Will anyone buy your book?
Will anyone buy your book? Are other people interested in your subject? Is your book idea any good? Will anyone like it? These questions go through every new author’s mind and in this video, we’re talking about how to answer them before you write a single word of your non-fiction book.
I’m Liz, the writer behind Green Goose Ghostwriting. I help entrepreneurs who want to write a book to demonstrate authority in their niche and get more speaking engagements. I write their book in their own voice so they can share their message, inspire others, and finally level-up their business.
In this post, I talked about five questions to ask yourself before you start to write your non-fiction book. Last week we discussed question one: Are you interested enough in your book idea. This week we’re talking the second question: Are others interested in it?
Are you writing for yourself?
If you’re writing for yourself, that’s totally okay! You don’t need to worry if anyone else will want to read your work. When you’re writing for your own enjoyment, it doesn’t matter that North American Thimble Designs of the 1980s will not be a best-selling book. It will still be valuable for the experience it gives you, the author.
And besides, with this ol’ thang we call the internet, you can find a small group of folks who share your strange, esoteric interests. So have at ‘er!
Do you want your book to level-up your business?
But if you want your book to level-up your business, you need to consider if there’s a decent-sized audience for your subject.
“Decent-sized” is pretty subjective, and I used that on purpose. If you can get a small percentage of a large audience to read your book, that’s awesome. If you can get a large percentage of a small audience to read your book, that’s also a win. So there’s no magic number when it comes to audience size. But once you start researching, you’ll get a good feel for the size of the audience and your chances of them being interested in your specific book idea.
How do you know if others will like your book idea?
So how do you know if others will be interested in your book idea? Here are three ideas:
1. Blogs
Chances are, someone is already writing on your subject, or one very similar. Track them down (I mean, track them online. Don’t actually stalk them.), read their blogs, and check out the comments. Are there a lot of comments? What’s the vibe like?
You can also write your own blog posts on the subject and see if they get any shares. Don’t worry about giving away your book idea. Anyone interested in the post is also likely to be interested in the eventual book. Just see it as an invaluable opportunity to suss out the interest level.
2. Social media
You don’t have to have a big social media following for this. If you do, great! Ask them if they’re interested in knowing more about your subject.
But if not, you can take advantage of other people’s followings. Join Facebook groups of people that share your interest, or find popular hashtags on Twitter for your subject. Then ask in your group or tweet with that tag. (Just make sure you’re following any group or platform guidelines before posting.)
Try asking a few times, phrasing it in different ways, before drawing your conclusions.
3. Books
I highly recommend reading Will It Fly by Pat Flynn. It promises to help you test your next business idea so you don’t waste your time and money. But your business and book are probably intertwined, and all of the advice can be applied to your next book idea as well. Pat has tons more tips in his book so if you’re not confident on this, be sure to read it.
When you know other people will want to read your book, you can move on to the third question to ask yourself before you write your non-fiction book. It’s one that really causes problems for entrepreneurs when not properly considered. And we’ll discuss it next week!
See you next time.