Believe it or not, this is one of the harder steps of e-book creation for some people. They just can’t seem to pick a topic. They have the ability to write, and they know it. They have looked into how to publish and where to publish, they know what to charge and how to handle marketing, but they just can’t get started.
This is sometimes because they toss around several different e-book topics in their mind, and can never seem to settle on one. They obsess that they will choose the wrong idea, and end up investing what turns out to be a lot of wasted time. So instead of getting their first e-book under their belt, they end up investing all their time and energy upon procrastinating.
Either you have written a book before, or this is your first effort.
Either way, choosing a topic is important. Still, you don’t want to suffer from analysis paralysis and eventually did nothing. Let’s look at a few ways you can ensure you choose a topic where there is a lot of demand, and a field where people are already purchasing e-books by the droves.
Start with You
Think about your experiences. Of the more than 7 billion people on the planet, you’re the only “you” out there. Your style, your personality, the things that happen to you in your life are all unique to you. Your skills, perspectives, personal resources, knowledge and collection of failures and successes are all excellent sources of information for an e-book.
What Are Your Customers Asking for?
If you have current clients or customers, what questions do they ask over and over? Check out the comments section of your blog. What are people asking for help with?
Webinars, tele-seminars, coaching and consulting calls, group classes and one-on-one experiences with your customers can reveal a lot of possible topics you could write about. An added bonus here is you know you have a prospect pool of people that are ready to buy your e-book when it is finished.
What Are You Good at, and What Do You Know a Lot About?
Everyone is good at something. Most likely, whether you believe it or not, you are excellent in some way. You also know more than 99% of the population about a particular topic. This knowledge may seem commonplace to you, but it is not. If you are better than someone else at anything, that is something you can write about.
If you have a wealth of knowledge in any area, that could be your topic. If you already have blog posts or webpages full of content about a particular endeavor, process, resource or ability, not only have you found your e-book topic, but all of the writing is already done for you.
Let Amazon Prove/Disprove There Is a Viable Marketplace
The previous 3 tips on choosing an e-book topic should have left you with a lot of ideas. List them in order of importance, starting with the subject you would like to write about most. Head over to Amazon’s Kindle section.
Type your first e-book subject idea into the Amazon Kindle search box. If you have decided to write about catching yellowtail catfish, search for “catching yellowtail catfish”. Make sure you have the Amazon search filter set to “sort by relevance”. Look through the results.
Are there a lot of listings? If so, this means your e-book idea is potentially profitable, and definitely popular. Look through all of your possible subjects until you hit upon one that you are interested in writing about, and that also has a built-in Amazon marketplace that is buying a lot of similar books.
Amazon sells more e-books than anyone. So it makes sense to use the company’s powerful e-book search engine to help you find a writing subject. When you decide where to publish your e-book (more on that in the last section of this report), Amazon is going to be your number one choice. Guaranteeing that there are already people out there waiting for the release of all of your hard work is a smart way to narrow down your list of ideas.
