Put maps in relevant sections, not all at once

Likewise, maps are great. But if they're all together (usually at the front) despite referencing different areas or times, they're not much help. And this is silly, because by and large different chapters tend to have a different geographic or chronological focus, so just put each map at the start of the most relevant chapter. I mean, it's fine if occasionally you need to say "see map on page N" which happens to be in a different chapter. I don't mind turning to a different section once in a while; I don't have some weird allergy to looking up page numbers. Just making me do this constantly is very annoying because it breaks the flow of the text.

3) Reference all figures and colour plates

A final structural point : using colour plates is nice, but just because they're usually (by necessity) in a separate section doesn't mean they have to be avoided in the main text completely. Just give them numbers and then refer to them appropriately. Hardly anyone does this, which is just irritating : at what point should I stop to look at the pictures ? Are they just to be perused at random ? Honestly, this takes next to no effort and helps the flow of the narrative considerably.

4) Be chronological, not biographical

This one is a bit more subjective because there certainly are times when it's beneficial to do things out of order. But attempts at doing biographies of historical figures tend to be pretty awful, in my experience. First and foremost, tell me what the person did. This is far more comprehensible if you tell me what things they did in the order that they did them. If you want to extract some common character traits by all means do that, but trying to do this by itself is pretty much guaranteed to fail.

Likewise, in popular science it's helpful to sketch a history of how we arrived at current findings, and here too being chronological is a perfectly sensible guideline if nothing else. Above all, though, try and tell me a story. Tell me how one thing led to another, or how one thing may or may not imply another. You don't have to be rigidly linear and you certainly don't have to make everything artificially certain. But give me a thread to follow and explore.

5) Make a point

Or at least, have a point. I personally enjoy it very much when an author has a clear axe to grind, even if it's not very likely I'm going to agree with them : at least I know what they're up to and feel equipped to mentally argue back, to view their arguments more critically. Trying to draw at the grand underlying trends and causal effects has a particular appeal to me - I want to know why things happen not just how.  As long as your attempt isn't hopelessly stupid, I'll probably enjoy the reasoning process regardless of the end result.

I don't mind either way if an author wants to be explicit or explicit about this. Sneakily trying to bend the narrative so the reader goes away with a certain impression without ramming your own personal pet theory down my throat is fine; on the other hand, being up-front about why you're writing the book is usually a good idea. Of course, one can set this out at the start and/or end without having to labour the point continuously in every section.

But most important of all is that you have some point to make. Doesn't have to be anything deep or insightful, you could just want to tell a good tale. Or you might want to support the established view in defiance of popular alternatives, or indeed do the exact opposite. It's all good. What you absolutely cannot do is have no sort of point at all, otherwise you'll just get a big mess. And if you do have an axe to grind, feel free to grind away... but don't pretend you're not doing it. Don't pretend to be writing something you're not. If you want to wax lyrical on the sins of the decadent West, that is fine - but don't tell me you're writing a history of China, because it'll be obvious what you're up to and you'll come across as biased and annoying.

There we go, that should sort everything out.