The Questions People Ask About Writing Niche Non-Fiction

Here is a list of questions that people frequently ask me on the topic of writing for profit in the realms of niche non-fiction. Hopefully you will find the answers helpful but if you have any questions of your own please feel free to contact me.

WHAT EXACTLY IS NICHE NON-FICTION?

Simply put, it is the narrow focus a writer employs to position his work above the norm in published produce of a specific non-fiction topic. For example, writing a book on fly fishing as apposed to fishing per se - that's niche - that's the route to take to make money writing. Isolate your extra income idea, convert it into an extra income opportunity and progress thereafter to create a residual income stream.

WHY IS THE 'NICHE' PART SO IMPORTANT?

Writing in the niche non-fiction mode allows the writer to fine tune the precise identification of (a) the target market and (b) appropriate publishing houses. The target market will comprise devotees and enthusiasts of the topic in question and the appropriate publishing houses will be those who cater for that niche sub-sector of the overall market. Do it this way and you are setting out your stall to earn extra income at home.

ARE YOU SERIOUS WHEN YOU SAY ANYONE CAN WRITE FOR PROFIT?

Yes, I am, and let me give you an illustration from history to prove the point. Wallace D Wattles (what a great name for an author) was a working man who resided in the Mid West of the USA. He had something to say on his specialist subject and he desperately wanted to put it all down in book form. His problem was that he was short on basic education let alone writing technique. For several years he spent night after night at his local public library buried in other people's literary works in an endeavour to bring himself up to speed. Finally he managed to have his own book published and it became an instant bestseller. It's still around today some 80 years on and you can read about its substance in my creative writing course which, incidentally, will negate the necessity for you to spend years training to become a master of writing for profit. Follow the signposts and you will be up and running in next to no time in your mission to isolate an extra income idea, convert it into an extra income opportunity and create your very own residual income stream.

CAN YOU REALLY BECOME SUCCESSFUL WRITING FOR PROFIT PART TIME?

I am living proof that you can; I have far too many other commercial interests pressing on me to make a full time career out of writing. Even at that I wouldn't persist on a part time basis unless it were affording me fulfilment in (a) recognition) and (b) profit from my undertakings. You will recall reading this statement when the first flush of recognition comes your way. It's addictive!

SURELY THE LEARNING CURVE IS TOO COMPLICATED FOR BEGINNERS?

No, it is simplicity itself and as short as you'd like to make it providing you are prepared to apply yourself to the basics, the signposts and the templates for progression, all of which are clearly laid out in the tutorial: 'Writing for Profit in Your Spare Time'.

ISN'T ALL THIS JUST FOR LONERS?

We all live in a mind world to varying degrees but authors spend more time there than the average Joe (esphine). They require to if they are to be successful. That however does not mean to imply that they are all necessarily loners by nature. Gregarious people also make good writers because they know instinctively when to cut away from the talk addicted crowd and visit the silent mind to further their aspirations.

HOW DO I KNOW IF WHAT I KNOW IS OF ANY INTEREST TO OTHERS?

If your area of specialist expertise fits neatly into a defined niche (and the majority of topics do just that) then you already have an edge because there's a 50/50 chance that other like-minded enthusiasts will want to know what you know. But it doesn't end there. You must consistently add to your perceived knowledge to determine that what you think you know is all there is to know, and more to the point, is valid. Better to find out now than have someone else point it out to you later. The modus operandi for all of this you will find in Chapter 5 of 'Writing for Profit in Your Spare Time'. It's painless when you know how...

ARE YOU JUST FOCUSING ON SELF-HELP AND HOW-TO BOOKS?

Not at all; self-help and how-to projects are natural channels for niche non-fiction but there are hundreds of other disparate topics (ways to make extra income) that are equally applicable. Read Chapter 4 of the tutorial and you'll see what I mean.

YOU TALK ABOUT TESTING FOR LONGEVITY. HOW DO YOU DO THAT?

Ah, now that's a secret which is revealed in Chapter 4 (working well that one...)

HOW DO I CONVERT MY EXPERTISE INTO A TEACHING MODULE?

Read Chapter 4 (what did I just say?)

DON'T YOU NEED TO BE EXPERIENCED TO RESEARCH EFFICIENTLY?

This may have been the case years ago but no longer. Universal access to the Internet makes it ultra easy for anyone to locate targeted information on any subject. 'Writing for Profit in Your Spare Time' shows you how and directs you to sources that are of particular value in researching niche topics.

WHAT ABOUT STRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER?

The tutorial demonstrates how you can rapidly sift though your accumulated research data, evaluate, prioritize and position your findings in sequential order.

ISN'T IT VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO GET PUBLISHED NOWADAYS?

If you're talking fiction, yes, most definitely that is the case. But the beauty of writing for profit in the realms of niche non-fiction is that you avail yourself of the facility for accurately pinpointing your marketplace and your publishing options.

CAN YOU REALLY TEST MARKET ONLINE TO GUAGE DEMAND?

Chapter 11 of the tutorial reveals not only how you can do this effectively but why you should do it in order to gauge potential demand before you place your work with a traditional publishing house.

CAN YOU REALLY SELL ONLINE?

In Chapter 12 you will discover how one part time author produced an online bestseller that catapulted to the #1 spot in Amazon.com within a week of its release. Most authors nowadays create a web site for promotion purposes (I have several and they all produce good business.)

YOU MENTION ADDITIONAL INCOME STREAMS. WHAT ARE THEY?

Read about them in Chapter 13 and start to get excited at the prospects.

AM I NOT JUST AS LIKELY TO END UP WITH PILES OF REJECTION SLIPS?

If you go out looking for them you won't be disappointed; you'll get them in abundance. Study and stick with the strategies in 'Writing for Profit in Your Spare Time' and you will cut down the incidence of rejection slips to a miniscule minimum.

Jim Green is a bestselling author with a string of niche non-fiction titles to his credit including 'Starting Your Own Business' (How To Books ISBN 1-85703-859-2) and 'Starting an Internet Business at Home' (Kogan Page ISBN 0-7494-3484-8). His tutorial is available at
http://www.writing-for-profit.com

How My First Published Work Almost Hit the Dump Truck

My first published work (and coincidentally my first bestseller) came about by way of accident. What do I mean by that? Just this: I didn't set out to write a book. I was sitting at home one evening in December 1993 completing a review of the meticulous notes I had compiled in the lead up to launching a new business. As I closed the ring binder and prepared to consign my accumulated data to the dump truck I stopped in my tracks. Hey, I thought, there's book in here somewhere, there's an extra income opportunity, there's an opening to make money from writing, there's a way to create a residual income stream, and what's more, I can earn all of this extra income at home.

Busy though I was in the early days of my new enterprise I set about my extra income idea by drawing up a plan of action to transcribe the recorded research into a how-to or self-help manual for the benefit of others about to embark upon what I had just achieved. This inspiration to earn extra income at home could only be accomplished in my spare time (what there was of it) but because the material was in both date and chronological order I started out with a valuable edge. How to structure the text though, how to convert my expertise into a meaningful volume, how to develop its presentation into a format that would appeal to the publishing industry, how in fact to locate a publisher: these were some of my dilemmas in my plan to earn extra income at home.

Five months later I put the finishing touches to my first draft and sent copies off to four niche publishing houses (something I've never done since nor would ever do again because it's bad form) and to my astonishment received two offers of intent of interest to pursue the project. I appeared to have hit the jackpot and I wondered why. It didn't take me long to figure that out. Happily, my text coincided with the emergence in the early 1990s of world wide government initiatives to stimulate
indigenous economic growth by encouraging start-ups in the area of small to medium size business enterprises.

I decided to opt for one of these offers of publication which proved fortuitous because I was immediately teamed up with a highly experienced commissioning editor who taught me how to craft my raw text into what had been concerning me all along: the production of a meaningful volume. "Starting Your Own Business" was published in October 1994, sold out of its first edition in December of that year, and was reprinted in January 1995. It has gone from strength to strength ever since and disposals continue to rise year-on-year justifying my plan to earn extra income at home.

I tell you all of this not to impress but to let you in on the secret of how my tutorial came into being.

Subsequent success in writing for profit in my spare time prompted me to delve deeply into the reasons why my work always seems to be on target. It couldn't all be down to luck. Sure, serendipity stepped in at the outset but there had to be more to it than that. I began to evaluate what I was doing right, where I was going wrong on occasion, what I thought I knew ad what I had still to learn from my peers. The result of my painstaking research is "Writing for Profit in Your Spare Time. This creative writing course encapsulates the power-packed tried and tested strategies that work for me and other accomplished niche non-fiction authors; strategies that will work just as well for you. When you've done that: sign up for my free newsletter and I'll pass on new tips and techniques as they emerge.