In 2015 I was exposed to a term that I had never heard before. It is called Entrepreneurial Publishing. I attended a free weekend Publishing Boot Camp sponsored by Gerry Robert through his Publish A Book and Grow Rich program. We met Friday evening and all day Saturday and Sunday.
Like most events of this type they want you to buy something very expensive. Unlike most they offered you a complete training package over the weekend. The concepts explored were phenomenal.
Most of us have at one time or another thought about writing a book and getting it published. But there are two types of books to consider. One is a Passion book, the other is a Profit book. The Passion book is that burning desire that can only be fulfilled by writing the book. Typically, once the book is written we either Self Publish, Vanity Publish or get our agent to find a Publishing house that wants to publish our book. I differentiate here between Self publishing and Vanity publishing because a Vanity Press company usually prints your book on demand and keeps most of the money. You get the benefit of saying your a published author and for some of us, that is enough. Self publishing is taking on the responsibility for your book and keeping the price down so that you can make a profit by selling the book. On the other hand, good luck finding a publishing house that wants to pay you to publish your first book.
Profit publishing is different. The goal is to write a book that will get you in front of the people you want to do business with. It is called Entrepreneurial Publishing because you should be in business. For example, if you are in Sales, who is your ideal customer? (Office Equipment = office managers, Real Estate = home buyers and renters who pay enough to buy)
By writing a non-fiction book on any topic, you’re making a statement that you are an expert and once you publish it, there are those who will believe you. In order to capitalize on your new found expertise you would want to make copies of your book available to those ideal customers. There are many ways to do that including giving the books away for free. It is possible to get the book published for less than $2.00 each if you purchase 2,000 books or more. There are many book printers that will take your camera ready book and print it for you inexpensively. If you find one locally, you can even save on shipping charges.
If you are comfortable as a speaker you can also promote your book and your business through speaking engagements, being an expert source for the media and by hosting seminars. The true value of your book is your ability to use it to greatly increase your exposure to potential customers. If done properly, you should be able to easily double your sales in less than a year.
I wrote my passion book in 2000. By 2004 I had sold over 2,000 copies but wanted it to be available to a greater audience so I turned it into an e-workbook and gave it away. I sold the book at speaking events and conferences where I didn’t get paid to offset my expenses. I lost interest in publishing the other books I have within because I wasn’t satisfied with the results from my first book.
Now that I understand about entrepreneurial publishing I will be publishing three books by the end of 2015 and another three in 2016 and really don’t care how many of them I sell. I am also in the process of branding myself as a speaker / author / trainer / consultant through my www.ConradBrianLaw.com site. That will be another post on Branding Your Business by Being Your Brand.