Profiting From Books Similar To “For Dummies” Books

If you are a book reader or follow the book publishing industry, there is almost a certainty that you have seen one of the For Dummies books. They stand out among other books in their bright yellow book cover background and black title background.

The For Dummies books are a collection of books which gives a general introduction to a variety of subjects in an easy to understand style. These subjects can be anything from computer programming, philosophy, accounting and so on.

As long as there is a particular subject that many people want to know about, you can expect that there would be a For Dummies book about it. But don’t be mistaken by the title “For Dummies” by these books, these books have a formula that made them so successful.

Simple Books Designed For Newbies:

According to the creator of the original For Dummies books, Dan Gookin, he was just looking then for books to help him understand better his queries about the Microsoft DOS operating system, but couldn’t find a suitable book.

According to him, most books about the subject where hard to understand because they contained fancy terms and by his analysis, the authors of these books wanted to gloat about their technical prowess rather than educating their readers.

He saw an opportunity to create a book that novice people would understand. He had the idea that there were many people out there who have the same problems as his: They also couldn’t understand the very technical and complicated way books were written.

In a way, the For Dummies books were a landmark in the non-fiction publishing industry. For these books and their readers, gone were the days when people needed to be very technical or knowledgeable before they can understand these books.

The readers of these books needed fast returns for their money and these For Dummies books delivered what they want. If they wanted to have a general understanding about a particular subject, they could attain it within a day or even just minutes by reading these books.

Publishing Almost Anything That People Have An Interest In:

To make a long story short, the first For Dummies book was such a success that more software oriented titles were also sold. These other books also sold well that the publishers of the For Dummies books decided to write for a larger audience besides people wanting help understanding software related subjects.

The publishers of the For Dummies books expanded into other subjects such as philosophy, accounting, knitting, etiquette, and anything else under the sun that people wanted to know about.

This may not be so important today with the internet making knowledge readily available in all forms of difficulty levels. The internet has made learning about anything almost free as long as you have an internet connection.

But back when the internet wasn’t still widely available, For Dummies books were the rage that some physical book stores reported selling out their copies of For Dummies within minutes. This was how dominant and successful For Dummies books were.

I think that the For Dummies books is one of the most underrated success stories in the publishing industry. Maybe it’s because of the title of the books. The word ‘dummies’ does conjure the image of a reader who is ignorant in what they are reading.

Millions Of Users:

But this is exactly what the readers of these books are. For a lack of a better word, the readers of these books could really be called dummies. In this respect, the title of these books have succeeded in their purpose of attracting their intended readers.

And apparently there are many of them, numbering in the millions. In 2019 in fact, there were 6.3 million copies of these books sold or about one every five-seconds according to the publishing house, Wiley.

As you can see, despite the onslaught and huge volume of the available information on a lot of subjects online, these books still managed to sell well. This may be because of the publisher’s winning formula for writing these books.

You Can Start Within Minutes:

I don’t know the secret formula of these books, but I have read a few of them. For example I have read Networking For Dummies. I managed to scan the contents of the book within minutes.

This was probably because I’m already aware of many of the concepts of networking. What I lacked was real world experience in the area of networking. Although it was very basic, the For Dummies book gave me enough information on real world networking information.

Compare this to the thick, long and very technical networking books I have read of which the only information I have learned are the theoretical aspects of networking. I’m not saying that For Dummies books are better, but they do get you starting within minutes of reading them.

Clean Fonts and Paper:

Another thing I noticed about these books is that there is plenty of spaces between the texts and paragraphs. The paper used for the book can also be touched with relative ease. You can turn the pages without much difficulty.

Maybe these simple designs to the book managed to make it more enjoyable for the readers of these books. Many people still prefer reading printed books over eBooks over information read online.

Although these books are still holding their own against the internet, even the owners of this book franchise admitted that they genuinely feel the threat of the internet. According to them, many people question their decision to buy these books now.

Being a former heavy reader of printed books before the internet became cheap and very accessible, I don’t feel the need to buy these books anymore, but this is a personal decision. As I have said, these books continue to sell well even with the deluge of information online.

The real question from people who want to profit from these kinds of books is this: Would people still buy my printed book, eBook or audiobook when the same information is available online?

This is a hard question to answer. As said, For Dummies books are still popular despite the onslaught and huge volume of available information online. I also saw how to and instructional manual type books selling online.

But according to book publishing statistics, the most profitable segment of the eBook market in terms of non-fiction sales are self-help books and not exactly how to’s and instructional manual type books.

If you plan to create your own version of a For Dummies book whether in printed or eBook format, it is strongly suggested that you first determine if there is a demand for the type of information you want to publish.

I must confess that today, if I ever needed information on a particular subject, even on a “dummy” level, I just go online and there would be information available. I’m sure many people especially the young people are learning this way already.

I read about a story online about a couple who wanted to immigrate to Canada. They searched for books both in print and eBook format which would give them the information they needed to go to Canada.

Unfortunately for the couple, they couldn’t find any books about the information they wanted to know. They have to do the hard work of finding the necessary information needed online which came in a piecemeal fashion.

This means that they have to get one set of information from one website and another set of information on another website. Finally, they were able to tie up all the information they needed to immigrate to Canada.

Their experience left them thinking. They asked this question: “How many other people are finding it hard to find information about immigrating to Canada?” To make a long story short, they decided to make a book about the information they managed to piece together from the internet.

Today, their eBook on how to immigrate to Canada regularly gives them a side income of approximately US$ 500 to US$ 600 per month. They don’t need to do anything more to earn this money.

They only uploaded their book to online book publishing sites once and they just sit back while they receive money from the sales of their one book. As can be seen, there is still a market for your “how to” books if your information is really needed.

The answer is: ‘Yes, if the opportunity presents itself.’ But what do I mean when I said the word: ‘if the opportunity presents itself’? Using our previous example of the couple who wanted to immigrate to Canada, let us discuss what the word ‘opportunity’ means.

The couple found out that there is a need for a clear and simple information on how to immigrate to Canada. This is the opportunity. They knew that the information they gathered and sorted online would be a sellable information.

If I was given the same opportunity, I would do the same. Have you tried researching a subject online and found out that there is hardly any information about it? This ‘might’ be an opportunity for you.

I said: ‘might’ because even though you sense that there is a subject online that needed to be given information on, the information may not be sellable at all because there is not much demand for it.

And how are you going to know how much is the demand for the information of a particular subject? This is where one of Google’s online tools which is Google Trends might be helpful.

Google Trends allow you to know if there are people searching for information on a particular subject and how many people are searching information for such a subject. This is one of the tools that you can use to determine if there is a demand for the information you have.

For Dummies books continue to sell because they have proven that readers do not want complicated and hard to understand books. Many readers want books who can give them the information they need in a short time only. Never mind if the information is very basic.

Although the internet have given people a deluge of information on just about any subject, you could still make For Dummies style books by collating and sorting the information you found online.

The marketability of your For Dummies style books depend on the scarcity of the information you are giving out to your readers. It does not happen often, but there are still subjects that hardly have any easily readable information online. When this happens, write a book about it.

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