Building An Author-Entrepreneur Enterprise

Part 3: How to Choose

A Profitable Publishing Project

Start With Questions, amd Honest Answers

• What about your publication will make a customer pick it out from a web site, or from a bookshelf?

• What is that special something that makes your publishing project unique in your chosen market?

• If your publication is not distinctive, what is your perceived marketing edge?

During this thought process, please bare in mind that there is a fine line between unique and totally unprofitable specialized market.

As an SBDC consultant, I had the opportunity to meet with many enthusiastic would-be entrepreneurs. After a rousing pitch of his or her leading-edge business concept, it was sometimes, my sad task to point out that the reason no one had done this before was that there simply wasn’t enough market share to support the venture.

The same cool-headed analysis needed to evaluate a potential business venture is needed to develop your alternative publishing venture.

The ‘self’ in self-publishing can be the siren call to ‘self’-destructive business behavior.

Hard questions have to be asked fearlessly and answered honestly.

• Is the topic of the proposed publishing project of interest to someone other than you?
• Are there enough potential “someones” to represent a sizable (read profitable) market.
• How will you determine if your proposed topic or story line has been done to death?
• Based on the project’s content and competition, how will you position your project in the market?
• Is your publishing project a one-shot deal, or your first step in establishing a multi-title, publishing venture? (Think Joe Vitale and ANYTHING about Marketing and the Law of Attraction)
• How will you position and brand your publishing company?
• Where to start your research?

How to do a fast competition search:

• Search Amazom.com
• Books in Print Subject Guide and Forthcoming Books in Print Subject

So, you did your research and you’re dazed at the number of books there are on your topic. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a market for your publishing project.

It is your job to develop a book that is better than what is already available.

How?

• Can you present the material more clearly, more concisely?
• Have you devised a more accessible, format or a more informative approach to the topic?
• Have you perfected an amusing writing style that makes a topic easier to understand or not as intimidating?
• Is your ability to organize material so it is easily understood a way to brand your publishing project?

Right about now your thinking, “Hey, these are the same type of questions I’d have to answer to develop a business or a marketing plan!”

That would be correct.

The difference between a Jack Canfield and a Joe Vitale is an unerring sense of what the market wants to read and the ability to let that same market know the “perfect” book is now ready to help them solve the problem that has been vexing them.

Author-Entrepreneurs build profitable enterprises based on valuable information products, accurately targeted and correctly marketed. The best way to be successful and stay successful is ask yourself the hard questions and develop publications that your market not only reads, but also recommends.