Market Research
Once you find a market you are interested in writing a book for, you should do some market research to see what potential that market has. You may be pleasantly surprised to find markets for things you consider to be everyday interests to be in the billions of dollars. Go to http://www.academic.marketresearch.com and search or browse for your area of interest to find more information on the potential market. Another way to get an idea of how much money is spent within a particular market is to search on Google. Do a search for “bicycle billion industry” or “gardening billion industry”. You may substitute billion for million, and bicycle or gardening with your area of interest. Billion or million in the search means dollars of course. Now all you need to do is offer something and hopefully capture a small percentage of the amount spent annually in an industry and you should be doing fine. Well, it probably won’t be that easy, but it is very motivating to know a market’s potential.
There are many sites out there that offer detailed market information, but you will likely have to pay for their services. You will find many links to begin with at:
The more you know about your potential market and potential readers the better. A lot of information is available including info about where they live, age, income, sex, education, what they read, what they watch on TV and more. Graphs and other statistics are sometimes available.
You can even do your own market research if you like. Rent a mailing list and create a survey. Offer the chance to win a prize to increase survey response and you’ll have detailed up to date information about a particular market.
Contact magazines for market information. If you contact them for advertising rates and information they will very likely provide this for free along with a copy of their magazine.
Again the more you know about a particular market, the better. Don’t get too caught up in studying the market, eventually you need to write your book. The more you know about your potential customers the better. You want to get “into” the customer as much as possible so you will know what it’s like to walk a mile in their shoes.