Choosing the Right Niche for Publishing w/ Scott Jay Marshall II

About this video

Dale interviews Scott Jay Marshall II, now known as the Dog Dad, about choosing a publishing niche. Scott’s first dog book, about which household foods dogs can and cannot eat, took months, left him unsure of the process, and scared him about public ridicule because food opinions are strong, so he played it safe and abandoned dog topics. He then spent what he calls the year of ‘seeds from manure’ in 2016 writing six or seven gluten-free fitness books; a couple reached number one bestseller, they helped readers, and he will leave them up, but he had no passion for the niche and admits he chased what he thought could make money and believed claims that simply uploading would earn $10,000 a month. He warns a number one bestseller does not mean profit and should not be the main focus. After personal crises, he realized writing another gluten-free book was unsustainable and returned full circle to dogs, building the Dog Dad brand around teaching raw feeding. He says income in the first nine months of 2017 was more than 20 times his entire 2016 income, even though his current product is a single course, Raw Feeding 101, with a book version planned after the course expansion.

Key takeaways

• Do not choose a niche by asking first what you can make money at that you know something about; Scott did that with gluten-free fitness and burned out despite bestsellers
• Publish in something you are invested in and can sustain for hours a day long-term without burning out; passion enables the hyper-focus needed to succeed
• A number one Amazon bestseller does not mean you are making a profit; focus on keeping a helpful, relevant book selling, not on the ranking alone
• Playing it safe out of fear of ridicule led Scott to abandon dogs, the very topic he later built his whole business around
• One good flagship product can carry a business: Scott’s Dog Dad income came from the Raw Feeding 101 course before any Dog Dad book was released

Episode details: published September 22, 2017 · 35:14 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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