Don’t Believe This Myth About Your Book

I hear a lot of crazy crap about publishing. 

Most of what I hear is outdated advice or simply incorrect information. Something I’m passionate about is sharing what I know as a publishing expert with authors and entrepreneurs so y’all can make an informed, educated decision about what to do with your content. 

Today I’m going to tackle the biggest myth I hear about writing and publishing a book. The idea that a book will make you successful and famous is about as outdated and wrong, in my opinion, as bucket hats. (If you love bucket hats, you do you . . . but this is a ’90s trend I wish had never come back.)

The idea that your book will do the work for you to get your message out there is so pervasive in the entrepreneurial world that it’s honestly hard for me to know where to start dispelling this myth.

Let’s start with what used to be true. 

Five years ago, it was possible to leverage a book into a bigger brand. Back in the day, I even attended a workshop called “Book to Brand.” And while a book can expand an existing audience . . . that audience needs to exist, usually in the thousands, first. 

What doesn’t happen is that you put a book out into the world and without any work on your part thousands of people find it, buy it, love it and then suddenly follow you on Instagram, join your email list, and buy your products. Does that last sentence sound crazy to you? Because it should. Just like you need to put yourself out there and market your business to make any money, you need to put yourself out there and market your book in order to sell copies.

Because this myth used to be true, there’s still a ton of messaging out there about authors who have been successful. But when you look a little closer, you see that their success isn’t recent. For example, my client Denise Duffield-Thomas sold thousands of copies for her first two books, which were self-published . . . in 2012 and 2013. 

Not 2022, when there are a ton more people talking about money mindset. 

Similarly, I recently got on a call with a prospective client who cited the success of Andy Weir as evidence that his book would sell thousands of copies without an author platform or any credibility in the space. But here’s what that person didn’t realize. Andy Weir initially published his science fiction novel The Martian on his blog — in 2009. I mean, remember blogs? 

Not only is the example of Andy Weir in an entirely different category (science fiction) — and therefore for a completely different market — but it’s also from more than a decade ago. Which in Internet years might as well be the Pleistocene era. 

Over the past two years, I’ve talked to dozens of self-published authors who believed in the myth that their book would do the work for them, whether that meant bringing in clients or impacting peoples’ lives. These well-meaning folks put their heart and soul into their books, and put their work out there, only to sell a few copies (think dozens, not thousands). Not only does this feel awful, but it also decimates your chance to get a book deal in the future.

What I want you to know is that if you are writing nonfiction in 2022, you need more than just a good concept with solid advice to sell books. You need proof that your advice works, it gets results, and that you have an audience ready to buy 10,000 copies of your book. It’s no longer possible to use your book to leverage your brand in the way that it used to be.

Instead, I encourage you to consider using your brand to create your book. 

This is how a dozen entrepreneurs just like you got book deals in 2021 with my team’s help. A book can’t do everything for you; it’s just paper and ideas. You need to show up and demonstrate why the words in your book matter — over and over again.