How To Make Your First Business Book Wildly Successful

Soloists of all stripes debate—sometimes for years—whether to devote the time and emotional energy to writing their first book.

So let’s just cut to the chase.

If you can answer yes to BOTH these questions, you’ve got something worth investing in:

Do you have a valuable core message to share with an audience that matters to you?

Can you position your book to deliver you revenue in some form—book sales, new clients, speaking fees, programs or maybe the right media attention—that will make it worth your while?

Truth: you don’t have to sell a million—or even 10,000—copies to make your book a wildly successful business move.

The key is to approach it strategically.

What’s your revenue model?

Are you selling fee-for-service advice, done-for-you services, workshops, memberships or products? Map out how this book will fit in your current and future revenue streams.

Tip: Don’t count on mega book sales if you don’t already have an audience primed to buy you. Look instead at what happens if you only sell 1,000 copies. Or 500. Will the book bring you 1, 10, 100 new clients or buyers? What is each one worth to you?

Take Jennifer, an advisor working on retainer. Her average new client is worth $30,000 a year to her bottom line. She’d have to sell 3,000 books at $10 apiece (her cut) EVERY year to make what just one new client brings her.

Looking strictly at book revenue, it’s hard to argue that her time is best spent writing.

But. If she writes in a way that deeply resonates with her ideal clients and then markets and distributes her book strategically, all she needs is one new client to pay for her book-writing time.

Ironically, that client may not even read the book, but be seduced by the theme, title or an interview with the author.

Then there was Harry, an expert who sold a few thousand books. But he didn’t care about that revenue so much, because a few hundred of those went on to buy his $1,500 training program. He parlayed his $20 book into a tidy half million bucks—while building an audience panting for his stuff.

I’m not saying you SHOULD write that first book (more about that here), but isn’t it worth some strategic thinking—and a little math—before you decide?

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