Today’s guest post is written by eBook/Self-Publishing/Internet coach Ellen Violette.
Have you ever looked for a solution to a problem and found yourself dissatisfied with those offered? Did you find yourself saying, “I could do this better!”? If so, the solution you devised could be exactly what will sell in the market place. In other words, if you solve a problem for yourself, there are probably thousands of others who would pay for that solution—and that information could make a great topic for your blogged book.
But, this is just the first step.
Online research:
After you’ve got the germ of an idea, you’ve got to do the research to confirm it, or see if you should scrap it. I recommend going into chat rooms, forums, and discussion boards, as well as, getting involved in social media. Look for trends and topics that come up over and over again.
Newsletter lists:
Get on newsletter lists of experts in your field. See what topics they are covering. Get on their Q & A calls and listen to the questions people ask them. Also, listen to the answers the experts give. Sometimes, they can be evasive or vague and that can give you an opening.
Q & A calls:
You can also do your own Q and A calls. If you do, keep a list of the questions you get asked. Or, use what I use, Instant Teleseminar (my affiliate link to this is www.instantteleseminarsnow.com).
Instant Teleseminar lets you archive all of you calls, as well as all the questions that were asked on the call, in their data base-as long as you are in good standing. Other conference lines don’t, and I find this feature invaluable! If you do this on a regular basis, you will see that people ask many of the same questions over and over again.
Consults and surveys:
You can also do free or paying consultations with clients and/or prospects. Again, keep a list of the questions they ask. These are ones you’ll definitely want to answer in your blogged books, products, and services.
And, if you have a list, you can do a survey at www.surveymonkey.com and ask them what they want to know.
“Ask” page:
Another great tool is using an “Ask” page. You can purchase www.ask(yourname).com at http://x.co/KiT0 (zero) and let people ask questions there all year long.
Be aware that over time, what people ask may change as the market changes. For instance, people ask me a lot of questions about Kindle now, but when I started on line, Kindle didn’t exist so the questions I got answered were different.
To stay on top of your market, you’ll want to do the research periodically, so you adjust to the market on a regular basis and stay relevant in your market.
Keyword research:
Once you’ve got some ideas, go to the Google Keyword tool and look for the keywords and phrases that are most popular for the topics you’ve discovered people are interested in. Ideally, you want words and phrases that have 10,000 to 100,000 clicks globally per month. Less than 10,000 won’t be a big enough market and more than 100,000 will probably be too generic.
Title research:
After you’ve got your keywords and phrases, go to Kindle and see which ones are used in titles in your niche that are selling well. But, beware, some topics do better on Kindle than others, and some are hardly worth putting in Kindle at all.
If you find that your topic isn’t selling well there, do a Google search. Talk to movers and shakers in your niche. Go to live events and talk to people. You may find there IS a market for your topic, just not on Kindle, in which case, it will be better for you to focus on building your own publishing platform.
Go through this process each time you want to produce a blogged book and it will always be profitable and successful! Apply it to any book, product or service you produce, and it will be profitable and successful, too.
About the Author
eBook/Self-Publishing/Internet coach Ellen Violette teaches people how to create a unique message and an irresistible brand through easy-to-create 72-hour ebooks and Internet-marketing strategies. Get her FREE Special Report “9 Deadly Mistakes to Avoid for Outrageous eBook Profits” at www.theebookcoach.com.
Photo courtesy of noomhh
|
|
If you live in N. California, attend this one-time-only small group workshop in the Santa Cruz Mountains on How to Blog Your Way to a Book Deal on October 27. Space limited to 10; only 5 spots left as of 10/16. Learn the basics of blogging a book and start blogging yours!
Want to submit a guest post to How to Blog a Book blog? Click here to find out how.
Leave a Reply