Create Your Own eBook - How Do I Think of a Hot, Smoking Niche That Will Make Me Money?

Posted by Jonthan

Once of the most common questions I get asked is “HOW do I choose a topic, or content, for my ebook?”

To start with, get some paper and start writing down all your interests. What do you like to do in your spare time? Do you have any hobbies? What are you really good at? Or bad at? What really turns you on…what are you passionate about?

Make another list of problems you’ve had and solved or problems you’ve heard other people discussing, like your family, neighbors, co-workers. Don’t do any mental editing on your lists. Just write down what pops into your head without thinking about it.

Here’s some to kick start your mind: Has someone you know lost their job? Has your grandmother got special ways to grow giant vegetables? Does your sister know how to make gorgeous earrings out of string beans? Has a friend of yours developed some tasty recipes for children?

The point here is to open up your mind and see the real-life possibilities swirling all around you. Questions are good focusing points that often lead to great topics for ebooks. Your hobbies and pastimes are another. Your eccentric family members and off-the-wall circle of friends might be a goldmine for subject matter.

Here’s one more possibility for you. Instead of identifying problems and the solutions to them, consider problems that haven’t been solved yet. If you can identify common problems that need a solution and then provide one, you will have a hot customer base that will line up to buy your ebook.

Keep these lists handy, they will give you starting points for researching and selecting what you want to write about. A tightly defined topic is a very basic requirement for a successful ebook. Remember that.

Once you settle on a topic, the next task is researching on a couple of levels.

First, you need to see what’s already out there on the same subject you are going to write about. How? Visit the websites of your competition. It’s not a deadly sin, but good market research. When you visit these sites make notes on their content…what they emphasize…what they consider the most important facet of their presentation…do they use graphics (charts, photos, clip art)…how they formatted headings…how they use color…what you like and dislike…what you consider effective.

You are not stealing copyrighted information, but adding ideas to your arsenal and creating your private library of techniques to use or avoid. Note: Ideas cannot be copyrighted and getting an idea from a source is not a violation of any sort. But, the actual presentation of the material on those websites is copyrighted.

Search engines should become your best friend. Learn how to use them and your life as an ebook author will become considerably easier. You can use several search engines to help you research. Google, Yahoo, Dogpile, Ask Jeeves, to name a few. A search on “search engines” in any one of the four mentioned above will pop up more than you will ever need.

To illustrate the effectiveness of using search engines to research for you can be seen in the following results from four search engines. Using the phrase “ant prevention,” here’s what surfaced: Yahoo (1,020), Google (747), Ask Jeeves (576) and Dogpile (97). A few clicks and you have 2,440 “idea mines” to check out.

You can become your own search engine by checking out the most popular topics for books on Amazon.com. Visit book stores and find the “Most Popular” and the “Just Arrived” racks. See what the titles and topics are there. Book stores are notorious for only selling what they consider the coming trend or likely to be a hot topic. A hot topic for them can easily be hot topic for you.

Everywhere you shop, go to the magazine sections and scan the names of the magazines. Those with the most titles on a single subject are good possibilities for your ebook. Magazines with no readership will not be there. Take note of the popular subjects.

Keep a notebook with you and jot down what you discover, particularly what ideas pop into your mind that might seem unrelated at the time.

Beginning to feel like a walking, breathing blotter soaking up everything you pass by or see? Good! The better you get at these exercises, the better your topic selection will be.

Before we go any further, you might want to check out the popularity of your topic, or list of possible topics. What I mean by popularity is how many searches are being done through major search engines each month. You put your keywords in a keyword tracking tool and get back a list of how may people are looking for your topics. (Keywords are terms or phrases pertinent to your subject matter and submitted by you to a search engine).

A couple of excellent keyword tracking tools are: Wordtracker and Google AdWords: Keyword Tool.

HARD COLD FACT: If few are searching for your topic, no one will buy it. And there would be no point in writing it.

Once you have all your lists, ideas and search results in order, you can begin to zero in on what you want to write about. All of the tasks you’ve been doing before you got here were designed to focus your attention on a subject that excites you. Here’s where you identify what you are passionate about right now.

SO, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO WRITE ABOUT?

Scary, isn’t it? This is almost the last step before you actually sit down and start creating your ebook. If you cannot make a decision about your topic, how will you ever produce an ebook that will sell well online? Or, better yet, how will you ever fulfill your dream of making enough money online to make your dreams come true? The truth is that you won’t.

If you cannot choose between several, write them down on a piece of paper and leave it alone for a day. When you go back to it, write down the pros and cons for each topic you’ve listed. If that doesn’t make your choice clear, go back to the start of this piece and begin again.

Stay open to possibilities. I get some of my best ideas when I’m taking a shower, dressing my children or taking out the garbage. Everyday, mundane activities that you do automatically will release the stress hold your project has on your mind and the perfect subject might just pop into your awareness.

Sometimes you will have to take a day off just to get perspective on what you’re doing or trying to decide between.

Finally, when you do make the choice, keep all the other options and research you worried over in a safe place. You will have a head start on your next few ebooks.

By Paula Brett