As expected, the author of the book I talked about in my Target Audience post did want to simply publish his sermons, as is, for other ministers. This brings up another important topic when it comes to book publishing: What need will your book fill?
In fiction, this becomes tricky-there are millions of Romeo and Juliet stories, why is yours unique? It uses vampires? Sorry, that's been done. You want to tell it from the nurses point of view? Yep, done. The question is "Can you do it better?"
In non-fiction, it is imperative that you not only do it better, but it also has to have some uniqueness to it. If you are publishing a book of sermons about marriage (which is not the real topic of the book on which I am working, but that is the topic I am going to use for this blog post), you are one of hundreds of other books on marriage that is available. Couple that with other things this author wants (publishing a series of sermons on the same topic makes it impossible for ministers to use one in a pinch, publishing a full sermon instead of an outline makes it difficult for a minister to adapt it to his congregation's needs, etc.) and again, he is hurting his ability to sell his book.
Marketing, in my opinion, is by far the most difficult part of being an author. If you think otherwise, I really suggest you consider a career in marketing instead of writing. (Marketers still get to write, by the way, they just do it to help sell something.) You need to make sure your book is marketable before you put it in print by not only making sure there is an audience for it, but also by making sure your book will fill a need of the audience.
In this ministers case, he has an audience that is already asking him for a book. People who have listened to his sermons have come up to him and told him they wish they could get their friends to hear the sermon but the friend was turned off to that because of other churches that approached the subject poorly. From these statements, the minister is trying to get his sermons to other ministers so they won't turn people off to religion. The problem is that if he published a book that directly spoke to the people, it would be easier for the friend to pass it along than it would be for them to bring the resistant person to church to hear any minister give a sermon.
The minister clearly saw a need and identified a niche, but his book is not targeting that niche. The niche is providing unchurched people with a guide to a healthy marriage based on Biblical principles. In order to reach that niche, he should publish a book directly for the target audience in that niche. Instead, he is publishing a book in that niche but has misidentified the target audience for that niche.The competition would, of course, be greater if he published a direct marriage book (there are millions of them), but he would have a better chance of marketing it because he already has people willing to buy it. Although there are fewer books (in general) published containing marriage sermons specifically, he has not done sermon outlines but instead chosen to publish full sermons, there is no additional material (such as workbooks) to hand out to audiences interested in this topic and make it worth the investment, and to the best of my knowledge, he does not have ministers asking him for a book on this topic.
In this case, the minister has recognized there is a need for his book. (It fills a niche.) However, he has not properly identified the target audience and the result is that he is not filling that niche with his book any longer.
When you have identified a niche, it is important you fill that niche. Many times authors write what they know instead of finding someone to help them write what they need to write. In this case, not getting advice will hurt this minister's sales.
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Target Audience: Why are you publishing a book?
Many people want to publish their own book. In the old days, few were selected. You had to petition a potential publisher after much research into which publishing house was the best fit. You had to craft an enticing letter to convince said publisher to read even a small portion of what you had written. And it helped if you knew someone. After several rejections, if you still were adamant about publishing, you could go to a vanity press and pay them to publish your book. If you took the second route, you would only have a stack of books in your closet to show for it. Marketing is the sole reason to target a traditional publisher, and it is a very good reason. However, marketing is expensive and so traditional publishing companies are necessarily selective.
Today, you can simply go on Amazon and upload anything and call it a book. You can even give digital versions away for free and claim that you wrote a best seller because of all the free downloads. The problem is that if I buy a tiara and scepter and call myself a queen, that doesn't make me one.
There are many things to consider before you publish a book. Here I want to focus on your target audience. {Please note, the details in the following example have been altered to prevent anyone from identifying a specific individual}. One job I had involved a minister (as a Christian, I prefer writing for other Christians). This man wanted his sermon series published as a book. I eagerly approached the subject, converting each sermon into a readable chapter. Unfortunately, this man was a minister and not a writer.
Each sermon had an opening and closing prayer. I had deleted this because they didn't really work at the beginning and end of all 30 chapters. You would read the prayer at the end of the first chapter and then move on to the prayer at the beginning of the next chapter. In many cases, the opening prayers were almost identical. Instead, I placed one prayer in the prologue, and the end of each chapter had reflection questions that reflected what he was saying in his closing prayer.
In some cases, the minister wandered off topic during his sermons. He even talked about things he would later mention in detail in another sermon. Needless to say, I deleted these or moved them to the correct chapter. There was also a lot of repetition that I deleted. There is nothing wrong with these things in a sermon, but for a book, all of this was bogging it down and making it boring to read.
When I presented him with my first chapter he rejected it. He didn't want me to turn his sermons into a book; he wanted me to put his sermons in a book.
Here is where target audience is important. It was my opinion that the minister was targeting the audience that would be listening to his sermons: average lay church goers who might want to take time and ponder what he had told them on Sunday morning. This type of book would appeal to a wide range of people and therefore have the biggest audience.
However, if he just wanted his sermons in book form, he immediately limited his audience. The primary audience would be one person- himself. Now, some of you may protest--what about other ministers who might want to use his sermons? The problems are as follows:
(1) This is a huge sermon series. No one wants to cart around a 750 some page book to preach a sermon from. In fact, I don't think any minister would want someone to know he was using another person's sermon.
(2) Most sermon books are outlines. This allows your target audience to be from most denominations. His sermons were basically transcripts of his sermons. That means they were very specific and would need to be changed if they were to appeal to ministers outside of his denomination.
(3) Sermon books come with random sermons. This is so if the minister is in a pinch- say he had to perform a funeral for a person he was close to and just couldn't focus on creating something original that week- all he has to do is use a sermon outline from a book to preach. This, however, was a sermon series. That means that no one could simply take a sermon out of the book and preach it without preaching the entire series.
When you write a book, you want it to appeal to the largest market available. My husband and I self-published my magnum opus. It is a literary tome similar to the Lord of the Rings and is in need of us to finish the next books that complete the series. It is huge. It uses ancient languages. It is based in a pre-flood steampunk world. Few will ever buy it especially since we don't have a good marketing department behind us. But it was worth publishing because I feel it has exceptional literary value and if some time in the future my other books ever become popular, that is the one that I will always hold as my greatest. Art for art's sake, if you will.
Should everyone choose to do this? No. Everyone can write something, but not everyone is an author. My book has a very small audience-and that audience could potentially grow if my other books do well. In many cases, people do just want to publish the book for themselves. These should not be offered on a public market for free because they simply bog down the market for the few good authors who have not yet been discovered or who, like me, choose not to go through the traditional publishing route.
Think about your audience. Think about who you want to reach. Then write for them. In this case, my opinion is that the minister should choose the church audience. However, I have a feeling he will choose the smallest audience (other ministers) and then attempt to get his Church audience to buy it. This is probably the worst thing he could do sales-wise. Why? Because he will waste all his time marketing to an audience that isn't interested in a book of sermons.
Today, you can simply go on Amazon and upload anything and call it a book. You can even give digital versions away for free and claim that you wrote a best seller because of all the free downloads. The problem is that if I buy a tiara and scepter and call myself a queen, that doesn't make me one.
There are many things to consider before you publish a book. Here I want to focus on your target audience. {Please note, the details in the following example have been altered to prevent anyone from identifying a specific individual}. One job I had involved a minister (as a Christian, I prefer writing for other Christians). This man wanted his sermon series published as a book. I eagerly approached the subject, converting each sermon into a readable chapter. Unfortunately, this man was a minister and not a writer.
Each sermon had an opening and closing prayer. I had deleted this because they didn't really work at the beginning and end of all 30 chapters. You would read the prayer at the end of the first chapter and then move on to the prayer at the beginning of the next chapter. In many cases, the opening prayers were almost identical. Instead, I placed one prayer in the prologue, and the end of each chapter had reflection questions that reflected what he was saying in his closing prayer.
In some cases, the minister wandered off topic during his sermons. He even talked about things he would later mention in detail in another sermon. Needless to say, I deleted these or moved them to the correct chapter. There was also a lot of repetition that I deleted. There is nothing wrong with these things in a sermon, but for a book, all of this was bogging it down and making it boring to read.
When I presented him with my first chapter he rejected it. He didn't want me to turn his sermons into a book; he wanted me to put his sermons in a book.
Here is where target audience is important. It was my opinion that the minister was targeting the audience that would be listening to his sermons: average lay church goers who might want to take time and ponder what he had told them on Sunday morning. This type of book would appeal to a wide range of people and therefore have the biggest audience.
However, if he just wanted his sermons in book form, he immediately limited his audience. The primary audience would be one person- himself. Now, some of you may protest--what about other ministers who might want to use his sermons? The problems are as follows:
(1) This is a huge sermon series. No one wants to cart around a 750 some page book to preach a sermon from. In fact, I don't think any minister would want someone to know he was using another person's sermon.
(2) Most sermon books are outlines. This allows your target audience to be from most denominations. His sermons were basically transcripts of his sermons. That means they were very specific and would need to be changed if they were to appeal to ministers outside of his denomination.
(3) Sermon books come with random sermons. This is so if the minister is in a pinch- say he had to perform a funeral for a person he was close to and just couldn't focus on creating something original that week- all he has to do is use a sermon outline from a book to preach. This, however, was a sermon series. That means that no one could simply take a sermon out of the book and preach it without preaching the entire series.
When you write a book, you want it to appeal to the largest market available. My husband and I self-published my magnum opus. It is a literary tome similar to the Lord of the Rings and is in need of us to finish the next books that complete the series. It is huge. It uses ancient languages. It is based in a pre-flood steampunk world. Few will ever buy it especially since we don't have a good marketing department behind us. But it was worth publishing because I feel it has exceptional literary value and if some time in the future my other books ever become popular, that is the one that I will always hold as my greatest. Art for art's sake, if you will.
Should everyone choose to do this? No. Everyone can write something, but not everyone is an author. My book has a very small audience-and that audience could potentially grow if my other books do well. In many cases, people do just want to publish the book for themselves. These should not be offered on a public market for free because they simply bog down the market for the few good authors who have not yet been discovered or who, like me, choose not to go through the traditional publishing route.
Think about your audience. Think about who you want to reach. Then write for them. In this case, my opinion is that the minister should choose the church audience. However, I have a feeling he will choose the smallest audience (other ministers) and then attempt to get his Church audience to buy it. This is probably the worst thing he could do sales-wise. Why? Because he will waste all his time marketing to an audience that isn't interested in a book of sermons.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)