Your Book Is Your Business

As an entrepreneur, business owner, speaker, or business coach your expertise is how you make a living. After years of honing your craft you’re now able to help others build on what you know. But you may be finding yourself at a point in which your business is consistent but not growing. You know you need to take the next step in growing your business. You need to write your book.

But like many, many people before you, you don’t know where or how to start writing your book. Do you just sit and write anything that comes out? You need a plan.

We recommend that you look at your book as your next business product. Like any new product you’ll need to assess your idea, research the competition, create a writing strategy, and create a marketing plan. Let’s dive in:

1. Is your idea a book or a blog?

   • Before you sit down to write your book take a step back and look at all of your content. Is there an article, post, vlog, or webinar that has gotten a lot of attention? Is that content based on a topic that you can expand on? Do you have research, case studies, or interviews with clients that you can include to help illustrate your points? Doing a little bit of internal research can go a long way as you work to create an outline of what you want to include in you book. Remember, the average business/nonfiction book is about 55-65,000 words so make sure that you can reach that milestone.

2. What does the competition look like?

   • Get in, we’re going shopping! No, really. You need to find books/authors that are covering your topic to figure out that makes them best sellers, decent sellers, or poor sellers. You need to figure out what makes you/your book different. What will get someone to pick your book up instead of the competition. Here’s some cold hard truth: Your idea isn’t new. Sorry. But before you quit at this point, we want you to think about what makes people hire you. In other words, what is your angle? What makes you stand out from the competition? What ever it is, that is your secret sauce. Make it part of your writing and marketing.

3. Schedule time to write.

   • Scheduling time to write and being diligent about it is important. You can go old school and schedule in two hours every morning or you could walk and talk your book using Google Docs and turning on the Speech-to-Text feature. Whatever routine you decide is right for you, just be sure to stay consistent. Chances are that your first draft will need a lot of rework, editing, and rewriting so don’t give up!

4. If you write it will they buy it?

   • The answer is no. Like any new product you release, your book will need its own marketing plan, sales funnel, content and social media strategy to get your current followers and clients to buy a copy. But remember, your book should help you grow your business. So, getting the word out about your book outside of your tribe will take a different strategy. Here’s a quick and dirty list to get started:

     • Find complementary businesses to help you cross promote your book content

     • Reach out to podcasts you’ve been on and pitch your book as an interview segment. If they’re booked out consider sponsoring an ad

     • Pitch your book/offer an excerpt to media sites where you’ve previously contributed

     • Are you in a business that’s driven by influencers? Get a list going and start making those asks. Remember that there’s no shame in asking influential people to give your book a read. If they like it they’ll likely share it with their fans.

As an entrepreneur seeing your book as the product that it is is key to being a successful author. Like any other product or service you provide, there needs to be a long-term plan and integration of your book into your business model in order to increase sales, lead generation, and eventually be a passive revenue generator.