Choosing a niche is part art and part science. You must choose a niche that you are passionate about in order to write a book and build a business that you will love today and five years from now.
But… it must be a niche that is in-demand and has the potential to make money.
The goal of this post is to give you the tools and information you will need to:
1) Choose a niche that will have you jumping out of bed with excitement.
2) Choose a niche that will also reward your enthusiasm and effort with money.
Niche selection is a critically important part of writing a successful book. I see people making many mistakes when it comes to niche selection due to the tons of overwhelming and sometimes conflicting information online. I know because I built a business that relies on niche research – it can be a lot to take in.
In addition to writintention.com, I have a product creation business, getwellnessclients.com. This business is built on understanding how to choose profitable niches. All of the products that I have created have been best sellers because of the very research I am going to teach you about today.
I am going to walk you through the entire process and by the end of this post, you will have all of the information you need to choose a profitable niche for your business.
You will learn:
- What a niche is and the power of choosing the right one.
- How to narrow down a niche in order to find a profitable market that you can grow into a business without drowning in competition.
- How to use your own life experiences to brainstorm niche ideas.
What is a Niche?
Your niche is simply the topic or targeted area that you are going to base your book and business on.
There are four main niches that are the biggest money makers:
- Health and Wellness
- Wealth
- Relationships
- Lifestyle (this can include things like hobbies, special interests, personal development, spirituality, etc.)
The problem is that these are mass market niches. In a nut shell, that means they are huge and pretty much dominated by the Goliath gurus in those fields. It is not advisable to try and compete with the big leaders – unless you have tons of money that you won’t mind wasting on advertising and hiring teams.
If you want to write a successful book and build a profitable business then you need to:
1) Choose one of these ginormous niches that you have an interest in.
2) Narrow your focus or in other words, niche down to find the sweet spot where you can plant your roots and grow.
Niching Down
Niching down simply means you will find a smaller subset of the giant niche.
Examples:
- Health and Wellness —–> Weight Loss
- Wealth —–> Make Money Online
- Relationships —–> Dating
- Personal Development —–> Law of Attraction
We are going to look at the process of taking one of these huge mass market niches and niching it down to a topic that has the potential to be a super successful book and business.
We will start with a mass market niche, then go down a level to a sub-niche, then we can continue going deeper into more refined micro-niches.
Niching down is important because if you don’t narrow down your market enough, you will try to please too many people. This mass-market approach usually results in you hearing crickets when you launch your book and business.
With that said, you also want to be careful not to go too narrow because this can produce a very small client pool. This can severely limit your profit potential and your business won’t be sustainable.
You want to find the “sweet spot”- a niche small enough so that you can become a leader in your niche but not too small that you limit your prospects and earnings.
This blog post will help you solve that “too wide” or “too narrow” market approach many coaches adopt and end up failing as a result.
I find that the best way to explain these concepts is by using examples. I am going to use the Health and Wellness niche and break it down into smaller, more refined topics so you can see how the process works.
- Mass Market Niche: Health and Wellness
- Sub-niche: Weight Loss
- Micro-niche: Lose Belly Fat
- Micro-micro-niche: Lose Belly Fat for Moms
Niching Down Process
Let’s look at this example in detail before going any further.
I took the mass market niche, health and wellness and found a smaller sub-niche market – weight loss. I found this by doing a quick Google search. I typed in health and wellness niches and I was presented with multiple lists of popular niches that fall under the health and wellness category.
Because I have an interest in weight loss, I decided to choose this area.
Weight loss is a good topic but it is still large and very broad. It will be hard to identify a target audience and market to them because there are hundreds, if not thousands, of weight loss approaches out there.
Not to mention, weight loss for a woman in her 30’s is going to be different than weight loss for a man in his 50’s. Different market, different problems, different pain points – different everything.
So, it would be best to continue niching down to something more manageable.
I did another search on Google and typed in weight loss niches. This provided me with multiple lists of popular micro-niches under the topic of weight loss.
I also did a search on Amazon to see what else may come up.
After doing some digging, I found that the topic of belly fat is very popular. So, instead of writing a book on “weight loss”, I will refine that to a micro-niche book on the topic of Losing Belly Fat.
Losing belly fat is a much more refined topic and offers a specific solution to a major problem that a lot of people have. Losing Belly Fat is considered a micro-niche because it is a subset of the smaller (but still big) weight loss niche.
Now, let’s refine this topic a bit more. Even though losing belly fat is a specific micro-niche, we can actually still take this topic and go a level deeper.
If you really want to set yourself apart from the crowd, you can narrow this niche down based on the target audience you want to serve. This will give you an angle or unique selling proposition.
In order to do this, we go one level deeper to a micro-micro-niche: Lose Belly Fat for Moms.
Lose Belly Fat for Moms has some serious money-making potential despite how narrow the topic appears because this is a market that is hungry for solutions.
Benefits of Choosing a Narrow Niche
Here are some benefits to choosing this narrow focus as your niche:
- Losing belly fat is a problem that gets thousands of searches per month – it is problem that has a lot of pain associated with it.
- Many women who have babies struggle with issues around weight loss and body image – especially their belly.
- When you market to a specific target audience like moms, you know exactly what their problems and pain points are. This is the foundation to writing a best-selling book – your book needs to solve a problem. When you know your target audience’s specific pain points you can position your book and business as the answer to their pain.
- Understanding their pain and struggles means you can speak directly to them, not only through your book, but also your blog posts, products, programs and marketing copy. You will be able to make a connection with them because you understand what they are struggling with, the results they want and the barriers they have to achieving those results on their own.
- You can easily write a book and build a business around the one problem, one solution approach that can equal big exposure and growth in your business. Focusing on one area, especially when starting out, will keep you focused, clear and will eliminate a lot of the overwhelm that comes with juggling multiple products and programs. It will also allow you to build a brand and become a well-known leader in your niche.
- You can build a true fan base and that is the lifeblood of your business. When you have true fans (and it doesn’t have to be a lot) that know, like and trust you, success is practically guaranteed.
This particular micro-micro-niche, Lose Belly Fat for Moms, has the potential to be a real winner.
With that said, I know you may be thinking…
So, if I choose a narrow market won’t I lose out on sales? Shouldn’t I be marketing to as many people as possible?
Nope. Let’s look at why…
Going Too Broad
One of the mistakes that a lot of new, very ambitious writers and coaches make is that they ignore micro-niches and try to go broad. They believe this will increase their pool of prospects because they can market to everyone instead of a targeted group.
Please remember this bit of wisdom: When you market to everyone, you market to no one.
Here’s an example. Let’s flesh out a niche for Coach A and Coach B.
Coach A wants to go general so they can target millions of people and make lots of sales. They write a book called: All You Need to Know about Health and Wellness.
Coach B understands the value of targeting their book to a narrow niche and marketing to a specific audience. They write a book called: Lose Your Baby Belly in 90 Days or Less.
Let’s try to identify what problem each coach is solving, the result they are providing and the audience (ideal client) they are targeting.
Coach A: I have no idea what problem they are solving, what the solution is or the target audience that would benefit from the information. If I saw that book on Amazon I would likely be confused and click away very fast. There are too many topics that fall under “health and wellness” – it doesn’t address a specific problem. I could probably spend hours searching through that book for something that I can actually relate to (which I won’t do, BTW and neither will anyone else).
This coach will be seen as the jack of all trades, master of none. This is not ideal for an author or online business owner.
Coach B: When I’m scrolling through books on Amazon and I see, Lose Your Baby Belly in 90 Days or Less, I know immediately that the problem they are targeting is belly fat, the result is losing it and the target population is moms.
If I am a mom struggling to lose my baby belly and I find both of these books, side-by-side on Amazon, which one am I going to gravitate towards? Of course, Coach B’s book because Coach B understands my problem and is promising a result that I want and need.
Coach B will be seen as an expert. The person who understands this specific, targeted problem for a specific, targeted audience.
Think of coach B as a specialist.
For example:
- If you have a heart condition you would go to a cardiologist.
- If you have cystic acne you would go to a dermatologist.
- If you have hip or knee pain you would go to an orthopedic.
When you have a targeted problem, a general practitioner isn’t the first choice of doctor. In fact, your GP will refer you to a specialist because they don’t have enough training or knowledge to manage the problem.
This is why specialists command higher prices – because they are masters of their craft. They have specialized knowledge of ONE particular area and they charge premium prices for their knowledge.
Well, it’s no different with coaching.
If you are a coach who specializes in one type of problem and you have extensive knowledge and experience in solving that problem, you will be seen as the expert that can help.
This is how you grow a thriving practice with your book – become the go-to person for XYZ problem.
Can you see how choosing a large, general niche will not help you reach a larger audience? You will end up hearing nothing but crickets because no one understands what problem you are solving.
Now, I know you may be thinking…
But if I have a book targeted to moms, then I will lose out on attracting other women who have belly fat issues.
Yes, there is some truth to that. But that is where you have to let go of the need/desire/belief that you have to please everyone and you need to attract tons of different people.
Yes, women in their 50’s struggling with belly fat aren’t going to be searching for a book about losing post-pregnancy belly fat. And that is okay.
This target audience is a huge and hungry market that needs help. You will have no shortage of potential clients and customers.
But I will add in the caveat that just because you are targeting moms doesn’t mean that women outside of your target audience won’t have an interest in your book/program.
You will always attract people outside of your target market for various reasons but mainly because you have hit some of their pain points. They won’t care if you target moms. If you have a belly fat solution, they are interested in hearing about it.
Going Too Narrow
I know I have been talking up the benefits of going narrow but there are some dangers of going way too narrow. There is a balance that you need to consider. You want to choose a smaller, more targeted niche however you don’t want it to be so small that you limit what and who you can sell to.
Let’s build on the previous example to illustrate my point:
- Mass Market Niche: Health and Wellness
- Sub-Niche: Weight Loss
- Micro-Niche: Lose Belly Fat
- Micro-Micro-Niche: Lose Belly Fat for Moms
- Micro-Micro-Micro-Niche: Lose Belly Fat for New Moms
- Micro-Micro-Micro-Micro-Niche: Lose Belly Fat for New Moms Over 40
- Micro-Micro-Micro-Micro-Micro-Niche: Lose Belly for New Moms of Twins Over 40
So, we got pretty darn narrow with this niche, don’t you think? Can you see how deep you can actually take this – sometimes it gets to be a bit too much.
Let’s take a look at each of these:
- Niche: Health and Wellness
We know this is a huge market and just way too big to tackle. Keep digging.
- Sub-Niche: Weight Loss
This is a more targeted area but still too big and too broad. Keep digging.
- Micro-Niche: Lose Belly Fat
Much better. More targeted. You can write a book and build a business around this niche. But you may struggle a bit with marketing. You must be clear on who your ideal client is so you can brand your book/business to that audience.
- Micro-Micro-Niche: Lose Belly Fat for Moms
Great choice. The audience is defined and targeted. The problem is clear and you can easily create content, products, programs and sales copy that speak directly to this audience.
- Micro-Micro-Micro-Niche: Lose Belly Fat for New Moms
Although this is a more targeted audience -“new moms” as opposed to just “moms” it still may work. There are millions of new moms out there struggling and need specialized help because they are “new.” They will have some different pain points than a mom who has two or three kids. You will need to do some research to validate this further but despite the narrow niche, there is a good chance it could work.
- Micro-Micro-Micro-Micro-Niche: Lose Belly Fat for New Moms Over 40
Here is where we start to get really narrow. Possibly too narrow for a successful book and sustainable business. Women are having babies in their 40’s but how many of them are new moms? This may be way too narrow of a focus to build a business on. You would need to do some extensive research before committing to this niche.
- Micro-Micro-Micro-Micro-Micro-Niche: Lose Belly Fat for New Moms of Twins Over 40
Nope – I would probably stay away from this one. While I’m sure it happens, I just don’t think it’s common enough to write a book about and build a business around. I also don’t see the benefit in getting so narrow with the target market. You will really limit yourself to the content and programs you can build.
But I haven’t done the research on this population so I can’t say for sure. You would need to do some very extensive research to see if you could sustain a business with such a narrow focus. But if I had to guess, I would say NO.
You are looking for the sweet spot – a niche that is targeted and narrow enough so you can stand out in the crowd but yet big enough that you can build a sustainable business around.
I would say that the sweet spot in this example would be any of these three choices:
- Lose Belly Fat
- Lose Belly Fat for Moms
- Lose Belly Fat for New Moms
So now that you are hopefully clear on what a niche is and how to niche down a topic, let’s just quickly take a look at a big mistake that most new coaches tend to make. If you do this, your book and business plans are doomed from the start.
Money vs. Passion Niche
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to pick a niche only based on the income potential. For example, you may see some potential in the belly fat niche based on what we just talked about in this post.
So, you decide to do some research and find that there is a lot of money to be made. Based on the income potential, you decide to jump on the opportunity because you want to be a successful author and have a freedom-based lifestyle business. You don’t really have an interest in the topic of losing belly fat but you figure, Why not? Once the money starts rolling in, I’ll love it!
I understand the motivation behind this and it’s not your fault for thinking that approach will work – many people out there are teaching this strategy. I’ve heard it a million times… focus on the money niche and you will learn to love the business once the cash starts rolling in.
I can tell you from experience that this is far from true and it rarely works. I have followed this advice and despite my success I couldn’t stand doing the work. It was becoming a job and I wasn’t enjoying any of it.
Investing a lot of time, effort and resources into writing a book and running a business in a niche that you don’t truly enjoy gets old pretty quick.
Money will not magically make you love something.
Writing your book and building your business isn’t just about the money. This journey is about you finally experiencing the joy of doing what you love and loving what you do. So, don’t make the mistake of jumping into something just because it is promising you a hefty pay day. I don’t care how lucrative the niche is – if you don’t like it, there is a good chance you won’t make much money in it and you likely won’t be able to sustain it.
Again, we are back to finding a balance. Your niche needs to match your interests, passions, values AND needs to be something that has the potential to be profitable.
How to Choose a Profitable Niche You Will Love
There are so many choices out there that you may be feeling a bit overwhelmed and confused about where to start when it comes choosing a niche.
The very best place to start is with YOU.
For example, if you have an interest in a particular niche, like health and wellness, then it is likely because of your own personal journey to health.
Or if you have an interest in dating/relationships, it’s likely because of your experiences with dating.
Taking an inventory of your personal struggles, wins, losses, achievements, etc. can shed a ton of light on what your passion and purpose is in life.
To illustrate this point, here are examples of two authors who wrote their books based on their personal struggles and turned them into transformational businesses.
1) George Stella is a popular weight loss expert. No, he doesn’t have a fancy degree and I don’t think he even has a health coach certification.
George Stella was a morbidly obese chef weighing in at 465 pounds. George knew something had to change. Through his knowledge and skills as a chef, he started to create low carb meals that were delicious, healthy and promoted weight loss.
It worked.
He lost 260 pounds and inspired his wife and son to also lose weight on his low carb plan. Together the Stella family has lost 560 pounds! Just incredible.
He used his personal weight loss journey to not only inspire his family but also the world. He published several low carb recipe books and landed a top-rated show on the Food Network, Low Carb and Lovin’ It. You can read about his story here.
2) World renowned author and speaker, Geneen Roth built her business based on her struggles with emotional eating, compulsive eating, and relentless dieting.
She has authored multiple best-selling books and has been featured on Oprah, 20/20, the Today show and many others. She uses her personal journey to help provide hope, inspiration and healing to the millions of people who identify with her struggles. Geneen shares her wisdom through books, talks, events, and courses. You can read more about Geneen here.
As you can see, you don’t need to be a well-known influencer or celebrity to be a successful author and business owner.
Geneen and George were just regular people who used the knowledge they gained from their own personal journeys to inspire millions of people and change lives. In the process, they each built a brand that grew into a lucrative empire.
I want you to start at the same place they did – your own personal journey.
Personal Journey Writing Prompts
- Who are you? Give a glimpse of your personality.
- What are some of the problems you have struggled with in your life? Obesity, skin problems, chronic stress, divorce, abuse, trauma, infidelity, poverty, illness, menopausal weight gain, baby weight gain, etc.
- Which problem has caused you the most pain and why?
- Has this problem been a lifelong issue or something that came up later in your life? Did you have problems as a child e.g., limited education, limited resources, financial problems in your family, weight issues, no close friends growing up, bullied/teased, etc. Or was your upbringing and life idyllic until you encountered some type of event that disrupted your life e.g., got the diagnosis… had the accident… went to the reunion… lost the job… discovered the infidelity… got separated/divorced… lost all of your money, etc.
- Use the answer to the previous question to describe how your life was before and after your problem started.
- What caused your problem to escalate to the point where it interfered with your life? e.g. You gained 100 pounds in one year after the loss of a loved one, divorce, or some type of traumatic event.
- What obstacles did you encounter as a result of your problem? e.g., Teased, ignored, low self-esteem, drug/alcohol use, emotional eating, health problems, isolation, lost friendships, divorce, debt, foreclosure, shame, embarrassment, etc.
- What was your turning point/light bulb moment/final straw? What made you say, I can’t go on like this for another minute, things need to change.
- What was your solution? e. g. Plant based diet, hired a coach, debt counseling, joined a running group, weight training, portion control, went to a naturopath, alternative remedies, hypnosis, meditation, EFT, etc.
- How did you find your solution? e.g. By accident/fate, family member, co-worker, book/magazine, TV show, someone else’s story, etc.
- How did you resolve/overcome your problem? What steps did you take?
- Did you experience any fears and failures while trying to find/implement your solution? Give examples of your fears/failures. How did you overcome them and persevere?
- How long did it take you to win your battle/overcome your problem? e.g. It took me 18 months to finally lose the 100 pounds I put on after my divorce but this is what I gained in the process…
- What wisdom did you gain from this experience? What life lessons did you learn? Did this turn out to be a blessing in disguise?
- How has your life changed as a result of working on and resolving this issue?
- Identify three ways your wisdom and experience can help someone else overcome the same obstacles as you.
Personal Journey Example
Let’s take a quick look at how you can use your personal journey to discover your passion and come up with an idea for your book/business.
Your issue: You gained 100 pounds in less than two years after your sudden and unexpected divorce.
Your life before and after you gained weight: You were always the “chubby kid” growing up and never felt “good enough.” On the outside you always looked happy and went out of your way to please people. You had friends but always felt like the third wheel and never quite got the attention you wanted or deserved. Your weight impacted your self-esteem but it didn’t stop you from pursuing your career or getting married.
You truly believed that your husband was your soul mate and you had a solid marriage. Until one day your husband took you out to dinner and out of nowhere told you he was in love with someone else and wanted a divorce.
Your world crumbled and you turned to food for comfort. In less than two years you gained 100 pounds and it was impacting your physical and emotional health.
You couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without stopping on each one to catch your breath. You had terrible joint pain and could barely get out of bed some mornings. You had to order specialty clothes online because stores didn’t carry your size.
You felt like you had become invisible – you were overlooked for promotions and you weren’t being invited to social events as often as you used to. But even when you were invited, you would turn down the invitation due to the shame you felt over your appearance.
Friends and family members were expressing concern about your weight and would often make comments about what you were eating and how much. But it only made things worse and you kept on gaining.
Your light bulb moment: You were asked to be maid of honor at your best friend’s wedding. When you went to the store the dress she chose didn’t come in a size big enough to fit you. She had to pick a dress that would accommodate your frame rather than what she wanted for her wedding party. This sent you even further down the shame spiral.
A week later you went to the doctor for your yearly check-up and the tests revealed you had hypertension, dangerously high cholesterol and pre-diabetes. He told you that the more you gain, the more years you are shaving off of your life.
The consequences of your lifestyle were stacking up quickly. You knew you couldn’t go on like this, something had to change.
Your obstacles/struggle: You spent the next year trying to lose the weight only to regain what you lost and then some. You tried every fad diet out there. You even considered weight loss surgery but your insurance wouldn’t cover it. You felt defeated, discouraged and ashamed that you let things get that bad. You pretty much gave up – you had lost faith in yourself and figured, why bother trying. It won’t work anyway.
Your Discovery: While standing in line at the grocery store you glanced at the rack of candy eyeing what you could snack on while you waited. As you surveyed the variety of chocolate bars, out of the corner of your eye you saw a glaring headline, “Eat Without Deprivation and Melt 30 Pounds in One Month”. Out of desperation, you fell for the hyped-up headline, bought the magazine and headed home.
With a cookie in one hand and the magazine in another, you read about an approach to eating that almost seemed too good to be true… no counting calories, weighing food or drinking meal replacement shakes. Just eat whole unprocessed food until you feel satisfied, not stuffed. The basic concept of clean eating. Could this really work, you wondered with a twinkle of hope fluttering through your mind.
Your Solution: You took a chance and committed to just one day of clean eating (mostly to prove the so-called experts wrong). You followed the suggested meal plan in the magazine and actually enjoyed it. You thought, no way is this going to help me lose weight. The next morning you stepped on the scale expecting to see the same number that haunted you for years but instead the results were astounding… the scale went down 2 pounds in 24 hours! You were brimming with hope… you knew this was your glass slipper.
Your results: For the next 18 months you became a clean eating rock star. You got creative in the kitchen, made up new recipes, made your own meal plans and even ran a clean eating challenge in your office.
In those 18 months you lost all of the weight, your blood pressure, cholesterol and sugars were normal, your doctor took you off all of your medication, and you felt better than you did when you were in your 20’s.
Your energy soared and now you sprint up the stairs without stopping. You want to scream about your new lifestyle from the rooftops because you know it can help the thousands of people out there who are suffering just like you had been 18 months earlier.
Your passion: You have a new passion for health, good nutrition and self-care. You want to share your experience and tips with the world – you want the world to hear your story.
Your book/business: You decide you want to reinvent your career by doing what you love – teaching other women how to use clean eating to lose the weight and reclaim their health.
This is just a basic example of how going through the writing prompts can help you flesh out your story and discover a potential niche or book/business idea that will light you up inside.
Themes/Patterns
Once you have answered the questions, look for ideas or themes that stand out to you.
For example, you may discover that your weight issue caused you to have low self-esteem and a lack of confidence. Although you may have achieved an impressive weight loss, you really want to help people increase their self-esteem and confidence as opposed to helping them lose weight.
Or maybe you were bullied as a child because of your weight and you really want to be an advocate for kids in the same situation. Your dream is to write a book about anti-bullying and create anti-bullying programs that can be implemented in schools.
Write down the top five topics that you love and could see yourself writing a book about and building a business around. Then briefly indicate why you love each topic.
For example, based on your story, you may come up with the following list of topics that you have an interest in.
1) Weight Loss
2) Relationships
3) Confidence
4) Healing by alternative methods (EFT, Reiki)
5) Manifesting and Abundance
Now take your list of topics and head over to Amazon.com.
Start looking at books in those niches and see if you can find some potential niches/micro-niches that you could write a book and build a business around.
Here are some examples based on my list above:
(Image from Amazon – not an affiliate link)
This book does a great job combining two different niches to create a unique angle – Emotional Freedom Technique (alternative healing) and Wealth.
(Image from Amazon – not an affiliate link)
This book is based on the relationship niche and is focusing on using text messages to attract high quality men – interesting spin. Can you see how this is not your typical “dating book”? This author created a unique angle by focusing on using text messaging (a new generation preferred method of communication) and attracting “high quality” men – not necessarily any average guy.
(Image from Amazon – not an affiliate link)
This author created an angle by focusing on attracting a “girlfriend” not necessarily a wife or soulmate. His other twist is that he got 2000 “girls” to contribute so the book contains “insider information”. Also note how he uses the terms “girls” and “girlfriend” – this suggests that his audience is younger and not necessarily looking for a major commitment. Even the image he used indicates the age group is likely 20’s maybe 30’s.
Also note that he has his website on the cover, getcompatible.net – this indicates he has a business in the dating niche and he is using his book as a method of growing that business.
Now it’s your turn. Go to Amazon and find some micro-niches that interest you – make a list.
Once you have a list of potential micro-niches, you need to do a bit more research to determine which one will be the best niche for you to write your book and build your business around. We will go through those steps in a different blog post. For now, just get your list together.
Remember that the basic principles of writing a transformational book and building an online business are the same no matter what niche you choose.
What’s important is that you are passionate about the niche and you can see yourself achieving success helping people in that area. Your book and your business will become an extension of your life so it should be something that you are proud of and absolutely love doing.
Wrap-Up
I know this was a lot of content for you to take in! I hope you found this useful on your journey to becoming a transformational author and thriving online business owner.
Here are the main takeaways from this post:
1) Choose one of the big four Mass Market Niches that have been proven to be profitable.
2) Niche down. Go through the process of niching down so that you end up in the sweet-spot: big enough for profit potential but small enough to become a leader in your niche.
3) Use your personal journey exercise and the additional prompts in this post to flesh out your dream niche.
In my next blog post, I will walk you through the four pillars of turning your passion into a transformational book and profitable online business.
