The Questions People Ask About Writing Niche Non-Fiction
Here is a list of questions that people frequently ask me on the
topic of writing for profit in the realms of niche non-fiction.
Hopefully you will find the answers helpful but if you have any
questions of your own please feel free to contact me.
WHAT EXACTLY IS NICHE NON-FICTION?
Simply put, it is the narrow focus a writer employs to position
his work above the norm in published produce of a specific
non-fiction topic. For example, writing a book on fly fishing as
apposed to fishing per se - that's niche - that's the route to
take to make money writing. Isolate your extra income idea,
convert it into an extra income opportunity and progress
thereafter to create a residual income stream.
WHY IS THE 'NICHE' PART SO IMPORTANT?
Writing in the niche non-fiction mode allows the writer to fine
tune the precise identification of (a) the target market and (b)
appropriate publishing houses. The target market will comprise
devotees and enthusiasts of the topic in question and the
appropriate publishing houses will be those who cater for that
niche sub-sector of the overall market. Do it this way and you
are setting out your stall to earn extra income at home.
ARE YOU SERIOUS WHEN YOU SAY ANYONE CAN WRITE FOR PROFIT?
Yes, I am, and let me give you an illustration from history to
prove the point. Wallace D Wattles (what a great name for an
author) was a working man who resided in the Mid West of the
USA. He had something to say on his specialist subject and he
desperately wanted to put it all down in book form. His problem
was that he was short on basic education let alone writing
technique. For several years he spent night after night at his
local public library buried in other people's literary works in
an endeavour to bring himself up to speed. Finally he managed to
have his own book published and it became an instant bestseller.
It's still around today some 80 years on and you can read about
its substance in my creative writing course which, incidentally,
will negate the necessity for you to spend years training to
become a master of writing for profit. Follow the signposts and
you will be up and running in next to no time in your mission to
isolate an extra income idea, convert it into an extra income
opportunity and create your very own residual income stream.
CAN YOU REALLY BECOME SUCCESSFUL WRITING FOR PROFIT PART TIME?
I am living proof that you can; I have far too many other
commercial interests pressing on me to make a full time career
out of writing. Even at that I wouldn't persist on a part time
basis unless it were affording me fulfilment in (a) recognition)
and (b) profit from my undertakings. You will recall reading
this statement when the first flush of recognition comes your
way. It's addictive!
SURELY THE LEARNING CURVE IS TOO COMPLICATED FOR BEGINNERS?
No, it is simplicity itself and as short as you'd like to make
it providing you are prepared to apply yourself to the basics,
the signposts and the templates for progression, all of which
are clearly laid out in the tutorial: 'Writing for Profit in
Your Spare Time'.
ISN'T ALL THIS JUST FOR LONERS?
We all live in a mind world to varying degrees but authors spend
more time there than the average Joe (esphine). They require to
if they are to be successful. That however does not mean to
imply that they are all necessarily loners by nature. Gregarious
people also make good writers because they know instinctively
when to cut away from the talk addicted crowd and visit the
silent mind to further their aspirations.
HOW DO I KNOW IF WHAT I KNOW IS OF ANY INTEREST TO OTHERS?
If your area of specialist expertise fits neatly into a defined
niche (and the majority of topics do just that) then you already
have an edge because there's a 50/50 chance that other
like-minded enthusiasts will want to know what you know. But it
doesn't end there. You must consistently add to your perceived
knowledge to determine that what you think you know is all there
is to know, and more to the point, is valid. Better to find out
now than have someone else point it out to you later. The modus
operandi for all of this you will find in Chapter 5 of 'Writing
for Profit in Your Spare Time'. It's painless when you know
how...
ARE YOU JUST FOCUSING ON SELF-HELP AND HOW-TO BOOKS?
Not at all; self-help and how-to projects are natural channels
for niche non-fiction but there are hundreds of other disparate
topics (ways to make extra income) that are equally applicable.
Read Chapter 4 of the tutorial and you'll see what I mean.
YOU TALK ABOUT TESTING FOR LONGEVITY. HOW DO YOU DO THAT?
Ah, now that's a secret which is revealed in Chapter 4 (working
well that one...)
HOW DO I CONVERT MY EXPERTISE INTO A TEACHING MODULE?
Read Chapter 4 (what did I just say?)
DON'T YOU NEED TO BE EXPERIENCED TO RESEARCH EFFICIENTLY?
This may have been the case years ago but no longer. Universal
access to the Internet makes it ultra easy for anyone to locate
targeted information on any subject. 'Writing for Profit in Your
Spare Time' shows you how and directs you to sources that are of
particular value in researching niche topics.
WHAT ABOUT STRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER?
The tutorial demonstrates how you can rapidly sift though your
accumulated research data, evaluate, prioritize and position
your findings in sequential order.
ISN'T IT VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO GET PUBLISHED NOWADAYS?
If you're talking fiction, yes, most definitely that is the
case. But the beauty of writing for profit in the realms of
niche non-fiction is that you avail yourself of the facility for
accurately pinpointing your marketplace and your publishing
options.
CAN YOU REALLY TEST MARKET ONLINE TO GUAGE DEMAND?
Chapter 11 of the tutorial reveals not only how you can do this
effectively but why you should do it in order to gauge potential
demand before you place your work with a traditional publishing
house.
CAN YOU REALLY SELL ONLINE?
In Chapter 12 you will discover how one part time author
produced an online bestseller that catapulted to the #1 spot in
Amazon.com within a week of its release. Most authors nowadays
create a web site for promotion purposes (I have several and
they all produce good business.)
YOU MENTION ADDITIONAL INCOME STREAMS. WHAT ARE THEY?
Read about them in Chapter 13 and start to get excited at the
prospects.
AM I NOT JUST AS LIKELY TO END UP WITH PILES OF REJECTION SLIPS?
If you go out looking for them you won't be disappointed; you'll
get them in abundance. Study and stick with the strategies in
'Writing for Profit in Your Spare Time' and you will cut down
the incidence of rejection slips to a miniscule minimum.
Jim Green is a bestselling author with a string of niche
non-fiction titles to his credit including 'Starting Your Own
Business' (How To Books ISBN 1-85703-859-2) and 'Starting an
Internet Business at Home' (Kogan Page ISBN 0-7494-3484-8). His
tutorial is available at http://www.writing-for-profit.com
How My First Published Work Almost Hit the Dump Truck
My first published work (and coincidentally my first bestseller)
came about by way of accident. What do I mean by that? Just
this: I didn't set out to write a book. I was sitting at home
one evening in December 1993 completing a review of the
meticulous notes I had compiled in the lead up to launching a
new business. As I closed the ring binder and prepared to
consign my accumulated data to the dump truck I stopped in my
tracks. Hey, I thought, there's book in here somewhere, there's
an extra income opportunity, there's an opening to make money
from writing, there's a way to create a residual income stream,
and what's more, I can earn all of this extra income at home.
Busy though I was in the early days of my new enterprise I set
about my extra income idea by drawing up a plan of action to
transcribe the recorded research into a how-to or self-help
manual for the benefit of others about to embark upon what I had
just achieved. This inspiration to earn extra income at home
could only be accomplished in my spare time (what there was of
it) but because the material was in both date and chronological
order I started out with a valuable edge. How to structure the
text though, how to convert my expertise into a meaningful
volume, how to develop its presentation into a format that would
appeal to the publishing industry, how in fact to locate a
publisher: these were some of my dilemmas in my plan to earn
extra income at home.
Five months later I put the finishing touches to my first draft
and sent copies off to four niche publishing houses (something
I've never done since nor would ever do again because it's bad
form) and to my astonishment received two offers of intent of
interest to pursue the project. I appeared to have hit the
jackpot and I wondered why. It didn't take me long to figure
that out. Happily, my text coincided with the emergence in the
early 1990s of world wide government initiatives to stimulate
indigenous economic growth by encouraging start-ups in the area
of small to medium size business enterprises.
I decided to opt for one of these offers of publication which
proved fortuitous because I was immediately teamed up with a
highly experienced commissioning editor who taught me how to
craft my raw text into what had been concerning me all along:
the production of a meaningful volume. "Starting Your Own
Business" was published in October 1994, sold out of its first
edition in December of that year, and was reprinted in January
1995. It has gone from strength to strength ever since and
disposals continue to rise year-on-year justifying my plan to
earn extra income at home.
I tell you all of this not to impress but to let you in on the
secret of how my tutorial came into being.
Subsequent success in writing for profit in my spare time
prompted me to delve deeply into the reasons why my work always
seems to be on target. It couldn't all be down to luck. Sure,
serendipity stepped in at the outset but there had to be more to
it than that. I began to evaluate what I was doing right, where
I was going wrong on occasion, what I thought I knew ad what I
had still to learn from my peers. The result of my painstaking
research is "Writing for Profit in Your Spare Time. This
creative writing course encapsulates the power-packed tried and
tested strategies that work for me and other accomplished niche
non-fiction authors; strategies that will work just as well for
you. When you've done that: sign up for my free newsletter and
I'll pass on new tips and techniques as they emerge.