Success Becomes You: Book as Business Card

By Yvonne DiVita - Aug 30 , 2007

So, when it comes to being an author, what is success?

Is success finally seeing your words in print?

Is it the accomplishment of finally being done writing (for the moment, anyway)?

Or is it having something to hand out to clients (book as business card) that you know will not go into their pocket and get discarded when they take their pants to the cleaners?

Is success as an author identified by the volume of sales? Is under 10,000 books sold, a failure, because that’s a typical “bestseller” number? Or could you be happy with 1,000 books sold, knowing you made a difference to those 1,000 people?

Measuring Success
Very often, an author’s success is measured by the attention the author receives. Attention is generally received when a book makes a splash. A book makes a splash when it’s popular with its audience and—this is key—it has marketing support from the author. So, that’s the success formula: Marketing support, making a splash, getting attention, becoming known. The question is: What does ‘becoming known’ mean?

Does ‘becoming known’ count only if a ‘traditional’ publishing house publishes your book? What if you self-publish at Kinkos? What if you use POD (Print On Demand)? What if you print it on your printer, bind it, and begin hawking it out of the trunk of your car? Where does success fit in that equation? How well-known can you get doing that?

There are numerous examples of writers who chose to self-publish, and then went on to fame and fortune. For instance, did you know that Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson of The One Minute Manager fame self-published their book? They wanted to sell it for a higher price than the ‘experts’ thought it would carry. They sold out–over 20,000 copies in three months. One of my favorites is Amanda Brown, author of Legally Blonde, who used POD—and ended up with a movie deal. Deepak Chopra was a self-published author before signing with Crown Publishing. You can read more about famous authors who’ve self published in the Self-Publishing Hall of Fame.

A Differing View of Success
Looking at success differently, would you consider a book that sold 3,000 copies a success? What if those 3,000 copies went to a small, focused niche that loved the book and got value from it? If the author acquires acclaim but not cash, is that success? How about this – what if, of those 3,000 buyers, 100 loved the book enough to become clients? Or they recommended new prospects to the author? Or they buy another 100 to give away, as gifts to their clients? Would you consider yourself a successful author, then?

Such things happen. Self-published books are something to be proud of. If you’re writing a book, if you have the expertise to write about a business subject that is prominent in the industry today (marketing, sales, business plans, reaching a core audience, service marketing, etc.), and you can devote at least an hour a day to putting your advice in print, then you probably have the makings of creating a tool that will aid you far better than your stack of business cards.

Think of it like this—Your expertise is worth X. If you create a book about your business, you become the ‘expert’ in your field, and you have substantial content to back that up. As an expert, you can now get paid to speak and give away books in the back of the room (always build the cost of the book into the seminar or keynote cost). So, once you’ve published, your value increases to XX. That’s how people react when you become an author. The old saying, “If it’s in print, it must be true,” lives on, not only because whatever gets in print “must be true” but because folks just naturally believe the author knows what he or she is talking about when they become a published author.

Well, that last statement may not be completely true—The point is, it is true in the perception of the majority of the public. Don’t think you’ll get away with publishing garbage, though. With blogs and the social media powering communication today, you’ll be found out fast. If you are serious about writing a book, however, you shouldn’t let traditional publishers get in your way. Opt for self-publishing and you will do just fine. And the best part is that every book that gets out to your audience broadens your network, promotes you and your message, and leaves a positive memory in the receiver’s mind.

People lose or discard business cards. People respect books, and, by default, the book earns respect and admiration for the author.

Book as business card—it works!