Self-publishing: Smashing it in the niches
Author Nancy Warren has indie-published her way to over a million book sales with The Vampire Knitting Club series. Here's how she found super success, writing in a small sub-genre.
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Have you got a book idea that feels abit niche? Have you sent your manuscript out to an agent or publisher and been rejected for being too quirky, off-trend or not commercial enough? Does your creative project seem too small to ever be big?
Well, here’s the thing. There’s no such thing as being too niche; in fact, these days, it’s a smart career move to avoid the saturated bits of the market and head for the sectors that have been overlooked, intentionally or otherwise, by the big corporate players.
Legendary marketeer Seth Godin has been pushing the power of niches for years, saying how narrower audiences can often be easier to find and how they can be more loyal when you convert them to fans. (His book Purple Cow is brilliant if you’ve not read it - I go back to it time and time for inspiration.)
My friend Nancy Warren writes books that some of the big publishers might consider ‘too niche’ to commission. An award-winning contemporary romance writer, Nancy switched to writing cozy, paranormal mysteries in 2018, choosing to self-publish The Vampire Knitting Club books, a series about a witch, an Oxford knitting shop and a group of crime-solving vampires. Think knitting-loving vampire mysteries are too small a niche? Think again. She’s sold over a million copies of them since she started.
I caught up with Nancy when I went to Bath last week and interviewed her for the newsletter, because she is such an inspiration. She’s smashing it in self-publishing, and her quirky colourful covers have been copied again and again, to the point where you could say she’s invented a whole crafting paranormal mystery sub genre. Here’s how she’s done it, and why she thinks that writing in the niches is the smart play, especially if you’re self-publishing.