So you want to publish a book about business – be it coaching, entrepreneurialism, leadership/management skills etc. You have a great story to tell and new and powerful messages for your audience. Now you just need to get it published.

"The best business books pick up a contemporary preoccupation, open up a new way of thinking about it and give you a new angle. They give you a new insight into what's going on and help you look at it in a new light,” according to Rachel Lomax, deputy governor at the Bank of England, speaking in the Director Magazine October 2007.

And your book does exactly that. Or so you think. As an expert in business, you will know the importance of researching a market properly before you launch any product or service. You need to see what your competition is up to and you also need to get customer feedback. But how many authors do that with their books?

A good publisher will know exactly what the key trends are in your area of expertise and will know what is selling and what is not. To give you a head start, here are some facts and figures about business book sales, market trends and opportunities.

Business book sales in the UK

Figures from the National Statistical Office show that in 2006 total book sales in the UK reached £2.7bn. Sales of non-fiction books reached £636m, equating to the sale of 172m books at an average price of £3.69. Breaking these figures down further into non-fiction categories, sales of social sciences, business studies and humanities books were £193m, equating to 17m at an average price of £11.43.

This category therefore represents 7% of the total book sales for 2006. Assuming that business studies represents a third of this category - then it is possible to conclude that business books represent 2.3% of total book sales in the UK for 2006.

Categories of business books

To gain a perspective into the number of business books available in the UK, we looked at what was available in this category on Amazon on 25 April 2008. While this figure can change on a daily basis as new titles are added and old ones fall off the system, nevertheless we believe it gives a good representation of the number of books available. 

According to Amazon, it had 94,720 business books on that date, broken down into 14 categories.The vast majority fall under ‘management skills’ (23,588), followed by ‘human resources’ (20,205). There is then a long gap to the next categories, which are ‘organisational theory and behaviour’ and ‘strategy’.  

What is surprising is the relatively low number of books on sales and marketing management (1717), given how necessary these are to the success of an organisation, and on management gurus (1703), again given the popularity of gurus.   

In addition, Amazon breaks down the ‘management skills’ category into a further 13 groups. This reveals further gaps in the market.

Without a doubt, business development is a growing market for books. Two key trends are responsible for this growth:

- An increasing interest in entrepreneurialism thanks to television shows such as the Apprentice and Dragon's Den, plus the rise of business gurus such as Bruce King (the sales guru), Margaret Manning, winner of the Female Entrepreneur of the Year award at the 2008 Fast Growth Business Awards, and the ‘serial’ entrepreneurs such as Duncan Bannatyne; and 

- The increase in the number of small businesses being set up every year and the subsequent need for books to help businesses grow.

Further investigation of the books available on Amazon reveal that books for small businesses are not reflecting the needs of SMEs and consequently massive gaps are emerging.

If you are an expert in small businesses and have a book to write, talk to us immediately otherwise you may lose out on a golden opportunity! 
For more information on this research, please contact karen@w4wdp.com.