How to Choose a Profitable Niche in Amazon to Write Books (especially if you don’t have an audience)
In my previous article, I shared how I earned $160,000 from self-publishing books on Amazon. Perhaps you are excited to do the same. An important step is to choose a sustainable and profitable book niche on Amazon.
First, am I INTERESTED in the niche? Completing a book is no mean feat. You will need a lot of willpower to complete a book if you are not interested in it. And what’s the point if writing becomes a drag?
The aim is to write a portfolio of books in a profitable niche.
I just can’t imagine anyone sustain writing multiple books on a topic they are uninterested in. But if you are interested, you will naturally find the writing to be attractive & satisfying (see “Atomic Habits” by James Clear).
For me, I can write a huge book portfolio because I am interested in learning the tech niche. I like a concept of Tim Ferris who says something like, “embark on a project that even if you fail, you learn new skills in the process”. Even if your book doesn’t take off, you should be able to learn new skills in the process.
Second, does my niche have enough DEPTH or BREADTH? Is there enough material that I can research/dive into and make multiple books from that niche?
In my niche, it will be something like:
Third, does it have enough ‘EVERGREENNESS’? Can the niche last & not die out too soon? Or is it a trendy event that everyone forgets when the book is published?
Tech books are known for quick updates. Short life span & having to constantly update tech books is a real valid concern. The good thing is that it also opens opportunities to beat the big players as they are generally slower to update their books (or might not). So if you are willing to update it, you gain an edge over them.
And updating tech books sometimes is not as hard as you think. Updating courses is difficult, you have to reshoot videos etc. But for books, you simply update your manuscript.
For example, I had to update my book from iOS 12 to iOS 13, to iOS14. React 16 to React 17. But the gain is, no publisher has done so as well! Exploit the edge.
Fourth, is the niche in DEMAND? When I type in the keywords for a topic, the Best Sellers Rank (BSR) for the books in the results should be at most 100,000+ (i.e. sell one copy a day):
E.g. if you sell one $9.99 book a day, you get $7 each day (70% royalty) or $210 a month. Obviously the more the better.
Fifth, can I beat the COMPETITION?
It is all about getting your book to appear in the first page results for a certain topic (similar to websites in Google).
Are existing books already dominating the first few results page? Do they have hundreds/thousands of 5-star reviews? Eg. competitive niches like ‘Machine Learning’, ‘Blockchain’.
Having competition is not necessarily a bad thing. It proves that there is demand in that niche. You have to ask, “Can I produce a better book?” Or, can I produce a similar book but offer it at a lower price?
When I decided to write my NodeJS book (it has made over $20,000 in royalties), it was an established niche. But for one, existing Node books didn’t have 5-star ratings. Second, they were expensive, often more than $20. But I published mine for $9.99 (ebook) and it has been doing well till today.
Another way to lessen competition is to ‘niche-down’. Instead of ‘Blockchain Development’, what about ‘Blockchain development using Solidity & React’?
In summary, choose a profitable niche in Amazon by asking the following questions:
First, am I INTERESTED in the niche?
Second, does my niche have enough DEPTH or BREADTH?
Third, does it have enough ‘EVERGREENNESS’?
Fourth, is the niche in DEMAND?
Fifth, can I beat the COMPETITION?
Hope this has been helpful!
You can follow me on Twitter as I continue to document my writing journey,
*If you would like to embark on a similar writing journey as mine, sign up for my course at https://greglim.gumroad.com/l/author
