Since we all, secretly have a dream to write a book, live the calm, relaxing life of an author (ya right!), reap the benefit of millions of book sales and make the odd appearance of Oprah or Larry King – the question often comes to us in a different way.
Instead of "Should I write a book" the question tends to be "Should I write a book or an eBook?"
Guess what’s behind that question?
Price, of course.
Many of you who are considering putting your own knowledge, research, thoughts or experiences into writing are certainly smart enough to see that the average book at your local bookstore goes for $27, maybe $37 while there are eBooks out there raking in $67 or $97 on similar topics.
What’s up with that?
The tendency may be to think there is something inherently different about delivering information as electrons than on trees – while there is, it’s not the real reason for the big difference in price. And…if you’re going to write a book or an ebook, you need to know WHY?
HOW YOUR INFORMATION GETS TO MARKET
The minute you decide to go the traditional publishing route with a mainstream publisher you must comply with their system of pricing which is typically based on a combination of genre, cover choice (hard or soft) and number of pages.
There’s no choice, if you want to write a book and have them publish it, you WILL follow their pricing structure.
Not only must you follow their pricing guidelines, unless you are Stephen King, you will be offered a very small royalty payment on each copy sold AND must remove any unsold copies that get sent to retailers that do not sell from your future payments.
Yikes – so why would I go the traditional publishing route if I write a book?
There are some advantages. You DO get whatever added credibility and exposure having your book published by the BIG BOYS gives you – marketed properly this can be quite valuable, but it does still take YOU to market the fact that you now have a published book.
With eBook, sure you can price it at whatever suits your business model, but you will have to build your credibility, profile and reputation in other ways since you don’t have the same aura of a published author.
But…on the other hand, if you understand the model of information publishing – how it works and how to get the most value out of information and knowledge you can really make some life-changing money.
The model is powerful – we outline the complete, detailed program over at InfoMarketer’sZone, but here are the two most important factors to keep in mind:
1. Find the highly emotionally charged, most important questions/challenges/topics for your market AND
2. Know how to package that information for maximum return
The terrific and empowering part of becoming an information publishing entrepreneur is that there are so many ways to make really big money…
For example, you could generate big up-front cash by taking your information and packaging it into a seminar, manual, workbook or coaching program instead of an eBook and bring in 10X the value you would get from writing an eBook.
Or, you can write lead-generation products such as e-Books, manuals, reports and e-courses that sell for lower up-front money, but qualify your customers into those who are the best target for one or more back-end products such as a seminar, coaching program or membership site.
NOW – THE TRUTH
The fact is, it’s NOT an either/or proposition. Anyone who truly understands the massive potential selling information for profit knows that finding demand and creating unique content is the important part – whether you choose to publish parts of your content or self-publish it as an eBook, report, course, etc… is a marketing decision structured around a sound information marketing business plan.
You may begin by developing a coaching program, seminar, workshop, tele-seminar program and then decide that publishing a book on your topic is a top priority to drive traffic, leads and customers into your back-end business model.
A good example is Trump’s latest book written with the Learning Annex where the entire purpose of that book is to funnel leads into Learning Annex seminars which – if you’ve been to one – I assume them then market additional, higher-still, information opportunities. It’s not the book in itself that makes the fortune, it is a catalyst to big, back-end profits.
Alternatively, you could focus on publishing one or more eBooks and building a list, a presence online that you nurture and turn into multiple front-end and back-end infoproducts over time.
I hope that now you don’t seem your next project as just writing a book or an e-Book, but that you see it as a strategic phase in an overall information publishing business that can make you millions – it just takes thinking a little bigger AND following a proven plan such as the one we have outlined based on our personal experience over at InfoMarketer’sZone.
Jeff
