If you’re like most people, you probably have a dream of writing and publishing book someday. Well, if you’re an entrepreneur “someday” is a lot closer than you think thanks to a rise in self-publishing.
According to Publishing Weekly, self-published ebooks now account for 31 percent of ebook sales on the Amazon Kindle store. Many of the bestsellers are also self-published with traditionally published books only making up 16 percent of the bestsellers list.
As one can see, there’s definitely an opportunity in self-publishing. However, the opportunity goes far beyond book sales. In fact, I’d venture to say entrepreneurs should strive to self-publish a book as soon as possible. Below you’ll find just a few reasons why.
Publishing a book gives you instant credibility.
Writing and publishing give you almost instantaneous credibility in your field. When I self-published my own book back in 2014 I was catapulted into expert status overnight. I went from being a writer who covered general self-help topics, to a sought after expert in finance and entrepreneurship.
There is something about writing a book that makes people take you more seriously. Perhaps it’s the fact that you actually followed through and wrote a book. Or, maybe it’s that you have enough knowledge in a subject area to write an entire book. Whatever the reasoning may be, use it to your advantage.
Self-publishing is very cost-effective.
If you’ve ever tried to get your first book deal you may have realized it’s a lot harder to get a good deal. Royalties aren’t great and you have more publishing houses pushing contractual pre-sales and having authors buy back some books. Copyright law and intellectual property are also a big point of contention in the publishing industry. Additionally, for most first-time authors the marketing is all on them.
These are just a few of the financial reasons why so many entrepreneurs have chosen the self-publishing route. If you do the proper research, editing and cover design don’t have to cost that much. Additionally, thanks to services like Amazon’s CreateSpace, which prints books on demand, there’s no longer a need to buy a bunch of inventory in the hopes of selling books. Lastly, book royalties are often higher for self-published books.
It’s easier to sell a physical product later.
Let’s say you want to get a traditional book deal later on down the road as a part of your overall business plan. It’s a lot easier to sell a book when you’ve already got a physical copy in your hand. I’m in this process as we speak and when I asked if I’d have to write a formal proposal the publisher responded with “There’s no need. Just send us a copy of your book.”
Additionally, if you worked your book launch right, it will also be much easier to sell a book to a traditional publisher if you’ve already experienced success as a self-published author. Essentially, you bring more value to the table because your book has already experienced success and has a following.
A great example of this is Danielle LaPorte’s The Desire Map. She initially self-published the book and was able to sell it to Sounds True later.
A book is a great marketing tool.
Imagine going to a networking event and handing out books instead of business cards. You essentially give people an opportunity to gain value from your work off-the-bat.
Of course, you don’t have to give away books for free, you can also sell them at events. If you do any speaking engagements books are a great product to sell at the back table.
Final Thoughts
Given these reasons, it should be of no surprise that so many entrepreneurs and bloggers have decided to self-publish their books. Self-publishing a book not only leads to monetary benefits, it also opens the door for more opportunity down the road.
