Beyond Book Profits – The Real Benefits of Writing a Nonfiction Book

Guest post by Roger C. Parker

As the publishing landscape continues to change, more and more authors are discovering that there are more important rewards than profits from book sales or from the enhanced value of your personal brand.

The real benefits come from the writing, not the selling, of your book!

Roger

The personal branding benefits of writing a book are well accepted.

The personal branding benefits of writing and publishing a book are well known. Writing a nonfiction book that helps readers in your field solve a problem or achieve a goal:

• Enhances your visibility, positioning you as an expert in your field.
• Attracts pre-qualified prospects, permitting you to raise your rates and/or be more selective in choosing the clients you want to work with.
• Opens doors of profit and opportunity. During the past 12 years, I’ve interviewed over authors who wrote nonfiction books that established brands that provided the linchpin for their business and subsequent success. In each case, their books provided the brand they needed to drive their forward.

Additional benefits

Here are some of the other benefits that entrepreneurs and self-employed professionals gain from writing a book:

1. Writing skills. The skills you master writing a book are transferable to all types of written projects, i.e., articles, blog posts, email, new business proposals, podcasts, reports, speeches, and videos. You’ll be better able to choose titles and headlines, organize your ideas, and express them as concisely as possible. You’ll also be better able to evaluate your own writing and know what to look for when self-editing.
2. Planning tools. Writing a book provides an opportunity to master important new tools for mind mapping, project management, and time management. These tools form the core of entrepreneurial success, but, until now, you may have been too busy to discover them. After writing your book, you may find that your previous dislike of writing was actually based on a lack of familiarity with capabilities built into your word processing software and not knowing about different resources are available for leveraging your time.
3. New perspective. Writing a book is likely to change the way you view all types of large projects. Your writing and publishing experience will help you develop healthy work habits, such as breaking large projects into small, bite-sized tasks. You’ll also learn the importance of taking consistent daily action during short, scheduled working sessions. The next time a large project appears on the horizon, you’ll be more likely to analyze what needs to be done and establish a workflow that starts early and avoids stressful and wasteful “deadline madness.”
4. Content marketing. Writing a book helps you create better marketing content to promote your business. Writing your book generates content you can share as articles, blog posts, podcasts, speeches, teleseminars, and webinars. In fact, sharing your content early generates feedback that builds interest in your book and helps you write a better book.
5. Decision-making. Writing a book is likely to change your perspective towards your decision-making abilities. Because you’ll encounter multiple alternatives, options, and options at every step of organizing your ideas, writing your book, and marketing your book, you’ll develop better decision-making skills that will benefit you elsewhere in your business and professional life.
6. Confidence. Your life changes when you hold a book in your hand with your name on the title. When you hold your book in your hand, you’ve beaten the odds! Studies show that 85% of people in business want to write a book, but only 5% succeed. Your book is tangible proof that you not only are an expert in your field, but you also know how to harness your energies and finish all types of projects.
7. Curiosity. Perhaps the most important benefit is the heightened curiosity you’re likely to experience in your everyday business life. You may find yourself reading more, and listening more critically, as you become more open to new ideas. You’ll not only be open to new options, you’re likely to become more analytical. You may find yourself enthusiastically considering possibilities for new articles and follow-up books.

Ultimately, the best reason to write a book is that it helps you recognize that writing is not merely a way to share your ideas with others, but writing is also the best way to discover ideas and connections lurking in your brain.

Writing to discover

Writing is also the best way to discover what you don’t know– but need to know–in order to reinforce your personal brand as an expert in your field.

Writing a book to build your personal brand is a formula that works. However, there are additional, often-overlooked reasons to write a book. These are the skills, tools, habits, and changes in confidence and new thinking habits that often accompany writing a book.

Note: This article originated as a blog post in Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Blog. You can access more than 150 of my guest posts here.

Invitation

If you’ve written a nonfiction book to build your brand, please share your experiences and how your book changed you, as comments, below. If you haven’t written a book to build your personal brand, what’s preventing you? 

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Start your journey to writing and publishing success by downloading Roger’s free workbook, 99 Questions to Answer Before You Write and Self-Publish a Brand-building Book.

His 40+ books have been sold around the world, including the first book about choosing book titles.

Ask him a question at Roger@PublishedandProfitable.com.