5 Reasons Nonfiction Books Don’t Sell
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Ask any author what fills them with the most pride about their book — you’re much more likely to hear emotional answers about the impact their story made on even just one reader before they start touting their book sales or royalty statements. But book sales are how we get our books in readers’ hands to make those emotional impacts. If you publish just one book in your lifetime, it’d be heartbreaking if all that hard work resulted in a missed connection with the people that would have benefited from reading your story.
Across my decades of experience as a bestselling author and professional book coach, I’ve learned five reasons that can hinder a nonfiction author’s ability to sell books. All of these issues should be considered and addressed before a manuscript is published — but don’t despair if your book is already available. You can still take remedial action to boost your sales using two or three of these helpful tips.
So, here are the five most common reasons nonfiction books don’t sell — and how to take action to avoid them:
Reason #1: The Author Doesn’t Have a Platform
I have a client who is writing a nonfiction book about career strategies. She has 100,000 followers on Instagram. One of her videos has been viewed over a million times. She will sell a lot of books to her followers because those folks are tuned into her message; she has a captive audience waiting to click “buy” when her book is finally available. This first-time author has a very strong platform.
When nonfiction authors don’t have a platform, they face two significant challenges. First, they have to go out and find people who might be interested in the kind of nonfiction book they have written. Second, the author must convince potential readers that his or her book will solve some problem they’re dealing with. When you build a platform in advance of publishing your book, you address both challenges before it’s time to begin selling. Gaining followers might be easier said than done, but it’s truly never too late to start.
Don’t make building your platform overly complicated. Choose one social media channel where your readers are spending their non-reading time — ideally one you’re already comfortable with. If your nonfiction book is about leadership, then LinkedIn is a great choice; if you’re writing about healing from trauma, you might be better suited to Facebook or Instagram.
I recommend picking a platform you actually use and like. Try to have some fun. Seek out and participate in conversations around your book’s subject matter. Engage your audience. Give them reasons and opportunities to respond — don’t just preach about how helpful your ideas are. Social media is like playing catch: throw your ideas out there, and invite others to toss their thoughts and feelings back to you. It may take time, but if you find the right medium for your message, you too could end up with 100,000 followers!
Reason #2: There’s No Marketing Plan
Shortly before my first book, Shifting Sands, was published in 2004, I purchased 10,000 copies. I was confident that I would sell them one at a time after each keynote presentation that I delivered as a motivational speaker. Six years later, the mountain of book boxes in my basement had been whittled down to a mere ten remaining copies. Not a lot of thought or research went into my marketing plan, but it was something — and that was better than nothing. Sadly, most first-time nonfiction authors have no marketing plan whatsoever by the time their book is published.
The second biggest reason nonfiction books don’t sell is that the author has no marketing plan. Just like in our first example, this is another issue you can tackle head on (even if your book is already published). If you don’t have a marketing plan just yet, it’s never too late to start. If your manuscript is still in development, getting a jump on the marketing plan can help you to create a tailored, reader-targeted product that is easier to pitch and sell in the crucial promotions phase.
You’ve probably realized that building a platform is a massive step in the right direction when it comes to creating and implementing a marketing plan. But what else can you do? I recommend you start by creating an author website. Build your marketing plan around driving traffic to that website. Gear your social media posts to bring potential readers to the link on the author website for purchasing a copy.
The options for attracting attention to your author website are limitless. You can craft a pitch to podcasters where you offer to appear as a guest. You can buy Facebook ads and have them pop up in front of a clearly defined demographic who might be interested in your story. Public relations firms that specialize in book promotion abound, and if your budget allows, this too might be a path to pursue. The point is that you must do something — simply getting your book “out there” is not enough. Every year more than 3.5 million new nonfiction books are published. How is yours going to get noticed? Can interested readers purchase your book in a couple of clicks? Your marketing plan has to answer those two questions. Even if your first attempt misses the mark, you can learn from mistakes and take another shot.
Otherwise, I highly recommend buying 10,000 copies and getting on the speaking circuit. It worked for me!
Reason #3: Your Target Audience Is Too Broad
Let’s start with a harsh truth: your book is not the Bible. Even if it was, more than two thirds of the global population are not Christian. In other words, nobody’s book has universal appeal — including yours.
Many first-time nonfiction authors believe that the more general appeal their book has, the more likely they are to sell lots of copies. But, like quantum physics, the logic is often counterintuitive when it comes to nonfiction book sales. The truth is that the more specific your audience is, the more likely you are to sell copies.
Let me give you another example. My client with over 100,000 followers on Instagram is writing her book for corporate, mid-career, African American women who have been denied promotions and pay raises due to cultural and organizational bias. That’s a very targeted demographic, and she will sell tons of books because she’s not trying to solve every person’s problem. Her book stands out because her audience is very specific.
The third most common reason nonfiction books don’t sell is that authors have too broad of an intended audience for their book. Even if your finished work failed to address this challenge, you can still shape your platform and marketing plan in the direction of its most likely readers. In fact, if your (already published) book has had any success at all, you may have stumbled upon demographic details that can help you refine your marketing efforts. But let’s turn the focus now to manuscripts that are still in development and could benefit the most from this essential guideline.
There are three main payoffs to narrowing the focus of your targeted audience. First of all, you will write a much better book if the specific audience is crystal clear in your mind; you can appeal directly to that target reader. The second reason is that it’s easier to market a book to a specific type of person. If the ideal readers for your book are left-handed jugglers born on Friday the 13th, I can assure you that it’s easy to locate those people online today. Finally, having a narrowly defined audience makes it easier to position yourself as an expert or authority within that niche market. This will attract publicity for your book, which gets you more exposure; a type of synergy develops to help boost visibility and generate sales for your book.
While it might not make much of a difference in sales, it’s worth mentioning that fine-tuning your audience target can help you write more easily and joyfully. Deciding what goes into the book and what gets left out will be a no-brainer decision when you have a defined audience. In the end, the energy you save on perfecting the manuscript can be used to fuel the marketing journey of making the book a sales success.
Reason #4: The Book’s Idea Isn’t Compelling Enough
I always ask potential book coaching and ghostwriting clients the same question: “Why do you want to write your book?” Almost half of the would-be authors respond by saying that lots of people have told them they’ve lived an interesting life and therefore they should write a book. Most of the time, I partially agree with that advice. They almost always have lived an interesting life. But if they want to actually sell some copies of their life story, they must develop the idea behind the book so that it evolves from “interesting” to “compelling.”
The fourth most common reason nonfiction books don’t sell is that the idea behind the manuscript isn’t compelling enough. Many authors mistakenly think that if a topic is “interesting,” it equals “compelling” in terms of sales. But that’s a deceptive assumption. As a book coach and ghostwriter, I always have to develop our clients’ stories and messages into an idea that is strong enough to compel potential readers to click on the “purchase” button.
The four things that make a nonfiction book compelling are novelty, revelation, solution, and sensationalism:
Novelty means your idea is new and fresh. Instead of telling the readers they need a goal to succeed, tell them how goals get in the way of true triumph. Taking a different approach makes a book novel;
Revelation means you’re going to uncover a truth that is hidden. If you’re an expert in something, this approach is about pulling back the curtain and giving the reader an insider’s secrets;
Solution is about solving an intractable problem for readers and forms the bedrock of most prescriptive nonfiction;
Sensationalism is exactly what it sounds like — but I caution you about this tempting pursuit. Thanks to the immediacy of social media, it’s almost impossible to compete with the deluge of sensational stories that populate our daily feeds. It’s possible that your narrative might simply rise above the rest in a way that would compel readers to part with their hard-earned cash, but I always recommend our clients rely more on novelty, solution, and revelation to capture the attention of a potential customer. Sensationalism can support one of these other approaches but isn’t enough on its own.
Reason #5: The Quality of the Writing is Below Expectations for the Genre
When it comes to the quality of your writing as a means to selling more copies of your book, fiction sits on top of the mountain most authors must climb. There’s simply no way around it: if you’re writing a novel, you absolutely must aspire to achieve the highest possible quality of prose you can produce.
Following closely behind fiction comes memoir. Although autobiographies and memoirs are classified as nonfiction, they share many common attributes with novels. This means that the artistic level of your text must rival the demands of good fiction.
The least rigorous for a first-time nonfiction author are prescriptive genres like self-help, how-to, leadership, whistleblower, and inspirational books. Here, the compelling aspects of novelty, revelation, and solution can provide cover for less than Pulitzer Prize quality writing. However, there is still a bar of excellence that should be met.
The fifth most common reason why nonfiction books don’t sell is that the quality of the writing is below expectations for the genre. As you can see, different types of books will require varying degrees of artistic excellence. But the solution for any author to produce better prose (regardless of the genre) is very simple: get help. Literary support is available in many forms and there is no shame in seeking out the assistance that can take your writing up to the level needed to attract potential readers.
On the high-touch end of the options for writing a better book is the ghostwriter. But be prepared to make a significant investment (of both time and money) if you want an excellent product. The industry standard is around one dollar per word, and you’ll need to be engaged in the process: providing materials, answering questions, and reviewing drafts. On the opposite end of the spectrum are free services, such as helpful blog posts from editors or book coaches. You might have a cousin with an MFA in creative writing or a retired neighbor who used to be a journalist, someone who will agree to review your manuscript and offer a few free tips.
Book coaches are popping up everywhere, and the quality of their résumés can differ dramatically. Most professionals will offer a free initial consultation to help you decide if they can guide you to a more compelling book idea with a tighter audience focus and higher quality writing.
If your work has already been published, you may not be able to implement this final tip. But, if you’ve self-published your book, it’s not unheard of for an author to delist the publication and rework the manuscript with better editorial support before it’s reissued.
You might only ever write one book. That singular and monumental achievement deserves the best chance to reach as many potential readers as possible. Avoiding the five most common reasons why nonfiction books don’t sell won’t guarantee a bestseller, but it will give you an advantage over most of the other 3.5 million titles being released in the same year. And that makes this a path worth pursuing.
Steve Donahue is a bestselling author, book coach, ghostwriter and speaker. His books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and been translated into multiple foreign editions. Steve is the founder of Storyglu.com, a book coaching and ghostwriting firm that helps nonfiction authors write books readers can’t put down.
