“Can you tell me if there’s a market for a book about (insert any topic here)?”

Q –

I am currently working on a workbook of questions (fill in the blank, true or false, etc.) and I would like to know if there is any demand for this type of book. It is about religion. I also write 10- to 20-page booklets. Any input as to demand for this type of work would be greatly appreciated.

A –

For your 10- to 20-page booklets, I recommend compiling those into 1 or 2 books. You can make each “booklet” a chapter. It wouldn’t make economical sense to publish a book with only 10 or 20 pages (unless it’s a children’s book, of course).

The religious market is huge. But, that doesn’t necessarily translate into instant sales. Far from it!

I am frequently approached by authors who tell me about a book idea they have, and ask me if I think it will sell. I must always throw a question back to the author –

“How hard are you willing to work to promote your book?”

A book’s sales potential depends entirely on:

1. The book itself

2. The author’s marketing savvy and efforts

Listing a book on a particular website like Amazon or BarnesandNoble.com won’t generate automatic sales because that book will be surrounded by thousands of competing titles. The author must aggressively promote the book in order for it to be successful. This is true for self-published and traditionally published titles. Traditional publishers do little to no promotion for unknown/new authors now. They take a gamble that a book may or may not take off. They run with the ones that do, and generally abandon the ones that don’t. Of course, the ones that do are the ones whose authors are promoting them creatively and consistently.

Every BookLocker.com author receives a free copy of 90+ Days of Promoting Your Book Online.

Anyone can buy the book, of course, but BookLocker authors get a copy for free.

Many POD publishers up-sell authors to the tune of thousands of dollars on marketing products and services that will never result in enough book sales to pay for those products and services (which is why those publishers don’t offer those services for free). We call those POD publishers author meat markets – they suck as much money as they can out of an author’s wallet before moving on to the next author.

If you want to pay someone to promote your book, it’s a better idea to pay a book publicist directly than to hire a fee-based book publishing service to perform marketing duties. If you need a referral to a book publicist, please let me know.

SELF-PUBLISHING? – How Many Book Sales Needed to Recoup Your Investment?

90+ DAYS OF PROMOTING YOUR BOOK ONLINE: Your Book’s Daily Marketing Plan

BEFORE YOU PAY TO PLAY: Ethical Book Promotion

Sign Books BEFORE You Eat the Fried Chicken

Angela Hoy lives on a mountain in North Georgia. She is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, the President and CEO of BookLocker.com and AbuzzPress, and the author of 24 books.

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Angela is the creator of the Original 24-Hour Short Story Contest!
Learn more here: https://24hourshortstorycontest.com/

HOW TO REMEMBER, WRITE AND PUBLISH YOUR LIFE STORY

Angela Hoy's popular online class is now available in book format!

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Using Angela's MEMORY TRIGGERS, recall memories that have been dormant for years
Record those memories in chronological order in your memory notebook
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Also works for biographies and memoirs!

“Can you tell me if there’s a market for a book about (insert any topic here)?”

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