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Riches in Book Niches

Riches In Book Niches

It’s almost impossible to write an original work on the subject of Self-Publishing for Kindle, for example. There are dozens, if not hundreds of books on the subject, and all of them cover more or less the same information. Different authors will package their material in different ways, maybe targeting a different kind of reader. But nevertheless there is still room in the market for another book on the subject, because the science moves forwards, and new discoveries are made all the time in terms of how to write, market, sell and so on. The same may be said for just about any factual subject.

When you write a non-fiction book, the intention is to give people the information they need, either to solve a problem or to educate themselves and encourage them to try something new, such as a sport or a cooking method, or even writing for themselves! When you put your book together you’re looking for a new angle to an existing topical subject. The concept of “How-To” is extremely well-established, and it’s the opening phrase of a vast number of web searches, so there’s a big clue about how to title your book.

There are some great “How-To” books on the market about finding new ideas for non-fiction Kindle books, and a key theme is the suggestion that you should be writing a series of books on similar subjects in order to build a faithful and loyal readership following. This is good advice, however in the short-term, in order to get you started in the writing game, you’re just looking for that one killer idea that will motivate you to write it, market it and then spark new ideas for you to move on to the next project. So for now, you should be focusing on something which excites you and about which you can be sufficiently enthusiastic to create 30,000 words.

If you already know the subject that you want to write about, then the first thing to do is check out the competition. Start typing your subject into the Amazon search box, and keep a close eye on the auto-fill titles (so-called Leading Indicators) which appear in the drop-down list below. This is the first indication if the subject is well searched-for.

Depending on the territory that you’re in, and the browser and device on which you’re searching, you may have the option to refine the search results based on various criteria: “new and popular”, “price” (low-to-high and high-to-low) “relevance”, and so on. Assuming you own a Kindle, or run the Kindle app on your tablet or smart phone (if you don’t have any of these devices I seriously suggest you obtain one before you start thinking about writing for Kindle) then a good idea is to select “price: low-to-high”. You will see that the first few titles are offered with a price of zero.

With KDP you can promote your book free of charge through Kindle Unlimited on Amazon.  Don’t be fooled, free books are not poor books, they’re just on promotion at that particular moment. Additionally, selecting Kindle Unlimited through the “Kindle Select” option on Amazon, still allows you to receive compensation for every page read in your book. For example, if you price your book at $9.99, you would be able to get $7 per every eBook you sell.

Another reason why books are often priced free, or very low, is because Amazon price-matches against other online book sites. If you want to give away a book permanently, there is also a technique for forcing Amazon to zero-price your book.

Now you have a bunch of books in your Kindle or iPad which you can read quickly, and gauge something about your competition.

“New and popular” is also a good search, because this will show you what’s selling. If your aim in writing your first book is simply to be published then you may not be too concerned with how saleable it is. However, if like the rest of us you’re actually trying make some money out of your literary endeavors, then the less competitive the market you write for, the better your chance of success. If you write a great book on a subject which is highly competitive, and you can get yourself onto the front page of Amazon’s rankings, you could make a great deal of money. On the other hand, if you can identify a niche which may not be so big, and which has disproportionately less competitive titles in it, you could still do very well, and you will find it easier to get up into the higher rankings for your category.

 

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