How To Think About Your Book (Before Writing A Word)

When you’re committed to building a Soloist authority business, at some point you’ll probably decide to write a book.

And just like you wouldn’t add a new service that required dozens of hours of investment without a strategy—you don’t want to dive into writing your book with no real goal for how you’ll use it in your business.

Where does a book fit in your revenue model? How will you recoup the value of your time and the hard costs involved with writing, publishing and marketing your book?

These are questions you want to think about before deciding on the scope of your book, much less playing with titles.

I like to think about positioning your book for your business in four ways…

Book as business card.

This tends to make most sense if you’re relatively new in a crowded, competitive field and want to put yourself squarely on the map.

You design your book to serve as your entrée to clients—and hook to the media. Probably self-published, you’ll often give it away to encourage connections and relationships that will lead to revenue down the road.

Book as a feeder system into your services.

A $20 book is a far less risky way to experience you than forking over $10,000 for a workshop or $100,000 for a consulting gig.

Having the right book gives your ideal audience a low cost/low risk way to experience you. You’ll make your money not on the book itself, but on the engaged readers who go on to buy your other services or products.

Book as a statement-maker.

This might be for you if you’ve built considerable intellectual property in the course of your work.

Maybe you’ve written articles and host a successful podcast, but are looking for the “statement” of a book. You want the gravitas—and visibility—of a well-written, well-marketed book.

Your financial return comes in the form of a streamlined pipeline to sales (clients and buyers know who you are and find you quickly) and being able to charge higher fees as a recognized authority.

Book as significant revenue generator.

While it’s tough to count on going in, your book just may morph into a serious stand-alone revenue source.

You can increase those odds when you have an existing specialty audience and you’re delivering a deeply targeted book that introduces a compelling new idea and/or produces transformational outcomes.

Maybe you price it “high” as a book—say it’s a $125 optional companion piece to a workshop or a stand-alone $50 product you sell only on your website.

Just decide which of these strategies makes sense for you right up front to give your “baby” its best shot.

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