Day 2 - Ebooks as a Vertical?

[HeyoDeafMan]

This is my first post besides my intro, and I know that Day 2 is super important. I'm looking to get some feedback on a vertical I'd like to work.

I love kindle ebooks, more specifically Fantasy and Sci-Fi. I used to be a kindle author, and the area is definitely still a passion for me. I know that the ebook market being flooded with shit books is a major pain point for a lot of authors/readers. I thought it'd be nice to build out an affiliate site with links to GOOD ebooks, but it seems way overdone and besides, not sure how I could compete with GoodReads, which essentially dominates the market on ebook reviews. So I'm trying to think of a way to really work around this vertical since it has a lot of power through people buying large number of books, as well as word-of-mouth. It's also something that I'm pretty passionate about. I could legit tell you the name of every decent fantasy author in the last decade. Any thoughts regarding this?

Another vertical I thought would be neat, but I'm not nearly as passionate about, is the fitness niche. Calisthenics (bodyweight workouts) is something I've been involved in.

Just looking for someone to bounce thoughts back at me. Thanks!

 

[animalstyle]

I'd suggest branding big, but starting niched way down. Be the go-to source for a specific type writing that you're most familiar. Lets say self help is one of the most over-dominated in the trash to quality ratio.

Help people find this specific type of book with reviews or recommendations, whatever you can do to drive them value. Capture an audience, build a brand then slowly expand out.

Take Yelp for example, they started niched down in San Fran, then expanded. Same idea, but ebooks. This is something you'll find echoed again and again.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I wrote Day 2, so I may end up regurgitating what I said there, but it's exactly what needs to be said.

I'd suggest branding big, but starting niched way down.

^ That's the key concept without the details. It's the major take-away that gives you an escape hatch from any mistakes. It also allows all of your work, even failures, to add to the compounding results in terms of SEO, branding, and growth. It lets you pivot without starting over.

Fitness is a great example of how big you should be thinking in terms of branding. I know more than one multi-millionaire from the vertical. The power of the vertical over the micro-niche is described in the paragraph above, but you'll get deeper into it in Day 5 as well. In the war analogy, no military spreads its soldiers over the whole battlefield in an attempt to capture the whole field in one go. They target an outpost and control it, then another one... all in one area of the field.

So the point is, you could choose Fitness as your overall vertical and branding identity, but then start and confine yourself to just "Exercise Bands". That's super-micro... that's an outpost you can take over and control that area of the field forever. And it's one that will start the cash-flowing, because you'll need resources to take over and maintain larger parts of the field. And that's what you do. You finish Exercise Bands and then you go for the next slice of the pie... Kettlebells...

That's just an off-the-cuff example with no marketing research, but it details the method. If Kettlebells ends up being too hard, you can leave it alone and circle back around to it later, but the work you did will help maintain the Exercise Bands outpost and help you take over the next one.

You're in the trenches though. If you don't have passion for it, don't do it, because you'll burn out if you can't offload the work to someone else. The problem with e-books is the ROI is nearly nothing. You'll need an insane volume of sales if you're trying to get commissions. If you're hosting and selling e-books it can be a different story but you won't cast such a wide net either or your conversions will be nearly nothing.

Here's something to consider. It's one of those sayings, I don't know who said it first but, "It takes as much effort to make $100,000 as it does to make $10,000,000." So make sure you're aiming at the right service / product / vertical with advertising money / etc. Because at the end of the road, with everything else being equal, THAT will determine if you're a thousandaire or millionaire.

 

[HeyoDeafMan]

You're in the trenches though. If you don't have passion for it, don't do it

That's my major concern. I spent the day walking around (with my Pokemon Go ), thinking up ideas and writing stuff out. Going inside stores, random stores like outdoorsy stuff and what not. I realized that I probably have two main interests/passions: Ebooks and travel now that I think about it.

I'm not exactly sure as to how to micro-niche travel. I suppose I could microniche New Zealand as a country for travel, and slowly expand to other countries? I also read a different post around here saying that building ourselves as a typical "big brand" is dying out, that we need to create tools like Student Loan Hero in order to get massive traffic. If I were to set up a microniche on New Zealand, and create some sort of calculator where they could input their budget, fears (fear of heights, dark, etc), desires, etc. to create an ultimate travel guide exclusive for them. But really not sure how I'd monetize all of that...

I had a similar idea to ebooks, but you're definitely right about the conversions now that I've looked more into that. So I'd probably roll with Travel as a vertical.

"It takes as much effort to make $100,000 as it does to make $10,000,000."

That's a really great saying. Makes me want to double down on making sure that I'm in the right niche, because I want to enjoy my life, not feel that it's a chore to do my job.

Also, just adding on to this, I heard from another IM guy I know that travel's one of the worst niches to get into, considering every body and their dog has a "travel blog." Just curious as to your thoughts on this as well.

 

[Alanwatts33]

Nothing is too saturated. You just gotta get with the times man. Get notifies on google trends. Hang around the social media groups. You can make it past even the big guys if you stay up to date, be the first to comment, you have enough knowledge to give out something meaningful and just link ur blog/website along with it.

 

[Pushup]

I probably have two main interests/passions: Ebooks and travel

Try working backwards from New Zealand: "Who would be interested coming here?" Lots of people looking to start over, who love nature and want to get away from a job that ties them to their current (undesirable) locale. These people want financial independence, and probably are interested in remote work or a location-independent business. Check out how nomadlist.com / nomadforum.io cater to this audience.

I think it will be easier to find your initial audience on social networks (esp. Youtube) and forums than through selling an ebook. You have to go where your audience is, and it's going to be easier capturing a YT browser's attention for 30 seconds. These people will also give you valuable feedback about their pain points and what ebooks are worth your time to write for them.