Many founders want to write a book but don’t know where to start. For most business owners, the idea of writing a book is deeply intimidating, but only part of that intimidation is justified.
Too many think the purpose of a business book is to be your personal legacy, thought of as a compendium of all your worldly knowledge and the consummation of all your experience, expertise and wisdom. No wonder you’re intimated! That’s terrifying! That’s not a writing goal, it’s a recipe for paralysis.
A business book doesn’t have to get on the NYT Bestsellers List to be worth writing it. It doesn’t even need to be a revenue stream in itself.
These types of benchmarks are the wrong way to envision the ROI of a business book. Instead, think less bestseller, and more business development.
What a business book actually is and actually should be is a business asset aimed at bringing you more clients and opening doors to all the things that will make you more successful. That’s the ROI you can expect.
How can a book do that for you? I’ll tell you.
3 Ways Writing a Business Book Opens Doors
1. It helps you gain visibility.
Not only will your book be one more thing that’s out in the world with your name on it, it
will also feed months of content. Classic compelling content around a book includes: talking about the motivation for writing a book, giving your audience status updates on the writing process, teasing a release, sharing testimonials and success stories, and recycling book content as social media content. This provides you with a huge cache of content that feeds back into book sales, back into followers, back into new leads, and the cycle continues.
Check out this video of how a consultant distributed 200 free copies of their book, which led directly to $500,000 in new consulting contracts with enterprise clients.
2. It increases potential clients’ trust in you.
We are in the age of knowledge acquisition and books play a central role in that. If you can be the one who delivers valuable knowledge to the people who need it, they will trust you and think of you when they’re ready for your service.
According to a 2025 IBM Institute for Business Value study of over 4,000 C-level executives, 87% of CEOs reported making a specific purchase decision in the last 90 days as a direct result of consuming thought leadership content.
In a 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report found that 73% of decision makers rate thought-leadership content (including books) as a more trustworthy basis for evaluating expertise than marketing materials.
3. It establishes or cements your authority in the space.
“Legacy” book are generally lost and forgotten, while “framework” books perform. A business book is not the place to show the world everything you’ve accomplished. Shift your focus away from showcasing yourself and toward serving your audience with a framework book aimed at establishing a clear, structured approach to thinking about a problem your audience might face. If your reader is able to apply your methodology to their problem and it makes their life easier and their business more successful, I guarantee they will remember you.
Check out this story of author and entrepreneur James Swanwick used his book as the foundation for building an eight-figure coaching and consulting program. After facing 16 publisher rejections, he self-published, leveraged his book for lead generation, and quickly built a high-ticket client base for his Alcohol-Free Lifestyle brand.
But just having written a book is not necessarily going to get you these things. You have to know how to do it so that it can achieve these goals.
How To Write for ROI
If you want to write a book that resonates with your audience, focus on their interests first and yours second.
Many business book authors make the mistake of focusing too much on themselves, but it’s one of the simplest pitfalls to avoid. Before you even start writing, plan the book not around how to best showcase you, but how to best serve your audience. Your audience will be able to feel the difference and you’ll be a big step ahead your competition already.
Another rule of thumb that many authors don’t know is that depth is more valuable to readers than breadth. Don’t try to cover everything. Just cover one thing really well. Pick the most valuable thing that helps your clients, and write a book on that topic.
This article on reader behavior discusses why clarity and niche focus in a book are key. In fact, publishing professionals stress that knowing your audience “on a bone-deep level” is what agents and publishers seek, because it signals that the book will deliver exactly what those readers need (not just what demographic data predicts).
Write the Damn Thing
Now the only thing left is for you to write the thing!
Luckily for you, that’s the easy part. You’ve already done the hard part–build a business and gain the experience and expertise so you have something to say. Now you just need to say it in a way that is compelling and emotionally resonates with your target audience.
That’s where Alliance can help.
With our ghostwriting methodology, you just need to meet with us for an hour a week. We handle the rest. Book a Strategy Session and we’ll map the first step together.
