5 ways to leverage your book to grow your business
By Jessica Brown
“A book isn’t just a book; it can become so much more if you want it to be.”
I love this quote from one of our clients Sarah Alex Carter, who launched her first self-help book, Upward: The Power of Looking Up, last year. Once Sarah embarked on her author journey, her expectation was that she would write the book, publish the book, job done. However, pressing ‘publish’ turned out to just be the start. Like many non-fiction authors, she found that being a published author opened doors and offered opportunities she had never considered before.
In this article, I’ll explain how your book can be the key to levelling up in your industry, as well as sharing some of the ways you can use your book to raise your professional profile and grow your business.
The power of the book
There’s something about a book that gives you almost-instant credibility. It automatically puts you in ‘subject-matter expert’ territory and even though you may have been sharing the same knowledge online - in blogs, vlogs and social media content - when it’s in print, rightly or wrongly, people start taking you more seriously.
Publishing a book and adding ‘author’ to your professional bio can be the start of a whole new chapter in your life and business, but it’s important to understand how to harness the power of your book and new-found author status to help build your brand. Effectively promoting your book on social media is an important factor but to get the truly game-changing results, it’s going to take something (or likely a few things) more.
It’s not all about the book sales
Contrary to popular belief, people rarely get rich from book sales alone. It’s not completely beyond the realms of possibility but you have to sell a hell of a lot of books to make a real impact on your bank balance. That’s not to say that your book can’t make a big difference to your business and revenue in other ways. The ROI can be massive but it relies on using your book to build your brand and leveraging it effectively to maximise your visibility and elevate your profile.
The following list of ideas is by no means exhaustive and some ideas might not appeal to you and that’s okay. Play to your strengths and consider what feels most aligned to you and your brand.
Here we go…
Create a course: turning your book into a course can be a great way to repurpose your content, create another revenue stream and attract more clients into your world (not everyone is a book person!). What’s more, if your book has done its job, it will leave your readers wanting more from you and a course can be the perfect follow-on for book fans who want to dive a bit deeper and engage with your message on a more hands-on level.
Podcast interviews: having a book to your name makes you a much more attractive prospect when it comes to pitching for higher-profile podcasts. The beauty of being a podcast guest is that is allows you exponentially expand your reach. Depending on how popular the podcast is, you could literally be in the spotlight of thousands. Even if it’s just for 20 minutes, that can be enough to pique people’s interest and get them to follow you. Podcasts are also a great opportunity to promote your book to a captive audience!
Magazine articles/columns: if your book sparked a passion for writing, could you be the perfect person to write a column for a magazine in your industry? Has your book given you an idea for an article or piece of thought leadership you know would fit brilliantly in a particular publication? If you’re not so keen on writing but would like to be featured in the press, journalists are often on the lookout for experts to provide quotes and be case studies for their stories. Follow #journorequest on Twitter and LinkedIn, sign up for HARO emails and join Facebook groups like Amy Merrywest’s ‘Pitch & Shout’, which gives you the opportunity to pitch directly to journalists from some of the UK’s top media publications.
Speaking opportunities: do you see yourself as the next Gabby Bernstein or Mel Robbins, on stage, inspiring others with your motivational speeches and words of wisdom? (Funnily enough, both of these powerhouse women’s speaking careers started with a book!) Would the key concept of your book make a killer key-note speech? Could you provide value to groups and organisations, take part in summits or even give a TedX Talk? Stretching your public-speaking muscles allows you to be, quite literally, the voice of authority on your subject. Not only does it allow you to raise your profile and reach more people, paid speaking gigs can be a lucrative addition to your business portfolio.
Collaborations: professional collaborations can be a hugely powerful way to expand your network, tap into wider audiences and build valuable relationships. Could you be the resident expert in someone else’s membership or course? Could you team up with other aligned businesses and offer a copy of your book as a prize to expand your reach and following on social media? Could you join forces with other entrepreneurs to host events, run retreats or lead a workshop based on a principle from your book? Although collaborations may not provide an immediate monetary gain, the longer-term return on investment can be huge, both professionally and personally.
Over to you!
While some of these opportunities may land on your doorstep (or in your DMs!) - if you’re lucky - to really capitalise on the potential of your book, you are going to have to be proactive about your PR strategy. If you’re looking for some help on perfecting your pitch and nailing your visibility plan, Hype Yourself by Lucy Werner and PR School by Natalie Trice are two fantastic books to get you started.
If you’re currently writing your book, now is a great time to start thinking about how your book fits into your long-term business plans, so that you can start putting the wheels in motion and really hit the ground running in the build-up to launch day and beyond. However, it’s never too late to harness the potential of your book, so if you have already published but haven’t seen the results you were hoping for, why not revisit your strategy and see where it could take you?