Business Book Writing Mistakes to Avoid

Are you writing a book about your business or using your experience in your business to write your book? If you are, you're likely sharing stories of clients or employees and you might be wondering how much detail to include. If you're writing a business book and you're wondering what mistakes you should avoid, well, this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad. I'm the author of three books, soon to be four, and I'm also the founder of a fabulous company called Book Launchers. At Book Launchers, we focus on working with thought leaders or people with powerful stories to help them write, publish, and promote nonfiction books to grow their business or their brand. With that as our focus, we've worked on a lot of books and seen a lot of things go right and some common things go, well, not so right. So let's make sure you avoid the things that didn't go so right and we'll kick it off with a mistake I made when I wrote Self Publish and Succeed. Mistake number one Naming employees by name in your book We've had to scrub more than one book that mentions someone in a company that no longer works there. It's funny how many times it happens where someone is proud and excited to mention someone by name because of their contribution to the company and how much they valued it, only to have that either be proven false later or have an action totally undo any good that person has done. This has happened with business partners, employees, and even service provider relationships that that someone mentions in their book. In my case, it was someone who left the company and did significant damage upon their departure. Having this person mentioned by name in the book didn't feel good for me, but it was actually a team member that suggested we make the cleanup, and upon reflection, I decided it was best to remove any names and change it to position titles or position descriptions instead. It means some people don't get named or don't get credit for certain actions, but it removes the issues that have unfolded when something goes wrong. And it can also reduce any feelings of being left out that others may feel when they aren't mentioned by name. Now, of course there are always exceptions to these things, so use your judgment. But what I have seen is people who are writing a book about an active business. Things are fluid and things change. So you may not want to include people by name, but if you're looking back on a company you used to own or you used to work at, then you could potentially include the names. Because that isn't fluid, it's not changing Mistake number two, being afraid to share the secret sauce that makes your company great. Some books will fall really flat when a business owner holds back from sharing what they actually do to help people. This can be out of fear of competitors taking your secret sauce and using it. Or maybe people won't need to hire you if they know all the steps. The issue is that if you don't share massive value in your book, nobody will want your book. Now, I personally have never been afraid to share everything we do because I. I know there are people who will do it on their own and I'm helping them avoid some costly mistakes with my book. And then there are the people who will read the book and go, whoo, here you know what you're doing. Do it for me. I want to work with the people who will trust us. And to all the competitors trying to do what we're doing, well, I wish you all the best. Of course, you pretty much can't share everything in one book anyways. You have to share enough to get your reader to a specific outcome. But if you write a book from a place of fear that you're going to share too much, you probably won't Write a book that people will want to read or tell others about. Write a book that sets the reader up to achieve an outcome of an outcome and you'll find yourself writing a book that people want to read, share and buy, and it will inevitably sell your product, service, or speaking gigs so much more than a book that tries to sell by not revealing secrets. Mistake 3 Not promoting a call to action or promoting a call to action way too much. This is kind of like a part A of a mistake and a part B of a mistake. But you do need to have calls to action to get people to subscribe to your newsletter and connect with you. And you don't want to overwhelm the reader or listener if they're listening to an audiobook with constant calls to action because it gets annoying. If you constantly reference resources or a website or ask people to subscribe or buy something, you'll get a lot of reviews that criticize your book for that and you could turn people off. So there's a balance. I like to do it a handful of times in a book when it really makes sense. And have a great call to action page that you're sending people to. You want to do this. You need to encourage people to connect with you because Amazon and other stores aren't going to tell you who bought your book. And you should never assume that somebody's going to seek you out without a reason, even if they love your book. Now some books do it well at the end of each chapter, but even at the end of each chapter that can be a bit much depending on how you do it. So when you do it, make a compelling invitation with resources applicable to what they just read that are so valuable they would otherwise pay for it and do it strategically so that people are connecting with you. But don't do it every chance you get mistake 4 naming the book the Same as the Business I know you're writing the book to build the brand of the business and so that seems logical and that the title of the book should match the title or the name of the business so the brands are aligned. The problem is that very few business names make good book titles. Remember, that book title is supposed to sell your book and it has to be reader focused. Even a name like Book Launchers doesn't make a good book title because it's not telling you much about the book or who the reader is or why they need to read it. It would need to be Book Launching Mastery or Beast mode book launch or something. I made those up. I'm not titling my next book either of those things, so so go ahead and use them if you want or make new suggestions in the comments below. My point is simply that a book named the same as a business rarely if ever sets the book up for success unless the business name also is a great book title. Speaking of book titles and business names, can you think of any business names that would make great book titles? Let's chat about it in the comments below. And of course, on your way to comment, please hit that thumbs up button because it really does feel good. All right, mistake number five this is waiting too long to publish. If your business is anything like mine, your book would have helped your business years ago. The sooner you can get a book done and into the world, the sooner your business and your brand can benefit. That is a big one. Spending years tooling away on a business book is missing out on years of potential benefit. And there's also a practical element here. Every year you're in business, you'll have new lessons and new things to add. The longer you sit on the book, the more updates you'll find yourself wanting to do, and your book can end up in a cycle of never ending editing and adding. And that doesn't help anyone. Your business is going to change and evolve and you'll find yourself constantly needing to update any book that's in progress. If it's taking too long. Your book is never going to truly feel done, so you just have to put it into the world. Give yourself a due date and say it might not feel done, but it is due. And if things change enough in the future, you can publish a revised edition and update the content. Books written for a business can be a huge boost to the brand, sales opportunities, and so much more. I'm a huge believer that almost every business can benefit from a top quality book, but avoiding some of these mistakes can really save you some pain in your author journey. Now if you're trying to avoid mistakes, then you'll love this video on the 10 Common Author Mistakes to avoid. And if you're like me and you're super busy, well, you might want this video on how to hire a Ghostwriter. I got 3/4 of the way through my 4th book and said help me. So a writer is giving me an assist with the final pages. Both videos are going to be fun and I look forward to seeing you there. So click on over and let's hang out some more.