Don't make the mistake of thinking you don't have any competition—everything else that a potential buyer could spend their time or money on besides your book is "competition".
Now, I personally don't believe in ever putting down your competition, but you still have to differentiate yourself. The way to do this is to show your competition as providing a different opportunity or solving a different problem, but that you are uniquely qualified for your particular niche. If you can do this effectively, you can avoid the devastating effects of cut-throat competition and instead focus on creating value.
In order to do this, you must first know and understand your competition:
- What books appear to compete with yours? For example, our book about online networking is, so far as we know, the first book on that specific topic. However, every book about online marketing, viral marketing, or any newer book about networking, including all the new books about social networks, could potentially be perceived as a competitor at first glance. In our book proposal, we had to clearly differentiate between our treatment of our topic and the dozens of other books already out there that appear similar.
- How can you differentiate yourself? If your book is non-fiction, understand what problem you solve that either no one else has addressed yet, or that you offer a new and innovative solution to. For a fiction book, what is the new or timely twist you offer to the basic story?
- What are the salient characteristics of the competition? Price? Number of pages? Book dimensions? Hard-cover or paperback? Kind of paper? Font? Most importantly, why? These decisions aren't usually arbitrary. Understand their reasoning and you can make your decisions better.
- Where and how are they being marketed? This will give you an idea what you're up against. It may also give you an idea, based on your initial market research, of niche markets you can focus on that your competition hasn't tapped into yet.
- How well are they selling? And are sales for the general category going up or down? What has the trend been over the last couple of years?
