Earlier today we heard from Kevin Cullis, who’s successfully using his blog to support his self-published print book, How to Start a Business: Mac Version.
As print publishing evolves, we’re seeing more and more bloggers release printed books—either themselves or through established publishing houses, like I did.
This is an interesting thrust for blogging. When ereaders first hit the virtual shelves, more than a few people said that print was dead. Years later, we can see that those predictions haven’t—and won’t—come true any time soon.
A print book can help you grow your blog’s audience and build your profile as an expert authority within your niche.
It can open you up to new opportunities—like public speaking, joint ventures, and so on.
And it can take your blogging career in entirely new directions.
Of course, a print book can grow your income both in and of itself, and through your blog.
Have you considered writing a print book? What’s stopping you? Let us know what you think about this blogging business model in the comments.
I haven’t written a book yet, but if you find it a great way to promote you and your methods. Then go for it.
It can definitely grow your blog and most definitely your income!
argree with you,With new technologies now available to the general public, it is extremely easy to self-publish own work, especially on blog to build strong authority, even the leader in the niche .
It’s a chicken and the egg thing, get a blog to promote a book or make a book to promote a blog. I think that either way it works as long as you keep working both angles. I have a brand new blog and I am planning to create a non-fiction help e-book and offer it for free through the blog, so I use the blog to promote a book. Later on, when I finish my fiction book, I will use the blog to promote the book…
Thanks!
Iulian
Awesome post, and great interview earlier today!
I’ve been writing about this very thing a lot lately–namely, how to sell books using blogging and social media tools.
A good post on the subject, if you’re interested, is http://www.livehacked.com/writing-2/selling-books/
Let me know what you think, Darren!
I’m going to follow this series religiously. The value you bring to blogging is amazing. When problogger starting publishing guest posts, I thought it might get degraded but in reality the readworthiness has increased.
I’ve dabbled in blogging numerous times, just for fun. I recently finished writing a book (a ten-year undertaking), and have been learning a whole lot about how a good blog is an essential element of an aspiring author’s platform, necessary for being taken seriously by anyone in the traditional publishing industry, or necessary as a springboard for launching out on your own through self-publishing. After finishing the manuscript and sending off my first book proposal, I quickly re-directed my efforts and spent about three months completely designing a new blog to serve as the online “hub” of my platform, and consolidating previously-posted articles from other blogs into the new blog. Time will tell whether or not this is a successful venture for me, but I am excited about the journey either way!
After spending some time on this site I decided to start an ebook. I hope that one day I can turn that ebook into a print book. I will use my blog to promote both and I hope that the book also promotes my site and myself. I inspire to become a problogger one day.
Havn’t actually thought about what to write for as a book. Most of what I know are already from books. And if I write from what I know from reading books, wouldn’t I be simply copy and pasting what I know? This is a tough one.
One of the things that some miss regarding blogging and books is this: It’s about your content and how your clients and customer want to consume it!
And a part of this idea is also about your content: How do you market it?
Great content + Marketing = Success
Thanks for the follow on Darren.
Ebooks are fairly easy to write, and if you can find an unoccupied niche; there is still good money in them. If you can sell 1000 at $8, that can be extremely profitable. Expenses are limited. Your time invested will pay handsomely on a per hour basis, with $5000 in gross sales.
Plus, they are key to your branding….many opportunities open up, once you have a success.
Hi Darren,
Certainly a great serious and promoting a book on your blog is great but to write the book it really took lots of time and I am considering it to right in near future and certainly will follow your given serious.
Thanks again for giving great resources ;-)
Excellent Tips. My book, 62 Posts to Overcome Blogger’s Block, will be launched in August, and these tips are right on point.
I will be launching my book coming November, I am glad i found your post at the right time. Very helpful
What stops most people is that they think writing a book is a big overwhelming task. It CAN be that (see Paul’s 10-year effort) but it needn’t be — IF you make writing a priority and IF you get over your fear. A typical book is somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 words (ebooks can be shorter, though.)
Approach it like a MATH problem. If you write 350 words per day ONLY on weekdays, you’ll have 91,000 words at the end of a year. (Take some time off for holidays to get it down to 60,000-80,000 words.)
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!
Hi Darren and others,
I’d say this is sound stategy. I bought a Pro Blogger book The Blog Challenge Book so it does work. but don’t just blindly except that. I’d say building a community around the product is more important for doing above successfully.
CRM 2.0 a la Darren Rouse or Chris Brogan will take your personal brand further. For me the best book on this, incidentally, Brand You. It’s original and daring (Brand You) from Tom Peters.
The chapter on produsts will be of the most helpful to you. But in a world of BRAND YOUS (capitals on purpose) you need the community for it to work.
This is Sales! We sell or else
Dara
This can be an eye-opener for blogger beginners. For some, they just blog out of passion, but upon knowing someone who’s making more money and expanding his business through print media, then time to apply what we have learned today in this article!