Are you considering business book writing? An underrated category of books writers often overlook is the trade, technical, or business book writing genre. The market for books focused on content appealing to the business world offers writers with niche knowledge the perfect opportunity for business book writing with a built-in audience.
Making up almost 20% of the nonfiction genre, business book writing is popular for their evergreen nature because they often provide timeless content to readers already knowledgeable in their niche. Your wisdom and experience could make you the perfect candidate for business book writing for a motivated, interested audience ready to dive deeply into your knowledge base.
- Understanding the Market for Industry, Trade, and Business Book Writing
- 5 Strategies for Effective Business Book Writing
- 1. Back Up Your Informed Opinion with Experts
- 2. Concentrate on Total Accuracy
- 3. Present Technical Details Clearly
- 4. Remember Your Reader
- 5. Speak the Language
- The 5 Cs of Technical Writing
- Publishing Your Book for the Trade, Industry, or Business Sector
Understanding the Market for Industry, Trade, and Business Book Writing
Before jumping into business book writing, understanding the market will help you learn who you are writing for, what they want to read, and how your skill set will set you up for literary success.
Target Readers
If you have some key knowledge about any aspect within the trade, industry, or business arenas, you will have a locked in and interested audience ready to check out your content. Every day, content within the business sector is voraciously consumed on a variety of platforms, including books, articles, blogs, newsletters, and other website content. A huge draw, business book writing feeds into this constantly growing pipeline of content that appeals to those who want to learn more about all aspects of business.
Trade, Business, and Technical Book Topics
Figuring out what to write about might seem daunting, but sussing out a topic within this genre means looking at the different content topics already out there and seeking one where you have demonstrated expertise and experience.
Since these types of publications will circulate almost exclusively within the industry they serve, keep in mind that the consumers, co-workers, creatives, developers, executives, managers, manufacturers, and suppliers within any given industry will be hungry for content that furthers their knowledge and better prepares them for their careers within the industry.
Evergreen Content: Consider industry, trade, or business book writing about content that doesn’t age or become obsolete quickly to ensure that your book will stay relevant for a long time. Look to long-standing themes to come up with content with staying power.
- Corporate culture
- Detailed case studies and evaluations
- Future predictions about the market, business processes, and technology forecasts
- How-to articles within an industry
- Profiles on industry leaders
News Cycle Content: Far from news stories that only stay relevant until the next big story breaks, business book writing with news appeal captures a hot topic in a way that brings a fresh perspective to a popular or familiar idea.
- Anything insider like start-ups, mergers, bankruptcies, or insider gossip that can teach the industry how to improve and be stronger moving forward
- Concepts, events, or trends that demonstrate innovation within an industry
- Data analysis that can be applied to an industry’s past, present, and future
- Emerging technologies or systems that will be of interest in the coming years
5 Strategies for Effective Business Book Writing
Penning a compelling business book is more than just coming up with engaging content, although that is the critical first step in business book writing. The style, purpose, and voice in these types of books must speak directly to the intended audience in a way that teaches and informs while confirming the writer’s expertise within the topic. Following these five key strategies will help you turn your business book writing content into a book your niche will love to read.
1. Back Up Your Informed Opinion with Experts
Whatever your chosen topic and however deep your personal experience with it is, business book writing always includes expert opinion and validated research as support. Reaching out to local or well-known experts for a quote to include in your book is an excellent way to bring credibility to your writing, but including published research (with the appropriate permissions) can also boost your authority on a given subject.
Since you are writing to those within an industry that already have knowledge and insight into industry-specific topics, stretching for a unique inclusion or lesser-known but proven expertise will elevate your book above others on the market.
2. Concentrate on Total Accuracy
To boost your trustworthiness on the subject, your industry book writing preparation must include plenty of research from reliable sources. And every bit of content you include within your book’s pages must be painstakingly accurate. All of the charts, quotes, and references to outside information must be impeccable, so take time to verify their accuracy before including them in your book.
Any personal experiences or perspectives you include must be verifiably correct as well. Since your target reader is already in the know, any variance from this will come off as unreliable and can undermine your authority as an expert in the field.
3. Present Technical Details Clearly
Excellent technical writing presents details, steps, or procedures in a clear, organized, and easy-to-understand style. If your book includes any unfamiliar content, take plenty of time to understand it fully before presenting it to your readers to ensure your trustworthiness about your book’s subject stays intact.
4. Remember Your Reader
The unique aspect of business book writing is that the anticipated audience for a book is already highly knowledgeable about the content niche. These types of books do not begin with basic concepts, introductory sections that teach the reader about the ground-level information, or chapters that explain the foundational ideas within the industry.
The expectation of a reader’s base knowledge of a given subject allows the writer to step up their content to teach an in-the-know reader about something novel within the industry. Be careful not to dumb down your content within your book’s niche so you don’t immediately alienate your intended audience and instead look for ways to meet the reader where their knowledge begins and bring them new knowledge that will teach, educate, and inspire them within their industry.
5. Speak the Language
Each industry has insider jargon that is commonly accepted and expected in discussions about industry topics. Be sure to brush up on the typical terms within your niche so you will be able to use them effectively. Not only does utilizing common jargon demonstrate your insider knowledge, but they are also the specific terms and phrases that your target reader will expect to see in a book covering their corner of the business world.
The 5 Cs of Technical Writing
Developing a trade, business, or industry book manuscript within a technical scope calls for even more precise writing than other types of nonfiction.
- Clarity: Complex concepts can be challenging to convey, so lay out your ideas in a well-organized fashion before you begin to write about them. Your reader should clearly understand the ideas, patterns, or theories you present without having to reread or read between the lines to do so.
- Coherence: Technical writing should be uniform from beginning to end, so double-checking your writing for any inconsistencies is critical.
- Completeness: Telling your readers everything they need to know to understand your perspective is critical to trade book writing. Your book should lay out ideas in a way that speaks to a reader with industry knowledge without breaking down content in too-small bites.
- Conciseness: Avoid wordiness in business book writing. Using precise word choices and avoiding vague descriptions will help you create a concise manuscript that appeals to your reader.
- Correctness: Since this type of book is based on providing key information, keen insight, and applicable content, ensuring that every detail is correct is critical. Reviewing your content with a fine tooth comb before sending it off to the printer is essential to your book’s success.
Publishing Your Book for the Trade, Industry, or Business Sector
Whether your potential book content is something you have always been interested in, or you are seeking out the right niche to write about, self-publishing these types of books is something many writers want to do because it can be so lucrative. With a built-in audience and readers who are always looking for relevant content that can help propel their own industry knowledge, business, trade, and industry book writing can be an appealing choice for many.
Working with a printer like Dazzle Printing will ensure that your book looks great, has an eye-catching cover, and can be printed in larger or smaller quantities at a moment’s notice so you can take your industry knowledge and turn it into a book your trade, business, or industry niche will love to read.
