Market ResearchThe Key to Positioning Your Book

Market ResearchThe Key to Positioning Your BookMarket Research- The Key to Positioning Your BookMarket research is a secret weapon because so many people neglect to do it.Believe it or not, something as simple as knowing your books potential market can help distinguish you as a writing pro versus an amateur. The Importance of Market Research Thorough market research helps you present well to agents and editors and can help your book successfully reach its target audience. If you understand exactly how your book fits into its marketplace of readers, youre ahead of the game in getting your book published. When presenting your book proposal to an agent, youll need to use the results of your market research to include a section on how to market your book. To clarify- this isnt about the research needed for the writing of the book. This is about the research needed to position your book in a query letter or book proposal or to help you target readers for a self-published book. Disc over Whats Hot and Trendy Far too few people do their homework on the market. In an interview with childrens literary agent Elizabeth Harding, the Curtis Brown Vice President was asked, What would you tell writers who aspire to write childrens books? She replied without hesitation, Id ask them Have you read any lately? Her point was that its not enough to have a creative impulse. Book publishing is a business and, like every media business, tzu siche are traditions, conventions, hot topics, and trends that change constantly. If you are serious about being an author, its your business to know whats current, hot, and trendy, and where your book fits in. Visit Amazon.com to find books that are publishing in the near future, so you know whats coming. And the go-to industry Publishers Weekly and its various organs can help keep you posted up to the minute with whats going on in publishing and in the bookstores. Find out About Your Competition Ask yourself whats out already there, an d find out if whats out there is selling well. For example,consider the author whose first book was about cookie decorating. The writer and her co-author had both been good bakers and had experience in the cookbook-publishing business- but when trying to locate an existing cookie decorating book for design inspiration, they couldnt find a single one. They started to research the topic and, as it turned out, there were two robust cookie decorating books available and a number of books that had some related cookie decorating content. However, nothing seemed quite what they were looking for, and they realized there might be a gap in the cookie decorating market that their book could fill. Position Your Book Competition isnt a bad thing- a number of books on the market means that a market actually exists for your book. Your goal in knowing your competitions books inside and out is to be able tospell out in your query letter or book proposal why the book you will write is different a nd better than whats already out there. If youre a genre novelist, you need to know who else is writing in your paranormal, mystery, or romance space, for example. This is because people in publishing companies and on book blogs are going to want to compare your work to someone elses so that readers get an idea if youre for them. Locate Appropriate Agents Researching the current literary agent market is prudent and highly advised. You want to make sure that the rolle you approach represents the kind of book youre writing, and that he is properly credentialed. Using literary agency websites and social sites like LinkedIn will help you research the agents and editors who are most likely to respond to your work for when you send out that brilliant query or bulletproof proposal.