Should I Write A Book?

Should you or should you not write a book? That is the question!

If you pose this question to ten different marketing coaches, half will say you need to write a book and the other half will say you don’t need a book.

So, the question remains—do you need to write a book, and will it help your business in any way, shape, or form? And the answer is yes and no. The reason I say that is because there’s not a pat answer for everybody.

To those people that think that everyone should have a book, the bottom line is that they are absolutely wrong in that thinking. Many people can’t use a book so there is no reason for them to write one. The value of writing a book depends upon your industry and what you’re attempting to do with the book.

I have a lot of students coming to me saying they heard from somebody that they must have a book. My first question to them is always the same, “What are you going to do with it?” Their reply usually is, “I’m going to drive it to be number one of Amazon.” Then they continue to tell me they’ve seen other people do it. They tell me how “so and so” did this big promotion and drove their book to number one. They’re really excited when they tell me about it.

Well…I actually know a lot of these people, and I know the behind-the-scenes numbers of what they achieved. And I also know what the end result was for them as far as how it impacted their business. Most of the time what people think happened is very different from what actually happened.

Let’s talk about hitting number one on Amazon best seller lists for bragging rights. These people think they’ll feel better about themselves if they make the number one list. They feel other people will have more respect for them if they are number one on the list. If that’s your goal you could hit it…of course, on the other hand you may not.

Why do you want to say you’re a number one best seller? Do you think that that’s actually going to get more people to do business with you? In reality, probably not.

A lot of gurus will tell you to try to be a number one best seller in the most obscure category that you can find on Amazon. So, they take their business book and move it to careers and in plumbing and a subsection of plumbing, like fixing toilets. And pretty much anyone can easily hit number one in an obscure category like that.

That’s great, I’m happy for them…but their business has nothing to do with plumbing or toilets. So that is not going to help them grow their business. It’s just going to give them the ability to say, “Hey, I’m a number one best seller on Amazon.” It does not do you or your business any good. If no one reads your book, what good is it?

Malcolm Gladwell is a great example of why to write a book and succeed. The reason he does so well with every book that he launches is because of the content of his books. If you do decide to write a book, you need to start with great content that will enable the book to survive on its own without any kind of promotion behind it. That’s my golden rule.

There are ways to use a book, in your marketing, other than trying to hit as a number one best seller on Amazon in some kind of crazy category. Or, worse yet, paying someone a lot of money in order to try to make you the number one bestseller in some crazy category.

So, how do you use a book? Well, you can use it as a lead generator, right? That’s a simple technique. It’s a simple strategy. You’ve seen a ton of people doing this. The way it works is you put up a page and give the book away for free or in exchange for shipping and handling.

Let’s say that your book’s print cost is three or four dollars. If the purchaser lives in the United States, you charge $7.95 in order to ship them the book. If they live outside the US or outside of your country, you might have to charge as much as $19 in order to cover your costs to ship the book internationally.

But now, you have a lead. The question now is, “what do you do with that lead?” Well, immediately after them purchasing or ordering your book, you make an offer to sell them something.

For example, in my original, Success Leaves Traces, marketing campaign, I gave my book, Success Leaves Traces away for free. I charged $7.95 shipping and handling in the U.S. and $19.95 shipping and handling for international sales.

But when you ordered the book, I gave a one-time offer for training I did based on the book. The book is about how to change your thought process and mindset. It covers how I went from literally living in a house worth $3,000 growing up and now live in a 17,500 square foot house that’s worth millions.

I had to change a lot of my mindset in order to make that happen. My book is all about how I did that and how I’ve done some other extraordinary things in my life. It explains how I changed the way that I thought in order to achieve the things I have.

After you ordered the book, I made a one-time offer for a training at a 50% discount. This training taught you all the steps in the book.

I use the book as a lead generator and gave it away for free. Yes, I did charge for shipping and handling which basically covers my cost. I now have a lead who is interested in this type of information. Even if they don’t purchase the upsell, I basically have a qualified lead for free.

If you have a scenario similar to this, where you can write book that’s totally in step with your product, it makes sense for you to have a book.

There are a lot of other people doing this scenario with slight variations. My method is a little different than everybody else’s. I think many of them are making a mistake—they have a book on one subject and then they are trying to sell training on something entirely different. It doesn’t make sense.

You see, the reason why my book strategy actually works is because my book is on the subject of success. And the training is actually the expanded contents of my book. So, it falls right in line. It’s just natural. It’s a natural progression.

Let’s get back to the question, “Should you write a book?

Well, it really depends upon what you’re going to do with that book. If you’re going to try to be number one or do a selling strategy in order to say I’m number one, I don’t think it’s a good idea. What is it really going to do for you? Probably nothing. Quite honestly, it might make you feel good, but it’s not a real best seller launch.

The question that I have at the end of the day is how many books did you actually sell? And if the answer is, well, I only sold 40, is it really a best seller with 40 books? In some obscure niches you may be able to be a number one best seller with less that 40 books sold.

To be a real best seller that actually means something, statistics show you need to sell between 5,000 to 7,000 books. It takes a big niche to move that many books. Forty books may make you a best seller in the toilet repair niche (which has nothing to do with what you actually do).

That’s my beef with these Amazon best seller campaigns. It’s not real; it’s fake.

Writing a book as a lead generator, now that’s marketing! Not only can you use it to promote related products, but you can also use it to get on other people’s stages. You can send your book to promoters and say, “I want to speak on your stage on this topic. I’m the expert on it, I wrote the book on it!” Or you can send it to corporate human resources departments if you want to speak for conventions and events and things of that nature.

There are a lot of great things that you can do with the book without having to go through a so-called best seller campaign. You can give it away, for example, as upsells, bonuses and things of that nature.

If you decide you are going to write a book then the question, I’m going to have you answer is, why are you writing a book? And if you have a good answer and you’re happy with your answer, then go for it.

But again, I want to emphasize one thing for you, and that is make sure that you have great content in that book, because if your books sucks, then you just lost all credibility with your audience, and that book will do more harm than good.

I’ve seen a lot of really, really bad books. It’s hard for me to tell someone that after they’ve spent their time, their effort, and their energy, that their book sucks, but great content/products are the key to longevity in business.

So, if you decide to write a book, make it a great one!