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When aspiring authors approach me with a book idea, the first thing I try to gauge is whether their idea is, in fact, a book-length work. Does it have the depth and breadth to fill 250 pages or put together 60,000-ish words?
That’s an important question, and it’s not always immediately apparent.
Sometimes the topic is so vast that it could fill a series of books. The challenge then becomes niching down the focus.
Too much content
For example, I write business and self-help books, so, conceivably, a client could ask for help in writing a book about entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a massive subject, much like chemistry or water. There are likely a gazillion ways you could address that topic.
It’s too broad.
However, within the topic of entrepreneurship, you could start to zero in on an aspect of entrepreneurship that would be an appropriate length for a book.
Some of these sub-topics include anything from the start-up process, to scaling a company, funding a venture, setting up internal systems, to business models and more. Honestly, each of these subtopics could be niched down further as well, depending on the audience. You could have business model development for product-based businesses, service-based businesses, or online businesses, for example. Or books on some of the various marketing methods in use today, such as advertising, public relations, social media, podcasting…you get the idea.
Each of those could be their own books because there is so much to be shared about them, from what they are to how they work to what best practices look like, and so on.
When your book topic is too vast, start breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces until you reach a point at which you know you could fill a manuscript and the reader would feel satisfied with the content.
Another question that authors need to consider is how large the audience is for your book topic. Your literary agent and editor will certainly assess your audience size to be sure your book can be profitable, so be one step ahead of them by running your own numbers.
Too small an audience
Many publishers consider 10,000 book copies sold to be a break-even point, though that varies by publisher and topic. It’s a solid target, however, and you should strive to be fairly confident that you can at least sell 10,000 copies, preferably in the first year.
The number of potential books you may sell is dependent on a number of factors, with the first being how large your potential audience is. How many people could possibly be interested in the topic of your book?
Then, once you quantify that, how easily can you reach them? How easy is it to identify who they are and to get information about your book in front of them?
For example, if your book is about time management hacks for Gen Z professionals, you can fairly quickly quantify how many members of Gen Z are currently in the workforce. And it’s probably fairly large.
Then you need to strategize how you’re going to get information about your book in front of them without breaking the bank. You’d need to put together a marketing plan. Given Gen Z’s use of social media, I suspect that would be at the core of your plans. Finding them would not be hard.
But then let’s say that you wanted to write a history of the now-discontinued soft drink Tab.
Since it is no longer sold, you don’t have an easy way to estimate the size of its current fan base or to reach them. It would require some advanced research techniques that might break your marketing budget. It’s doable, but your target market is not as large as Gen Z, we can probably agree.
The audience of Tab fans may be too small to justify writing and publishing an entire book. A case study? Sure. An article? Definitely. But unless Coca-Cola wanted to sponsor a commemorative history, it might be difficult to interest a publisher in getting behind such a book.
Speaking of defunct products, sometimes the topic of interest just isn’t fresh enough to justify a book being published about it.
Nothing new to report
I’ve had several aspiring authors approach me for help in writing a book about a topic that has already amassed considerable media coverage.
On one hand, media coverage is good because it increases awareness of the subject, issue, or event.
On the other hand, it can be bad if everything that needs to be said about the topic has already appeared in print.
Unless you have access to information or sources that have not yet been mentioned in the media coverage that has occurred, and which would add a new element to the larger story, you probably don’t have a book. Regurgitating what has already been reported is not a strong basis for a book.
However, my biggest concern when speaking with authors is whether their topic can fill a book.
Too little content
This does not happen very often, but sometimes authors want to write books about topics that simply won’t fill a traditional-length book, unless you turn it into a coffee table format with lots and lots of pictures.
For example, writing about how Starbucks chooses the designs of its new water bottles and cups each season is not a book. It might be an article, but there likely isn’t enough substance to fill an entire book.
The same would likely be true about what a typical new hire interview looks like today, in 2025. The topic might be of interest to everyone looking for a job today, which is good, but is there so much that is different today that it could fill 250 pages? Probably not. An article might be more appropriate.
In most cases, there is a way to approach a topic that would yield 60,000 or so words by expanding the scope of the coverage.
For example, if an author were considering writing a book about 3D printers being used in K-12 schools (a topic I just came up with off the top of my head, so I have not researched this in depth). At first glance, that might seem fairly niche.
However, when you consider that such a book would need to cover the rise of 3D printing technology, how it works, and what it’s capable of, that’s a decent start. Then you combine that with how schools are using these printers, and what kinds of schools are most likely to purchase them, and you have more of the story. And to top it off, you could include case studies or success stories of various schools that have incorporated 3D printers into various classrooms and what it has done for the school and the students.
That’s a book.
But before you hire a ghostwriter and select a publisher, be sure that you have a topic that has breadth and depth, as well as a potential audience large enough to make it worth your while to write it.
If you want my two cents about your potential topic, feel free to run it by me at marcia at marcialaytonturner.com.