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Surprising Truths About Book Publishing
I have co-authored or ghostwritten nine books, one of which was a national bestseller (Killing Sacred Cows, affiliate link).
Publishing a non-fiction book can be one of the most powerful marketing strategies for entrepreneurs.
However, I often encounter misconceptions about the publishing world, and my insight and advice can be disappointing.
There’s a pervading myth that simply publishing a book, on its own merits, is enough to bring fame and fortune to any author.
The truth is that extremely few non-fiction authors make much money from their book alone.
Publishing a book and getting nationwide distribution is an exorbitantly, and in most cases prohibitively, expensive process. It’s time and energy intensive, and will take massive amounts of resources.
In fact, non-fiction authors who do bestseller campaigns will spend anywhere from $400,000 to $800,000 before they even break even with book sales (anywhere from 100,000 to 250,000 copies sold).
Your options are either to self-publish, in which case you will most likely not have access to nationwide retail distribution, or to do a bestseller campaign with a solid publisher, publicist, PR firm, etc., in which case you’ll need hundreds of thousands of expendable dollars.
So if it’s that difficult and expensive, what’s the point of publishing a book anyway?
There are three main reasons to write and publish a non-fiction book, and to make money certainly isn’t one of them. The three reasons are to market your business, gain credibility, and have impact.
Reason #1: Marketing
Unless you have a baseline business platform, other than your book idea, to drive traffic to, there’s very little point in publishing a non-fiction book. You won’t make any money and it won’t be worth the effort.
The successful non-fiction authors are those who understand that their book is nothing more than a marketing tool to drive traffic to their business, and who exploit this knowledge effectively.
For example, Stephen Covey’s books drive traffic to Franklin Covey, T. Harv Eker has Peak Potentials Training, Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen’s book The One Minute Millionaire markets the Enlightened Wealth Institute, Killing Sacred Cows by Garrett Gunderson and myself leads to the Freedom FastTrack process, marketing guru Seth Godin built Squidoo, Ken Blanchard’s company is a global leader in workplace learning and productivity, just to name a few.
The real money to be made from publishing a book doesn’t come from the book itself; it comes from the business that the book is designed to market.
So what does this mean for you?
You should spend far more time and effort developing a legitimate business, rather than writing a book.
Besides, you don’t even need to write the dang thing yourself — that’s what we’re for. Your time is much better spent focusing on your business, products, and services.
This approach will ultimately result in far more dollars to you than trying to make money from book sales alone.
Reason #2: Credibility
In the Information Age, your audience is drowning in information. They’re constantly bombarded with television, radio, books, advertising, Internet, blogs, music, etc.
So why should they listen to you, especially when there may be countless competing factors sending them conflicting messages?
When faced with information overload, people listen to and buy from those they deem to be credible.
Why are quotes so powerful? It’s not because of what is said in a quote that makes it relevant and important to you — it’s because of the credibility of the person saying it.
When you hear the words, “Be the change you want to see in the world,” the quote sticks with and impacts you not because of the actual words, but because you know they came from Gandhi, a man who earned ultimate credibility on the subject of changing the world. Your neighbor could say the same thing, but unless he has credibility on that subject, the words will impact you far less and you will quickly forget them.
The phrase “Imagination is more important than knowledge” could be seen as nothing but a trite adage, but coming from the mind and mouth of Albert Einstein, it carries substantial weight and meaning.
Credibility is a precious commodity in the business world, and it’s one that, once gained, will dramatically increase your bottom line.
Being a published author gives you instant credibility.
Imagine being at a party and meeting three new people. Suppose the first two people you meet are incredible businessmen (or women), and the third is actually far less accomplished than the first two.
But if you learn that the third is a published author, suddenly you pay more attention and give more weight to their words. And the chances are high that the published author, despite any of their other accomplishments, is the one that you will remember months later.
Reason #3: Impact
You may be passionate or extremely knowledgeable about a particular topic and feel inspired to get a book out.
A book is an excellent way to impact the world for good. A book is a compact, portable, and convenient message-spreader.
However, understand that unless you have a core business to market, you’re not going to get rich from your book. In this case, you’ll probably want to self-publish and build a marketing platform using the principles of Hub Mentality.
Conclusion
If you are thinking about writing a non-fiction book, you must first understand that publishing a book is not a good way to make money in and of itself.
You absolutely must develop a world-class business that the book is deliberately designed to market, and it’s through increasing traffic to this business that you will make your real money.
And by gaining credibility, which comes from being a published author, the chances of getting people to consistently buy from your business are considerably greater.
In other words, what you need isn’t a good idea for a book, but rather, a good business to market.
*****************************
Stephen Palmer is a marketing consultant and persuasive writer with KGaps Consulting, a co-founder of The Center for Social Leadership, and the New York Times best-selling co-author of Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity.
He is a liberal-arts graduate of George Wythe University and a graduate of the “non-traditional business school” Wizard Academy.
Stephen resides in Round Rock, Texas with his gorgeous wife Karina, awesome son Alex, and princess daughters Libby, Avery, and Laela. Stephen and Karina blog about their magical life on Palmer Journeys.
Connect With Stephen:
Email: spalmer [at] kgaps [dot] com
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