How to Write a Self Help Book in Nine Easy Steps

Have you ever wanted to write an award winning self help book? Here's how!

1. Come up with a catchy title. Be sure to include at least one of the following words or phrases on the cover: happiness, magic, "fix your life", "change your life", passion, invigorate, communication, determination.  Use bright colors and weirdly incongruous imagery - gotta catch the eye of those ever-dwindling bookshop patrons!
2. Claim that this book is "not like all the others" for one of the following reasons  - it's a "revolutionary new technique",  it's "scientifically based",  it contains precepts of Buddhism but is totally not religious, it's a self-conscious parody, "nobody else has done this" or that it will "redefine how you see the world". 
3. Compliment your gullible reader on being wise enough and smart enough to buy this book - and make you some sweet sweet royalty money.
4. Here's the important part - the actual advice. If you've got a certain technique or practice that you've vaguely hear helps people, tell stories of how people implement it and how it totally changed their life, while remaining vague and indistinct about how to actually use said practice or technique in your reader's own life. Feel free to bullsh*t as much as you want here - you can claim that "names were changed to protect privacy" and make up whatever you want - nobody can actually check you on any of it. Use Unnecessary Capitalization to emphasize things in order to make it look like you actually have a System. 
5. If you don't have any actual ideas, all the best self help concepts were in "How to Win Friends and Influence People" first. Just rename them with more Unnecessary Capitalization, and you've got yourself a Bestseller.
6. This is important - while giving your advice, reference your website, blog, podcast, or your own self-published papers - multiple times. It will seem like you know more than you actually do and will drive clicks to give you that sweet sweet ad revenue - gotta get it where you can find it, right?
7. Optionally, include summary bullet points at the end of each chapter. If you have any actual points, these can summarize them in an easily readable fashion and essentially make the rest of the chapter moot. 
8. Conclude with a touching story of how you personally implemented your System/Technique/Organizational Method/Whatever You Called It. Make sure it's either disturbingly unnecessarily personal or so full of dropped names it  makes an Oscars after-party newscast look tame. If you did drugs, had a family member get sick, or got to talk to Oprah or the president, this is the time to wring it for all that it's worth. It will give you some credibility and make you sympathetic, making people more likely to check out your other stuff and make you more money.
9. Your last sentence should be happy, pithy, and memorable, while meaning absolutely nothing at all and leaving your reader feeling strangely motivated, yet directionless. Let's be honest - if you actually fixed people, you would destroy the market for your sequel. 

*No, I'm totally not vindictive. I've just read a lot of these type of books looking for anything of substance and coming up mostly blank. So no - totally not vindictive.
 If you're actively looking for self-help that makes you feel better, I personally recommend the Zen of Zombie, the Supervillain Handbook, or How to Survive a Horror Movie, all of which make me laugh out loud and feel good for a little bit, and all of which contain some actual useful advice, depending on your situation. 
Anything that claims to be serious is selling something.*