People have many reasons for creating books, courses, music, art, and other things. Not all are motivated by business.
For some authors, it is the Joy of Creation or something they need to write to get out of their heads.
Publishing is a checkbox achievement, and they move on to promoting the book or doing anything else with it.
For others, it is business.
We will look at the main business reasons for publishing.
Publishing a Book for Book Sales
Since the dawn of commercial book publishing, the goal for the vast majority has been to sell books.
Success is having your book on display in bookstores, airports, and everywhere books are sold.
Also, online bookstores.
Promote the books and start working on the next one. The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling comes to mind.
It is a relatively new notion to consider books as lead magnets for your offers, such as membership and coaching programs.
While I recommend this as part of the Golden Publishing Sales Machine, I also recommend that you aim for the books to have a sales life of their own.
That means making the book self-contained and promoting it so that the book’s sales are a win.
Not easy, but possible. Unlikely if you do not try to market the books for success.
Where to Publish
For some of you, the best route is to create a book proposal to land a book agent and seek a traditional book publishing deal.
Very few books are accepted and published in this way.
The vast majority of you will engage in some form of self-publishing. Most of the major book publishers have self-publishing divisions.
I have also interviewed several small publishing companies that handle the entire writing, editing, publishing, and marketing processes.
I have been uploading edited and formatted books for print and eBook to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and IngramSpark. Amazon is the biggest bookseller, and IngramSpark gets you into wholesale catalogues for booksellers and libraries.
I will start creating audiobooks and am looking at aggregator platforms like PublishDrive to print, eBook, and audiobooks out to everywhere that pays.
By the way, ‘everywhere that pays’ is an option for CD Baby. They deserve credit for the phrase. And why I would look at Book Baby too.
Publishing to Attract Clients to Your Golden Offer
There is a marketing perspective of books that makes the primary purpose to build authority and attract people to your Golden Offers.
Golden Offers could be Membership Programs, Coaching Programs, Products, or Services.
What is your Golden Offer?
My recommendation and specialty are to create a Membership Program that teaches the content of your books.
Combining Both Business Reasons to Publish
I strongly recommend that you publish and promote your books so they sell on their own and build in hooks to promote your Golden Offers.
The Foreword can have a QR code and a link to a landing page where people can sign up for the companion Golden Offers.
You can also put a More Resources section at the end of the book to drive traffic.
Publishing is Marketing Too
My broad definition of Publishing is any media that humans can consume.
Publishing blog posts, podcast appearances, print media, radio, and other media formats are also forms of marketing.
Putting your books out everywhere is marketing for you, even if that’s all you offer.
Your Golden Publishing Sales Machine
My encouragement to you is to Build Your Golden Publishing Machine with the main business goals of both selling your books AND selling your Golden Offers.
A book and Membership Program will be available soon.
And I am available to help you with all of the creation, publishing, and marketing steps now.
My 90-Day Launch Offer
Let’s do a 90-day sprint to Build Your Golden Publishing Sales Machine:
- Multimedia Digital Experience Edition of your book, which can serve as a Multimedia Membership Program for content with a training aspect.
- Publishing the book for distribution everywhere, including print, eBook, and audiobook platforms.
- Multimedia Marketing for the book and Membership Program.
$330 per month for three months.
Includes a subscription to the Golden Publishing Sales Machine Kit.
What do you want to achieve with publishing?
Greg Dixon, Chief Enabler
Shared Visions Unlimited
Multimedia Publishing and Marketing
