Write a Book for Your Business - Members Only

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Take a moment to think about what your goal for writing a book is. What does success look like for you after the book has come out? Many authors focus on getting a bestseller flag from Amazon or making a periodical list like USA Today or Wall Street Journal or New York Times. And of course that would feel really good. But ultimately, why is that the goal? In other words, if you never made a list but X happened, what would X need to be for you to feel like your book was a success for many authors? When you really get into it, X is something like Business leads are growing at two or three times as fast and for a lower cost. Or you're getting paid for more speaking engagements or getting more of them. Your consulting fees have an extra zero at the end. People in your industry know you as the expert on your subject matter. Or you've written a book that leaves a legacy for your family that's something your team is proud of or that you can use in hiring and attracting new talent to your team. I know some say I want all of the above, and some uber successful books can accomplish many things at once. But what is your number one? Robert Bell, author of Blow the Lid off, used his book and the book marketing process to refine his message on ultimately leading him to getting picked for a TED Global ideas talk. That talk has been watched more than 2 million times on the TED site and more than 100,000 times on the TED YouTube channel. Of course Robert Bell wanted to sell books, but his first goal wasn't that for Robert, it was to spread his message and build his name beyond the borders of Africa where he lives. So grab your workbook and take a moment to consider this. A year after your book has launched, how do you know it was a success? And what are you measuring to determine its success? So now that you've defined what your bigger picture goal is for your book, it's time to get clear on who your ideal reader is. And let me give you a hint. It's not everyone. Now, you're successful in business, so you already know this. But when you target everyone, you appeal to no one. So let's get specific. When it comes to book marketing, the more specific the better, especially when it comes to the problem you solve and how that solution matters to the life of your reader. And when I say specific, I'm not meaning demographically as much as I am saying who is your avatar? Tell me about that person. So in the workbook, describe your person, including their fears, their dreams, their hopes and worries. You'll know you're getting there when you can imagine them going into their forum meeting and sharing their 5% they aren't telling other people. Bonus points if you can tell me where they're hanging out. Like what conferences, events, groups they belong to, podcasts they listen to, or even the searches they're making on the Internet. This book, Tactical Lock Picking, was written for first responders on how to get through locked obstacles to save lives and reduce property damage in an emergency. That audience is pretty narrow, but our research prep for marketing was easy because we could really simply find groups that we were targeting and keywords were obvious and the message and the promise was clear. And I can assure you the audience of first responders, in particular the fire groups, because they're usually first on scene, were really keen to interview, feature and even pay this author for his time. We also found a secondary market for this book with fiction writers and screenwriters who wanted to accurately describe the techniques for doing the same thing. So here's a couple of tips if you're struggling with defining your ideal reader. 1. Look at who you were 10 to 15 years ago. Would you be the ideal reader for what you're sharing now? Alternatively, look to your best client and use them as the ideal reader avatar. You can also search Reddit or Quora for your topic and read what people are saying around your subject matter. Or read the reviews of popular books that are similar to the one you think you'll write. You can get clarity on your avatar with all of that work being complete. Alright, nice work. Now we know your bigger goal and who you want to have an impact on. When you write your book. The next step is to uncover your hook. You need the hook to put structure around your book. We'll get more into the hook and the structure for your book in the next module.

It would have been easy for Nelson Tressler to say his book was about hope. He was the center of the biggest murder trial to ever hit his small town, but before he was even born. Once he was born, things just got worse. His story of using those hardships to fuel his life purpose will fill you with hope. But his outcome isn't hope. It's clarity that you have the choice to use that adversity to fuel your success. And he shows you how your hook is the through line that you build your story from. For a memoir, this is the storyline you're sharing in the outcome of the outcome, like Nelson's example. But even if your book is a how to book, you still need a through line. You still need that hook so you can decide what content needs to be in the book and what can be saved for the future. Books. For example, Nick Kennedy wrote his book the Good Entrepreneur for anyone venturing into the world of entrepreneurship. His hook is that business success is worth more than products or profit. Build a business of purpose and leave behind a legacy that matters. Is your hook that clear? If not, take a moment to work on it. Remember, it's about the outcome of the outcome. Now we want to use your hook to build your outline. An outline is a guide to follow There are many ways to outline a book. You can use bullets, mind maps, write it on recipe cards, or post it notes and put them on your wall. Any method is fine so long as you start giving your book structure. Determine what the big topics are and then what the subtopics are that go under them. For example, my book Self Publish and Succeed is about writing a nonfiction book with marketing in mind. The bigger topics are your goals, your reader, your hook, your outline. Sound familiar? Each bigger topic has subtopics like under outlining. You would have methods of outlining, software for outlining, and keys to outlining. And each of the subtopics will have stories, bullet points, or examples. With your outline complete, the question is how will you get your book written? It's not an easy thing to decide, but here are a couple of questions to ask yourself. Do you feel compelled to write your book? Are you excited to write your book? Do you have the time and energy to dedicate to the project? Ideally, you can carve out at least five hours of uninterrupted time most weeks to work on the book. If you're answering yes, then you can set to work writing. You may hire a book coach or a writing coach or join a writing group or otherwise find some support and accountability. But first goal is to make a bad first draft. Just get the content from your head onto the page. If you said yes, you want to write it, but you don't want to sit at your keyboard and do the typing all the time. You could record voice notes and get those transcribed or use a dictation software like Dragon Dictation or Voice to Text option on Google or Word. It will need you to edit it, but you'll have a great starting point. If you said no to writing or writing is not going to be the best use of time, then it's probably a really smart idea to hire a writer to assist you. There's all kinds of writers at all price ranges to help you. Some will interview you and take the transcripts and write your book from there. Others will do a lot more intensive work to extract the book from you and supplement with research. And having someone else sit at the keyboard and do the typing is a big time and energy saver. But you'll still be the author and you'll still feel the pain of thinking this book through because the book won't exist without you, no matter how it gets on the page. Ultimately, there isn't one way to write a book. You can mix and match all the tactics discussed. The thing you really need to know is that you don't have to be a good writer to get it done. You need the idea, the information, and the will to get it done. So pull out your workbook and armed now with your goal, your reader and your hook, it's time to decide who types and what's in the outline. Next, we'll help you choose the best path for publishing.

There isn't one way to become an author. You have choices and you don't need a gatekeeper to say you're worthy of. But the breadth and depth of choices can also make this a tricky decision. So let's break it down between traditional hybrid and self publishing to help you figure out what is right for you and your goals. First, a clarification. If you start doing research on publishing a book, you may find warnings against vanity publishers. Here's why you'll be A vanity press provides publishing services but engages in misleading or even outright deceptive practices. Books aren't edited well or even at all in many cases, and the only one making money is the vanity press. All vanity publishers are hybrids, but not all hybrids are vanity publishers. You want to avoid vanity publishers, but that doesn't mean you can't look at hybrid as an option. So what is a hybrid publisher? Well, a hybrid publisher mixes the models of traditional publishers with self publishing. You'll pay an upfront fee for the company to produce and distribute your book. You do with self publishing. You keep your rights like self publishing, but the company will take a portion of royalties or charge a few dollars for each book printed in exchange for physical and online distribution channels that they have. Like a traditional publisher. There are some really good hybrid companies with high quality team, thorough editorial practices and good physical bookstore distribution. My recommendation is to vet any hybrid you're considering through a list like the alliance of Independent Authors Watchdog Service, or check the blog Writer Beware to be sure you're getting value for your money. A link to those sites is in your workbook. Traditional book deals are probably more familiar to you. A publisher buys the rights to your book in exchange for royalties, which is money that you make on every sale of the book and hopefully an advance, a large lump sum before the book starts. You're still responsible for writing and marketing the book, but you have a lot of support in between. Great publishers also have longer reach than you may have as far as getting into bookstores and even landing some major media attention for the book. But before you get a deal, you'll have to write a proposal. It's usually fairly extensive, including your ideal reader, the book positioning, an extensive marketing plan, including your audience reach, plans for marketing, and estimated number of book sales. With that proposal, you can begin shopping for an agent. If one says yes to you, they will shop you around to different publishers and you may or may not get a contract. This process is time consuming and can delay your book launch by years while you wait for a deal. Most people think they get a publishing deal based on the compelling nature of their book, but that is not normally the case. You get a publishing deal because of how many books the publisher believes you'll sell, and they'll determine that from your current audience, which is usually called a platform. Not all publishers are equal, so vet them like you would a company you're paying up front. Ask other authors who published with them how happy they are with the service and support they've received. You're giving up your rights to the content in your book, not just the royalties, so you want a rock solid partner in this relationship. Also remember, with traditional deals, you can't just print your book yourself to give away for free, nor can you even give the ebook away for free. To get leads you can. You have to buy it from the publisher to use for these purposes. The publisher will let you know in your contract what your author copy rates are, and it won't be cost. They want to make money on every copy sold, even if it's sold to you. Read the contract carefully to understand the rights and royalties in granular detail, because there are a lot of clauses that surprise authors. If widespread physical bookstore distribution isn't your highest priority, you prefer to be in control, own your ip, and speed to market is important. Self publishing might be the best route for you, and with self publishing you can do it your way. You bear the cost of the process, but you are the CEO of the project and reap all the rewards. You can hire a full service team or you can do a lot of the process yourself, becoming the general contractor, hiring editors and designers from referrals or sites like Reedsy or Upwork. No matter what choice you make hybrid, traditional or self publishing, you are in charge of marketing and sales. Every choice has trade offs, but know that you aren't stuck in one way. Gautam Bade self published the Joy of Compounding and then ended up landing his dream publishing deal after it was out. Carol Sanford self publishes half her books and publishes the rest in multi book deal she has with Hachette Publishing. Other authors have done it the traditional route before and now decide they want to be in control since they're doing their marketing anyway and and they switch to self publishing or some self publish and then decide to move to traditional for future books. In your workbook, consider what is most important to you on your journey to help you decide what approach is best for you in your book. What is your most important consideration? Speed, Distribution, marketing, revenue made per book, sold exposure, controlling your content, or something else? Once you know that, it's time to understand the timing and process of publishing, which is what we're going to cover next.

Most people are surprised to learn that the entire process to write, publish, produce and launch a book takes most authors somewhere between nine to 24 months. And of course we all know that person who took five or 10 years to write the book in the first place. In our project plans they are at least 248lines long, but you don't need all the details to succeed, especially if you're going the traditional route or working with a hybrid or full service self publishing company. But it is helpful to understand the higher level view of the publishing process. So once you have a first draft, your first editor is a content or developmental editor. They're going to take a 30,000 foot view of your book and edit your book for structure, flow and credibility. They're the editor that makes your book a good read. It can also be a rather time consuming process to improve the book for some authors. For many, this content edit process takes up to two or three months to work through. After that's done, it's a little easier. You work with a copy editor who follows the Rules of Chicago Manual of Style or APA or MLA and edits line by line for sentence structure, word choice, grammar and punctuation. They're the ones that make your book grammatically correct and close to error free after they've gone through the manuscript once or twice. Then you have a final manuscript that you'll now put through one or two proofreads. A Note About Editors Some editors do content and copy editing and others do copy editing and proofread. I found that it's best to hire separate people for each Content editing requires creativity, big picture thinking and storytelling. While copy editing is following rules, proofreading is eagle eye attention to detail for consistency and rule following. In testing hundreds of editors for all the positions we hire for, I have not yet seen a content editor that excels at copy editing and vice versa. We have copy editors that are great fact checkers, but there are no other folks on our team that truly excel at two kinds of editing. It is also valuable to have more eyes on your manuscript. You'll see on our roadmap in your workbook that author platform building is happening along the way, but we focus on it intensely. When you're in editing, consider calls to action in your book to have readers connect with you to download a lead magnet so you can start building a relationship with them as well as consider every chapter title as an opportunity to sell your books. Imagine a chapter title as a talk title and you'll create strong chapter titles that will help you sell. While your book is in design, we'll finalize launch strategy and begin work on the pre launch activities to begin the marketing for the book. In the workbook, you'll find the steps outlined in the roadmap. Make notes along the way about what you're going to think about marketing as you go through it. Next, we're going to cover metadata, which includes your book title, which is one of the most important pieces of your book.

You need far more than a great book with a compelling story to succeed. Hopefully you got that by now. Part of your success is going to come down to your metadata, and a big part of your metadata is your book title. Now metadata is just data and details that are used to describe and categorize your book. It's all about discoverability, getting found by readers, bookstores, wholesalers, online stores, and so on. Metadata includes title, subtitle, price, page count, trim size, ISBN, author name, genre, keywords, categories, format of the book, and other special details like who wrote the forward, your book description and reviews of your book. It's also worth considering things like if your book takes place in a certain time period like Jill Phillips memoir Lamblash street is set in World War II, or killers keep Secrets by James Huddle, which is about the Golden State Killer, where important metadata include the decade he was active and the areas he was known in. These metadata pieces are important for keywords that get entered into Amazon, but also for crafting the description and setting categories. Bisect codes are also really important because it will be used by librarians and bookstores to figure out where to categorize your book and who the audience is. You can use various sites to help you determine these things, and links are in your workbook to help you. Of course, if you're working with a publisher, they're going to do this for you. They will also likely hold the final say over your title and subtitle, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try and create a great one before they tell you what you should call your book. Title is arguably the most important metadata for your book. So let's talk about what makes a title more likely to succeed. Great titles often are short, three words or less. They're memorable. They're easy to say, they really speak to your reader. They work with search engines, and they're not trademarked. Examples include Self Publish and Succeed Protecting the Pig Killers Keep Secrets the Good Entrepreneur Tell her she Can't. These are all easy to say and easy to remember, which is really important. My second book was called the New Brand you'd and about 10 podcast interviews into my launch, I realized I had a problem when all but one of them called the book the Brand New you. Some were even holding it in their hands and looking at it when they said the title wrong. So test your title on friends to make sure they remember it and make sure they don't get tongue tied. When you think of search engines, look for being the first to be found when someone enters your title in Is there a business or another book title that already has that? Two books can have the same title. Titles can't be copyrighted, so when we're thinking search engines, we're looking to make sure we can be the first found. So you don't really want to compete with another book or a business or someone else that has that phrase dominated. Sometimes a title is also trademarked, like Freakonomics, in which case you can't use that, so you want to check for that too. While short does tend to perform better for many reasons, there are exceptions, like how to Win Friends and Influence People is one book that has a longer title. The Marijuana Hater's Guide to Making a Billion Dollars in Hemp is another example of a book that sold really well, and most people will also know the subtle art of not giving an F bomb. Most nonfiction titles need a subtitle to sell the book, and this also needs to speak to the reader. And that's where I highly recommend you use a tool. If you're doing this on your own like Publisher Rocket to do some keyword research to fit in those juicy, highly searched keywords into your subtitle. The subtitle Success checklist is to have a subtitle that is keyword rich, identifies the audience, creates curiosity or sells a benefit, or explains the value of the book. This is teasing part of or all of your hook and it must fit comfortably on the COVID design. Illegitimate How a Naval Cryptologist Cracked the Code of Life, A Spy Memoir by Kenneth Earle is a good example, as is Backstage Guide to Real Produce Passive Income, Write your own Story and Direct your dollars towards Positive Change by Matt Pacini. Those subtitles Check every box on the checklist. If there was one piece of advice I could give you about titles and book covers, and it's that there's only one person that really matters in your choice. And that person is not you, your mom, or your best friend. That person is your reader. I've seen a lot of good books get badly named because someone's friend or parent said their bad book title was a good idea or made a comment about a book cover that sent it down the path of no return and no clicks. There are so many metadata elements and considerations when it comes to this important topic, but that could be its own nano course. So you'll find a robust checklist in your workbook to help you workshop your titles, as well as to give you some resources to look to for your research on these matters. Next up, we're going to dive into four launch strategies for helping people know your book exists for launch.

There are people who paint a pretty vision of what it's like to launch a book. It gives you the impression that suddenly the red carpet's going to be rolled out for you wherever you go. VIP lines only, cash rolling, and you can't handle all the calls you're getting. What reality actually looks like is you're begging everyone you know for reviews of your book, calling in favors from your connected friends to help you get attention for your book, and refreshing your Amazon page probably a hundred times wondering if anybody bought your book today. A lot of pressure is put on authors for their launch, but success as an author isn't about launch. Unless your goal was bestseller status. And by the way, you can get bestseller status anytime. It doesn't just have to be at launch. But I know you want to set your book up for long term success and a strong launch strategy does that. So we have four launch strategies to walk you through today, and I'll share who they are for, because not every strategy is a good fit for every author. Each author has different resources and different goals, so the four general launch strategies we use as a starting point are the Amazon 99 cent ebook launch, the Maximum Momentum launch, the phased momentum launch, and the periodical bestseller launch. The 99 cent ebook bestseller launch is right for you. If you want to drive sales on Amazon and you have some sort of an audience to leverage on social media or through newsletter subscribers, you'll need to select a suitable but low competition category for Amazon and then you're going to set the price to 99 cents. And you'll do this either manually through KDP Print or using Kindle Countdown Deal. If you're exclusive with Amazon, you can also run corresponding ebook promotions through Bargain booksy fussy librarian bookbub and then your goal is the time that it's 99 cents. You send as many people as possible to that page to buy your book. One word of warning here, driving sales from people who are not your ideal reader is not a good idea just to get a bestseller flag. Amazon's an algorithm machine and it learns who your reader is based on sales and reviews. If someone who would otherwise be buying cookbooks and relationship books is buying and reviewing your financial strategy book, Amazon's going to be showing your book to the wrong people. Post promotion the second strategy is the maximum Momentum launch. This is a great strategy if you have a solid network of engaged people following you on social media, an email newsletter of roughly 10,000 subscribers or more, or colleagues with your reader in their audience who will promote your book. You'll create an incentive package for anyone who buys one or three copies of your print book, maybe even 10. Carol Sanford released a book called Indirect Work and has an ongoing promotion for buying multiple copies of her book. Check it out. It's a great example. Now to do this, you'll need a website, the incentives email copy, a network to promote it to, and someone to manage the incoming receipts or proof of purchase. To then distribute the incentives for your launch week, you're going to drive as many people as possible to buy one to three copies of your book in exchange for the incentive package. The trick here is to know your ideal reader well enough and have some things of value to include that are so valuable your readers would have otherwise paid for them. Launch Strategy 3 is the phased momentum launch. This is right for the author starting from scratch with small or no audience at all, and they're looking to use their book to build their audience. What you need to do most, if this is your strategy, is manage your Expectations around launch, you still might be able to get a new release flag from Amazon because as little as 20 sales in a day can get one of those in the right category. But that's not the goal here. First focus on getting book reviews, then media attention, and then try to get your book into a wider audience through partnerships, speaking, conferences and more. You need a great author website with an opt in incentive called a reader magnet or a lead magnet to start building your audience. You need a great attitude to get as many book reviews as possible and then you're going to try a lot of different things to get momentum. Book giveaways, ebook deals, pr, speaking engagements, ads, networking. All things to find new readers to build your audience. Okay, the last launch strategy is the periodical bestseller launch. So I'm talking Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, New York Times. Now it's important to know that the New York Times is a curated list and not a straight sales list. The others, like Wall Street Journal, are more of a reflection of sales. But if you're selling books in bulk, they don't count unless you funnel them through a service like BookPals that registers each book sale with NPD BookScan individually. To achieve any of these lists, you have to feel very confident that you can sell a minimum of 5,000 books in a week, but it can be closer to 8,000 copies sold and often it's in a single format unless you're going for the combination list where they'll count different formats together. Usually a combined maximum momentum approach with a longer pre sale period to push those print pre sales will be effective if you have the audience and connections to drive that volume of sales. In the workbook you'll find an overview of these strategies and you can note your resources to help assess which strategy will work for you. Launch is just the beginning of your journey as an author. Next we'll help you achieve your goals from the book.

Your book is the beginning. Now it's time to use it like the fabulous business tool that it is. What does that mean though? Well, it means that whether your launch was big or not, plan to do something every day to get your book into the world and go back to your goal for the book. Remember the statement that we wrote down in the beginning? If you never made a bestseller list but X happened, what would X need to be for you to feel like your book was a success? Now it's time to focus on making X happen. Depending on what that is, you will have a different strategy. You'll use different tactics and you'll measure the results differently. There's not a one size fits all strategy for everyone. Podcast interviews can be a great way to gain exposure and build your network, but they rarely sell a ton of books at any one time. They can lead to opportunities to sell books, but it's not a one to one ratio of do a podcast sell a bunch of books. Media is the same. Being on a major or local show can be great for your credibility, but these shows often don't result in an immediate sales lift on your book. Sales lists come from promotions, paid ads, partnerships, bulk book deals, and every once in a while you getting your book in front of an audience that needs your message right now. But often you won't know which audience is going to be the sticky one. So you have to try to get in front of a lot of different audiences doing a lot of different things. Remember, your book functions as currency you can now use in your business. Of course, if you traditionally publish, you'll need to make sure anything you do is okay with the publisher. But some partnerships I've struck that have been beneficial to my businesses have included partnering with a national magazine. I gave them 250 copies of my print book for them to give away to anybody who subscribed to their magazine in exchange for four ad spaces in their magazine and an exhibitor table at their national conference. It was about a $1,250 spend for me to get more than $10,000 in value back and I used the ad space and table to promote my business and the magazine promoted my book for their giveaway. My latest book sales, Publish and Succeed is being given to every entrant who enters the North Street Book Award. Thousands of authors enter this award every year, so it's great exposure for their book. Plus I get their email address when they download the ebook copy of my book. It costs me nothing out of pocket and it's great exposure and lead generation. Our authors who are speakers can now monetize talks that don't have a budget for speakers because sometimes those organizations can buy books but they can't pay a speaker or the author can sell books at the back of the room to generate some revenue and get books into the hands of more readers. You can also take that content in your book and repurpose it into other formats, videos, articles, workbooks, courses, online training programs, and so much more. All that work is not just going to be useful in book format. While you're doing whatever you need to do to achieve your primary goal, you should continue to get book reviews. That's social proof that your message resonates and it will support all your other marketing efforts. Most importantly, remember this is the beginning and you're now a published author and that is a huge achievement. Less than 1% of the population gets it done, even though some sources say as much as 80% of the population wants to write a book. So getting it done is something worth celebrating. In the Workbook Make a list of the things you're going to do to achieve your X.

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When I launched my first book, More Than Cash Flow, I never could have imagined that it would eventually be the catalyst for me licensing out my courses and shutting down my real estate training and education company that I'd built in Canada to move to the US and start book launchers. I never loved real estate the way I love working with authors, hearing amazing stories, and helping others have an impact on people. Robert Bell hoped to get his message out beyond Africa, but he didn't expect to give a talk that's been watched more than 2 million times around the world. You really don't know what can happen when you put the time, energy and resources into sharing your story and expertise with the world. But if you write a book that is focused on a reader who needs your message, you identify that hook. Remember that outcome of the outcome that's going to help your reader. You plan your book and you get the right people to support you, whether you're publishing it yourself with a hybrid or through a book deal. And then you put the energy and effort into marketing and using the book in your life and business every day. When you do that, I am certain you'll be delighted by what's to come. What I know for sure is that a book will never have an impact on anyone's life while it sits in someone's head or on their computer. So you need to get that book out and done for it to impact you and your reader. The missing piece is always action. So take your workbook and take your next step. I'm wishing you so much success and impact.