Assignments

Marketing Team: Yes, you may be thinking bigger, but for our purposes, I'm assuming that your book will be a different form of your brochure. In this case, other than copywriting, your marketing team will also be responsible for the book's design and any announcements of the books availability. Marketing will work with you and take on the parts of the process that you are not able to do to keep you from becoming overwhelmed. For example, some books are 100 percent dictated. A copywriter will take the transcription and make sense of the material and turn it into sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. Once printed, depending upon your expectations, the marketing of your book may be limited to your own natural network.

You: The ideas that go into the book are your responsibility. Your book must address the hottest current issues of interest to your client and be written in a readable, easy style. Here are the steps that I recommend.

1. Write the Table of Contents and organize the chapter titles into a logical sequence.
2. Write the book's introduction.
3. Write the easiest chapter.
4. Write the first chapter.
5. Write the rest of the chapters and a concluding chapter.
6. Have the book professionally edited by someone outside your field. Someone "normal."
7. Ask for endorsements and reviews from prominent people in your field.
8. Publish.

Coaching Points:

• Even if you think you have a bestseller, Allan Boress, author of The "I Hate Selling" Book, recommends self-publishing it for the first two editions, printing as few as 250 copies. Companies like www.cafepress.com and www.morrispublishing.com will provide small-quantity print runs.
• It's not how much money the book brings in that counts, it's the quantity and quality of new opportunities it affords you.
• Do NOT rip-off someone else's book by rewriting or stealing their ideas. Your book should come from your observations and experience.
• Do NOT, under any circumstances, allow a publisher to get the copyrights to the book.
• Consider sending it as Christmas or Hanukkah presents to your clients, referral sources and prospective clients.

JOHN M. FOX is the president and founder of Venture Marketing, a marketing firm for growing companies. He is the author of Marketing Playbook: The Manual for Growing Organizations. Visit www.venturemarketing.com for more information.