Writing Your Next Non-Fiction Book Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated

How to know what your readers want, before you write the book

I see it. I hear it. I get emails from concerned writers almost every day. As authors, it’s tough to start a book without some kind of guarantee you’re on the right track. Writing a book is a significant piece of your life — time you’ll never get back. So, it’s important to have a little mental reassurance before you dedicate the next few months (or years) of your life.

You can’t go out and ask people what they want.

You’ll get the wrong answer. I’ll show you a way to ask without asking, in a minute, but you can’t directly ask your tribe what book you should write next. Not only is this a little lazy, you’ll end up with something that looks like a book, but satisfies too many people and sells to none.

So, what do we do instead.

We go all Sherlock Holmes on them. We spy their pants-off. And we do our spying in a semi-public place, where most authors never dream of doing their book research.

We’ll go straight to the source — Amazon. The biggest bookstore on earth.

Not only will Amazon help us answer the question of what do I write next, but the Big A will help us flesh-out what belongs in the book and what doesn’t. Sure, we might have a great writing idea, but will it sell?

Our research will help answer the question. Using Amazon book reviews and stats, we’ll take our reader’s own words and turn them into powerful research to help test our next book idea.

Not only can we uncover the five-star wins of our competition, we’ll also find all their one-star mistakes. Think about it. You’ve got all the best-selling books on earth, in one place, with all the comments people leave about each book.

We’ll see the good.

We’ll see the bad.

…and the truly ugly.

We learn the best from our readers by uncovering what they don’t want.

As Ryan Lavesque teaches us in his book Ask, we learn more from our tribe by finding out what they don’t want, as opposed to asking them what they do want.

When we ask readers what they want, they can’t tell us exactly. Our tribe looks to us writers, for inspiration. We’re the innovators and the risk-takers. But the risk doesn’t have to be that risky.

Even with all the answers there’s no guarantee our book will be a hit.

So, why not have as many answers as possible. It’s like practicing thousands of hands of blackjack before you hit the casino. The extra edge tips the game in your favor. And we’ll do the same with our books.

By using book reviews to uncover what our readers don’t want, we’ll find out what that they do want.

It’s not cheating. The information is there for all writers. Most won’t use it. And not only will you find out if your book idea has legs, you’ll know if there is competition. If there are no other books in your niche it’s a huge red flag that your book probably won’t sell many copies.

We want competition.

Why write a book readers aren’t looking for?

Most of the book-development answers you need are in the posted reviews. Readers can’t help but share their opinions. Not only that, there are ways we can evaluate the integrity of the review as well.

We’ll learn the language of our tribe as a bonus.

Not only will we avoid the one-star mistakes, but our readers will help teach us their language. Using specific word choices, tailored to our niche, we can collect these words and use them in our books too.

When you reader feels you’re one of them, you’ve got a better chance at building a relationship. We don’t want to sell just one book. As writers, we want to grow a tribe around our idea and continue to provide more books and services to our best fans. The right language always helps.

Writing a great book is the baseline.

It’s not enough to write a great book. This is the price of admission. The competition is so stiff there’s no room on the shelf for anything but great books. So, why not have all the keys to the right content before you sit and write?

We don’t have to guess.

I spent many years guessing the proper content. Most of those books failed, because I didn’t do the front-end research to know what my market wanted. Always start with the audience. Serve them with what they’re after. Don’t write the book first and hope to find people to read it.

Leave the old method for the other writers. You’ve got a secret weapon now.

If you’d like to know the exact method I’ve used (as well as hundreds of others), I’ve created a simple micro-course called the Book Review Spy. The whole process is in there. I’ll even give you a way to create a semi-automatic outline for your book, where your readers (and your competition) literally helps design your next book for you.

Know the answers before you start writing.

We’re waiting for you.

(Free Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers Without Ads.)

August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. A self-proclaimed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indie authors how to write books that sell and how to sell more of those books once they’re written. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.

You just read another exciting post from the Book Mechanic: the writer’s source for creating books that work and selling those books once they’re written.

If you’d like to read more stories just like this one tap here to visit our page.