I thought I want to do something a little bit different! I want to share some kindle-tastic kindle publishing tips with you!
Everday I receive emails and messages asking me how I build my website, publish books, run my Instagram, Pinterest etc
Truthfully, I’m not that confident that everything I do actually works for you. But I learned a lot over the last 4 years of self-publishing online. Which allow me to quit my day job to work from home full time.
Now I can do what I love doing because I have a passive income stream and I don’t have to rely on a month-to-month paycheck.
But don’t quit your job tomorrow. I didn’t quit my job until I had my side hustle going for 31 months.
Be responsible. You have to work on it over time but every day move closer towards this goal.
So, for the next 12 days, I’m going to share some self-publishing tips and guides to help you start your Kindle publishing, building a passive income and ultimately quit your day job!
Day 1: 5 Things Beginners Need to Know About Kindle Publishing
Day 2: 7 Reasons Why You Should Create an eBook for Your Business
Day 3: How to Write and Publish an eBook
Day 4: How To Find Profitable Niches To Publish Online
Day 5: The Biggest Mistake I Made In Self-Publishing and How You Can Avoid It
Day 6: 6 Steps To Sell More Books on Amazon
Day 7: Designing Book Covers That Sell
Day 8: 7 Most Common Self-Publishing Mistakes You Should Avoid
Day 9: 40 Ways to Promote and Market Your Book
Day 10: 49 Inspirational Marketing Tips From Top Authors
Day 11: Top 10 Best Tools for Self-Publishing Authors
Day 12: 12 Best Platforms to Self-Publish Your eBook and Make Money
Today, we will talk about How to Find Profitable Niches to Publish Online.
Finding the right niches to publish online is one of the most fundamental aspects of building a profitable publishing business. Niche selection is your first step in the whole publishing process. You don’t want to rush into publishing a book without any proper process of planning and researching.
When the book fails, many people will just give up on self-publishing.
Just like any business opportunity, kindle publishing needs to be done the right way.
I used the same method I learned from my boyfriend (now my husband) to self-publishing my first book in April 2014. And I made my first US Kindle royalties $183 with just one book. I was so excited, I knew that all I need to is to replicate his publishing business model.
A few months later:
Oct: $2451
Nov: $5183
Dec: $7274
Step 1: Find Good niches and Hot Topics
For some reason, everyone either wants to make it big with their first attempt. Reach the US Bestseller list or the New York Times. But you know what? You are setting yourself up for failure.
Why? While you should have a Big Hairy Audacious goal, you will quickly abandon publishing altogether within a couple of months without making any income.
Second, these markets are normally way too competitive.
That isn’t our strategy.
Now that’s not to say that it’s not possible to reach those heights. If you’re there, I would congratulate you. But you’ll find yourself going up against seasoned industry publishers and authors which will make it difficult for your little book to stand out.
Keep in mind, the goal here is to get into the rhythm to find niches that are evergreen.
Most people give up after months of not making any money at all.
Creating a profitable publishing business does not have to be about starting the next big thing.
It’s not about sacrificing your livelihood and working 100 hour weeks to start the next Amazon.com.
It’s about finding that niche that will continue to make you passive income. It’s about finding a niche that allows you to work a minimal number of hours so you can spend more time with your loved ones.
So with that in mind, our main goal is to publish topics that are in high demand but not terribly competitive either.
Ok great. How the heck do you do that?
Unfortunately, the answer is not black and white.
But I can tell you this. Choosing the right niche matters!
Finding the right balanced niche is somewhat of a HIT & MISS Game, as bad as it sounds, it is definitely something that can be taught.
This is how’s done.
Step 2: Validate your book ideas
The main idea is determining whether you can actually make money publishing your topic. It’s great to work on topics that you’re passionate about but it’s important to validate your book idea ahead of time. You want to make sure that your book idea is worth pursuing by making sure that there’s an active demand for your book ideas.
The key is to not get too hung up on any given idea because if the target market is not big enough, your books may not be worth the effort and time.
Personally, I use a quick and dirty way to determine if my book idea is viable. Assuming your market potential is large enough, you should check the trends with which your book search terms appear on the search engines.
Note: These graphs only reflect the people that are searching for that exact keyword in Google. Once you have published your book, there will be many other channels that people will search for to arrive on your page. Also, these estimates don’t account for other traffic sources that you will receive as well. Nonetheless, doing a research in this way will give you a pretty good idea about your potential target market.
Step 3: Check On Amazon For Profitable Niches
After validating your idea with Google Trends, you can reassess your idea and niche down further on Amazon.
The best way to check what people are actually searching and willing to pay for your idea is to turn to Amazon itself.
Basically, Amazon is telling you what is popular, what people are buying, what topics people are interested in. You can get all the information you need by doing more research on Amazon.
To generate more ideas from Amazon, follow these steps
1. Open Google Chrome Incognito browser
Using Incognito mode can prevent Amazon from showing results based on your account information. You want to get raw information from Amazon, not information that affected by your previous searches.
To open an incognito window, start Chrome and click the “three dots” icon in the upper right corner of the screen.
2. Select “Kindle Store” or “Books” for search categories
3. Enter words or phrases related to your book.
Type your phrases slowly into the search box. You want to get Amazon suggested keywords.
For example, you want to search for a suggestion about fitness. Start with a broad search, and then do a search from “a-z” to get more potential keywords.
“Fitness a”then, “Fitness b”, then “Fitness c”… and so on.
At the end of your search, you will get a list of keywords for your book. Filter the list and jot down what you think might be suitable for your book.
4. Repeat step #3 on any words that you want to narrow down further.
Do note that, this list of words only tell you what people are interested in and actually search on Amazon.
Step 4: Research your competition
When choosing a right niche to work on, there are 5 components that I will look into:
#1. What is the Amazon Best Sellers Rank of other competitors’ books?
But Amazon Bestsellers Rank (ABSR) can still be a great indicator to tell us the estimated numbers of book sale for that particular book on Amazon.
Every book on Amazon has an Amazon Best sellers Rank. Click on any book title, scroll down the page and you can find ABSR under Product Details section.
This is an inside look at how many kindle book sales reflect in rankings on Amazon.
Amazon Best Seller Rank 50,000 to 100,000 – selling 1 to 5 books a day.
Amazon Best Seller Rank 10,000 to 50,000 – selling 5 to 15 books a day.
Amazon Best Seller Rank 5,500 to 10,000 – selling 15 to 25 books a day.
Amazon Best Seller Rank 3,000 to 5,500 – selling 25 to 70 books a day.
Amazon Best Seller Rank 1,500 to 3,000 – selling 70 to 100 books a day.
Amazon Best Seller Rank 750 to 1,500 – selling 100 to 120 books a day.
Amazon Best Seller Rank 500 to 750 – selling 120 to 175 books a day.
Amazon Best Seller Rank 350 to 500 – selling 175 to 250 books a day.
Amazon Best Seller Rank 200 to 350 – selling 250 to 500 books a day.
Amazon Best Seller Rank 35 to 200 – selling 500 to 2,000 books a day.
Amazon Best Seller Rank 20 to 35 – selling 2,000 to 3,000 books a day.
Amazon Best Seller Rank of 5 to 20 – selling 2,000 to 3,950 books a day.
Amazon Best Seller Rank of 1 to 5 – selling 3,950+ books a day.
Type in your keywords searches in Kindle store search. Go through the top 5 books show up in the result.
If those top 5 books have ABSR of #100,000 or lower, it means there is a demand for this niche. ABSR is a great indicator of market demand. Avoid publishing a book in a niche that doesn’t meet this criteria.
If the majority of the top 5 are ranking at #10,000 or better, then it will be a lot harder to compete against the existing books.
#2. Do the competing books have less than 30reviews?
Next, you want to check the number of reviews on your top 5 competing books. If all the top 5 books in the niche search have at least 30 reviews each, then it will take a lot of effort to compete with them.
#3. Are your competing book covers looked attractive?
There will be a great chance to outrank your competing books if their covers look unprofessional.
#4. How about their book descriptions?
If the book descriptions are poorly written, it will be a potential competitive advantage for your book
#5. Are you competing directly with celebrity authors or industry experts?
If the competing books written by famous authors with a loyal following, then I would definitely give that niche a miss!
What are the top-selling topics for e-books? What should I write about for profitable success?
To give you a general idea, here are some of the top categories
- Romance (Contemporary, Erotica, Romantic comedy)
- Literature & fiction
- Mystery, Suspense and Thriller
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Teen & young adult
For Non-fiction
- Health, Fitness & Dieting
- Biographies
- Memoirs
- Historical Christianity
- Christian Living/Spiritual Growth
- Self-help/Motivational
So if you want to sell tons of books, you should probably be in one of these categories.
However, they are super competitive, so it’s harder for you to rank and stay longer at the top.
But of course, you have a huge market of people devouring books all the time.
It’s kind of like finding a balance between a micro-niche and a major category. It may be easy to get that #1 Bestseller in a Category, but you may not be selling a lot of copies to get there.
Here are some more things to consider:
- Fiction outsells non-fiction by about 4 to 1
- If you write/publish romance you may sell 4 times more than the Young Adult category
- The Top 100 business and money books generally sell less compared to religion and spirituality.
So as you can see, choosing the topic can make a huge difference in sales. I started with non-fiction, then transitioned into fiction. However, now I am making use of the non-fiction categories to build my audience and platform.
Both have its advantages and disadvantages. You can take advantage of this platform for so much more…
Well, there you go!
If you’re asking, “What advice do you have for me as a new author or publisher who’s trying to make money publishing with Amazon?”
I would say go Niche. Start with one niche and focus on them.
If it’s about fitness and health- stick with it. Don’t do healthy diet and knitting.
Focus on establishing yourself as an authority in that particular niche and grow your followers.
This is day 4 of 12 Days of Self-Publishing Tips to make passive income online!
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