What writing services do people want?
Every now and then, I get asked this question: “What do people want written?” And I usually answer that people come to us for a lot of biographies and fiction manuscripts. But is that the most accurate answer?
I decided to do some number-crunching. And I cam up with three sets of data. First, here are the types of services people seek…
As you can see, biographies are the most popular project people seek. Everybody has a story to tell. Yes, most “biographies” are in fact autobiographies.
There are a lot of people who come to us with manuscripts – including websites and marketing materials, but mostly books – to edit. These include biographies, as well as every other genre.
The three other popular genres are business manuscripts, online writing and fiction manuscripts.
Breaking it down a different way, 46 percent of people come looking for some form of book to be written. Twenty percent of people seek some form of editing and 12 percent seek copy for use online. Everything else is pretty minor.
Breaking down the books into the various types, you can see just how important biographies are – how many people have a story to tell.
If you have a story to tell or a book you want to help promote your business or career, we’ll be happy to help you.
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October 4th, 2011 at 6:23 pm
Those stats are really interesting David and I would never have guessed that biographies were the highest.
Were there any skews to the type of person who wanted a biography written?
October 4th, 2011 at 9:24 pm
No recorded skews, but just from memory, there are survivors (abuse, injury, self-infliction, etc.), there are people who (or whose parents) are near the end and they want to record their history, there are people whose “colorful” patchwork of experiences makes people say, “Hey, you should write a book”.
October 6th, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Interesting! I think I fall into the category of those looking to write reports (most of the time), which means there is probably less competition from where I am standing
October 7th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
I agree with Susan, very interesting stats. Thanks for sharing. I fall into the business category for the bulk of my work.