5 Reasons Why You Should Write a Book of Authority
If you are a business coach, a nutritionist, a personal trainer, a physiotherapist or any other kind of professional, writing your own book establishes you as an expert. Did you know that less than 2% of people that say they want to write a book, actually write a book? It isn’t difficult to write a book of authority, and use it as a segue to multiple revenue streams. Shouldn’t you be one of the 2% that actually writes a book?
There are many things that you can do to leverage your expertise and a book will help you open the doors to plenty of different opportunities. Don’t just look at the profits from sales of your book, look beyond this horizon.
What Can A Book of Authority Do For You?
1, Gives You Credibility
The expertise that you offer in your book gives you instant credibility that sets you above others in your field. Because once you are a published author (even though you may have self-published your book), your expertise is acknowledged by your community of readers and professionals in related fields. To say your book is on Amazon has instant recognition. Some people may say books are dead, video is in, but Amazon is now investing in their own bookstores. There must be a market for books.
2. Acts As A Marketing Tool
If you are any kind of professional that holds workshops, the book can be part of the workshop that attendees receive when they attend the workshop. Or, your book can be used as a free “giveaway” to encourage people to sign up for the workshop.
3. Is Your Publicity Agent
It is easier to get press coverage when you are an author. Why? Because you have your unique slant, your own value proposition about a topic in your field. Reporters are always looking for stories and if you have put together a compelling book on a topic that is interesting and unique, you won’t have to bang down the doors to get heard, reporters will soon hear about you and approach you.
Yes, this is true, it happened to me. I wrote a book called “Fabulous Fempreneurship”, a complete business startup guide for women. I sent the business reporter of the local newspaper an invite to the book launch. My timing must have been perfect as the paper was writing a feature article on women in leadership. This lead to an interview and coverage of the book launch. You see, reporters are starving for information that isn’t readily out there. If you are the expert, not only can you give an interview, you can help them in their reporting by being their quasi researcher. After all, you did tons of research for your book.
4. Is Your Cold Call Door Opener
Yes, when you are approaching potential clients who don’t know you, the gatekeeper is the person at the front desk. They are the traffic cop for their busy executives. When you approach that front desk with just a business card, you are one of many people that come to the desk and just get turned away. Your business card barely makes it to the executive’s desk and is immediately flung in a drawer or in the trash.
Now, picture this. The front desk person delivers your book to the executive with a personal note from you “I hope you enjoy this book, I would like to call you in a couple of weeks to ask you what you thought of it”. The chances are that the executive will at least glance at your book in the next couple of weeks, because it’s just too big and too expensive to put in the trash. It’s a gift. Believe me, a person feels badly about throwing away something of value that has a personal note attached.
5. A Book Leads to Speaking Engagements
Yes, that’s right. Because even if you are not a household name to an event organizer, you are an author and that makes it easy for the event organizer to justify booking you over a fellow expert. You can solidify your speaking spot by offering to give attendees the book at a discount. If this is a large event, you could even offer to add the event logo to the cover as a special one off sponsoring opportunity.
Following in our series we will cover how to go about writing a non-fiction book, getting reviews, getting it edited and published and finally marketing the book.
Elaine Slatter is founder of Fabulous Fempreneurship, a community group empowering, inspiring and mentoring women entrepreneurs. She is also owner of XL Consulting Group, a boutique business advisory and marketing company in Burlington, Canada. Elaine is passionate about entrepreneurship and can be contacted here.