I have a great new business idea for you. Why don’t you write your own book?
A friend of mine, who is the CEO of a highly respected regional ad agency, was fuming. He had to sit through a branding workshop because one of his clients insisted on his presence. Plus, he knew he needed to hear what his client was hearing so he wouldn’t be caught off guard by some enthusiastic idea generated by the workshop speaker.
What he and his client heard was nothing new. No great revelations on branding. Certainly nothing that he had not been telling the client what needed to be done.
The only difference was the person leading the workshop had written a book on branding! The book positioned the speaker as being an expert in the mind of the client. You’ve probably had a similar experience.
Think about the benefits of writing a book. Authoring a book could positively position you and your agency in the minds of your target audience as being an expert in your field. Not to mention the speaking and additional writing opportunities that also puts you in front of prospective clients.
Linda Kaplan Thayer, the CEO of Kaplan Thayler Group, wrote a book, The Power of Nice, that put her agency, on the map. Linda has been featured on The Martha Stewart Show, Nightline, The Today Show, Inside Edition and Fox News to name just a few. There is also the Power of Nice website and Nice Blog.
THE POWER OF NICE
Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval have moved to the top of the advertising industry by following a simple but powerful philosophy: It pays to be nice.
Not bad a bad way to promote your ad agency is it.
Why not kill two birds with one stone. Outline a book and then use it to write your agency’s blog. Not only will you have a book at the end of the process but as you write, you will have material to use for your agency’s blog posts, EzineArticles and Enewsletters. Reusing this material will take only minutes to use in other online and offline forms of communication.
Below is the information for a simple way to write your book that will pay immediate dividens for your agency.
WordPress.com provides an easy way to transform a blog site into a book. Instead of writing blog posts you can actually have the book cover, index of contents and chapters. Blogs are normally written in reverse chronological order but through WordPress you can set your blog up so that you can write by chapters.
Here’s how … How to write a book through your WordPress Blog
Great article, thanks for an informative and engaging post! (I saw the link on twitter.)
Lisa, thanks for the kind comment. I look forward to reading your posts on Twitter!
Interesting. I didn’t know WP had that functionality.
Great idea.
Hi, Michael —
I follow you on Twitter and have been checking in on your blog for quite some time.
Great advice about writing a book. Writing a book is a big task, to be sure, but if you can get through it, it’s worth the time and effort.
There are a few options your readers might be interested in pursuing:
1) Writing an eBook and uploading it to your blog. This is what my friend Toby Bloomberg did with her book.
2) Writing a book, self-publishing it and distributing it through Amazon. This is what Erik Wolfe and Stephanie Frost did with their book entitled “Marketing Unmasked.”
3) Publishing a book via a mainstream publisher. This is always a challenge, but if you can get a publisher to take you on, it’s worth the trouble. I’ve been fortunate to have Financial Times Press agree to publish my book this fall. It’s called “How to Make Money with Social Media.”
Keep up the great posts. They’re always fun and useful.
P.S. If your readers want to download a free chapter from “How to Make Money with Social Media” they can do so here:
http://www.60SecondMarketer.com/FreeChapter
See you,
Jamie Turner
The 60 Second Marketer
Jamie,
My apologies for having overlooked your comment.
Great information. Thank you for taking the time to share it and also for the link.
Congratulations on the book deal. I look forward to reading it.
No worries, Michael. You’re a busy man and a prolific blogger, so it’s completely understandable.
Keep up the excellent work!
Best,
Jamie Turner
The 60 Second Marketer
Looking forward to following U!