9 Proven ROI Strategies for Your Nonfiction Book
You have a concept, an idea, a useful strategy or some other piece of information that you know would fit well into a book, but you’re unclear as to whether a book would be a sound financial investment.
If this is you, you’re not alone. It’s the first question that many potential clients ask. “Is it even worth it?”
The answer: a resounding Yes.
Not only will your book help the many people who will have a chance to read it and digest the information, but it will help your bottom line, too. Often times, in as little as a few short months.
Want to write a book in 2022?
9 Proven Book ROI Strategies
Book sales won’t be your primary return on investment (ROI) generator. Let’s just lay those cards on the table now. Not in the short-term, anyway. Even a best-selling book could take years to generate enough in royalties to pay back the cost of writing and publishing.
For nonfiction books, however, sales aren’t typically the goal. The goal is to bring in more clientele. To expand operations. Or to gain exposure.
With the mysterious question of book sales out of the way, let’s now turn to the 9 proven ROI strategies that do work:
1. Speaking Gigs
Harvard Business Review posted a study on rates for public speakers. Their results showed that speakers without a book (or books) to their name can charge roughly $5,000 per speaking gig while an author with an established book can charge around $20,000.
Pretty big difference there. And if you book only two speaking gigs after publishing your book, you are already past your break-even point.
Even better? Write a bestselling book and you can charge even more for your speaking gigs—we’re talking a baseline of $30,000.
2. Consulting Services
In 2019, 57 million people in the United States were doing freelance work. If you or your consulting agency are one of them, you have a lot of competition.
There’s no better confidence booster to a potential client than being able to read through a book that you or your agency have written. It’s guaranteed proof of concept. It also helps to avoid the common time-consuming task of having to reach out to former clients as referrals.
3. Sell Your Course
A proven ROI strategy for content and course creators is to write a book along the same lines as your course or piece(s) of content. Not only is this an easy cross-sell opportunity, but you can use each of your revenue streams—the book and the course—to gain credibility for the other.
Often times, your $500 or $1,000 course could be too much of a gamble for people who don’t know you. Offer them a $20 book—or better, a $4.99 eBook—and you get to prove your credibility. Get them to love your book and they will be happy to purchase your course.
Try to get yourself a public speaking gig or two thrown into the mix and you will be setting yourself up as an impactful influencer in no time.
4. Grow Your Community
For those who sell courses or have content they wish to sell, setting up a community is an essential piece of the sales process. If you don’t have an online community, we highly suggest you look into starting one.
This is especially true now, as online communities are becoming more impactful than in-person communities. A Facebook study found that 77% of respondents to a survey said that the most important group they were part of operates online.
Start your community, grow your community, and cross-selling opportunities will become more readily available.
5. Attract Clients to Your Business
Some industries are vast, and credibility is what propels some to the top while leaving others behind. Social proof is a concept that you must look into if you want to survive in today’s business climate and part of that social proof is being credible.
Write your book and have it published to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and more…
It’s been mentioned before, but a book is the ultimate credibility indicator. It means you not only have the knowledge in your field, but that you have had enough success to be able to afford a book to be written and published with your name on the cover.
Potential customers may be hesitant with their money, but if a quick online search shows them that you’re the real deal, they will become much more confident in their decision to work with you.
6. Attract Investment Opportunities
Growing an investment fund or seeking other outside investment? Again, credibility cures all hesitancy. It allows the person on the other end of the potential transaction to get a closer glimpse into you, your fund, or your company.
One strategy to implement while pitching investors is to link them to your book, or send them a physical copy. You certainly can’t burden them with a lengthy email including your entire life story, but sending them a professional-looking hardcover gives much more intrigue.
7. Sell Your Physical Product
The ROI on this strategy will vary widely depending on the price point and the profit margin for the product you are selling. But it can set you apart from the others in your space.
Think about your other option: online ads. Do you want to be competing with rising price-per-click (PPC) costs? Flooding your potential buyers’ screens with information they’re becoming numb to?
Of course not. You want to prove your product’s value without feeling like you need to beat down doors to have people try it. Show authority. Express what you know and how you and your product can help change the lives of your potential readers inside of a book. The product can then sell itself.
From there, it should be much easier to sell similar items in your product line.
8. Recruit People to Work for Your Company
The corporate landscape is quickly changing. No longer do people take a job with a company just for the sake of having a job. People want to have a purpose now. They want to feel as though they are helping a greater cause and not simply standing at an assembly line and waiting for the clock to strike five so they can leave.
Open the doors to your company by writing a book. Highlight how unified your team is. Tell the reader—the potential future candidate for your company—why working inside your organization doesn’t mean sitting in a cubicle.
Imagine the level of excitement a candidate will have when they come in for an interview after reading about your exceptional organization.
9. Tax Write-Off
No selling. No products. Or clients. Or investors. By simply deciding to write a book, you can write off some, or all, of the cost as a business expense. As long as it is being used as a marketing expense—which it will be in 99 percent of cases—a tax write-off should be possible.
You should speak with your tax advisor or CPA about specifics before deciding on anything. But this strategy alone is enough to generate an ROI from the day you decide to write a book.