The road to getting your book published is a long one, but the rewards are immense. As a published author, your thoughts and your story are out there for people to read and learn from. However, credibility in your field and selling your book through different outlets like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Books-A-Million is just the start of your author business.
Growing Your Business With Your Book
Publishing your first book lends you credibility in your field as an expert in what you do and it also gives you name and brand recognition. Having your name out there in business circles will draw more business to you. If you run your own consulting business, having people recognize your name and business through your book will draw more potential clients towards you. Even if a person or business may not need your services, word of mouth in business circles travels, and having that recognition as the expert in a field will generate more business for you.
When you are seen as an expert in your field or industry, people may ask to pick your brain or seek your opinion on relevant issues. These engagements may start small, in the form of seminars or one-off classes to teach interested people, but it can quickly grow into more speaking engagements. These could be speaking to a conference table full of people, to speaking onstage to a crowd of hundreds eagerly wanting to hear from you. At these speaking engagements, you can promote and market your book. If your hosts are paying you to speak, you could even negotiate that they buy a number of books (as part of your speaking fee) to distribute to the guests in the audience…
As an expert, people will want to listen to what you have to say and learn from you and your story. This was the case for Publish Your Purpose (PYP) founder and CEO, Jenn T. Grace. Once she self-published her fourth book, people began to ask her how she did it. They wanted to know the process for her and how they could do the same… Coffee dates grew into a small weekly web seminar that outlined the publishing process. Over time, it grew into what is now called Getting Started for Authors.
You and Your Business Can Take Unexpected Turns
For Jenn, she was working as a consultant and it wasn’t until she published her fourth book and created the Getting Started for Authors program that she considered starting her own publishing house. That was the birth of PYP. Being a published author can take you down roads you never would have even considered at the start of writing your book. For example, if you are involved in your local chamber of commerce, an opportunity may arise to join the board of directors or to help lead the chamber.
As word of your book and your business spreads, there may be opportunities to speak at business events or appear as a podcast guest for an episode. A magazine or an online blog might approach you and ask if they could feature you and your book in their next edition. The further your name travels, the more opportunities will come. One opportunity can lead to another and your business can expand.
Whether it be speaking at an event or on a podcast, the opportunities are there if you market yourself, your business, and your book. After publishing your book, the more you market yourself on different platforms, the more exposure you get with potential clients. By marketing yourself as a published author, and making people aware of your book, you can leverage your clout to become a respected thought leader in your field.
