Increase Your Profile by Writing a Book
Educate Your Prospects and Prove Your Expertise
by Laura B. Poindexter
In today’s Internet age it is so easy to publish your own book, ebook or free report. The key is finding the information that you have that would be valuable to your customers and prospects and deciding on the best way to deliver it to them.
You may decide to write a book on your area of expertise and that selling it may be your business plan or you may decide to offer a short free report on your website as a way to drive traffic and increase your business profile.
Content
The first step is to decide on the content you want to share. What are the most common questions you are asked by your customers and prospects? Do you possess knowledge of your niche market that the general public needs to know? What information can you provide that will encourage the reader to buy your product or service?
The key is to start. Open a word document or grab a pen and paper and start writing.
Be sure to include a title page with copyright information and a page that includes information on you or your company so that the reader knows where the content came from and can contact you in the future to utilize your products or services.
Format
Once you decide on the content, you will need to decide how to deliver the content. How much information do you have? If it’s just a few pages, a free report on your web site would be a good fit. If you could talk for hours and hours on the subject (and not bore your prospects) then maybe you have a full book in you.
Delivery
So, you wrote your book and have decided on the format, how will you deliver it to your target audience? You should certainly print some hard copies and carry them with you to show your customers and prospects. If you wrote a book, you can get away with just carrying around one copy. If you have a 6-page free report, carry a few copies around to give to the prospects you meet.
A free report can easily be turned into a PDF and placed on your website for free download. I would require at least a prospect’s email address in exchange for the report so you can contact them in the future. You may want to require subscription to your email newsletter to receive the ebook (noting that they can unsubscribe at any time).
If you are afraid of your ebook getting passed around the internet and becoming a huge success but you are not getting those users email addresses and have no way of following up try eBook Pro. You can still provide the ebook for free, but you’ll be able to track the downloads.
If you want to print your book, there are a number of options – Café Press is an easy one because you they will print the books as needed. You won’t receive a large % of the book, but you also have no upfront costs.