How to Write Your First Ebook in 7 Days or Less! Chapter 4
Chapter Four: Finding Your Book
I spent fifteen years as a theatrical director, and playwright. I got asked over and over again how I came up with story ideas, or set designs, or where the concept for a certain scene, or song came from. The truth is ideas are all around us.
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If I asked you right now to give me a list of ideas you would like to read a book about, you could probably rattle them off without even thinking about it. Without even stretching your imaginative abilities, you can generate an almost endless stream of ideas.
The challenge is not in coming up with ideas. That's really the easy part. Even for someone who has been at this a long time, there are always more ideas than hours in a day. Focus is a key factor.
You need an idea that will make you want to work. An idea so strong, that you look up and realize you have been at the computer for over twelve hours without a single break, and if you weren't about to pass out, you would just keep going.
So, here it is, plain and simple. That idea does not exist. There is no utopian book title, or premise that will write itself for you and is guaranteed to make a million dollars, and drags three more stories behind it, ready to be written.
Stop looking for it. You can sort and sift through your ideas time and again and come to the same conclusion; many of them deserve to be written. There is no one right choice here.
So, you need to take one of your best ideas and focus in on it. You plan to be a writer, right? So, keep those others hidden away, and save them for your next ten books. All you need right now, is one decent idea.
A good idea will be:
•Something you are interested in. This is a tough business and writing about things that you would think about or research anyway will make it easier. Plus, if you have ever wondered about it, it is a sure bet someone else probably has too.
•Related to your own life. Truth is essential, and first hand truth is the most powerful. Writing about things you know will not only be easier, but it will ring true, and you will add details that only someone who knows the topic could add.
•A topic with an available market. Its best to find a market for your book before you ever type the first sentence. People may be willing to pay for information they were not really looking for, if it interests them, but they are more willing to pay for solutions they are already seeking.
There are ways to find these ready-made audiences for your books, and I can help you find them. The best market will be at a point where public interest intersects with something that you know about. This will be an easy write and an easy sell, because you will know your audience before you even write the book.
So, What About Your Passions?
Most people have several things they are passionate enough about to write or speak to an audience on a deep enough level to be educational. Your work experience may come into play as well.
To reveal what areas of experience you would like to write about, you can give yourself a simple survey.
•If you had time, what would do? What are you already choosing to do?
•What gets your blood pumping, what makes you want to get out and get involved?
•Do you read non-fiction? If so, what about?
•Are there questions you have always wanted to answer?
Make a list. Once you have ten to twenty, see if you can double it. Be specific. Once you have a topic, write a list of sub-topics. So, if shooting is a hobby for you, the sub-topics might be: target shooting, weapons, hunting, gun repair, historical armament, world class shooters, etc.
What Have You Done In Your Life?
By tapping into things you have seen, heard and experienced, you can shortcut the writing process. There is no research required to explain how to do something you do on a regular basis, and whatever it is, you can bet there are people who would like to learn what you know.
Think about things you could help others learn.
•Everyday things that took time to learn
•Unique experiences that set you apart
•The things you have most enjoyed learning more about in your own life
•Skills that you possess that others may not
It might help to ask other people what they think you know about. Their answers may surprise you. When you stop to think about the million and one things you do every day without even thinking, you may not even remember learning how to do them, but you probably remember your first attempt.
List these things out, as you did with your passions, you will be combining the two lists momentarily, and that is where the power of synergistic thinking will come into play.
Crossroading
I call this technique crossroading. Place the two lists, side by side and see where they intersect, where are there crossroads between what you are passionate about and your own life experience. Write them down as ideas for books, or potential titles. Try to focus on problems you think you can help people solve.
Try to come up with at least twenty of these crossroads, if you can. They don't have to be fully developed concepts; just something you think might work. Next I'll show you how to check these against markets to find your best ideas.
Finding an Audience
The best way to write books that make money is to know that you know that people are looking for the solution that you provide. It also helps if these people spend money for solutions within the topic you are writing about.
In internet marketing terms, small pockets of consumers who share specific interests are known as niches. There are several methods you can use to discover profitable niche markets to write for. If you get this right, you will have a very good shot at writing something that people will read.
The Magazine Test
Strong niche markets will typically have one or more affinity-based magazines. Take for instance, custom cars, how many magazines will you find at the corner convenience store about this topic? You are likely to see: truck magazines, foreign car magazines, show car magazines, consumer car magazines and muscle car magazines, just to name a few.
So, what about your list? Compare your list with magazines available for subscription. An easy way to do this is to go to Magazines.com . Look through the various categories of magazine available. They have hundreds, for instance, they have 6 magazines just for birdwatchers.
Start with the bestsellers. These are magazines that have the most readers. They typically have loyal followings, extensive equipment and item marketing to people in these groups. Looking at their advertisements might help as well.
Cross reference your book ideas with magazines. If you find one, you might have a hit on your hands. Get a copy or order up a digital subscription for research.
The Google Test
Google is the world's biggest search engine. Billions of people around the world use it every day to find information. Google also keeps track of these searches, based on the search terms used and the volume of traffic.
The top Google searches are recorded in a special database. This database is the core of a site called Google trends. Google trends is a blogger, or ebook writer's best friend.
Each day, the top searches are published here, along with links to some of the most searched sites in that topic. It also houses some demographic information that may be helpful in further research.
By entering your book ideas at Google Trends as search terms, you can find out just how many people have been interested over time, and whether that interests is rising or dropping.
Trends will also give you related ideas that may be great book ideas as well. The real power comes in when you compare two or more ideas. Find the one that is performing best in search to get the best chance at an active market for your book.
The Amazon Test
Another way to find niches is to look at what books are already selling well. It may seem counter-intuitive to find successful books to compete against, but this is actually a really strong cue.
Go to the Amazon Kindle Store and enter your book idea as search terms. The books typically come up with bestsellers first, unless you have changed your search filtering.
Select the first book. You want to know how many of them are selling, but Amazon is not going to tell you this. In fact, no one but the book's author (who gets a monthly report) and Amazon have that information. Their ranking is based on a secret algorithm.
Look at the Amazon Bestsellers rank in the product information box the lower the number, the better. If you are looking at the bestseller it should be ranked as top in at least one category. The bestseller number should be under 25,000.
The fact that 25,000 books are selling better than the one you are looking at may seem like a sign that this is not, in fact, a top seller. But, remember, there are untold millions of books in Amazon's database, and any book that ranks that high has enough sales volume to be worth writing on a similar topic.
Looking For the Magic Bullet
If any of the ideas on your list have multiple magazines in their niche, perform well on Google Trends, and have good Amazon bestseller ranking, they definitely have a market. While this a great start, there is one more test that will separate the amateurs from the experts, the Google Keywords test.
Google Keywords Tool
Search Google keywords tool and log in with your google account. If you don't have one, get one, I don't have room to explain that here. There are plenty of YouTube videos and blog posts explaining it.
In the google keywords tool you will want to look for keyword ideas. Input your book idea as search terms. This tool will bring back search traffic, similar to what you got from Trends, but there is one key factor Trends cannot help you with and that is competition.
Finding a niche market is only half of the battle when it comes to selling your ebook. The other half is the competition. You need to find a niche that has high traffic, with medium to low competition. In other words, look for lots of people looking, fewer people providing solutions.
The google keywords tool does that. Next to your search terms, in addition to the traffic numbers, you will see a competition rating, high, medium or low. Low is optimum, medium is doable, high is an uphill battle.
What this ranking indicates is how many marketers are buying those keywords from Google advertising. In other words, when people search for your terms, you will be competing with them to get to the top.
I highly suggest selecting a low competition idea, if possible, especially for your first attempt at publishing.
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Does this competition algorithm work properly for fiction?
High traffic with low competition is right. Because of a thing called market position.
If you're not in a top three for a subject in the mind of your prospect, you'll have a hard time. Why?
Because there is not a dearth of information, but a surplus of it.
There are often thousands of competitors and nobody has time sufficient to search the product space. So they go with what they know, unless it offended them in the recent past, or what's most popular, or what's first. ``From those who have not much, all will be taken, to those who have, more will be given . . . '' Feedback loop.
That means you have a problem even if you have a good product. Even if you've the best product. Nobody searches much of any space, they can't afford it. So the probability of covering your costs for a product, or doing better, with purely stochastic purchasing is very low, very low indeed. Most people will not see your solution to their problem, they just won't see it. You have the best potatoes, let's say, but nobody is aware you're selling potatoes, let alone they are the best.
Here on Steemit, you might want a tag in which your post will probably be at the top for at least several days, for example.
(Ah, another long comment. Will later make this a post.)
Lol, I love doing this. I just grabbed whatever I do and make a post out of it.
You talk of needs and solutions, but what solution does fiction provide but entertainment? It could be that I'd need to search for certain needs in entertainment. I, for example, have a need for certain kind of philosophical sci-fi, so I'm always in the lookout for it, and I'm usually pleased although I'm only half-comfortable in certain areas. Perhaps this is my call. :3
I generally write philosophical science fiction ;)
It's very popular, lol. There's tons of it, but the fact that you're one of the writers it is amazing. I'll have to read your stuff.
Completely agree with the high traffic low competition idea. Here's an interesting presentation that also discusses such things, and most things in it apply to publishing also.
Quoting the link above: The gap between new product and beginning of acceptance ``represents
finding a niche market you can overwhelm, own, and expand.''
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