What can I write about?

Whether it be for writing a blog, writing an e-book or any other form of writing, one of the biggest reasons for failure is that the person doing the writing simply stops writing.  In my experience, the biggest reason why people stop writing its because they can’t figure out what to write about.  Frankly, if they were writing on a topic that they are passionate about, as I recommend, I don’t see how this situation could occur.

If you are writing on a topic that is one of your passions, you should always have something to say.  I know that for topics that are dear to my heart, I never run out of things that I can talk about.  If you usually can’t figure out what to write about, honestly, you are probably trying to write about the wrong subject.  A lot of people choose a topic because they think it will make money.  Well, sure, if you really know what you are talking about, you will make money with nearly any topic – some more than others of course.  If you chose a topic because you thought it could be a money maker, and you don’t even know much about the topic… well, you probably will run out of things to say rather quickly.

One of the funniest things I have run across and one of the most common is people who write about how to make money online.  Most of the people who write about how to make money online don’t earn anything online, or they earn a very small amount.  Not long ago, a fellow, whom I assume to be bitten by the jealousy bug, wrote an article about me.  He bad mouthed me a lot and said that I don’t know anything about how to earn money online.  I got a chuckle because near the bottom of the article, he said that he makes $300 per week online.  Well, if I don’t know what I am doing, he must be totally in the dark, because I make a multiple of that amount, and have been doing it for 20 years already.  Anyway, this is just an example, if you don’t know anything about earning money on the net, don’t write about it.  If you know nothing about how to make cheese, you really need to choose a different topic.  You see what I mean, I am sure.

When it comes to writing e-books or any kind of writing where you will be selling the book or other product, you need to choose topics carefully, and make sure that you have expertise on the topic at hand.  I have written both electronic books as well as paper books and had many of each type of publication published, so I know the game well.  My first traditional publication was on bookstore shelves back in the early ’90s, so I’ve been writing for a long time now.  These days, I only publish electronic publications.  Want to know how I decide what topics to write on in most cases?  I evaluate what questions people ask me a lot.

For example, maybe I am quite interested in the topic of different types of car tires.  However, if nobody ever asked me a question about car tires, I put that topic aside.  However, if I look at my e-mails and find that there are 20 different questions that I get asked all of the time, I choose to write 20 different e-books, one on each of those topics.  Know why?  I can see a pattern that a lot of people want to know about the topic, and for some reason, people consider me to be an expert on the topic, a person that they turn to when they need to know.

So, for each of these topics, I write a book, answering the questions that I have been asked, and adding other knowledge that I may have.  I have a built-in group of people who might want to buy that book too… the people who have asked me about the topic!  So when the book is ready to be sold, I can e-mail all of the people who have inquired on the topic looking for my expertise.  My next step is to prepare an “in the can” response for anybody who asks me about that topic again.  The “in the can” response tells the person that I have an e-book that will answer the questions they are asking and a link to the site where the can purchase the book.

This strategy for e-mail responses does two important things for me:

1. It helps free up my time that instead of having to write out a long response, I can just click a button in my e-mail program and a response is sent to the person with all of the information on how they can get the answer to their question.
2. Of course, this produces sales for me and generates income.

So, by writing the book, I have solved two problems and made my life easier!

So, as you can see, when it comes to writing, I know that I am writing on topics that interest people because I write about the things that most people ask me about.  Also, it makes life easier for me, because I never really need to worry about “what am I going to write about” because my readers tell me what they want me to write about!  Even if they don’t realize that they do!

Good luck to you in all of your writing endeavors!