The vast majority of the success of a book starts before you even write a single word...
Trouble is, as an entrepreneur you’ve learned that speed is the essence of success. So as soon as you decided to write a book you probably got started with the writing.
Why is that a problem?
For a book to succeed in the long term & organically bring your ideal clients into your business, you have to know exactly what books they are already looking to read.
Think about what you do when you have a problem you’re trying to solve. You don’t aimlessly click around in Amazon, or any other book store, attempting to find a book that might help you. You directly search for one on your problem.
Well your ideal clients do the same thing and if your book doesn’t show up in those search results, it may as well not exist.
For example, let’s say you have the most amazing process that helps people achieve their goals. It’s known as the “Square 10” process and you developed it yourself from 20 years of work with clients.
You might think writing a book called “Square 10” would be ideal and would set you up to be the authority on your topic. So you start writing.
Once you’ve published your book however, no one is going to Amazon to search for it. When people search for “goal setting” your book doesn’t appear in the search results.
So what happens?
They buy a book that does show up & remain completely unaware that your book even exists.
Another Easy Mistake
People get extremely excited about writing a book when there is nothing like it currently on the market.
It’s a topic they’re an expert in and they know they’ll corner the market and it will become the go-to book for all the people they want to help.
Trouble is, just because there’s a gap in the market with no books on that topic, doesn’t mean it’s the right topic for your book.
Chances are if there are no books on a certain topic, it’s because no one is actively looking for a book on that topic. And if no one is looking for a book on that topic, then no one is going to be buying one even when your book is sitting there on the shelf waiting for them.
Positioning
It all comes down to positioning.
You’ve heard the phrase, “sell them what they want, give them what they need.”
It applies to books as well.
If you want your book to succeed, then before you start writing you need to know people are out there looking for it. If not, what are they looking for that your content can help them with?
Unless you’re an A-list celebrity or a business owner with a list of at least 300,000 active subscribers, then failing to position your book correctly means you’re most likely setting your book up to fail.
What Can You Do?
You wouldn’t put a new digital course or offering out there without knowing your ideal clients wanted to buy it first would you?
Your book is no different.
The best thing you can do is to stop writing, and work out how to position your book to sell first.
If you’d like some help working out how to position your book, then schedule your free book consultation with me and let's find out if you’re going in the right direction or not.