Let’s talk about choosing a great niche or topic to write about. I’m not going to spend a huge amount of time on this part. I mention and include this because I would feel remiss if I didn’t.
I feel I should mention niche selection because, while a good niche can mean success, a poor niche can mean utter failure. Just because you like a certain topic doesn’t mean everyone else is interested in buying a book about it. I don’t want you to write your heart out on a topic that will never sell. That’s just not the way to go—unless writing is strictly a hobby for you. And I think you’re reading this right now because it’s not just a hobby for you.
Again, you have to make sure the topic you choose is selling well on Kindle already. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Follow what’s already working and already selling. If you publish on a hot topic, the chances are good that you’ll probably get some sales.
To choose a good niche or topic, go to Amazon.com’s Kindle section and click through the various categories in the nonfiction section. It’s okay to choose categories that you’re interested in yourself – that will make this so much easier, especially if you’re very knowledgeable about the niche or topic already. The trick is to find something you enjoy writing about and that will sell really well.
As you click through the categories, drill down to the subcategories. Since you are writing a very specific book, you want to target a very specific subcategory. It’s going to be much easier for you to make sales if you target a subcategory.
Once you’re on a subcategory’s page, take a look at the bestselling books on that page. There are some things you want to note as you look at these books.
First– are there other self-published authors within the first 20 best-selling books in the subcategory? You can and will beat traditionally published works. With that said, right now, you probably don’t have the marketing muscle they have. If other self-published authors have snuck in and are at the top of these categories, it’s a fairly good indicator that you can do the same thing.
Also, click on the first few top sellers as well as the bottom few sellers of the top 20. So, you might open up tabs in your web browser for bestseller 1, 2, and 3 as well as bestseller 18, 19, and 20. Look at the Amazon sales ranks of each of the books. The sales rank numbers can be very telling.
Make sure you take notes while you’re doing this so you remember everything. Some people even like to keep spreadsheets as a way of tracking this research.
Of the top few bestsellers, what are the ranks? Ideally, you want the rankings to be under 20,000. The lower the ranking on Amazon, the better. The more sales the book makes, the lower its sales ranking gets. A 5,000 ranking, for example, would be very good. A 1Milllion+ ranking would be bad. Keep that in mind because it’s very valuable information when it comes to choosing your niche.
Now, take a look at the bottom few bestsellers that were in that top 20 of that subcategory. It’s good news for you if those are at a 50,000 sales rank or higher while the top few books are at a 20,000 rank or lower. That means there’s a better chance you can sneak into the top 20 with your self-published, short book and rank well. It can be worth checking on the length of the books that are doing well to see if the type of book you plan to write has a place there.
It can honestly take hours to go through this process. But, once you do it, you can save your notes forever and you’ll have fodder for new books for months and months to come. Whenever you need a new idea, you can just take a look at your notes. Just make sure you check up on your idea if it is months down the line—the bestseller lists on Amazon do change very frequently.
Also realize that this is not an exact science. Trends can and will change. What’s hot today might not be hot tomorrow. Some of the books you research don’t have staying power while others do. If choosing a bestselling niche were easy, everyone would release a bestseller every single time.
That’s another point— you can click on the upcoming releases page Amazon will show you so you can get an idea of what’s on the horizon. The big book companies pay a lot of money and spend a lot of time in research. If their books are on the upcoming releases pages, you can scope trends out early.
It’s also important to note that you’ll be interested in some topics and not other topics—regardless of their ranking power. It’s better to focus on something you have some interest in than something you absolutely have no interest in. At the same time, make sure people are interested in buying what you have to sell.
That’s what a lot of writers get wrong. They think they can just write what they want and that people will buy it just because they are passionate about it. Well, when you self-publish for Amazon Kindle, you’re not just a writer, you’re also a marketer. Self-published authors wear all the hats. The sooner you realize and embrace that, the better.
It’s best if you find a topic that’s profitable but not oversaturated. Remember to check those sales ranks. If the top 20 books all have sales ranks of under 20,000, it’s going to be harder for you to break in.
Another thing to consider is whether there are opportunities for you to publish many books on a topic in the future. Remember that you don’t want to just publish one book per topic, you want to corner the market on a topic. You want many great releases over time and a catalog that consistently sells for you.
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