It’s so important to find great information—you have to find the balance between spending too much time on this and not enough. Finding great information will make you a much better writer. It will help to ensure that your readers get so much more value.
You’ll also naturally become more knowledgeable about your topic over time. The knowledge you gather today builds up with the knowledge you’ll gather next week. It doesn’t take much for you to become a very well-rounded expert on your topic. When you combine that with the fact that you’ll have several titles published in your name, you’ll soon be one of the top authorities on the topic you’ve chosen.
That can open an incredible number of doors for you. It doesn’t matter whether your top goal is to become a best-selling author or you’re using your books as a way to brand yourself as an expert, good research can help you get to where you want to go.
No matter what you do, make sure you stay active in reader communities so you can continue to digest new information on a regular basis. You’ll be one of the first to learn about breaking news and you’ll be able to hit on hot top trends before anyone else. You’ll find great sources you never would have found otherwise. Active communities often share great sources and you can benefit from that.
Top experts never stop researching, learning, and adjusting their views according to the new information they learn. Doing this will definitely improve your writing.
More on How to Choose a Specific Topic for Your Book
I’m going to assume that you at least have a general topic idea and you’re ready to get started. I’ll also assume that you’ve already started to get to know your audience. Now what?
I recommend you choose a fairly narrow topic so you can easily write, publish, and start making sales. As a new writer, you probably don’t want to target a very general topic – general topics are just too big in scope and it’s harder to break through and make sales of your book when you’re too general.
If you already have a topic in mind, then it’s time to choose a great, sellable angle. With just a little bit of research, you can take an idea you have and turn it into something you can actually profit from.
So first, get your general topic ready. Then, as you research your topic, take notes on the ideas and topics you find all over the web. You never know when inspiration will strike. It might strike while you’re researching your audience. It might strike while you’re gathering general knowledge on your topic. It might strike while you’re browsing trending topics on social media – you just never know.
One of the best ways to choose a specific topic is to pay attention to the chatter online. Pay attention to hot topics on blogs, websites, and especially social media. You need to have your finger on the pulse of what is hot right now.
You can do really well if you focus on trending topics There are many different places you can find out about trends related to your topic. There are entire websites devoted to trends, including Google Trends.
It’s usually the case that good topics, trendy or not, will have a large number of Facebook pages and groups about them. It’s ideal if your topic has a large online following. Of course, it’s most important that it will sell well on Amazon. Just because people are interested in exploring the topic for free via social media, doesn’t necessarily mean they want to buy a book about the topic.
But when you combine the two things, you just might have a great topic. When there’s a lot of general online interest combined with an audience who is willing to pay for information, it’s an ideal situation.
Consider what the most popular bloggers are writing about on a consistent basis. Consider what the people who comment on those blogs are most interested in.
Think about the information products that are for sale on that topic, via sites like Nanacast.com and ClickBank.com. You can turn something that is selling very well on those sites and come up with your own unique selling angle for writing a book for sale on Amazon.
Again, you always have to go back to what is selling on Amazon. Just because it’s a popular topic elsewhere doesn’t necessarily mean it will be popular on Amazon. Do your research and gather ideas related to your topic from all around the web. In the end, your litmus test is Amazon and the bestseller list.
What are the hot new or upcoming releases on Amazon? Amazon makes it really easy (and free) to figure out what will sell on their site. It’s just a matter of you combing through the incredibly large catalog to find your own unique angle based on your topic.
The hot new and upcoming releases can give you great ideas for your own book. Ideally, you’ll be releasing many titles over time so there’s definitely room for you to do some testing with the different ideas you come up with.
I highly suggest you keep a notebook of all of your ideas. I have a very large list of book and product ideas that I add to on a frequent basis. I’m never stuck for profitable book ideas.
Again, you should probably plan on having a fairly large catalog over time, so you’ll never be stuck for ideas or have writers’ block since you’ll have this notebook or list full of ideas.
How Amazon Tells You What’s Selling
Amazon does a phenomenal job of telling you what’s selling. It’s astonishing how many authors write and release books without giving a thought to what might actually sell on Amazon.
As part of your research, you should definitely be frequenting the best-selling lists on Amazon. Go to the best-selling lists for your specific category or topic. Take notes on what you find there.
One of the best things you can do is to combine ideas. You might have one book on a very specific topic that’s selling well on Amazon. Then maybe there’s another book that takes a different angle on the same topic that’s also a bestseller.
Why not combine the ideas? There are always ways to make new connections on old ideas. If you combine slightly different angles that have already proven to be bestsellers, you have a good chance that your book will sell well too.
One way to figure out which angles your potential readers are most likely to buy is by looking at the “also bought” section on a best-selling book’s page. Amazon will tell you which books customers also bought.
So let’s say you look at the top best-selling book related to your topic. On its page, there will be a section featuring books people who bought that book also bought. Do some brainstorming based on the books you see there. Which ideas can be combined? What unique idea can you come up with based on the best- selling books and related books?
Yasiv.com is an excellent site that helps you visualize related books. I highly recommend you take a look at that site. Plug in a bestselling book or a keyword that has sparked a book idea for you. See how all the books in a genre are connected. Take notes on what you find. Combine two bestselling angles on a topic and you could have a winner on your hands.
Also, pay close attention to sales rankings of the books you’re researching. The lower the ranking, the better. Amazon displays this information on each book’s page. Check out the bestsellers for the category you’re interested in and drill down into a very specific subcategory. Are the top few best-selling books of that subcategory ranked under 20,000? If so, that’s good because it means the books are selling well.
But, you want to make sure there will be room there for you also, consider whether the bottom few bestsellers of that subcategory are ranking higher than that (which in this case means selling worse). 100,000+ would be fairly easy to beat with a new release book. It’s easier for you to sneak in with your new book on higher ranked books.
Once you find a great category and you find a unique angle for a book that people will buy, you can make great sales. In certain cases and in certain genres, you can make sales even if you don’t do a great job of marketing.
That’s the beauty of Amazon – they have a great built-in recommendation engine. It’s in their best interest to help you get sales of your book, because obviously they profit along with you on every book sold.
Get to know the ins and outs of Amazon as part of your research and it can turn you into a powerful self-publisher.
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