14 More Tips for Publishing Your First Business Book

Thanks to self-publishing platforms like Amazon, anyone with a great idea can create, publish and sell their very own book. But aspiring authors be warned: Just because it’s easy to publish a book doesn’t mean writing and marketing it has become any simpler. You still need excellent writing skills and a thorough plan to make sure your book is well-read and well-received. If you’re working on publishing your first book, follow this advice from Young Entrepreneur Council members to make sure it’s a success.

“What advice do you have for small business owners who are working on publishing their first book?”

Tips for Publishing Your First Book

1. Get Very Clear On Why You’re Doing It

“Books are generally not a money-making endeavor. You want to write a book because either it’s a credibility-building tool you want to use as a calling card to get you in the door or to upsell if you’re a speaker, coach or consultant. You may have an idea which you want to share to help the world and not for the sake of monetary gain.” ~ Darrah Brustein, darrah.co

2. Write the Marketing Plan First

“Write a book’s marketing plan before the book. Why? A plan provides clarity on who will buy the book, which provides clarity on who to write the book for. That’s big. A plan also forces an author to get real with the financial realities of writing a book. What are the costs to produce the book, and what’s the expected return? A plan raises questions and prepares an author for the journey ahead.” ~ Brett Farmiloe, Markitors Website Development

3. Start Building Your Credibility Now

“Whether you’ve started outlining the first chapter or you’re getting ready to turn in the final copy of your book to your publisher, start generating visibility for your name now because it’ll be easier to generate awareness when the book launches. Contribute articles to online magazines and blogs, pitch yourself for interviews and publish your own blog.” ~ Kristin Marquet, Creative Development Agency, LLC

4. Use a Publishing Service to Help You

“Using a service like CreateSpace can help expedite and facilitate many of the processes of writing a book. You can upload a word doc to their site, select the size, style and details about the book, and then you can get an idea of what the book will look like before it’s published. From there you can order a proof to review/edit, and in 48 hours you can have a book available.” ~ Marcela De Vivo, Mulligan Funding

5. Build an Email List for Bonus Content

“Writing a book is a great way to build authority in your niche. However, it’s difficult to sell from a book compared to email. As you map out your book, you need to focus on creating bonus content that can only be obtained by joining your email list. For example, I wrote a free book and as part of the content, I promoted a personality quiz that once completed would get them into my sales funnel.” ~ Bryan Kesler, CPA Exam Guide

6. Treat It Like Any Other Team Project

“People over-romanticize the idea of book writing. I used to think it meant I needed to disappear into the woods until I had a complete manuscript. Then, I would emerge back into the world with my masterpiece. An alternative approach that helped us produce our first book was to treat book writing as a team effort just like any other team project. We built divided up the tasks and went to work.” ~ Tom Krieglstein, Swift Kick

7. Start Small, Then Go Big

“I recommend writing and publishing something manageable and small rather than writing a large tome. The most important part of publishing your first book is to actually publish it to demystify the process and learn a lot about yourself. If you go big you will end up delaying publishing the book, if you publish it all. Write and publish something small then go big with your newfound expertise.” ~ Eric Mathews, Start Co.

8. Self-Publish

“Don’t have visions of getting a huge publishing contract. Instead, start small and affordable with a self-published book where you can control distribution and grow your readership over time. It was a much more empowering experience and put me more in control of what I wanted to get out there in the book.” ~ John Rampton, Calendar

9. Talk to Publishers

“It’s a good idea to do a little bit of networking and try to spark a conversation with a publisher. You can learn more about what criteria they look for in the books that they take on and publish and what will help you to get there as well. Also, a little secret from pros: Do a private presale through your own marketing channel then take those numbers to the publisher.” ~ Nicole Munoz, Start Ranking Now

10. Invest in a Professional Editor

“If you plan on self-publishing your first book, a professional editor is almost certainly worth the money. A decent editor will help you clarify your ideas and their expression, remove unnecessary verbiage and clean up the typos and grammar mistakes that even the best writers make.” ~ Vik Patel, Future Hosting

11. Read Every Book in the Industry

“I read 50 books in my industry before I started writing my book. I wanted to bridge the gap between the information out there and what my audience wanted to hear. If I didn’t do my research I wouldn’t have been able to write a book in the first place. Read books and then write. It makes a world of difference.” ~ Sweta Patel, Silicon Valley Startup Marketing

12. Get Ideas From Customers

“Your customers, website visitors, followers on social media and anyone else you talk to can provide valuable insights into the kind of content to include in your book. If you’re writing a book to build authority, it’s important to cover topics that your audience really cares about. Take the time to ask questions and find out what people want to learn about and how you can provide answers.” ~ Shawn Porat, Scorely

13. Share Your Passion

“Rising above the noise when attempting to write and market your book is very challenging for a new author. With self-publishing, everyone is in the business of selling books. One of the biggest hurdles you will face will be to get your name out. To do this, you have to write a great book and to do so, you have to be honest. Write about what makes you passionate, this will get you noticed.” ~ Diego Orjuela, Cables & Sensors

14. Make It ‘You’

“There are so many books out in the world, make sure that yours is unique to who you are. If you try to be like everyone else, it will simply get lost in the mix.” ~ Abhilash Patel, Abhilash.co

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This article, "14 More Tips for Publishing Your First Business Book" was first published on Small Business Trends