He’s got one of the most popular and interesting blogs on the internet – in fact, if you asked me to give an example of an effective blog in this still young technology, my list would include Seth’s blog.
In a recent posting titled “Do Business Books Work”, Seth posed a question that was no doubt intended to provide him with a measure of the market for business readers, a market he himself is heavily involved with.
In his post he argues that other professions voraciously read AND follow the written word to a much greater extent than business (and specifically sales and marketing) professionals.
Having self-published material into these markets, offered courses and seminars – here are my answers for Seth Godin’s questions:
1. Most business books are bad! It’s the 95-5% rule, mainly because of the poor state of our current publishing industry, far more bad books get written than good ones. By bad I mean simply wrong, ineffective, unproven or at the very least, useless information. Unfortunately, there are very few authors writing business books that have any considerable achievement – are they the ones you want to be learning from?
2. Business books have become marketing tools. Non-fiction books, especially of the “How To” variety in business, personal development, cookbooks, health and wellness have always been lead generators first. Seth Godin knows this better than anyone having mastered the art of publishing for branding and marketing purposes. So, there should be no surprise that sales and marketing folks end up spending far more on advanced training, seminars, workshops, courses, and the like – that’s exactly what most book authors want them to do…
These are the principles of information marketing just as we teach them at the Information Marketer’s Zone – you create content at various price ranges offering increased value at higher prices resulting in a “product funnel” as the main model behind your own information product marketing empire.
There really is no surprise here, the market is just following the book marketer’s lead.
Jeff
It’s more than 95% that our bad
the question is this: when we find a great one (like the Tipping Point) why doesn’t it sell 20 million copies?
Good point, I would suspect that the 997 “crappy” titles each year have jaded the public into seriously questioning the value of a book to the point where even the great ones are drowned out.
Another common element to many business books is that they are terrific at telling people or businesses ‘what’ to do, but when it comes to application of that information, that’s where they fall flat.
For example, I just finished reading “Go Put Your Strengths To Work” by Marcus Buckingham – awesome content, well written, information that every professional, manager, executive, entrepreneur, and business owner should have – but in the end, it’s still very fuzzy on how to apply this new found intelligence you have gained through the strengths assessment to your organization, career goals or business.
Sure, I will recommend it, but if there was more in the way of practical application, exercises, case studies then I wouldn’t hesitate to mandate everyone in my business read it.
Certainly an interesting question you posed though Seth, one that I’ll keep in the back of my mind as I continue to coach and write new material.
Jeff
This site gives the principles of information marketing just as we teach them at the Information Marketer’s Zone and an answer for Seth Godin’s Question – do business books work? by Jeff. If you are interested to know more information about business books go to Business Books