FROM AUTHOR TO authority
You should write a book
A personal message from Steven Sonsino (3 minute read)
Should you write a book? To be fair, you’ve been thinking about this off and on for some time. It’s on your bucket list.
You’ve got something to say, after all. A message to pass on, a lifetime of experience to share.
Family, friends, and even some of your clients have been telling you ‘you should write a book’.
So – please – take advantage of what we’ve got to share here on the podcast. Particularly on how to write your book quickly.
We’ll also share with you the single best way to get your book published. And that might shock you.
The thing is this: you may be able to get paid really well for sharing your message in a book. But not how you might think.
David Meerman Scott told me this when I interviewed him for the Authors Channel podcast:
Writing a book is like getting paid to do your marketing.
DAVID MEERMAN SCOTT
So to save you all the heartache (and all the mistakes) that we went through, the Authors Channel podcast will give you all our tools and techniques for writing and publishing a great book.
Think of it as marketing in a post-AI world.
Because make no mistake, writing and publishing a book changes how people see you. Especially the people who matter to you.
In short, your book does three things better than a tweet (an X?), or a TikTok ever can:
- Your book starts to build your tangible legacy.
- It’s also the most amazing business card, building your reputation with people who need you.
- And it can get you invited to speak on the most amazing stages, all over the world. More about that later.
How to win clients in the Attention Age
One of the big things entrepreneurs and business owners need to do (the biggest?) is win new clients. That’s true for all of us, isn’t it?
Well, we typically do that by reaching out – on the telephone or face-to-face, through press coverage or writing articles, by social media or by advertising. That’s a huge number of interruptions for any potential client.
And Seth Godin – the godfather of permission marketing – had this to say about interruption marketing in Fast Company more than 20 years ago:
Marketing is a contest for people’s attention. Thirty years ago, people gave you their attention if you simply asked for it. You’d interrupt their TV program, and they’d listen to what you had to say… That’s not true anymore… There’s too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted… So our natural response is to ignore the interruptions.
Seth Godin, fast Company
Godin is clear: no one is paying attention to your business, your ideas or you.
It’s not just marketing that’s a challenge. Anyone who’s trying to share a message is struggling against a tsunami of alerts, notifications, chat – in your pocket, in your purse, in your hand.
How do you solve this conundrum? How do you win attention when attention is what no one has? Even if you have a message that matters?
When everybody zigs, you zag
Have you ever read the book Zag? If you haven’t, you should. It’s short, punchy and extremely thought-provoking.
In fact, Zag is one of the 100 Best Business Books of All Time, according to Todd Sattersten, former President of 800-CEO-READ. (More from him later.)
Zag’s author is Marty Neumeier and I interviewed him for this podcast because he’s brilliant at making complex ideas sing.
For instance, the act of standing out from the competition isn’t front-page news, says Neumeier.
What is front-page news – in a world with Attention Deficit Disorder – is that you need more than just differentiation. You need RADICAL differentiation.
The new rule? When everybody zigs, zag.
Marty Neumeier, Zag
‘The new rule?’ he tells us: ‘When everybody zigs, zag.’ We love that. Because it tells you that in your business or profession you have only two strategic choices:
1. Copy what everyone else is doing. (Faster, better, or cheaper.)
2. Or do something radically different. (Something truly distinctive, outstanding. Something with exponential, not marginal, results.)
So if your competitors are all pumping out shallow internet memes in an attempt to go viral, zagging means you should answer your best clients’ biggest problem in a rich, deeply thought-out way.
In other words, you should write a book.
The impact of writing a book
When you begin to seriously consider writing your book, you’ve got to relentlessly ask yourself what is it for? Why are you writing?
In other words, is your book an end in itself, or is it a means to an end?
If your book has a clear purpose, it’s a means to an end. And it becomes a domino in a chain reaction.
What this means is that if you write a great book, it will grow your profile, your practice or your business… one reader at a time. And it’ll do that on auto-pilot.
Most other ‘communication’ in this Attention Age is fundamentally flawed. In fact, it isn’t really communication at all. It’s a broadcast. A one-way sales message shoved down the throat of your community.
This is one-sided and transactional at best. At worst, you may never build a true relationship with your community.
Books earn attention and trust
Influence, on the other hand, is based more on a long-term dialogue.
You earn the attention and then the trust of your reader. Then they (may) form a new opinion, depending on how your book shapes their worldview.
And because that influence has been earned with a book, over hours and days – versus just a few minutes with a blog post or article – your book’s influence can have a very long half-life. You will create engaged readers who become ambassadors for your cause. For years at a stretch.
On this final point, I believe that creating ambassadors is an automatic and earned response from writing a book. When we delight the people we serve. When we turn our readers into fans. And when we turn our fans into what Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired magazine, memorably calls True Fans.
So if you want to make a difference and an impact for people, if you want to attract people towards you, instead of constantly pushing or selling to your community, and if you want to raise the profile of your business (and yourself), in your region or profession, there’s only one thing to do to get discovered.
You should write a book.
Your first step to building and engaging deeply with your community
So if you’re an author who wants to build and engage with your community, you’re in the right place.
Welcome. We’ve been waiting for you.
Because my wife Jacqueline Moore and I help people create books that matter. Not necessarily books that strive to be bestsellers, but books that are intentionally niche.
Niche doesn’t mean insignificant or ‘low profit’. Niche simply means becoming invaluable to a small group of true fans.
As authors, this is what we care about.
The smallest niche audience.
Of people who care.
People who will join us on the journey and take their books seriously.
Who care about a human-to-human connection, even in their book.
We are authors who serve authors like you
Jacqueline and I have been earning an independent living from writing books since 1986, and we’ve been helping a few authors like you do the same since 2015.
We believe that staying small, focused, and relevant to the business community is the key to serving and mattering in a world of noise and distractions.
OUR MISSION: We serve business authors who serve others. We help authors bridge the gap between creating deep, meaningful work they’re proud of and work that helps the people they seek to serve dramatically.
If you have the desire to be an author (either full-time or as a support for your main business), we think you’ll love what we have for you.
In effect, we help authors like you become modern and ethical marketers. Not beholden to the latest twist in internet tactics.
We help you become an important authority to the people you seek to serve in ways that feel right for you.
If this resonates with you, welcome home.
We’re so glad you stopped by. It means the world to us.
When you’re ready, start with our Reinventing Authority series. (You’ll be glad you did…)
Let us show you what writing a great book, by people who care, looks like in action.
Talk soon
Jacqueline Moore and Steven Sonsino
I would urge anyone who wants to write and publish a book to get in touch with Steven and Jacqueline – the free checklists, the app and the videos alone will demystify the whole process.
Dr Andrew MacDonald , Visiting Professor, Columbia University
