Is Self-Publishing in 2025 Still Worth It? New Data Revealed for Business Book Authors!

Thinking of writing a business book? You might be asking yourself, will it really pay off? Well, a new study on business book ROI has some jaw dropping insights that could change the way you look at Publishing in 2025. If you want to know if writing a business book in 2025 is worth it, this video is for you. Hey there, I'm Julie the Book Broad, Founder of Book Launchers, a four time author and the host of a brand new book review channel. No Boring book reviews in 60 to 90 seconds. I'll tell you if a book is worthy of your bookshelf or not. I'm going to link to that channel in the description below. For today, I want to share a new study on business book authors, self published ones that I thought would be interesting for you to know about if you're thinking about writing a business book. Because here's the thing. I get asked this question all the time. Will my book give me an roi? A return on investment? Well, this study gave us a pretty clear answer, so let's dive into the highlights. The Survey first just so you got some context, the survey sought to analyze factors most likely to generate a positive return on investment, the ROI for authors pursuing book projects. The survey was designed based on an earlier pilot survey that former Forrester SVP Josh Bernoff conducted for the book Build a Better Business Book. And, well, what did the survey conclude? Number one? First and most important, let's address the big question, will a business book make money? And. And the answer is. Drumroll. Books are making money. The study found that 64% of business books had a positive ROI with a median profit of $11,350 after expenses. And for books with launch, PR or ghostwriters, the median profits skyrocketed to over $50,000. So guess what? The people who invested in their book saw a higher return. It makes sense because when you invest in the project, you have an experienced team that will help you navigate pitfalls and follow common success paths. And you probably have a heavier commitment to the success because you have money on the line. Point 2 the secret to high profits strategy and PR authors with a strong revenue strategy or a solid PR campaign saw profits nearly double than those without. Investing in strategic planning clearly pays off big. This is one of the messages you hear me talk about all the time here on Book Launchers tv. The time to start planning for your book marketing is. What's that? Before you start writing your book. That's right. Our authors are set up with an author branding and book positioning call. When they start with us, and if they're working with our writers or our writing coaches, the marketing team is alongside checking in on the process. And a new addition we've made actually is to bring marketing specialists into the writing milestone calls to further emphasize and guide the strategic planning as early as 25% into the manuscript draft completion Success is not an accident, and while there are things you can do to get a book selling after it is out and not selling, it's much easier to create massive momentum and financial success by putting in the right strategy and planning early in the process. Can I introduce you to Cynthia Pan? She started with us in our course Self Publish and Succeed Live and has been working with us in our full service ever since. She has been working closely with our marketing team on strategy and executing strategy. And guess what? Her launch was rockin' and I'm sure her book is going to see some great success. It wasn't because she had a huge audience or poured tons of money into a launch. It's because she had a strategy and she has been executing it with the guidance of a professional team. High five, Cynthia. By the way, this book has some wonderful humor in it. If you have an aging loved one, I highly recommend you grab this book point 3 speaking, consulting and Workshops the Real Gold mine While direct book sales might not meet expectations of revenue for some of the business book authors, there were a lot of authors that found books boosted their speaking fees, their consulting gigs and workshop revenues often far more lucrative than book sales themselves. Books are a fabulous tool to boost income and impact, which is why strategy is so important. If you want to grow your speaking, sell courses, add consulting income to your revenue base. A great book on the subject is a really good way to grow leads, raise your rates, and shorten sales cycles to identify you as the expert someone needs for their problem. For this to work though, you need to write the right book that positions you to be hired for this, and that's where early strategy is important. Fourth point the cost of success. On average, the author spent $7,000 per book, but hybrid published authors shelled out closer to $23,000. Keep in mind this survey includes traditionally published authors whose costs are lower but the they still have marketing expenses and other costs. Costs often caught first time authors off guard, both self published and traditionally published, so plan for surprises. I usually recommend a first time author that has written the book themselves and plan to self publish at the quality and distribution of a traditionally published book, plan for at least 15 to $20,000 to produce a top quality book and execute on the marketing items you'll need, like an author website, a media kit, a speaker one sheet social media support, pitching for reviews, ebook sales, catalog submissions, and book award submissions. If you're not working with a full service company like Book Launchers, at the minimum, most authors would benefit from hiring a VA to support a va, by the way, as a virtual assistant. Sometimes people ask they would benefit from hiring a VA to support the many, many tasks that are behind a successful book marketing campaign. Point number five Sales fall short but success isn't measured by sales alone. The median number of copies sold for traditional published books was 4600, but only 700 for self published titles. Yet the study showed that sales aren't everything. Many authors achieve success through increased credibility and non monetary rewards. This makes sense because boosting your credibility opens doors that can lead to far more money than the $4 you might make on a book you sell on Amazon. This is why we're always emphasizing that a book is a tool to lead to where you want to go.6 Positive impact on personal branding number 90% of authors reported a significant boost in their personal brands and credibility after publishing, which helped them open new doors to speaking gigs and media mentions. Of course, the author surveys are clearly working it because this doesn't happen magically. You need to be out there doing podcast interviews, writing articles for publications, and just getting your name out in front of others. But in time, I believe this is absolutely true, you will develop a brand new One of my favorite stories these days is our client Linda Magoon. She's become a library legend. Just look at her schedule of talks and it doesn't include the spot she had on a panel at Author Nation in Las Vegas either. And it all started with some small talks in her area and branched out from there. Well, maybe it started with her doing the signing at ALA that we had for her. The librarians loved her there, but she's been the talk of the library town for a while and all the libraries want her. Point number seven the ultimate ROI $1.24 earned for every dollar spent on average, authors earned $1.24 for every dollar they invested in their books. Which is a powerful question to the answer Will I see an ROI on my book? So in conclusion, well, this summary tells me and hopefully tells you that if you're thinking of writing a business book in 2025, the financial and non financial rewards are there. But success depends on strategy, investing in the right services, and leveraging your book beyond sales. The key takeaway? Your book isn't a product you it's a tool to build your brand, boost credibility, and unlock new opportunities. So go ahead, plan your Strategy and make 2025 the year you publish your business book. And of course, if you want help with strategy, writing, publishing and promoting, let's chat. Head on over to bookwatchers.com apply and we can set up a call after you do that. Well, this is a great video on the seven benefits a book will have on your business. And this one over here is the one YouTube recommends you watch next.