Sometimes, something happens in the course of my business that gives me an idea I want to include in this series because I believe it’s something of value to you, and that’s the case with this particular episode. 

I recently had a conversation with someone, and not for the first time I’ve heard this, but I recently had a conversation with somebody who said, “I want to write a book, and I have a lot of information on my subject area, but there’s a lot of books on this subject already, and so why would I write another one?” 

Many people think this, and it’s the wrong way of thinking for several reasons. First of all, if there are no books at all on a particular subject, it’s probably because there’s no interest in that subject. Nobody will read the book. Nobody will buy it. Maybe even nobody knows about the subject because it’s too obscure. There has to be some kind of competition before you can really gauge that there is any interest. When you do a proposal to a traditional book publisher, one of the questions they ask you is, “What are the competitive books that are out there for your book?” Because they want to know that there are some. 

Let me ask you a question. Do you have an enthusiasm, like a sport that you play or a hobby that you pursue? And, if so, do you have books on the subject? Do you have more than one book on the subject? 

Now, depending on your age, maybe you’re more inclined to go for videos and other multi-media ways of learning things, but the same principle applies. You probably don’t get one video or one book on the subject that you love and leave it at that. My late husband was a model airplane enthusiast, and not only did we have rooms full of model airplanes, but we also had many, many books on the subject because he was enthusiastic about it, and he wanted to learn as much as possible about it from many different viewpoints. 

And that idea of different viewpoints is another important point to consider in this. Nobody else will write your book because nobody else has exactly the same take on the subject as you have. The same thing applies with blog posts. If you’re blogging in a certain area, there will be other bloggers that are out there writing on the same subject, but you’re not going to write the same blog post as they will because we all have our own take on things in which we are experts.

If you’re worried about this, go to Amazon and put in the keywords for your particular area and see how many books are out there. How much are they? And look at the number down at the bottom to see what is the ranking in Amazon. With that ranking, the lower number the higher it is in the rankings. So look at that number and see how many low-ranking books or high-ranking books on that subject are selling on Amazon. 

You’ll get the idea that it really doesn’t matter. Your book will be your book. It will be different from everybody else’s, and you should go ahead and write it, and do not be put off by the fact that there are some other books on the same subject. Go for it, and I’ll talk to you next week.