Finding a good niche is essential to win at self-publishing. Find out if self published YA books can be profitable or if it's just a waste of your time.
Today's question has three answers and you're going to want to stick around because the third answer is a secret to telling you exactly what it will take to make money if you choose to write in Young Adult Literature.
Now let's get into it. The question that was sent to me today was, can you make money with self published YA books?
I Started With Non-Fiction
The person asking this question is wondering a little bit about maybe they should start writing young adult books or maybe you've written young adult books. And you're not sure whether or not it was a good idea.
After all, how do you even know they're profitable? So, this is a very good question. Because you're asking about whether the market itself or the niche that you'd be going into is a profitable one?
And I am planning to help you with that exact question. But before we get into the answers, check out my absolutely free Self-Publishing Checklist. It will help you make sure you are not skipping any of the necessary steps to make money with self-publishing.
So let's get into it. Can you make money with self published YA books? When I first started, I was writing in the non-fiction area.
I wrote several books that were in that area. They were not particularly optimized when I was writing it because I didn't understand what was necessary. That made me think maybe I should start writing books in the fiction area and not just the non-fiction area.
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But in reality, that was not the case. Because in some ways it's a lot easier to make money and find books in non-fiction. Because people are doing searches on keywords.
You Should Be Enjoying
Whereas in the fiction area, usually, the keyword searches would be a book, maybe they would look in the genre or a niche or sub-niche. Perhaps they would look for books that are like other books that they are already reading.
So, this plays a very important role especially when we're looking at the Young Adult Literature and trying to figure out how does it fit within the overall pool of all the books that are being put onto the market.
Can you make money with self published YA books? There's a couple of answers and the first is yes, this has been a popular and profitable niche for many years. Some of the top-selling books of all time.
Whether we are looking at J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter or The Chronicles Of Narnia. There is a whole series of books that have sold an awful lot of copies. So, Young Adult Literature is a very profitable niche if you're going to choose a niche to write at.
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The second answer is that you should only write in the niche if you enjoy writing in Young Adult Literature. The worst thing you can do is to start writing in a niche for which you really do not enjoy that writing.
Because we need to be doing it for a very long time if we're going to win. And we'll be getting into that because that's exactly our third answer. The secret of winning in the Young Adult Literature niche is the fact that the key to winning it is to stick in that niche or sub-niche for the long haul.
You are going to be writing a book after book after book. You're going to get better with each book and you should not switch which sub-niche or niche that you're marketing to. Just like J.K. Rowling did.
Now, if you become an insanely best-selling, perhaps you can try to write some other stuff. One of the problems is that people jump from niche to niche without ever building any authority and building an audience in that particular niche.
Don't Switch Niches
Also, when you come up with a new book, some of the people who may ever love your previous book will then choose to buy the new book, only to discover that you switch niches on them.
Then they will give you terrible reviews as a result. Even if the new niche that you're writing on let's say you go from Young Adult books and suddenly you're writing on Adult, there can be a backlash against you in both directions.
They just find it confusing. What type of author are you? You're writing in too many niches. So this is the reason I was exactly telling you that you are going to want to first of all stick with it for a long haul.
Make sure you enjoy it. And if you do, then it is a very profitable niche. I like to figure out in terms of the sub-niches, which ones are going to be the most popular by looking at what are the best-selling books currently.
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Then, looking in those sub-niches to see if some little gold nuggets are hiding in there. And then choose one of those niches. But in the end, you need to make sure that you do in fact enjoy writing in this niche.
Conclusion
So, can you make money with self published YA books? What have you found? Have you written YA books? Have you made money off of them?
Or are you just considering it? Let me know what you found below in the comments, I respond to 100% of all the comments that come in. And check out my other blogs and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.