When authors come to me with book ideas, one of the first questions they ask is how to ensure they get a return on their investment. Publishing a book does come with costs, and authors and entrepreneurs want to make sure they’re generating impact and wealth with what they put into the process.
Trust me, I get it! Your time, effort, and money are worth a return.
First, the bad news: you’re probably not going to make a significant amount of income from book sales alone. But that’s the only bad news.
The good news is that there are so many ways to use your book as a wealth and impact-generating tool, you won’t need those book sales to create your income.
There are many avenues of wealth-creation that you can take with your book, but almost all of them fall into one of four categories: services, people, events, and products.
Services
Service-based entrepreneurs and authors have often cornered the market on what their clients need. By publishing a book that details their expertise, these authors can promote their services, thereby generating wealth and creating widespread impact.
Consulting Services: If you’re a consultant who’s looking to write a book, you’ve probably already hit your ceiling. That is, we know that you’re successful in your sphere, but to go to the next level, you need something more…and that something is your book! As a consultant, publishing a book can generate name recognition and establish you as a voice of authority in your industry. Books are excellent marketing tools for consultants. Your book can create wealth and impact by widening your sphere of influence and landing you bigger and bigger clients.
Coaching Services: If you are a coach – a business coach, a life coach, a fitness coach, for example – potential clients need to know why they should work with you. Coaching relationships are incredibly personal, and your book can provide potential coaching clients with an important link to your story to help them decide to work with you.
Professional Services: If you provide specialized, professional services to a specific market, your book can establish you as a leading expert in your field. When potential clients are looking for a specific kind of expert – a financial planner, a doctor, a dietitian – many people don’t know where to start the search. A book lets them familiarize themselves with you and your work before reaching out to you; your book can do the client cultivation work for you! Your book introduces you and your work, sets expectations for the client-expert relationship, and provides a physical reference for clients and their own networks.
People
In addition to promoting your services, your book will deepen relationships and take some of the initial work of cultivating relationships with potential clients off of your shoulders. You’re busy, and you don’t have time to introduce yourself to every possible client; let your book do that work for you!
New Clients: Most author-entrepreneurs have clients, but they’re looking to take their client list to the next level. It can be exhausting to chase down lead after lead without a close, and your book can help weed out some of the tangentially interested from the seriously ready. In a world where we have unlimited information at our fingertips, your book will help you stand out from the crowd and bring committed clients to your table. Books are excellent avenues for agency-owners and freelancers alike, and can serve as fantastic scaling tools for freelancers hoping to build an agency or those who are simply looking for a steady flow of client work.
Community/Mastermind Group Engagement: Many entrepreneurs want to host paid online groups, where membership gets a customer access to tips and conversations about the entrepreneur’s area of expertise. Your book serves as a gateway to this mastermind. Once you give readers a taste of your knowledge, they’ll be hungry for conversation with you and join your group for continued access.
New Investors: If you’re looking for investor input into your business, it can be difficult to get a foot in the door. Investors input significant amounts of trust as well as capital, and your book can give potential investors a much-needed vote of confidence that your company is where they should put their money.
Employees and Freelancers: If you’re looking to scale your agency or find like-minded colleagues, your book can be used to draw people in to work with you! When freelancers and potential employees read your book, they’ll be drawn to learn more about you, and to find out if you’re hiring. They’ll already have background on your business and how you work, so you’ll know that applicants who come to you through your book have an understanding of your passion and a desire to work with you.
Break Into a New Space: What if, instead of scaling your business in your current sphere, you want to break into a new sphere altogether? Writing a book about your passion or about your expertise in general, rather than as connected to your current niche market, can catapult you into a new career or new opportunities. This method is especially effective for impact-driven entrepreneurs who want to shift their focus from simple sales to dedicated impact.
Events
Group Workshops: In addition to online groups, your book can attract new participants in paid group workshops. Some experts host their own workshops, multi-day affairs teaching their successful systems to interested clients, while others prefer to hire in for workshops at established companies, providing training for their current staff. Employers can purchase your book for their staff and ask them to read it, but they’ll find better engagement if they also bring you in to discuss, answer questions, and teach your methods directly to their employees.
Speaking Engagements: Publishing your book can lead to offers for speaking engagements, which directly expands your audience and impact. Speaking at conferences, on panels, or at events will help you establish relationships with potential clients and colleagues of all kinds. As an authority-establishing tool, your book also increases the likelihood that you’ll be paid to speak. Some experts build entire careers out of speaking engagements; if a speaking career is of interest to you, a book will help you reach that goal! If you’re already paid to speak, your book can multiply your speaking fees by 2x or even 3x. Your book’s existence tells both bookers and the audience that you’re qualified to speak on your topic.
Outside of these major categories, there are still more ways to use your book to generate impact and create wealth.
Products
Physical Products: If you sell products, it may sound counterintuitive to create another physical product (your book). However, your book is a promotional tool that can do the long-sell for you. Customers who read your book may be enticed to try one of your products that they may not have otherwise. They may also continue to buy your products since they have your professional guidance in their hands. Books that teach customers how to use their authors’ products are incredibly successful marketing tools.
Online Courses: Similar to the group mastermind/online community, an online course can attract new students through your book. Many course creators use their books as an introductory lesson, while providing the advanced instruction through their course. The book provides enough value that the reader is hungry for more and is willing to make the investment in your course in order to gain the knowledge and expertise you offer. While book sales are limited to market-standard price points, people are generally more willing to spend significantly higher amounts on video courses, even if the material is the same!
Software Products: If you have a software product that you firmly believe in, particularly if it’s a SaaS (Software as a Service) product, your book can serve as an excellent stealth-marketing tool. If your software is truly the best solution for the problem your book offers, you won’t even have to push your software itself, you’ll just have to push the solution. Readers will be naturally drawn to your product, since it solves the problem, and since you are the one who taught them how to solve it.
On top of these wealth- and impact-creation avenues, did you know that your book may be a tax-deductible business expense? If you are truly using your book as a marketing and income-generating tool, the costs of book production are 100% deductible as a business expense, in the same way that your domain registration and social media advertising is deductible.
Finally, while book sales aren’t likely to generate a significant income, they can still make you a nice chunk of change. If your book is properly positioned within the market, people will buy it, and you will make money.