Want to increase your chances of writing a bestselling book right from the get-go? Here are some tips used by the top 5% of authors.
Many successful writers do considerable research before they even get started writing their books. Much of this relies on having a basic understanding of marketing.
What Sells Books?
So Let’s go back to the fundamentals of what sells. Why do people buy books? Usually, it’s the ‘what’s in it for me’ factor. They buy because:
- they can learn something;
- it helps improve their life in some way;
- it saves them money;
- it solves a problem in their life.
To put it another way, people buy for ‘pain or gain’. In other words, there is a pain in their life that needs solving. Or they think they will gain in some way – either emotionally or financially.
It is worth noting that one of the most powerful motivations in marketing is financial gain. In other words, a reader can justify ‘investing’ in a book if they think it will either save them time or money. The trick is to think how you can apply these principles to your own book. This is particularly helpful for non-fiction, though perhaps less so for novels or poetry.
Your Book Title
A book title is one of the most powerful tools for selling a book. It gives the reader a succinct and clear reason for buying your book. Your title can make all the difference between a bestselling book and a book that ends up on the slush pile. The important thing to remember is to put the benefit for the reader in the title.
Examples might be:
- A book targeted at would-be lawyers – ‘Top Tips For Wannabe Lawyers’ or ‘Want To Be Lawyer? – How To Get There Faster’ (WIFM: training)
- A book targeted at the general public – ‘Top Tips To Cut Your Lawyer’s Fees in Half’ or ‘How To Choose The Best Lawyer’ (WIFM: saving money, problem solving).
- A book targeted at a specific niche – ‘How To Sue The Person Who Injured You’, “The Idiot’s Guide to Getting Divorced’, ‘How To Write Your Own Will’.
- A book targeted at other lawyers – ‘What You Don”t Know About Rival Law Firms’ or ‘How To Become A Partner In Your Law Firm In Less Than A Year’ (WIFM: entertainment/competitive edge.)
These titles are off the cuff and imperfect. But hopefully you can see the ‘what’s in it for me’ principle at work and see why a target audience would want to buy them.
This doesn’t mean that a book has to be solely about the subject matter in the title. This just provides a convenient marketing ‘angle’ for a book so that readers (and publishers, in the first instance) can see the benefits and understand why people would buy them.
Looking at the aforementioned titles, I hope that you can see that some books provide a more powerful motivation for buying than others. Saving money, making money, and problem solving are stronger emotional motivations than entertainment or curiosity, for example.
Market Research
Thanks to the Internet, you can now do comprehensive research into what your readers are likely to be looking for. You can check amazon.com to see if there are any comparative books on the subject. This will help you to identify your unique selling points. Why, for example, would a reader choose to buy your book over theirs? What do you offer that other authors don’t?
Don’t be put off if there are similar books to yours. This shows that there is a market for your subject matter. However, you do need to identify what is special and different about your book to make it stand out.
