Dan was able to contact each of them and place his book on sale in them. Had his topic been more general, selling it would have been much more difficult because the potential readership would have been more diffuse and harder to target. A far greater amount of capital, time and highly speculative up-front marketing costs would have been involved. I had a similar experience when I first ventured into the publication of real estate guides. The field of real estate publications is a broad one.
Further specialization is needed for a niche within a niche.
The niche I chose was that of apartment comparison guides. There were some 350 apartment complexes, but fewer than 20 major management companies. Some of these handled as many as 30 or 40 different units. Now, this was a true niche. It offered intensive sales in a limited geographical area and to a highly targeted clientele.