The Sum of Your Parts

By Gail Richards - Jun 30 , 2008

If you’ve taken even a few steps down the road between idea and published book, you know that you have unleashed a monster of epic proportions. It’s funny to imagine that such an unwieldy creature could be contained in a relatively small package. You may even feel somewhat deflated when you see just how little space your final product takes up.

Take heart! The sum of the parts of your book is far greater than the book itself! It falls to you, the author, to enable the book to reach its fullest potential.

When you look beyond the physical book itself, you’ll see that there are countless ways you can harvest and sell the book and also to promote the growth of your core business——which is likely why you wrote the book in the first place.

Let’s take a quick walk through your book in search of raw material and inspiration:

The Front Cover
Artwork ready and waiting for use in advertising and promotion. Wouldn’t it fit nicely on the front of a postcard for traditional mail? How about some greeting cards or even custom postage stamps? And don’t forget to include it in your email signature. Use your book to boost your credibility at every turn.

The Table of Contents
This is a gold mine. In addition to being an important piece of your media kit, use your TOC for speaking or presentation outlines, curriculum development, blog, and newsletter topics, worksheets, sell sheets, a starting point for web content or article development.

Foreword
Presumably, the foreword is written by someone other than yourself in support of what you are writing and why it is important. This is great fodder for PR efforts, Web content, or download as a fresh introduction to your topic.

Preface
Your own preamble to the book is a personal way to approach your topic and would be great for a blog or as inspiration for articles.

Content
Look for parts that could be excerpted or adapted for an article, workbook, or presentation. You could set up an auto-responder program that dispenses bite-sized pieces of content at regular intervals. Consider the content you didn’t use in the book and how it could enhance this repurposed material.

Appendices & Glossaries
The supplemental material you include in your book could make a great bonus item or giveaway as part of another promotion.

The Back Cover
You can recycle content from your back cover for use in other marketing materials and on the Web—testimonials in particular. And don’t forget that email signature here, also.

Take each of those areas and run with them, adapting them to use in your specific universe and putting your mark on them.

These ideas and suggestions are intended to get you thinking and acting——and to help you recognize the immense sum of your parts.