More and more around town and around the web, I've seen consultants and professionals fascinated with the prospect of self-publishing their books, and disgruntled with the prospect of working with traditional business book publishers.
Avoiding the hassle of writing a book proposal, selling it to a publisher, hitting content deadlines, losing control over the artwork and title of the book...all of that sounds like a good idea. Plus, as we all know, publishers don't do a thing for you when it comes to PR. Might as well just take the book to a print shop, take it to market a year earlier, and make more money from each copy of the book, right?
Not always. Not most of the time, I'm guessing. It all depends on your goals and your book publishing history.
Most consultants and professional service providers that I know write books (or, at least, talk about writing books) so they can build their brands, get more speaking engagements, become recognized thought leaders, raise fees, and grow their practices and companies.
The question I have is, "Does self-publishing your book help you with the brand...speaking engagements...thought leadership...fee raising?"
Having researched and published The Business Impact of Writing a Book, and having spent a lot of time in the industry talking to authors, my instincts say that self-publishing may actually do more harm than good. I've spoken with numerous folks who've actually derided self-published consultants. "Didn't have the stomach for the real book publishing process? Quality of your work not good enough to make it through a real editor? Don't have enough followers to interest a real publisher in you or your work?"
Now, for those big-name consultants who have already published a book (or five) with the big boys, they won't have this problem. Assuming they have a following, they might even sell a nice pile of books.
Most self-published authors won't sell a nice pile of books, and won't get the benefit that selling a lot of books can get them. In our research, authors who self-published sold around 2,000 copies of their books. Those that published with a major business book publisher (e.g. McGraw Hill, John Wiley, AMACOM, Berret-Koehler, Jossey-Bass, Penguin, Henry Holt, Adams Media, Dearborn, etc.) sold on average more like 12,000 to 14,000 copies.
How much does volume of copies sold matter? Some food for thought data said report:
- 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.
Good research piece Mike. Thanks for this post. What about eBooks. I see more people (including big name authors) writing eBooks instead. Do you have a point of view on those?