Month: July 2011

By Peter Winick, Thought Leadership Leverage
 
Everybody is doing it. With easy-to-use, off-the-shelf publishing software, even producing a good looking book isn’t that difficult. Books are being written and published at the highest rate in history.
 
It’s selling books that is the problem. Many authors write a book and simply expect the sales of the book to propel them towards riches and financial success.  But alas, Oprah is no longer on the air, and even getting a spot on The Today Show isn’t easy.  In fact, the one shot grand slam strategy is pretty much the highest probability way of striking out at your first and only chance at bat. Most books published today don’t make money at all. But many authors make a lot of money, using the book as a component of a solid platform.
 
So what is an author to do?  Very simply, you must go beyond the book.
 
To be successful with a book today means that you have to leverage certain specific business concepts and leadership content in a transformative fashion. I looked over the strategies that our best and most financially successful authors and thought leaders adopted to build their platforms this past year. The book is just one component to success.