Step #4
Compare the Competition and Discover If Your Idea Is Unique and Necessary

Most aspiring authors believe their ideas are unique and that readers absolutely need to read their books. Like these writers, you probably feel convinced that your book idea is new, fresh, timely, different, and essential. You may feel certain that readers must read the information you have to offer, the arguments you want to make, or the stories you have to tell. You might even possess a sense of urgency to write and publish now, and if you don’t want to do it as an indie publisher, you may feel sure a publisher will want to take on your project and get it into print ASAP. Great!

I often have felt that way about my book ideas, and I still do when an idea first strikes. It’s great to feel passionate, enthusiastic, and confident when the proverbial lightbulb goes on, but those feelings—and your conviction—simply aren’t good enough reasons to publish a book. You must have the facts to back your convictions, facts that unequivocally prove your idea is unique and necessary in the marketplace. These facts must convince a literary agent first, and an acquisitions editor second. They also must convince you, especially if you plan to self-publish.

Unfortunately, your passion, intuition, or gut instinct (and I’m a big believer in all three) are not enough when it comes to making decisions about book publishing—at least not if you want to publish a successful book. If you simply trust your gut or take inspired action, you may not sell many of your self-published books, and that means you won’t make back your investment. A publisher likely won’t take a risk on your book if you can’t show hard data and research to back up these emotional responses to your project. That’s why Step #4 in the Author Training Process asks you to do the evaluation necessary to Discover If Your Idea Is Unique and Necessary enough to succeed in the target market you chose in Step #2, Know What Your Book Is About and Why Someone Would Want to Read (Buy) It.

A book-coaching client of mine shelved one book idea for another (in the time frame of just one week) as she followed her passions and interests. This second book idea resulted from a talk she had been asked to give for an organization. She was excited about this speaking opportunity and the topic, which related to the overall subject matter about which she originally wanted to write. She said she would come back to the original book idea, but now she wanted to pursue this newer concept, which she believed was singular.

Preparing for her presentation made her realize she had the foundation for a book, she says. The process of determining what she would talk about required her to go through a similar process to outlining the contents of a book; she’d even come up with an acronym she liked and that she thought worked well. Indeed, she had most of the elements that comprise a book—if she angled it correctly for her market, which was women who want to assume leadership roles at work.

Here’s the problem she faced: This writer had no idea how many other books already existed on the topic of women and leadership—16,774 were listed on Amazon when I looked. She hadn’t even thought to look at similar books in a bookstore or on Amazon.com. Not only that, she had not considered:

• how her book would be different from other books written and published on the topic
• how her book might complement other published books in some manner
• if the particular category of books required another book on this topic
• how to make her book stand out from the pack

Why? She felt certain it was unique and necessary because she’d thought of it and was excited and passionate about it. She assumed her book would be different, unique, and necessary, especially since she worked with and spoke with the women in her target market—those who were leaders or wanted to become leaders in business. She had large plans to boot. She wanted to expand her market to men as well, yet her acronym, which she planned to include in her book title, was rather feminine and would likely turn off most men at first glance (if not some women as well).

“I don’t think you’ll attract many men with a book directed toward women or with that title,” I said. Her smile faded. “Have you checked out any other books on the market that are like yours?” She shook her head and looked down at the stack of papers she had printed out to show me—her PowerPoint presentation.

The more I explained how her book had to be different, unique, necessary—how it had to “fill a hole on the shelf in the bookstore”—the more her excitement turned into disappointment.

Like her, you have to determine if there is, indeed, a space on the shelf where your book would sit in a brick-and-mortar bookstore, a space where a book is currently missing, a book that has not been written yet, a book that is needed and that is unlike all the other published books in its category, such as self-help, history, science fiction, or women’s studies—a unique and necessary book.

The Competitive Analysis and How It Helps Angle Your Book

As I explained all of this to my client, she felt that her great idea no longer sounded quite so good.

In fact, it still might have been a good—even great—idea. Targeting men could have worked if she did it strategically. But that word—strategically—is the key. She needed to evaluate her project against the competition, something required if she intended to sell her idea to an agent or publisher, and necessary if she planned to self-publish. She would have to prove how her idea stood up against the books already published. Not only that, she would have to show how it would rise above the competition.

To discover if your book will fill a hole on the bookstore shelf—or if there even is a hole waiting to be filled—compare your project to existing books in its category and evaluate the pros and cons of the competition so you can highlight your project’s pros. Compile a list of books—at least ten or fifteen—that will directly compete with yours. Later you should narrow this down to five key books, but start broad and narrow it down later. Based on this comparison, you can determine if you can do a better job with your subject than authors who have come before you. Indeed, if you can produce an objective “competitive analysis,” you can evaluate how you need to change or tweak your book concept to make it matchless in its category and indispensable in its target market.

To conduct a competitive and complementary book analysis, take a trip to both online and physical bookstores. Look for books that are similar to yours. Do this online using search terms that are the same or similar to your book topic in search engines and related sites. Try these websites:

• Amazon.com
• BarnesandNoble.com
• WriterDigestShop.com
• Goodreads.com
• LibraryThing.com
• Google.com search
• NetGalley.com
• BookDepository.com

In a physical bookstore, look in the appropriate category or ask a salesclerk, “Where can I find books like …,” and describe your book. (Try using your pitch!) The clerk will direct you to the right section and shelf. There you can begin exploring. Bring a pad and pencil, and take notes. This research will be the foundation for your comparative analysis.

This competitive analysis parallels the nonfiction book proposal section called “Competing Books” (or sometimes called “Competitive Analysis”). In this section of your proposal, you provide agents and acquisitions editors with a detailed look at what traditionally published books have been written on your topic and how your book compares to them. (Publishers don’t care about self-published books.) This convinces a publisher that the book you plan to write is different and will add something new that existing titles don’t offer. For the sake of the Author Training Process, if you plan to self-publish your book, your analysis might benefit from an evaluation of best-selling indie books that compete with or complement your book project.

My student Marianne was looking for competing books on a particular type of holiday giving—creative gifts that support families in need. When she had trouble finding competitive titles, we discussed studying books with similar themes, such as supporting families in need, creative gift giving, and making holidays meaningful. Like her, you might need to be creative and look at the themes and angles you have taken with your book. Or you might need to look only at complementary titles. (More on this below.)

List these competitive books by bestseller status or by publication date first. Also, gather information such as title, subtitle, author, publisher, copyright year, number of pages, paperback or hardcover, and price.

From your research on the books, write two statements (they do not have to be full sentences) that reveal the positive and negative aspects of each book, explaining what the book offers the reader and what it doesn’t. Focus these statements on how each book’s content is similar to your idea or different, how they help readers (by answering their questions or solving their problems) or don’t, and how their structure is different or the same. Finally, include a paragraph comparing these books to your proposed book, and you as an author to these authors, if relevant. When you have done all of this, you have completed a general competitive analysis. You can complete this activity using the training exercises in this book and your journal. We will look at a more detailed example later.

The “Complementary Books” section of a proposal, which typically follows the Competing Books section, offers a chance to evaluate your book in relation to similar books on the market rather than direct competition. Competitive and comparative titles may sound like the same things, but there’s a difference: Comparative books may resemble your project in general subject matter, category, or even storyline but won’t contain the same specific information, advice or tools, personal experiences, journey, or story. You might or might not find them on the same shelf. For example, a book about how to write a book proposal is complemented by a book on how to write query letters.

A man e-mailed me with a question about his memoir on the topic of dating, relationships, and healing a broken heart. Other memoirs on these topics or similar topics written by a man would represent direct competition. Complementary books for his book project would be any of the many similar stories told by women or the prescriptive nonfiction books about dating, relationships, or healing from a broken relationship. (Surprisingly, I only found twenty-seven memoirs on Amazon when I searched with the keywords “memoir romantic relationship,” and only three were written by men.)

For my client with the business book for female leaders, competing books include the thousands I found on women and leadership, such as Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg and How Remarkable Women Lead: The Breakthrough Model for Work and Life by Joanna Barsh, Susie Cranston, and Geoffrey Lewis. Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success by Deborah M. Kolb Ph.D., Judith Williams Ph.D., and Carol Frohlinger JD and Stiletto Network: Inside the Women’s Power Circles That Are Changing the Face of Business by Pamela Ryckman would represent complementary books for her project because they are about specific aspects of leadership and women—negotiating and power circles.

In the Complementary Books section of your business plan, list five to ten books. Include the same basic information you included for the books you deemed competition (title, subtitle, author, publisher, copyright year, number of pages, paperback or hardcover, and price). Provide an analysis for each that compares your book to these books or compares you as an author to these authors, if the latter is relevant.

Do not underestimate the importance of this step in the Author Training Process. And if you don’t think your book has any competition, look carefully at complementary books (although most books have at least some competition). Don’t, however, skip this step. It’s a rare book that is “the only one” of its kind, which is why agents and publishers cringe when they see a proposal that says, “This book has no competition.” Such a statement is a tip-off that an aspiring author hasn’t done her homework or suggests a lack of market for her project. If you want to create a successful book, you need to go to the trouble of producing a competitive analysis for your business plan.

Why a Competitive Analysis Is So Important to Your Business Plan

I have twice (that I know of) had publishing houses reject my proposals because of the Complementary Books section—not because I hadn’t researched or written it well or excluded it but because they felt the books I listed hadn’t sold enough copies. As I mentioned before, sales are very important to publishers and publishing companies. That is why you must train yourself to look carefully at the competition your book faces. The list of competing (and/or complementary) books included in a book proposal indicates the sales potential of your book. In other words, the sales track records of books similar to the one you are proposing show how well your book might sell in the same category or markets.

You may think stiff competition, such as several best-selling books, bodes poorly for your book idea. In fact, that isn’t true. The fact that there are many bestsellers in your category proves a market exists for books like yours; people are purchasing those books consistently. If you can evaluate these other books and ensure your idea is unique and that it offers new benefits to readers, you can demonstrate to a publisher (or to yourself) that it will sell just as well—if not better. You want to consider how you can capture those same readers and some new ones, too. If you can’t do that, your book won’t get the nod from a publishing house, which means it should not get the nod from you as an indie publisher either.

Let me give you two clear examples of this concept. Recently my literary agent pitched an idea to a midsize publisher. While several of the competing books had sold well, only one had become a bestseller. The acquisitions editor came back with this response:

Note that the price of e-books was also taken into account, as would be the price of the hardcover books in the list of Competitive Titles I provided.

Two years ago, my agent proposed a different book to a large publisher. This response came back: “Sales of the competing books weren’t as strong as I had anticipated, so it would be tough to make a sales case to bring this one through acquisitions.”

The lack of sales produced by the competing books I had chosen, which were the closest ones I could find, indicated:

• too small a market for my book
• a market with not enough interest in my subject
• potential readers who saw no benefit or value in the topic

Thus, my financial backer, the publisher, wasn’t interested in investing in similar books because the type of book I wanted to write represented too large a risk. Let me point out that in this second case one of the books on that list was Michael Larsen’s How to Write a Book Proposal, which had sold well over 100,000 copies and was about to be released as a fourth edition. Still, it may have been the only book on the list that had sold well. The others could have been low performers as they were in my last example.

When my agent proposed the same project to a specialized midsize publisher, the book was purchased with less issue. This demonstrates how different types of publishers see competing and complementary books differently—and so must you, especially if you plan to self-publish. Larger publishers want and need to sell more books. Small and midsize publishers have smaller sales goals. A specialized publisher can see the uniqueness of an idea and how it meets a need in a category it knows well. You need to go back to your goals—your idea of success. Then determine to the best of your ability if the competitive environment seems favorable for moving forward with your project.

A category with few books and little competition does not mean your book won’t succeed or shouldn’t be written and published. It could represent an opportunity for you. A small amount of competition doesn’t mean a publisher won’t feel a market exists for your book. You could dominate the niche with your book if you can prove your book is unique and necessary and that a market exists for it.

This, again, is the most important factor: If you can prove that people are ready and willing to purchase your book—that people need your book—then your project could still be viable despite the lack of competition or too much competition. You might look at complementary books to see if you can find proof of need for your book.

How to Gather Data for Your Competitive or Complementary Analysis

It can be hard for authors to obtain the same sales figures to which publishers have access. Nielsen BookScan provides the publishing industry with reasonably accurate point-of-sale data, but according to Harvard Library, the service represents only 75 percent of all retail sales. BookScan is the sales data provider service publishers use, but most aspiring authors do not use it due to subscription costs. Authors are granted access to BookScan data concerning their own books via Amazon Author Central accounts, but they can’t access other authors’ book data.

Another resource is Publishers Marketplace, which offers a free and a paid subscription. You might garner some information here in articles and book reviews.

You might be able to use Google to obtain sales figures on some of the more popular books. Some books’ sales figures are mentioned in articles, especially if the book has been a New York Times bestseller. (The Times compiles data from a selection of bookstores and generates rankings. However, such lists don’t indicate how many copies have actually sold or the relative sales among books on the lists. And e-book sales are difficult to track.)

You can use the Amazon.com bestseller list as a way to discover which books are selling better than others. This list is updated hourly and is based on BookScan data. You can find the list by inputting “Amazon Best Seller List” into the book search engine on the site. Then click through the category list on the left until you find the category for your book.

This list is not user-friendly; it can take a while to hit on the correct category for your competition. For an easier way to navigate to this list, find a bestseller in your category. Go to its page. Scroll down until you see its best-seller ranking under “Product Details.” Then click on the link to the list. Peruse the appropriate bestsellers in the category.

You can also use KDPCalculator.com to make some educated guesses about competitive book sales in your category. Input the current Amazon Best Seller Rank of any book on Amazon (Kindle, paperback, or hardcover). You can find the Amazon Best Seller Rank under the book’s “Product Details.” This site tells you how many copies per day a book sold on that particular day. You then can estimate how many copies sell per week, month, or year based on that one day. (Note that some Kindle books will sell more copies if they are being offered free on a particular day or selling for $0.99 rather than $2.99 or higher.)

According to the Harvard Library, you can find historical statistics for particular books in A Guide to Book Publishers’ Archives, which identifies archival collections from actual publishers—a reliable source of sales data.

Now it’s time to take a close, detailed look at the competing and complementary books you’ve previously discovered. Let’s call this your “Competitive Book Tour.” You can do much of this research using the “Look Inside” program offered by Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. Or you can go to a bookstore or library and peruse the books in more depth.

If you are in a physical store, find those titles you’ve already identified and begin studying them. What are they about? How are they organized? What tone does the author use—humorous, informative, business professional, cynical? Train yourself to look at these books critically. Evaluate your book against the others. You don’t necessarily have to read every competing or complementary book. But you do need to study:

• their tables of contents
• the promises they make on their back covers
• their introductions

Also notice:

• how these other books differ from your project
• who wrote the foreword, if there is one
• the author’s bio
• any special features, such as quotations, a workbook element, case studies, or tips or tools

As you look at each book, answer these questions:

• How is it different from the book you want to write?
• How is it similar to the book you want to write?
• Is the scope of the book different? How so?
• Does it have different benefits? What are they?
• What are its pros and cons?
• How would you improve it?
• What do you like about it? Dislike? And how can you apply this information to your book?
• What promises does the author make to readers? What promises does the author fail to make that he could or should make? Are these promises you can make or want to make?
• What are the author’s credentials (or lack of credentials)?
• How do your credentials compare to the authors?

As you do your research on competitive and complementary books for the Author Training Process, you do not need to stick to the confines of what would go into a book proposal. Take copious notes on these other books as you do your evaluation. Go beyond what I’ve detailed here. You will find your notes helpful if you need to apply your findings to revising your idea, angle, theme, or the content or special features you decide to include in your book.

When I do a competitive analysis, I typically purchase the top five books I consider competition for my book project. I also purchase the top few I feel complement my idea. This way I can read them or study them more carefully. If you are low on funds, you can borrow them from the library, borrow them virtually from the Kindle Prime program, or buy them from used bookstores.

How to Use Your Competitive Research to Improve Your Book Idea

Once you’ve accumulated your research, whittle your lists of competing and complementary books to five each. It’s time to determine if your book project can truly compete with similar published titles—or, if not, what you can do to make it more competitive. If the competition has made you doubt the viability of your idea, you may not have to give up on it completely; you may simply have to retool it—re-angle it—so it is unique and necessary in a particular market and either fills a gap on the bookstore shelf, complements existing books in some way, or tells a new story. This still means being willing to make some changes as you objectively look at the information you have accumulated and consider how to create a salable book.

The man who e-mailed me about his memoir would have to determine how many other men have written memoirs on healing relationships and also if his story is different from theirs. The client who wanted to write the book about leadership for women would have to evaluate how her content would differ from the other successful books on the market and fill an unmet need for those readers. She would also have to consider changing the book’s market back to the original, more specific one she had first chosen—technical women. A novelist who asked me how to ensure her young adult novel stood out from the pack needed to evaluate her plotline, story location, characters, and themes against other novels in the YA category.

If you have separated your research into two categories, competing and complementary books, first look at the complementary books. Readers who purchase complementary books will likely purchase your book as well. When evaluating the complementary titles, train yourself to consider how you could best serve this audience. How can you interest these readers and get them to purchase your book, too? If, for example, you want to write a book about Zen meditation, you might include a chapter on Buddhist retreat centers, the history of Buddhism, and why Buddhism appeals to so many people. This would attract those readers generally interested in learning about Buddhism but who didn’t set out to buy a book on Zen meditation. If you write novels about zombies but want to expand your readership, you could include a vampire in your next book. This would attract all those readers interested in stories about vampires.

Next, you should consider how you can affiliate or become venture partners with the authors of the books on your complementary list. These authors are your allies. You can sell your books together, which is why Amazon often suggests that readers who purchased one book might also buy another. Train yourself to think this way. If a reader buys your book, what other books might he buy?

You might want to reach out to these authors in some way:

• Ask to teach a course or produce a small product together.
• Suggest interviewing the author on a teleseminar or podcast.
• Offer to have the author write a guest post that you feature on your blog.
• Ask if you can promote his or her book on your site.
• Ask the author to write your foreword.

Rhonda says that after doing her complementary analysis, she connected with several authors. “Since I had already read their memoirs, it was easy for me to post reviews for their books, and they, in turn, are interested in reading my memoir,” she says. “Each of us is coming from a unique angle of our personal experience that complements the other’s story.”

Now focus on the competing books. These are the most important to consider because these are the books readers might buy instead of yours. With the research you have done, can you honestly say your idea is unique and necessary? Does it have benefits or features that the other books lack? Is it a new take on an old idea? Are you offering readers of these other books something the other authors have not delivered? Are you telling a different story? Does your plot or your character development offer readers something uncommon? Or not?

My student, La Donna, spent time researching her genre before determining how to write her romance novel. “I checked out how much [other novelists] were charging for their e-books, paperback, and hard copy. I wanted an idea of how they valued their work. I read their book descriptions. I read the first twenty reviews (if they had that many),” she says. “The reviews told the real story.” She learned that romance readers want fast storytelling and engaging characters, so she looked at her plot and writing and catered to readers’ desires.

Based on the competitive analysis for their book on social media, Penney and Dawn decided to publish an e-book first. “With an e-book, we’ll always be able to stay up to date. People who buy our book will be able to download the updates when Facebook makes another change to the news feed or a new scheduling program gets launched,” Penney explains. “Our research showed that most of the social media books published did not provide updated information.”

Additionally, their competitive analysis helped them target their market to a need in their category. Here is an excerpt from their query letter: “Most of the competing books were directed towards a social media manager or marketing director. Where was the book to help the small business owner understand how to use social media marketing?” Penney queried. “We’ve fine-tuned our content of creating a guideline to help small business owners take that ‘overwhelming feeling’ out of using social media marketing. This e-book will show the small business owner how they can find time in their already crazy busy day to stay on top of social media and to make it work for their business.” (If you recall, their market research gave them confidence that small businesses would provide be a good strategic market to target.)

Don’t forget to also look at the authors’ bios carefully and compare yourself to them. Consider:

• How are you different or similar to them?
• Will it help you or hurt you to have different qualifications or similar ones?
• Are you equipped to join the ranks of these other authors?
• What else might you have to do to make your bio and qualifications stand out?

Once you’ve thought about this, keep your answers in mind (or written down and saved) for Step #9: Weigh Whether You Are the Best Person to Write This Book … Now.

Based on your research and your evaluation, decide if you need to make changes to your concept. Objectively evaluate whether or not your book:

• Tells a fresh story
• Offers a different perspective from other authors
• Provides a compelling argument other authors have not made
• Gives a different set of data or more current information
• Shows a new angle on a tried-and-true topic
• Takes readers on a singular journey

Ask yourself: “What else can I add to my book, or how best can I angle it to provide information or a story no other author has offered?”

It’s a good idea at this point to go through Step #2 and #3 one more time. Revision lies at the heart of writing a book and at the heart of preparing to write one as well. As you revisit Step #2, edit what you wrote for your book’s pitch, summary, and benefits. Mike Larsen, author of How to Write a Book Proposal, likes authors to compare their books to others in the second line of a pitch; this can be a helpful descriptor, but it requires a competitive analysis. You might find that your pitch and overview change considerably with this new research, especially if your benefits have changed.

As you go through Steps #2 and #3, see if any of your answers to the questions posed in the chapter or training exercises differ now. Your idea might have changed significantly, and if so you will need to alter your title or subtitle to better capture your market or to show how the benefits of your book will make it unique and necessary. Sometimes it’s a good idea to start from scratch … relook at your idea, angle, and theme. You may want to edit your title, pitch, summary, and benefits, or even reconsider your market. Then move to the next step in the Author Training Process. The next step is a creative one: You get to plan out the actual content of your book. WOOT!

Suggested Reading:

Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
Competition Demystified: A Radically Simplified Approach to Business Strategy by Bruce C. Greenwald and Judd Kahn
Outthink the Competition: How a New Generation of Strategists Sees Options Others Ignore by Kaihan Krippendorff