Act Like a Best-selling Author Part 2 - The First Step to Finding Your Market

After reading the article "How to Publish on a Shoestring Budget" by Sid Smith*. According to Sid Smith, if you are wonder about the best way to publish your book, then...

"Write an outstanding, must-read book that is unique, provocative, controversial, a literary masterpiece, or is endorsed by someone like Oprah. No, really. That's the best way to publish a book."

While this may very well be true, it is not necessarily the road traveled by many first-time authors or authors who really want to self-publish his or her work. However, as I continued to read his article some particular facts jumped from the screen. One particular piece of information I was lead to ponder as a writer was...

"Even if they do ask how to publish a book, they're still thinking in terms of publishing their best seller before they've even determined if there is a market for the book!"

As writers, we tend to believe that if we write a book, of course there is a market for it, and as a Success Coach, I must slightly disagree with the statement..."if there is a market for the book." The truth is we live in the information age. Even if we write a book about buying the best kind of scrap wood for birdhouses, there just may be a market for it. However, the questions that come to mind are many and this is where we tend to fall short.

1) How big is the Market?
2) How do I reach the market?
3) How big is the submarket?
4) What distribution channels will work best?

So, as I get ahead of myself, I realize some important factors that must be on the forefront of every writer's mind if he or she wants to act like a best-selling author. That is do the market research before you publish the book, especially if you are writing a non-fiction book.

In fact, to explore this further, I would suggest to every writer who self-publishes to develop a book proposal as if he or she were going to send it to a big name publishing company like Harper-Collins. Don't short change yourself. Write an excellent book proposal and from that book proposal you will have answered the above question and many others.