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Which Ebook Topics Sell

It's much easier and less costly to publish your book to a niche audience than to a general audience. When you have a small marketing budget, as most of us start out with, you have to use all the free resources for publicizing your book that you can find.

For those who write and publish fiction ebooks, all you need to do is get famous and you will sell almost anything you produce. A best-selling author, like Stephen King, can sell books on his name online or offline as he so dramatically demonstrated with Riding the Bullet.

Now enter the world of the Internet with several free and easily accessible ways to identify, sort and deliver qualified audiences for specific subjects directly to your web site or email address. Once you know what to publish, you can locate and attract your topic's audience using search engines, email, links, discussion groups, auctions, publicity and more ways.

But what if you don't know what to write about or you need more ideas for publishing new books? Consider these topic stimulating ideas for turning out more content.

How to find your ebook niche

Find a niche subject, if you don't already know what yours is. Tap into your life experiences for ideas. Look at your hobbies, special interests and areas of expertise. What events have inspired, motivated, enraged, or rewarded you? Has your education, jobs or business trials and successes given you knowledge or skills that can be passed on to others?

Do a little brainstorming by making a list on paper. At the top of the page write headings like Education, Jobs, Skills, Hobbies, Loves, Successes, Disasters, Family, and any other categories you can think of. Under each heading, list ideas for topics that can be expanded into articles or books. This exercise can help you discover many areas of your life that could give birth to book ideas.

Don't imagine that you must necessarily be an expert or a fabulous success at something to write about it. My book described below was called "the blueprint for success" by one reviewer, yet the material arose from a depressing business failure. Even though I made many mistakes — and maybe even because of them — I became a widely recognized authority on my book's subject.

My first book, Weaving Profits, written in 1991, was a marketing guide for weavers and fiber artists who sell their work. After checking Books In Print, I found there were no other books written on my subject. I had no way of knowing if the 100,000 weavers I could reach in this country (estimated from adding the number of subscribers to all the weaving magazines) wanted my book.

Weaving Profits was not going to appeal to a large audience so I was fairly certain no publisher would go for it. The obvious alternative then was to take the book directly to readers myself and so I investigated self-publishing through Dan Poynter's excellent book, The Self-Publishing Manual.

Anything you are passionate about can provide you the emotional impetus to produce a story, a book, even a publishing company. 

Look at books on the best seller list for learning what's hot in the publishing world. Sources for best sellers include your newspaper, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, local bookstores, BarnesandNoble.com, and Amazon.com.

"How to" books

"How to" books are perennial sellers. People are always hungry to learn and accomplish more in life. Typically, "how to" books sell at higher prices than other types of nonfiction. Use your list of life experiences to come up with potential ebooks that inform readers on "how to" achieve what they want.

Readers frequently tell me they have taken advice from my books and become successful in their business. I feel good about helping others. Equally rewarding, I have found that doing research for a "how to" book expands my knowledge and interests in a wide variety of topics.

Special reports

A source of additional revenue for publishers of non-fiction is selling special reports. Within your "how-to" book, there will be chapters or sections that can be expanded and repackaged into detailed, multi-page reports. You can often charge more money for the special report than the original book because people are willing to pay more for getting the exact information they need. 

A good example of how to integrate your web site material with selling special reports is Dan Poynter's site at http://www.parapub.com . Dan's books and reports have helped launched many successful self-publishers including my company.

Technical manuals

A growing market for ebooks is the delivery of technical manuals in digital form. The top selling titles of books selling over the Internet include computer related titles. If you have the expertise or material to write such texts, the market is ready.

Educational textbooks

Ebooks allow a student to download the most up-to-date edition of course material and store many of the etextbooks in one small, portable device. Benefits include cutting textbook costs, lightening their backpacks, providing timely content, and enhancing the learning process by using the text searching ability of ebook reading devices.

Romance, Science Fiction, Horror, Mystery

As mentioned, romance is one of the hottest selling ebook genres. Since romance accounts for almost half the mass market paperback sales in the U.S., demand is well established. SciFi, like romance also has a proven market in paperbacks. L. Ron Hubbard's novel Battlefield Earth is a best-selling ebook on the Palm-compatible ebook bestseller list which lists the top 25 leading fiction electronic book titles.

Frank Weyer serialized his murder mystery M.I.T. Can Be Murder and reports over 5,000 downloads. Stephen King released an ebook called The Plant in portions. According to an article in USA Today, around 172,000 people paid $1 each for part one. Over 74,000 people paid another $1 for part two.

Poetry

You may have heard that self-publishing poetry is not the way to make money. In general, this is true. But for you who are poets at heart, read this inspiring success story.

Several years ago, a young couple created a business selling their gift cards. The wife wrote the poetry and the husband created the artwork. Their business grew to the point that, at one time, Susan Polis-Schultz was considered the best-selling poet in America. They created a company called Blue Mountain Arts in Boulder, Colorado. By the time I went to work for them in the late 70's, they were already millionaires and selling cards all over the world. But that was before the Internet.

In the 90's, they put together a web site that allowed visitors to send gift cards free via email. The site became immensely popular, so much so that it was at one time, the sixth most visited site on the net.

Publishing works by other authors

Consider taking on other authors' material. I now publish the works of several writers and keep an eye on the horizon for new and marketable material that complements my growing line of titles. With the advantages of print-on-demand and electronic publishing, you can publish several titles and test the market at the same price you would pay to print and promote one paper bound title with traditional printing and marketing methods.

A vast number of literary works have passed into the public domain. Find public domain books at http://promo.net/pg/, home of Project Gutenburg.

This article is copyrighted and excerpted from the book Your Guide to Ebook Publishing Success by James Dillehay

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