What Every Business Author Needs to Know

• December 17, 2019

For most business authors, the days of making a living on writing business books are long gone.

But a new era is here, and it still pays to keep publishing them.

Let me explain.

Over 70% of books don’t turn a profit on book sales alone anymore.

Just like selling music, the margins in individual book sales have become so low and finite that it isn’t a lucrative revenue model. Business books have become a marketing model.

The real ROI

The going rate for ghostwriting is around $7,000 per 50 pages, at 250 words a page. For a standard 250 page book, that’s $35,000.

$140 per page or $.56 per word! And That doesn’t cover the cost of marketing and inventory.

So, If you don’t have a marketing plan that will sell enough books to off-set those costs, you better be using them to promote the service that will.

Most authors and publishers are still marketing books like it’s the golden era of publishing in the 1980s. Business authors should use books as marketing tools and not rely on them for revenue only.

Every business author makes the lion share of their total revenue on their services:  consulting, speaking, training, etc. Yet, most authors promote their books as a separate sales and marketing process.

Separate marketing plan, separate sales funnel, separate audience. Instead, Business authors should use their books to promote their subject matter expertise in tandem with the service they make their living on.

The Reality:

Books are an increasingly low margin product.

Just think, you would have to sell 20,000 books to bring in the same revenue of a $20,000-month consulting retainer.

HERE IS THE SECRET that nobody wants to talk about.

YOU DON’T HAVE to make a killing on book sales to make a killing off of your book.

Mass marketing is over. Ultimately, you’re selling a niche service, not a book.

Don’t believe me?

Only 62 out of 1000 book titles sell more than 5,000 copies, so you can’t publish thinking book sales are the pot of gold.

Books are the rainbow that leads interested people to the pot of gold by ultimately purchasing the service you provide after proving you’re the leader in your domain of expertise.

For example;

REAL LIFE CASE STUDIES

Russel Brunson. ClickFunnels

I met Russel Brunson in 2008 at a mastermind event teaching internet marketing. Then around 2015, Brunson launched a book called DOTCOM Secrets to teach people how to be effective at digital marketing.

But he wasn’t selling his book!  He gave it away at cost. He still is (get it here). Why? Because he isn’t in the business of selling books. He is playing a bigger game.

So what is he really selling?

He’s the founder of a SaaS software for internet marketers called ClickFunnels.

He gives away his book at cost as a marketing strategy attracting as many people as possible who are interested in digital marketing to upsell them on his digital marketing software to implement what they want. Results.

By using his book as a marketing tool, he attracted a social media tribe of over 1 million entrepreneurs who do their own digital marketing.

He then upsold no less than 55,000 current active users to his SaaS software. His ClickFunnels Software company is now valued at over $360 million in top-line revenue.

Brunson’s personal net worth is $37 million today. By not worrying about making money on book sales but using his books to attract and teach an audience how to effectively use his software!

Grant Cardone. 10x

Cardone deployed the same model using his book to attract people searching for personal development and sales mastery.

When you sign up to get his free book, he upsells them into his Grant Cardone Sales Training University at a price tag of $10k per student.

His personal net worth is $300 million. While historically he made his money through real estate investing, today he is using his books to attract people into his business sales funnel.

John Lee Dumas:

Dumas promotes content to people searching for how to start a podcast.

He then offers them a $3.99 book to teach people how to launch and grow a podcast that comes with 15 video tutorials. That’s a lot of upfront value for next to nothing.

Why? To upsells his podcast training program. By using his book as a lead magnet, he netted $2 million for his sales training business in his second year in operations.

SUMMARY

If you’re in the services business. Writing and publishing a book can be the perfect way to attract the customers interested in your field and expertise.

By teaching them what you know, they gain your trust, and you become the person they refer others to for help when they need your services.

While there is little chance you will retire on book royalties any more, there is a very big incentive to launch one for your business.