Posted by on Sep 14, 2011 in
Writing Books If you’re a business professional and you’re ready to try something new, think about writing a business book. Writing a book about your expertise in a specific industry or even business in general is an excellent way to expand your business and branch out into speaking and consulting. It lets you try something new, but you don’t have to completely abandon the field you’re in.
The Booming How-To Market
How-to books are very popular—there’s always one or two on the bestseller list—and many people like reading books to learn more about their own industry, learn about industries that are new to them, find ways to advance their careers, and figure out how to deal with difficult business situations, like having a boss or a co-worker that they don’t get along with. Some people read nothing but how-to and self-help books. With thousands of topics to write about and a growing interest in self-improvement, your possibilities are endless!
Modern Printing Technology Makes Publishing Easy
In the past, publishing your own business book was expensive and time consuming because getting book ready to print and finding a reliable, inexpensive printer required lots of research and work. Plus, self-publishers had to guess how many copies they were going to need.
But these days you can offer print-on-demand copies of your book, which means the book isn’t printed until someone buys it. Or you can offer your business book in a downloadable PDF format so that printing costs are avoided altogether and people can start reading your book immediately after buying it.
Get Industry-Specific
If you have years of experience in one particular industry, then you can write a business book that describes the steps that you took to be successful in that industry and the mistakes you learned from along the way. You can help people who are just starting out to overcome the learning curve, and learn how to follow your steps themselves so that they can achieve the same kind of success that you did.
Plus, many companies looking for ways to save money use well-written industry-specific business books as training materials. You could even offer to customize certain parts of your business book to meet the specific needs of a company if they buy a set number of books.
Writing a Book is Easier Than You Think
The writing task is often overwhelming to people, but you can start small. Books don’t have to be extremely long to be popular. You can write a short, fifty- to 100-page e-book about some aspect of business that you have a lot of experience in and test the market by selling it directly on the web. You can also use an e-book format to write business books for specific businesses, like training manuals or other how-to books or guides.
What Are You Waiting For?
Writing a book not only allows you to try something new, but if you are creative in how you write the book and how you market the book, the venture can be very profitable. If you’re ready to move on and try a different career but you don’t want to start over in a new industry, take the experience and credentials that you have and try writing about that industry instead of just participating in it. You will get a chance to branch out, do something different, and still use all the years of experience that you have built up.
Tags: Book, Career, Challenge, HowTo, SelfHelp, Want, Writing
Posted by on Jul 26, 2010 in
Writing Books If you’re a business professional and you’re ready to try something new, think about writing a business book. Writing a book about your expertise in a specific industry or even business in general is an excellent way to expand your business and branch out into speaking and consulting. It lets you try something new, but you don’t have to completely abandon the field you’re in.
The Booming How-To Market
How-to books are very popular—there’s always one or two on the bestseller list—and many people like reading books to learn more about their own industry, learn about industries that are new to them, find ways to advance their careers, and figure out how to deal with difficult business situations, like having a boss or a co-worker that they don’t get along with. Some people read nothing but how-to and self-help books. With thousands of topics to write about and a growing interest in self-improvement, your possibilities are endless!
Modern Printing Technology Makes Publishing Easy
In the past, publishing your own business book was expensive and time consuming because getting book ready to print and finding a reliable, inexpensive printer required lots of research and work. Plus, self-publishers had to guess how many copies they were going to need.
But these days you can offer print-on-demand copies of your book, which means the book isn’t printed until someone buys it. Or you can offer your business book in a downloadable PDF format so that printing costs are avoided altogether and people can start reading your book immediately after buying it.
Get Industry-Specific
If you have years of experience in one particular industry, then you can write a business book that describes the steps that you took to be successful in that industry and the mistakes you learned from along the way. You can help people who are just starting out to overcome the learning curve, and learn how to follow your steps themselves so that they can achieve the same kind of success that you did.
Plus, many companies looking for ways to save money use well-written industry-specific business books as training materials. You could even offer to customize certain parts of your business book to meet the specific needs of a company if they buy a set number of books.
Writing a Book is Easier Than You Think
The writing task is often overwhelming to people, but you can start small. Books don’t have to be extremely long to be popular. You can write a short, fifty- to 100-page e-book about some aspect of business that you have a lot of experience in and test the market by selling it directly on the web. You can also use an e-book format to write business books for specific businesses, like training manuals or other how-to books or guides.
What Are You Waiting For?
Writing a book not only allows you to try something new, but if you are creative in how you write the book and how you market the book, the venture can be very profitable. If you’re ready to move on and try a different career but you don’t want to start over in a new industry, take the experience and credentials that you have and try writing about that industry instead of just participating in it. You will get a chance to branch out, do something different, and still use all the years of experience that you have built up.
Tags: Book, Career, Challenge, HowTo, SelfHelp, Want, Writing
Posted by on Jun 25, 2010 in
Writing Books Groups of people willing to buy nonfiction books include hobbyists. At any given time, these people look for ways to spend their money on their hobbies. Their passion is your financial gain.
What avid hobbyists want and desire will always make great book material. Note: I did not say what hobbyists need. You may have certain opinions on what certain people should need or should read. But those are not necessarily good topics for immediate book profits. Those topics may be areas for you to dabble in at your leisure. However, if you want to make money at this, find what niche groups want, and hit those groups with your book.
Find hobbyists and niche groups by searching the web for “popular hobbies,” “enthusiasts,” or “what America is buying.” Or, you can search for forums and discussion groups for hobbyists. In the forums, people talk with each other to share ideas. They exchange testimonials for equipment, upcoming events, and books.
One popular site where hobbyists hangout online is Yahoo!. Check it out. Go to Yahoo.com. Click “groups.” On the group’s page, you’ll see a list of categories such as Business & Finance, Religion, etc. Click on “Games.”
On the Games screen, Yahoo! lists game subcategories followed by numbers. The numbers indicate how many discussion forums are available for that subcategory. These numbers reveal a lot. Notice how “role playing games,” and “video & computer games” have factors of ten, or in some cases, factors of 100 more forums than other subcategories. “Wargaming” and “paintball” don’t even come close, although those categories are much more discussion-laden than “horseshoe pitching.”
For fun, one day I continued selecting subcategories until I arrived at a list of over a thousand (yes a thousand) discussion groups on Yahoo! having to do with vampire role-playing.
Here’s how I got there: Games — Role Playing Game’s — Live Action — World of Darkness — Vampire: The Masquerade.
Some forums are open to new members, and you can join to read what everyone’s discussing. Once in the forum, you can review discussion threads from today, yesterday, or a year ago. Don’t go back too far if you want to find the hottest possible book topics. You can participate in discussions if you like. FYI, do not drop into a discussion group just to market a book; hobbyists consider this spam and will drop you from the group.
When you read and/or participate, you’ll find what this group is buying. Skim the discussions to find what questions they are asking each other about products or traveling or information. What they are interested in buying is vital because passionate consumers love to research before they buy. This is an immediate book market. Create a book on how to select the best this or that on the market, related to the current wants of the enthusiasts.
Enthusiasts come in all shapes and sizes. Think brides-to-be, golfers, whitewater rafters, people who collect vintage baseball cards, wine connoisseurs, gardeners, frequent vacationers, video gamers, and parents who put their children into private tutoring, ballet, and violin lessons before age 3.
Some hobbies continually attract enthusiasts, like playing golf, watching football, restoring old cars, and listening to music. These are classics. Some hobbies seem to come and go in waves, such as Red Hat Societies participation, snow boarding, or line dancing. Pick either a classic hobby or a fluctuating hobby in its peak season for your best odds.
A big market on the Internet is the 20-30 set. Here’s what they are doing right now, according to one survey. They’re snowboarding, wakeboarding, traveling, camping, listening to music, taking photographs. They’re drinking gourmet coffee, rock climbing, playing guitar, camping, dancing, looking for online love, shopping for computers and other electronics, attending sports events, studying the Bible, exercising, trying to find jobs, and watching movies. Any one of these subjects make a great book with a buying market.
Tags: Book, Find, Hobby, HowTo, Topic, Writing
Posted by on May 16, 2010 in
Writing Books The marketability of how-to books is limitless. Everyone wants an instruction manual, advice, and encouragement. Anything you know how to do, anything you’ve ever wanted to learn, or anything that’s teachable at all, can become a how-to book.
How-to books for hobbyists are a good way to go, and this overlaps with the discussion above. A hobby how-to book could be anything from how to build a home from hay bales, to how to play Texas Hold ‘Em, to how to understand Shakespeare.
One book publisher knows how hungry we are for how-to information, and has created a whole series of “Dummies” books around the market. The industry has similar book imprints, and all of them do quite well! “The Everything” series, “Idiot’s Guide” series and others are cashing in on the how-to phenomenon.
You could cash in by creating books on any or all subjects covered in any of those books. Go to Dummies.com, and check out their list of titles. Pick one you like, and move full speed ahead!
Even though the books have “Dummies” in the title, these books are popular because the authors do not treat their readers like dummies at all. The authors cater to a person who wants to find the easiest way to do something. When you’ve written your book and you’ve chosen a title, make sure you appeal to your readers’ interests and intelligence!
If you use words like stupid, dumb, or hopeless in the title, make sure the meaning is clear and you are not insulting the individual reader.
Books can also target smaller niche groups.. You don’t have to write a universal book like How to use a computer (which may not be interesting enough to sell anyway in this decade). Books can cover more specific topics.
You can: 1) create your book in a specific way for a specific niche readership; and 2) create additional books for different facets of the same subject, and sell each one separately!
Let’s say you’ve decided to write a book on fishing. (FYI, this is one of those hobbies where enthusiasts are willing to spend money!). You could create: “How to Catch Freshwater Trout,” “How to Tie Your Own Flies,” or “How to Plan a Successful Deep Sea Fishing Trip.”
Almost anything related to the hobby can become a separate book depending on how much detail you include. Clearly, “How to put on waders,” probably isn’t a great choice (though some would say it’s impossible to underestimate today’s consumer), because you would have to strain to fill up 60 to 100 pages on such a simple topic. You get the idea. You need to create a “book-worthy” book topic. Use good judgment.
Life itself requires instructions, as we know from “Life’s Little Instruction Book.” Life also qualifies as a good how-to book topic. There are numerous subtopics, and you’ll never run out of ideas. Here are a few examples:
* “How to ensure your child gets an A+ in math”
* “How to have a successful garage sale”
* “How to organize your home office”
While we’re on the subject of how-to books, I’d like to make a quick point: you do not need to create a incredibly clever book title. Make sure the words “How to” are the first part of the title, and the rest should tell exactly what the book is about.
For example, which of these three titles would be best?
1. “How to have a successful garage sale.”
2. “One weekend away from a cleaner house”
3. “How to sell your old shoes for a profit”
Although numbers 2 and 3 are clever, a little punchy, and correspond with the book content, I would recommend title number 1. “How to have a successful garage sale” sums up the book’s topic; it will catch the eye of an Internet surfer who is interested in putting together a garage sale, and needs a how-to manual.
Anyway, back to the point. Any phase of life, way of coping with life, or large or small thing about life, can be the subject of a how-to book.
Tags: Book, Choose, HowTo, Topic, Writing