Why No One Wants Your Book

Jane Friedman posted an interesting article a couple of days ago o the 13 Most Common Self-Publishing Mistakes. Her #3 point really stood out to me, and, I believe is a mistake far too many authors make, regardless of taking the traditional or self publishing approach.

She noted that many self-published authors have done insufficient research and market analysis.

3. Insufficient research and market analysis

Forbes has suggested that between 600,000 and 1,000,000 books are self-published every year. That’s a lot. In order to get the maximum leverage for selling your book, you’ll want to figure out which books are selling best (and more importantly, why), what readers want to read right now, who your key demographic is and how to reach them, and if you have any competition.

I don't know how many times I receive a submission where an author is using the argument, no one is writing a story like this so my story is unique. While this might be the case, the odds are that the real issue is that this story is not something that is selling and the market is not interested in this type of story. 

Along the same lines, I also see authors who want to show that their story is exactly what is on the market right now. OK, that part is fine, but when the story itself is just a carbon copy of everything else out there, the book is not going to sell. 

Before you even think about writing that story, do a bit of research. Is this a story, that, while it might sound great inside your head, is something that is truly marketable? Is this a story that people really will want to read. Remember, you have to take your personal bias out of this. If you are the only person interested, then this might be a problem.

I remember attending a Romantic Times conference and I had an author talking to me about her biography of her grandmother and how she had made it through the Depression. She was extremely excited about this book, about the research she did, and the things she  had learned about her grandmother. Here was the problem. She and her family were probably the only people out there interested in this story. This book simply was not going to sell. 

When you look at these numbers from the Friedman article, what is most disturbing is that many of these authors, I am betting, dove into the self-publishing market because the traditional publishers did not pick up the book. They probably said what I have heard over and over again, "Those traditional editors and agents are not willing to open up their markets and try new things. They cannot expand their thinking."

No, the reality is that they DID take the time to do the market research and they DID discover that the market was not going to buy that book.

In the end, it really does not matter how well you wrote that book, if the premise is not something the market wants, the book is not going to sell.