It’s getting harder and harder to differentiate yourself these days. The bar continues to be raised as one person after another declares him or herself the EXPERT at something you may have many more years experience at doing but, because that person is better at marketing, they get the lion’s share of the opportunities emerging.

So how do you compete?

What can give you that edge?

After two decades in publishing and helping others publish books, it still comes back to a book. To make it easier to get on the  Fast Track following are ten reasons to publish today:

1. Publishing provides a much more comprehensive platform for your ideas. Like most thought leaders today, I am sure your ideas have only grown more in complexity. Whereas your powerpoint slides convey a good amount of your thought leadership as does your blog or your answers on LinkedIn, there is nothing like a book to lay out your ideas in a much more developed manner, and, if you write well (or hire a good developmental edit/ghostwriter) your book will provide you with the powerful runway to engage your reader-prospects to the point that they see you as the person they want to turn to for answers to their ongoing problems.
2. Publishing today costs less than traditional marketing initiatives. Take time to add up the cost of advertising, marketing and sales campaigns for at least two years. Why? Because the shelf life of your book beats out the shelf life of any other campaign you might implement.
3. You can publish a book in months. There are so many sites out there that provide all the tools to publish a book and  sell it on Amazon within months. The trick, of course, is writing a book that will sell and then knowing how to marketing it effectively.
4. You will be sought out as a thought leader. When you write a book you put yourself  into the category of a thought leader. Now you can lead your market and get your ideas heard  above the crowd.
5. Your speaking engagements will increase. I started keynote speaking over fifteen years ago. At that time one of the top speakers at National Speakers Association (NSA) shared a statistic that there are over one millions talks given  somewhere in the world, daily. As an author you go to the top of the list for these opportunities.
6. You can use your book to turn your marketing cost center into a profit center. Many authors we work with are looking at the book as a tool to acquire new clients or customers. It is also a tool to help you defray your marketing costs. One of our authors, a C-Level executive, ended up closing an additional $1 million account as a result of his book. I  have had the same opportunities for my own books. Also, speakers who have books can count on doubling their speaker fees.
7. There are riches in the niches of publishing, A couple of years ago at the book sellers conference I remember walking up to  the Wiley publishing booth as they are the parent company of my publisher, Jossey Bass and  also the publisher of The Dummies Series. I spoke with them for some time and found out that they saw their line extensions in publishing as  pretty much, never ending. They were right. If you look at the series today it is going stronger than ever down niches that are continually being created like a recent book a colleague of mine wrote, Twitter Marketing for Dummies (which, by the way, is excellent).
8. You can create a series of books. That’s what I see as one of the biggest opportunities today to grow your brand.  For example, we are coming out with a series called 50 Ways to Better Social Media that will start with a general book but then extend to a whole like of books like 50 Ways to Better Social Media for CEO’s and 50 Ways  to Better Social Media for Lawyers. Now we partner with other thought leaders, helping them grow their business and, at the same time, provide benefit to those who want more targeted thought leadership. We now have law firms, consulting firms and I just met two manufacturing CEO’s who are eager to get their thought leadership out to help others.
9. It’s fun. Really. At least that’s what we find working with our authors. We talk with them every week to get their thoughts out quickly and effectively written to leverage new business opportunities for years. As their books come to life and they find themselves at  book signings, written up in publications and on blogs, interviewed on radio shows and growing their client/customer base.
   
   
10. Bonus. There is no end to monetizing a book. From an e-book, to a book, to a series, to a workbook, to licensing your program from your book, books offer more productising opportunities than you can imagine. After all, this is the Information Age!

For me, helping thought leaders become published authors is a passion. I love to collaborate and move their ideas out to the world where they can  make a difference. So who are some our most recent authors? Check them out: 1) Andres Tapia, The Inclusion Paradox, 2) Michael Rosenbaum, Your Name Here Guide to Life and 3) Dr. George Watts, Becoming Your Own Business Coach.

If you are ready to write your book, please check out our upcoming author workshop. What other reasons do you think make this a good time to write? What kind of book are you interested in writing? What is stopping you?

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