Episode 40:
The Authorneer’s Edge:

Recap & Takeaways

• 01:40 Tip #1: Build thought leadership
• 02:42 Tip #2: Build your brand
• 03:26 Tip #3: Generate leads
• 04:22 Tip #4: Establish credibility and authority
• 06:18 Tip #5: Content marketing
• 04:54 Tip #6: Networking
• 07:13 Tip #7: Create training and education for your audience
• 07:48 Tip #8: Build an additional revenue stream & use it to generate other revenue streams
• 08:22 Tip #9: Attract media coverage
• 08:57 Tip #10: Get speaking engagements

Transcript for Episode 40: The Authorneer’s Edge: Leveraging Books as Strategic Business Assets

Hello, and welcome to episode 40 of The Author Switch, the podcast that is dedicated to helping you turn on. The Author Switch in your mind so that you can write the books that you were born to write. Today, my topic is the Authoneer’s Edge, leveraging books as strategic business assets. And I’m going to be talking about the top 10 ways that you can leverage your book to grow your business.

Now, before I get into today’s topic, I’m just going to give you a quick introduction to myself, just in case you are new to my world. My name is Carma Spence, and I have been an author for about 16 years now. I’ve been in marketing and PR for 30 years, and I’m also certified in author marketing. I have written five books on my own and contributed to numerous anthologies. Two of my books have made it to bestseller in at least three categories, and one of them has won three awards.

So let’s get down to the meat of the episode. The first way that you can use your book to as a business asset to grow your business is to use it to develop your thought leadership in your industry.

And so basically a book that helps establish you as a thought leader is obviously nonfiction. It can be a memoir, it can be a how to book, but basically what it does is showcase your expertise in a subject and in a unique way that others in the industry may not be talking about. In fact, probably are not talking about.

So an example of thought leadership books would be those written by Seth Godin. You know, like there’s the one about the purple cow and he and Gary Vee also tends to do thought leadership books. They talk, they talk about their topic of expertise, but in a way that’s unique to them and provides a new perspective or new insights.

The second way that you can leverage your book as a business asset is to build your brand. In fact, if you listen to last week’s podcast, which was all about building your author brand, I very specifically said that your book should be an expression of your brand.

So when you use your book to build your brand, what you’re doing is you’re using your book to express your brand. and communicate your brand’s values and vision to your audience. So, it communicates your values, your vision, your mission, and it does so to your target market. So books are excellent at helping build out your brand.

Another way to leverage your book as a business asset, and this is number three, is use it to generate leads, to attract clients to your business.  Now the best way to do this is with a short, short, pithy book that’s very focused on one problem that your ideal clients have. And you want it to be a problem that your ideal clients have, not just your “in general” clients have, because you want to attract those people who are the best people to work with in your mind and in your business.

And these books don’t have to be physical books. They can be eBooks. In fact, I’m going to be launching the first in a series of five books that are all intended to be Kindle only books and attract specific clients at different milestones within the Authoneer’s Journey.

The fourth way that you can leverage your book to grow your business is to build out credibility and authority. When you write information rich books that showcase your knowledge and expertise, you set yourself up as an authority.

And when this information is valuable to your readers, they see you as a credible source. So books are great tools for building out credibility and authority.

Number six on my list is networking. You’ve heard of the big business card, right?  You go to a networking meeting, and you hand a business card.

Well, guess what happens to that business card? It ends up either in the circular recycle bin or it ends up in some little nook or cranny of someone’s desk and they never look at it again. And when they do look at it, they’re like, “Who’s this person?” They don’t remember. But if you have a short book that is very targeted to your ideal clients and it’s about 100 pages or probably 75 to 100 pages, then you can print it and you hand them this printed book with your name in the byline.

That is way more impressive. And guess what happens to that book? It ends up on their bookshelf and they will probably, if it’s short and pithy and speaks to something that they are interested in, they’ll probably read it right away.

But even if they don’t, it doesn’t get thrown away. Eventually they’ll pull it off their bookshelf and they’ll read it, and they’ll think, I remember this person. I met them at that networking meeting. And guess who they will go to if they have that problem that they’re trying to solve. It’ll be you.

So the fifth way to leverage your book, to grow your business, to use it as a business asset is to use it in your content marketing. So once you’ve got a book, you can pull pieces out of it to create social posts.

You can pull pieces out of it to create blog posts. You can pull pieces out of it to do podcast episodes. And the reverse is true, too. You can use your blog posts, your social posts, your podcasts to create books that you then spin again into new content for social media, podcasts, and your blog. So it becomes this way of Reusing and recycling your content so that you aren’t, so you aren’t overwhelmed with constantly having to create new stuff. There you go. Content marketing.

The seventh way to use your book as a business asset is training and education. So, if you’ve got an informative how to book, you can use it to turn it into an online course, or a series of webinars, or a training portal. Your book becomes an asset that you can expand upon to teach your ideal clients more deeply than the book could go into.

So business asset number eight, the eighth way that you can leverage your book to grow your business. This one’s a no brainer. It can become a revenue stream. Now, I’m going to be right up front. You’re not going to make a lot of money from the book. The book, however, It can bring you clients and business and speaking opportunities and all sorts of other revenue opportunities that pay way more than you’ll ever receive in royalties.

But it all starts with those royalties.

The ninth way that you can leverage your book to grow your business is to use it to get media coverage. Authors are more likely to get on the radio, on television, on podcasts, on blogs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, than people who have not written a book. When you write a book, even if it’s a short book, there’s no more than a hundred pages, you are saying, I am an authority.

I know something that’s worth sharing. And you are now an author. So you become more attractive to the media.

And finally, the 10th way that you can leverage your book to grow your business is to get speaking engagements. Again, having a book makes you more attractive to the media, also makes you more attractive to those people who are pulling together events. Because there’s just something about saying, my guest, author of XYZ  is just more weighty and makes them look good, like, “Hey, I got an author onto my podcast.” “I got an author onto my stage.” It just makes you a more appealing guest, a more appealing speaker. Plus, if you’ve written the book, you’ve got content for your speech, right? There you go. The top 10 ways that you can use your book as a business asset and leverage it to grow your business.

And just to summarize them over again:

• build thought leadership,
• build your brand
• use it to generate leads,
• establish credibility and authority,
• use it in your content marketing,
• use it in networking,
• build it out to create training and education for your audience,
• use it as an additional revenue stream and to generate other revenue streams,
• attract media coverage and
• get those speaking engagements.

Now, if you are already an author, that’s awesome. I am launching the Maverick Marketing Mastermind, which will help you market your book so that you can make use of these 10 ways of leveraging your book. If you’d like more information about that, I will put information on the show notes, or you can always contact me in any social media, and I will give you the link to the information.

If, however, you are not an author yet, I also have a program for you that could help you get that first short book done, get that idea done, get the outline done, and that is called the Authority Building Short Book Jumpstart. If you want, I will also put information on the show notes. If you’re interested in that, just contact me and I can send you the information.

No matter where you are on your author’s journey, I’ve got you covered. So this is Carma Spence of The Author Switch. This is the end of episode number 40, the top 10 ways to leverage your book to market your business. And I’m going to say ciao for now. See you next week.

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