Options for your thought leadership
You are a consultant with solid thought leadership. Maybe you are ready to hit the speakers’ circuit, or you have been invited to write a column for a trade journal or a blog. How do you take yourself to the next level? A past president of the National Speakers Association claims that many NSA speakers make more money selling books than they earn from speaking fees.
A book’s ROI can be earned in other ways, too. You can use the book as a three-dimensional mailer to key prospects. Gatekeepers don’t want to throw away three-dimensional mailers, especially if it’s an autographed book.
Book publishing is changing with more options available to build your thought leadership. Aside from established commercial publishers, self-publishing (as an e-book, a printed book, or both) is available using publishing service firms such as Wheatmark in Tucson or Mill City Press in Minneapolis. You can test the water by creating an e-book. If that succeeds, you can proceed to a printed edition. You can offer chapter topics on your website and have prospects sign-in for downloads. Then you can sell both the e-book and the printed book on your website, and still sell it on Amazon. And it’s not unheard-of for a New York publisher to pick up a successful self-published book.
Roger S. Peterson
West Coast Editor
The Business Book Ghostwriters
