By Mike Schultz

In The Business Impact Of Writing A Book: Data, Analysis, And Lessons From Professional Service Providers Who Have Done It, RainToday.com asked 200 authors how publishing a book has affected the success of their practices, as measured in numerous ways.

We asked them about the overall effect of publishing a book on their practices, their ability to raise the fees for their services, their ability to generate new clients, their ability to generate more and better speaking engagements, and a number of other topics, as a result of publishing a book.

When I reviewed the results, I was struck by the impact that selling a certain number of copies of books had on various areas of authors' practices.

For example:

• Overall Effect: Authors who reported a “positive” overall effect on their practices sold a median number (at the 50th percentile) of 5,000 copies of their first book, whereas those who reported an “extremely positive” overall effect on their practices sold a median number of 10,000 copies of their first book.
  
  
• Raising Fees: Authors who reported a “strong influence” on their ability to raise their fees sold a median number of 4,000 copies of their first book, whereas those who reported a “very strong influence” on their ability to raise fees sold a median number of 20,000 copies of their first book.
  
  
• Generating New Clients: Authors who reported that publishing books had “some / a little / no influence” on their ability to generate new clients sold a median number of 9,000 copies of their books, whereas those that reported publishing books had a “very strong / strong” influence sold a median number of 20,000 copies of their books.
  
  
• Generating Better Speaking Engagements: Authors who reported that publishing books had a “very strong influence” on their ability to generate better speaking engagements sold a median number of 25,000 books over their careers, whereas those who reported a “strong influence” sold a median number of 8,200.

It's clear that selling 4-5,000 copies of your book can bring measurable success to your practice. However, what I found even more impressive only emerged after analyzing all the measures of success in the study… to reach the strongest positive impact on their practices, the authors seem to have to cross two critical hurdles when it comes to the numbers of books they've sold:

• Hurdle 1 = 10,000 Copies:  Authors that sold over 10,000 copies of their books by and large reported strong positive effects on their businesses as a result of publishing books. This group of folks seemed very pleased with the return on their investments in effort, time, and money for writing and publishing books.
  
  
• Hurdle 2 = 20,000 Copies: Authors that sold over 20,000 copies of their books reported phenomenally positive effects on their businesses. In most categories where we studied this data, the results achieved by authors that sold over 20,000 copies of their books were far and away stronger than those that sold less than 20,000 copies. 

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To learn more about the impact that writing a business book actually has on a professional firm, check out RainToday's recent research study, The Business Impact Of Writing A Book: Data, Analysis, And Lessons From Professional Service Providers Who Have Done It, available in the RainToday Store.