Non fiction book publication

[Roberto Zenga]

Dears,

as included in the topic of the thread.

Has anyone of you ever tried to self-publishing (though Amazon for example) a non-fiction book?

Any experiences about that?

Best,

Roberto

 

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[Roberto Zenga]

Yup. That's a very generic question, but my best recommendation is to build an audience FIRST, and then publish the book. The "if I build it, they will come" strategy doesn't work well for non-fiction books these days.

Happy to answer more specific questions if you have them.

Thanks for the advice!
I work currently as a pharmaceutical marketeer and I teach also pharmaceutical marketing here in Italy.
So I was wondering what could I expect from publishing a book about pharmaceutical marketing (since there's no so much out there about this topic) in terms of success or complications and sales.

I'm thinking to self-publish my book through Amazon in order to save time and money.

Yup. That's a very generic question, but my best recommendation is to build an audience FIRST, and then publish the book. The "if I build it, they will come" strategy doesn't work well for non-fiction books these days.

Happy to answer more specific questions if you have them.

Yup. That's a very generic question, but my best recommendation is to build an audience FIRST, and then publish the book. The "if I build it, they will come" strategy doesn't work well for non-fiction books these days.

Happy to answer more specific questions if you have them.

Thanks for the advice!
I work currently as a pharmaceutical marketeer and I teach also pharmaceutical marketing here in Italy.
So I was wondering what could I expect from publishing a book about pharmaceutical marketing (since there's no so much out there about this topic) in terms of success or complications and sales.

I'm thinking to self-publish my book through Amazon in order to save time and money.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

Dears,

as included in the topic of the thread.

Has anyone of you ever tried to self-publishing (though Amazon for example) a non-fiction book?

Any experiences about that?

Best,

Roberto

Yes. I haven't tried the traditional publishing route, thus I can't really compare it to anything else.

 

[MTF]

So I was wondering what could I expect from publishing a book about pharmaceutical marketing (since there's no so much out there about this topic) in terms of success or complications and sales.

To be honest, pretty much nothing.

Your area of expertise is extremely niche. In my opinion it's not even worth your time and effort to write a book about it. You'll be able to sell it for at most $9.99 (since above this price point, Amazon takes 65%). If you want to sell your knowledge, better invest your resources in creating high-ticket training for professionals willing to pay thousands.

Self-publishing is a quantity play. Popular topics, or in general, niches that an average person might be interested in, work well. Anything specific, let alone super specific and B2B, is not going to work on Amazon.

 

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[steelandchrome]

Yes I have and it wasn't really worth the time and effort put in so far. I didn't follow advice given and create an audience first so replied on costly FB ads to drive traffic (which didn't work) and free giveaways advertised on reddit (which actually was awesome to temporarily rank as a #1 seller in my category). I sold about 15 copies and have people check it out for free with the kdp program but you earn pennies for that. I have contemplated a relaunch after building an audience but that's not top of my to do list. Without a dedicated group of people asking for the topic to be covered you will have a hill to climb.

 

[Roberto Zenga]

Yes I have and it wasn't really worth the time and effort put in so far. I didn't follow advice given and create an audience first so replied on costly FB ads to drive traffic (which didn't work) and free giveaways advertised on reddit (which actually was awesome to temporarily rank as a #1 seller in my category). I sold about 15 copies and have people check it out for free with the kdp program but you earn pennies for that. I have contemplated a relaunch after building an audience but that's not top of my to do list. Without a dedicated group of people asking for the topic to be covered you will have a hill to climb.

Uhm... that is clear...

What about looking ahead and writing down a book in order to be considered "an expert" in your field (with all the related implications)?

 

[Andy Black]

I work currently as a pharmaceutical marketeer and I teach also pharmaceutical marketing here in Italy.
So I was wondering what could I expect from publishing a book about pharmaceutical marketing (since there's no so much out there about this topic) in terms of success or complications and sales.

Would publishing a book help you grow your teaching business?

 

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[Ubu_roi]

I'd say that it's definitely worth trying.

I've written a niche technical book in Italian, and self published on Amazon. I have spent 0 on marketing and no efforts at all on building a public, except a few posts on LinkedIn and a few chats with friends and customers.

The result is about 500 copies sold on Amazon alone since publication (January 2016), and the book is still selling today (roughly 3000 € total before taxes).

You probably won't get much money from that, but it's still worth it: I got several contacts, nice reviews of the book, and got invited to a couple of conferences. Incredibly, the book even went up to position 1 on Amazon chart in its category a couple of times.

What I found is that:

- very few copies of niche books are actually sold (at least in Italy). I was told by an expert that if you sell more than 300 copies it's considered a success;
- people will find you even without any marketing, if you address a need;
- a book can get you contacts;
- if you do it for the money, your time is definitely better spent elsewhere.

So I'll be publishing a second book, but this time with an editor, and in English, hoping to reach a broader audience (publication date is at the end of March, so I'll know more by then).

Good luck

Attached you'll a screenshot of the historical data of the book on kdp (Kindle Direct Publishing).