Written by: Cori Wamsley, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Your reputation depends on whether you hit the mark with your book. We’ve all heard how amazing a book can be for your business. It gives you credibility as a leader. It can be used as a lead magnet, free gift, or sellable item after your talks. It gives readers a taste of you, your energy, and your teaching style that will send them back to you for coaching (if you write something highly targeted that works as a marketing piece).
That all sounds amazing, right?
So how in the world could that be devastating?
Writing a book takes a lot of time, so if it has one of these major faux pas, you are basically wasting time doing something that confuses your audience or makes you look bad. Make sure you aren’t making one of these major mistakes.
Off-brand – Some people write a book for just the sake of a book. They slap something together that completely doesn’t work with their brand. Or they write a memoir and try to use it for credibility when it doesn’t cover the topic their business focuses on. If it’s not related to your business, then that may not be the book for you! I can’t tell you how many times people have told me excitedly that they want to tell their story, and when I ask about how it relates to their current business, they brush off my question or shrug. Don’t write a stray book, and don’t write a book that you don’t plan on incorporating into your business unless you want to create an entirely different business around that book, which may be what you want. And that’s ok! Think things through and decide if that topic is really on-brand.
Different Audience – This is similar to the “off-brand” book, but it often happens with good intentions. The writer sits down to write a book for their audience and ends up skewing off to another audience because they really want to help people who started where they started. They pick up on the energy of their earlier self—sometimes pity or frustration—and end up writing for them instead of their current target audience. This is especially troublesome if you work with six-figure business owners and find yourself focusing on the person just starting out, for example. It’s going to be a long time before that book can turn the reader into someone in your ideal audience because it’s speaking to someone really far from where you bring people into your container. Do an exercise to help you pinpoint your audience first, and THEN start working on the book. And check in throughout the writing process to make sure you’re still on target.
Content sucks – I mean, let’s be honest: we don’t all write New York Times bestsellers right off the bat. Let me rephrase that: NO ONE writes a New York Times bestseller right off the bat. Every book starts out messy, whether a little or a lot, but going through at least a good editor can make a huge difference. A good editor will tell you if you’ve missed something or if you’re confusing. If your content sucks, guess what your reputation is going to do. By the way, if you self-publish, don’t put out a book that hasn’t been edited by a professional. You not only make yourself look bad, but you also bring down the overall reputation of self-published authors when you do that.
Looks unprofessional – People truly do judge books by their covers. That’s the first thing you see, after all. If the images look pixelated, the design doesn’t look appealing, the back-of-book text isn’t well-written, or the cover itself belongs in a different genre (among other offenses), then your book as a whole won’t look professional. You may be able to DIY the whole thing to save a little on production cost, but if it costs you in reputation later, it’s not worth it. How do you find professionals to help? Reach out to other business owners who are authors if you don’t personally know a good cover designer. I say “cover designer” and not “graphic designer” because not all designers can handle covers. I recently saw a book cover for a man’s business book that had a title and cover that looked like it belonged in the chick lit section of the bookstore. I can only imagine what his sales look like.
Professional books that dovetail with your business and your current audience are the best way to boost your business without wasting your time on a vanity publication – the “checking the box” book for your biz. We all want to add “author” to our list of accomplishments, but it needs to be there for a good reason: because you put out a well-written book that helps your audience and works with your business, not against it.
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Cori Wamsley, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Cori Wamsley, CEO of Aurora Corialis Publishing, works with business owners who have a transformational story to share. She helps them quickly and easily write and publish a book for their brand that helps them create a legacy and be seen as an expert while building a relationship with the reader. Cori has 17 years of experience as a professional writer and editor, including 10 years with the Departments of Energy and Justice and 4 years as the executive editor of Inspiring Lives Magazine. She also wrote eight fiction books and one nonfiction book, The SPARK Method: How to Write a Book for Your Business Fast, and contributed to two anthologies. Her newest book, Braving the Shore, was released in June 2022.
