Choosing a subject for you first book

It's the question I am most asked by other bloggers: "I want to create a book, or an E Book, either to sell or give away to subscribers, but I just don't know what to write about. Can you give me some advice?"

The good news is that the clues are already on your blog, and by using those, and doing some research, you should be able to find an answer.

Image: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Popular posts

Start with your most popular posts. They will tell you what your audience enjoys and what they like to read. Just jot down the broad categories those popular posts fall into.

I've recently done this on our travel blog and broadly they are: Jobs, mobile phones and wi-fi, shopping and the airport. Now it would be pretty hard to write a book about the airport, but that leaves me with a job guide, a computer / communications guide and a shopping guide as possibles.

Most searched for posts

Now have a look (using Google Analytics or whatever else you use to look at your metrics) at what search terms are used most to bring people to your site. Again, jot down broad terms.

Doing this for the travel blog gives me: Jobs and shopping (again) and adds bike riding and rental and sports to the mix. So now we have the options above as well as a sports tourism guide and a cycling holiday guide. These last two are interesting, because we may be able to combine them with promoting sports holidays or bike rentals as an affiliate.

Emails and Comments

Next, check through your comments. Which posts are the most commented upon? Is there a subject or a question that keeps cropping up? Now do the same with your email for that site. Are people asking for the same advice over and over again? Once again group them under broad headings.

Doing this for the travel blog tells me that people want more information about: shopping (again!), car hire, cycle routes and walking tours.

Can you see how easy it is?

Within the space of a few minutes, we've been able to come up with a whole bunch of topics that would probably be of interest to the readers of our travel blog. If we can create something that helps them and answers their question, they'll want it or buy it. From the research done, we could create a:

• Guide to jobs on the island
• Guide to cycling holidays here
• Guide to sporting holidays
• Book of walking tours and / or cycle routes
• Shopping guide

But if you're still struggling then think about doing a:

Survey

Sign up for Survey Monkey's free service and ask your readers what they would like more of! If you've done the research above, you can be very specific with your questions and you can even ask them if they would be prepared to buy a guide on a particular subject. If the majority are sending you in a certain direction, it's a no brainer to give them what they want!

Can you think of other ways to understand the market potential of your audience?

These are pretty good, and well worth reading:

1/ Switch your focus and make some money

2/ One great article away from fame

3/ How to leverage Facebook for traffic