Writing and Publishing News

There are many reasons why a book doesn’t sell. Here are a few:
• The author doesn’t promote it.
• The cover isn’t appealing.
• The author isn’t well-known in this topic or genre.
• There’s no audience for a book on this topic.
• It’s a bulldozer book.

What is a bulldozer book? It’s one designed to change minds. The author’s 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.

Doesn’t 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/wanted. And then he or she promotes it to an appropriate audience.

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’re sick of hearing about cruelty to children, for example. This author has a beef with a segment of the population—a bone to pick. He’s 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.

There’s 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 authors of bulldozer books fail is in their approach and in identifying their target audiences.

Over the years, I’ve 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—those people who needed to hear my message. The gatekeepers to those audiences, however—the editors—kept my articles from my targeted readership. The truth is, the readers weren’t interested in learning better ways and they wouldn’t have read my words of wisdom, anyway.

Now herein is the reason why bulldozer books fail. Members of the targeted audience aren’t interested in making changes. 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—your truth.

Your book, which is 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’t write that book.

• Write it for children—gently and appropriately showing them the way to be responsible or how to care for animals.
• Change the focus so that it will actually attract the audience you want to reach—you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
• Go ahead and write it and then promote it to an audience who cares.

Some stalled bulldozer books can be transformed into brisk selling books simply by changing the target audience. The book’s message might be reasonable, useful and valuable, it’s just that you’re pitching it to the wrong audience. It’s okay to preach to the choir. Instead of promoting your book, “Stop Dog Fighting, Now,” to dog fighters, pitch it to a public who wants to know what measures they can take to stop this barbaric practice. Rather than pushing your healthy eating book on fast-food addicts who love their lifestyle, make it available to folks who enjoy healthy eating and who crave more tips, hints and resources.

I suggest that hopeful authors ask themselves two questions before producing a book: Why do I want to write this book—Reason? And what is the purpose of this book? Respond truthfully and thoughtfully to these two questions and you will be less likely to write a bulldozer book. Another way to avoid inadvertently (or purposely) writing a bulldozer book, is to always write a book proposal as a first step.

If you did not write a book proposal and/or if you feel as though you are promoting your book to the wrong audience, read my ebook, The Author’s Repair Kit, Heal Your Publishing Mistakes and Breathe New Life Into Your Book. http://www.matilijapress.com/author_repairkit.html