In the first year of my business, I had an epic failure. I wanted to create a half-day virtual event called Expert to Author. 

I crafted the itinerary, I had my slides ready, I set a competitive price, and I began robust promotion. 

At the time, I had a number of successful one-on-one clients under my belt and I thought–this virtual event is such an easy sell! I just waited for the RSVPs to float in.

I sold ZERO seats.

When I dug deeper, asked my audience, connected with some followers directly, I learned that a VAST majority of the people I’d expected to sign up for this event didn’t identify as an “expert”.

Wow. I had never even thought about that. I define an expert in two lanes–both professional AND personal experience. But I didn’t tell them that. And to the audience I was trying to reach with this offering–I’d turned them off from the get go.

Beyond that–I hadn’t done the deeper work of getting super specific in my offering. The language and approach was off all around.

It was a fantastic business lesson.

I later launched my group program The Book Proposal Blueprint to huge success. I’d figured out how to talk to the people I really wanted to reach and provide them with an offering that was exactly what they were looking for.

Similarly, finding the right lane and audience for your book is EVERYTHING. 

Bound + Determined is BACK from Spring Break this week and we’ve got an incredible guest who helps us break down HOW to determine if something is just niche enough to grab agent and publisher interest, or too niche to be successful.

Laura Mazer is a literary agent with Wendy Sherman Associates specializing in adult nonfiction with a focus on women’s issues, intelligent pop culture, counterintuitive self-help, and books that take us on geeky deep dives into fascinating facets of everyday life.