There are many reasons why a book doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sell:
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tThe author doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t promote it.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tThe cover isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t appealing.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tThe author isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t well-known in this topic or genre.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tThere\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no audience for a book on this topic.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bulldozer book. <\/p>\n
What is a bulldozer book? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one designed to change minds. The author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s intent is to push his or her opinions or beliefs onto the reader. He hopes to influence people to change a habit, make new choices, adjust an aspect of their lives. <\/p>\n
Doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t this describe the self-help book? Well, not exactly. A self-help book generally offers information and instructions in a gentle, but authoritative way. The author of a successful self-help book researches his topic, his audience and the competition and writes a book that is needed. <\/p>\n
The authors of bulldozer books see people getting fat on fast foods, they observe more sin than they can tolerate, they have a real adversity to smoking or they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re sick of hearing about cruelty to children, for example. This author has a beef with a segment of the population\u00e2\u20ac\u201da bone to pick. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on a mission. And so he writes a book designed to transform fast food junkies into vegetarians. He pens a book on how sinners can find God. He produces a stop-smoking book for the hardcore smoker. Or he writes a book on parenting for druggies. <\/p>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing wrong with wanting to make the world a better place or for trying to help someone take better care of him or herself or their families. Where these authors fail is in their approach and in identifying their target audiences. <\/p>\n
Over the years, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve certainly gone on writing missions of my own. I wanted to help save children from abusive parents and animals from cruel situations. I wrote articles designed to teach parenting skills and proper, humane pet care. And I attempted to get them published in magazines that I thought would be read by my proposed audience\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthose people who needed to hear my message. The gatekeepers to those audiences, however\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe editors\u00e2\u20ac\u201dkept my articles from them. The truth is, the readers weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t interested in learning better ways and they wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have read my words of wisdom, anyway.<\/p>\n
Now herein lies the reason why bulldozer books fail. Members of the targeted audience aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t interested in changing their ways. If they were, they would go in search of a general how-to or self-help book on the topic. They are not typically going to buy a book that is trying to force feed them your perspective\u00e2\u20ac\u201dyour truth. <\/p>\n
Your book designed to shame the lazy, unfriendly homeowner into cleaning up his yard and be more helpful to his neighbors, is not going to be welcomed by this audience. Your book intended to change the hearts of animal abusers, will go unnoticed, at least by this segment of readers. However, this is not to say that you shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t write that book.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tWrite it for children\u00e2\u20ac\u201dgently and appropriately showing them the way to be responsible or how to care for animals.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tChange the focus so that it will actually attract the audience you want to reach\u00e2\u20ac\u201dyou can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\tGo ahead and write it and then promote it to an audience who cares.<\/p>\n
This is another excellent reason why you should always write a book proposal before you write the book\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto avoid inadvertently (or purposely) writing a bulldozer book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are many reasons why a book doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sell: \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 The author doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t promote it. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 The cover isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t appealing. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 The author isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t well-known in this topic or genre. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no audience for a book on this topic. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bulldozer book. What is a bulldozer book? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one designed to change […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t