How to Write a Book For Marketers

Most people say that they’d like to write a book one day, but few ever do. Book publishing is a challenging but rewarding process that too few get to experience. Luckily, one of our co-hosts has firsthand experience to share with any marketer or business leader looking to write a book.

Our co-host Robert Carnes has written three books, including his latest book The Story Cycle, all about storytelling for businesses. He shares his insights on the process of writing a book and how it’s more achievable than you might imagine.

Writing the book

• Choose a topic you can live with for a year
• Collect ideas and save them somewhere.
• Organize your ideas into chapters and sections.
• Write a crappy first draft to get it out of your system.
• Let it breathe for a while and give yourself a break.

Editing the book

• Aim to work on at least 4-5 revisions.
• Writing and editing are different skills.
• Knowing when to share with other people is tricky.
• Share with 4-6 people to give you initial feedback.
• Hire an editor who you trust to be objective.
• Come up with a title that’s clear and catchy.

Designing the book

• Collect 10-12 books whose covers & interiors you like. And explain why.
• Layout the book or get a professional to do it for you.
• Design the cover to be different from your competition.
• Focus group the title and cover with examples of your audience.

Distributing the book

• Either through a publisher or through Amazon self-publishing.
• This process is still opaque and hard to understand.
• The more versions (print, hardback, audio, e-book) the better.
• You don’t have to do every format at once- releasing a new format later is a secondary launch.

Promoting the book

• Use the book like a business card. Helps to build your credibility.
• The process of promotion never really ends.
• Break the book down into content chunks to share.
• Guest blog posts. Lead magnets. Podcast episodes. Speaking engagements.
• Create a list of everything you can think of to keep going.