Let’s talk about why you shouldn’t write a book. First and foremost, let me talk about my experience and why I wanted to write a book in the first place.
My book “The 7 laws of direct marketing”
So, I wrote a book about marketing. The name of the book is “The 7 laws of direct marketing”. And the reason why I decided to write that book is because number 1: I thought it would be fun, number 2: I thought it would make me money and number 3: I thought it would position me as an expert.
What happened?
It wasn’t fun.
Because it was a lot of work, it took way longer than expected, it was quite stressful. I remember sitting there, having all those pages and having to edit everything, dealing with proofreading and everything just got delayed and delayed and delayed… And it distracted me, because during that time, when I was working on the book, I was so stressed and so focused on getting that book published that I neglected other important areas in my business. As a result, I made less money. Because instead of focusing on stuff that made money, I was focused on publishing my own book.
Did it make me money?
It didn’t. I sold my book for 11,78 pounds. Now I sold a couple hundred copies of this book, so I made some money. But the expenses that went into this book were way higher than that. I had to hire a cover designer, I had to hire someone to do the interior design, the type setting, the actual lay-out of the book, I then had to hire a proof reader to proofread everything and to make sure that everything’s edited properly. Then I had to pay a publishing platform money, to publish the book. So, in the end I wasted more money on this book than I made. So, financially It doesn’t make sense to publish a book. Look, nobody makes money from selling books, not even the big guys. The big guys are using books for positioning, for branding. Even if you sell hundreds of thousands of your books, you’re not going to get rich, because your margins are so low. So, forget about the idea of publishing a book to make money.
I thought it would position me as an expert.
Now, that didn’t happen. My friends we’re proud that I was an “author”, my parents as well, but everyone else didn’t really care. The market didn’t care, my potential clients didn’t care and I didn’t get more business or more clients or more exposure or anything like that as a result of publishing this book.
So, all my expectations, everything I thought would happen as a result of publishing this book, didn’t happen. It just cost me money, it just took my focus, energy and time and put it somewhere where it shouldn’t have been and it didn’t position me as an authority in the marketplace.
What would I do differently?
- I would not publish a book, instead I would launch a high-ticket coaching program right away. Why? Because it’s not very time intensive. Launching a high-ticket coaching program takes less time than writing a book. It can be done very fast, it can be done in as little as 30 days or even less than that. You can start marketing it in 2 weeks and get it of the ground fast.
- Your margins are very high if you’re selling something for $2.000 or more. You’re going to make actual money. If you sell 100 high-ticket coaching programs, you’re going to make good money. If you sell 100 copies of a book, you’re not going to make any money. So, better to focus your efforts, your energy, everything you do on selling high margin coaching programs instead of cheap information products. Also, for positioning, high-ticket offers, coaching programs are way better because you get to work with people, you can help them, you can get testimonials and people will get to know you and because you’re charging a lot, that will help build your authority and position you in the market place as an expert. That’s what I would do if I could go back in time.
Don’t write a book when you’re starting out
I wouldn’t recommend writing a book if you’re starting out. Here’s the deal: go launch a high-ticket coaching program or an online course, get that to high six figures, 7 figures, build a big audience and then by all means as the icing on the cake, go and launch a book. At that point, it’s fun and it makes sense. But when you’re starting out, it’s stupid. So, if you’ve been thinking of writing a book as an expert, coach, consultant and to somehow have fun with that, thinking it’s a pleasurable experience or to make money or as a positioning tool… Stop. Do not do that.
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