Why 95% of Books Fail And How to Publish a Book That Actually Succeeds

Welcome everybody. Happy to be here with you today for our BSPU call. I always try to put something together for you that I think will meet a need. And I know we have lots of new clients and so some of these things that I talk about, you know, I I hope it inspires you. I hope it gets you focused. That’s my goal. But for some of us, you know, it may be there may be some redundancies. I do my best not to be redundant, but sometimes we have to be told the same thing over and over and over again a different way. So, some of that may be what you hear today. Anyway, welcome to our BSPU call. Today, I want to talk to you about why 95% of all books, and it’s probably a higher percentage than that, by the way, never sell more than 250 copies. And how we as BSPU authors can avoid that entire fate. That’s what we want to do is avoid that. Look, there’s no nice or polite or pretty way to say this, but most books fail. And they don’t fail necessarily because they’re badly written. They often fail because they are badly positioned. So here’s the good news. It’s not necessarily a writing problem. What it is though is a strategy problem. And that’s good news for us because strategy is fixable. Bad writing is fixable, too. But it’s not necessarily the writing that’s the problem. It’s the strategy. So, I want to give you six, let’s call them, failure patterns that I’ve seen working with several thousand authors over the last 14 plus years.

Number

one fail failure pattern that I see is that often the author’s idea is unclear and or and this could be two really the idea is unclear and or the audience itself is unclear. Okay. Now most authors kind of fall into one of three buckets. Okay. So maybe when you started these were one of the buckets that you fell into. Number one, you really have no idea. You’re writing but you want to write your story or you’re writing you know your thoughts or or someone told you some guru said you just need to kind of sit down and start writing and you don’t really have an idea of where you’re going. H not good. Number two bucket is too many ideas. I could write this. I could write this. I could write [laughter] this. Or maybe you’re somewhere in the middle and you have some idea, but it’s very vague. I find most new authors and even authors that come to us who’ve been writing for a long time have a really hard time answering one question very very clearly and that is who is your book for? Now when I say clearly by the way I don’t mean men. My book is for men. [laughter] No, no. There’s, you know, four billion of us, okay? You’ve got to be a lot more narrow than that. So, when I say who your book is for, clearly I’m talking about really narrowing down the avatar and the niche. We’re going to talk more about that in just a few minutes. At BSP, we like to think that we have to choose the reader like really clearly who it is that we are speaking to. That way we can choose the message because the message is going to rate relate directly to the offer that we ultimately are going to make the way we’re ultimately going to help our reader, our ideal reader, our ideal client. So that’s why we start with the outcome that you want. The first question we always talk about and I talk about this on my workshops and I talk about this on my BSP calls. What is it that you want? What is the outcome that you want from writing this book? You have to start there. Then you move to who is the ideal client avatar that the outcome I want serves. Then from there you can really begin narrowing the communication of the message to that marketplace and really meet their needs. Clarity has to come before creativity does. Okay? Creativity just being a creative person is not enough. PS. By the way, it’s always a mistake to wait until your manuscript is halfway through [laughter] or, god forbid, done before getting advice and help. That’s backwards, right? I’ve been communicating back and forth via email with someone that has written 170,000 words. Now, look, that’s like four books. Really, legitimately, that’s like 800 page eight an 800page book. And you know, while I’m amazed and stunned at the amount of work it must have taken to write that many words, the reality is, oh, it would have been so much better to get advice and guidance and help before 170,000 words were written. Because if the positioning is wrong, if the focus is wrong, then writing more pages simply means you’re moving further in the wrong direction. So, you have to focus on what it is you want, aligning with your marketplace, validating your title, your subtitle, mapping out the offer that you’re going to make, and what your monetization strategy is to that market. Early clarity will save you a lot of pain and a lot of money in the long run. It costs time, it costs energy, and yes, it costs money. That’s all number one. Unclear idea and unclear audience. Now number two I mentioned but it needs to have its own point and that is one of the big mistakes I see or one of the big causes of failure is that there’s no real clear goal for the book and this is really huge. Okay, there are two wise that authors have. There’s the selfless why. You know my goal for the book is X. Thinking about your reader thinking about making an impact on the world and the selfish why. And of course, it sounds so much better to be the selfless one, right? But the truth of the matter is writing a book is so hard, so costly. It takes your resources, it takes your time, it takes money. And you guys know, you’ve been on my workshops. Hopefully, you’ve been on my workshops. You know, I will invariably ask a question on most of my workshops. And that question is, how long have you been wanting to write a book? And the time frames are always years, often decades, 10 years, 20 years. I’ve heard 50 years so many different times. And let me tell you why that is. Because it’s really hard to write a book. And if you don’t have a clear goal for your book, then you’re probably not going to be willing to invest the time, energy, money, resources it takes to get your book written. Almost no one can articulate what the book is designed to produce for me. And that’s the selfish why. I know. But if you’re actually going to get it done, you’ve got to start there. Your book is going to make a difference first and foremost in your own life. And you’ve got to figure out what the book is going to be designed to do for you. It’s a little like the old airline thing when, hey, when the oxygen mask falls down, the first thing you need to do is put it on yourself. Then you’re going to be able to breathe easy enough to put it on your loved ones, put it on your child, put it on your spouse, etc. If you run out of oxygen, then you’re not going to be able to help anyone else around you. And the same is true for your book. Too many people run out of oxygen during the trials and travailes of the bookw writing process because they didn’t start with what the book is designed to do for me for the author. Is the book for lead generation? Is it for speaking engagements? Are you trying to position yourself as an authority in a certain space? Are you looking to leverage relationships and build relationships because of your book? Build out your coaching or consulting business, whatever it is. Because if the goal is unclear, then titled decisions are random. Chapter decisions become emotional. It’s more about the story, your story. Unfortunately, most of the time people never even launch. So launch decisions become let’s publish and cross our fingers and hope something good comes from it. Your reader is looking for an outcome, not your passion and not even your story initially. Now, eventually they buy into your story and they determine along reading your story and your case studies and examples if they like you or not. And if they like you, then they’re in. And if they don’t, then you probably never hear about it, which is totally fine. But it’s not your story initially. It’s your story eventually that makes a difference. The first is they’re looking to meet a need when they buy your book. Okay, that’s number two. Number three, no real structure for your commitment or no commitment structure is a problem and a point of failure for authors. Books don’t like generally fail on Amazon. Well, they do if they don’t have a launch structure, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Most people fail like in Google Docs or Word, right? That’s where their book dies. their book dies in the Google Docs because they don’t have a structure. They don’t have a timeline. They don’t have accountability. And so the book stays imaginary. At BSP, you guys know, I mean, we want to hold you accountable. We want to hold you to deadlines. When it comes like launch time, we’re going to say, “Hey, this is going to happen and then this is going to happen and then this is going to happen and let’s go.” We want to push you to get your book done. We have coaching and call cadences that go on. We want to set a weekly accountability time with you and your writer coach or your ghostriter if it’s that situation. You know, we have our accountability times together, right? We have our cadence for coaching calls Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. All of these things are important. Motivation itself isn’t enough. If motivation was enough, you probably would have already finished your book. No, structure is more important than motivation. create structure in your life when it comes to your writing process and great things will happen. For us, it’s all about timeline, accountability, etc. Number four, I’m giving it its own even though I just mentioned it and that is that many authors don’t have a real deadline when it comes to producing their book. And let me tell you, deadlines are awesome. I can’t remember what the law is. Somebody will tell me perhaps in the chat, but there is a law that work basically fills to the time allotted. It fills the space of the time allotted to it. And I believe that that is true and I’ve certainly seen that and you have too because I’ve accomplished things in the writing process by simply putting a deadline on it that took years and years and years before. Thank you, James. Parkinson’s law. So Parkinson law says that work will grow, expand to fill the time and the space that you give it. So set deadlines that require you to meet them. Have a timeline that pushes you. Reverse engineer your writing, your publishing, your launch. We just had a client uh email earlier this morning emailed Bob and I. This is a client that I I know personally that is currently in the editing process. And she said, “Hey, I want to know like what’s the next step after we get out of the editing process, right? There’s already excitement there.” And so Bob Bob sent a video over and said, “Hey, here’s the exact timeline that we will put you on.” He gave exact not dates because this is a a video based on wherever they’re at in the process, but an exact timeline. Hey, here’s the first thing you’re going to do and then this is going to take about two to four weeks and then we’re going to do this and this is going to take about three weeks and then we’re going to do this. I mean, you need to reverse engineer that so that you can get your book done completed out and making a difference in the world as soon as possible. Targeting a launch window, having a pre-launch runway, having a marketing timeline, having timing for your media, having great review strategy. Deadlines create urgency for you. Urgency makes you focused and focus is what’s going to finish your book for you. And like I say, the best time to write your book was 10 years ago. The second best time is today. Get it done as quickly as possible and use deadlines to do that. Very, very powerful. Number five, and for my BSPU clients, this applies greatly to you guys, but that is if there’s no investment. What I found is that often it’s not a priority for people. This is uncomfortable, but I’m speaking to people that have paid me. I’m speaking to my clients. So, you you’ve made an investment. People who pay pay attention. I’ve said it. You know it to be true. When you make an investment, and not an insignificant investment, you’re like, “Okay, this we’re on now. This is serious. This is go time.” Investment signals seriousness. In our language, you don’t treat your assets casually, right? Your assets are important to you. So when someone invests with us, we see and we see to it that they take action to get things done. Whatever it is, editing, design, the launch, media, PR, etc. When people invest in those things, then the book becomes real. It becomes a priority. And without investment, you know, look, I see it every single day because I see the thousands of people and thousands of people, not exaggerated, that come to my workshops every month. And I see the small percentage of people who are willing to invest. And guess what? Those people, you that are willing to invest your time, your energy, and yes, your money are the ones that get it done. You make it happen. Congratulations if you’re willing to do that. If you’ve done that, because that means that you are taking it serious. You’re making it a priority. And guess what? Because of that, things are going to get done for you. Number six, and finally, and then I have a bunch of other caveats and things to talk about, but number six that is a big one, and I talk about this a lot, but unfortunately, most authors have no real marketing plan for their book. And this is a killer. This is like wrong. What I like to say is this, finishing the book is not the finish line. It’s the starting line. Like that’s when the work begins. Like, you can’t market something that doesn’t exist. You can’t use something that doesn’t exist to get you speaking engagements and media appearances and new clients and all the amazing things. So now that you’ve worked hard and you’ve brought your book into existence, now all the fun begins. This whole if you build it, they will come thing. Hey man, that that’s a movie. That’s a fantasy, right? The field of dreams isn’t really how things work in the real world with our books. Books sell because they’re positioned well. They’re pre-launched. They’re launched strategically, and work is done post-launch to continue to keep your book in front of your ideal audience. If you don’t have a marketing plan, then your book is going to be invisible. You can’t just push publish and think, “Okay, all right, my work is done.” No, it it just began. And yes, BSP, we help you with the initial launch strategy and with what needs to be done for publishing and with making your book look like a rock star, getting great reviews, etc. But your book is going to live on for years and years and years like mine do. I launched Publish Proofit 7 years ago. And so just and by the way, I launched it just like I launch my clients books and did the exact same thing for my own book that we do for clients books. But that was seven years ago. Like if I never did anything else with it, would that make sense? No. I continue to use it. I use it with a bookfunnel. I use it with cold email strategies. I use it with outreach strategies on LinkedIn. These are all things that we’ve talked about at one time or another. I use my book continuously. I get it into people’s hands. And you need to do the exact same thing. Okay. So before you write, you need to think of these things. Who exactly is this book for? And the broader you go with that, the more likely for failure. Okay, just the truth. So the more narrow, the more likelihood of success. Who exactly is this book for? What is the transformation that I am bringing to those people? What is my selfish outcome? And you could probably put that at the top of the list. What offer does this lead to? What revenue path is going to exist behind this book. This is all before writing. Then as you write and after writing, what is the launch strategy? What is my speaking strategy if you want to speak? If not, what is my media, my PR strategy that’s going to amplify this? What is my back-end monetization strategy as this goes? Books that sell are built like assets, not journals, not just, you know, cute little stories. They’re assets that are so important to us that we continue to invest in them to get them out into the world. Powerful, powerful. Let’s talk for a minute about ROI. We’ll wrap it up and then I’ll go back through the the six again. I talk a lot about I’m very pragmatic. You know that I say that I talk a lot about return on investment. And when I ask this question about what someone’s goal is for their book is your goal to sell sell 10,000 books or would you rather have 10 high ticket clients? Too many people would say, “Well, I’d rather have 10 high ticket I mean, I’d rather have 10,000 books sold.” And yes, 10,000 books sold would be amazing because you’d probably get a lot more than 10 high ticket clients from that. But which is easier to do? You know, if your average thing that you’re selling, your back-end strategy, whatever it is that you’ve either created or that is already attached to your business, if that is5 or $10,000, 10 high ticket clients are 50 to $100,000. That is a significant return on investment with just 10 people from your book. 10,000 book sales. Do you know how hard that is? 10,000 people. 10,000. I mean, that fills I went to see Nate Bargatesy last week. He didn’t have that many people in all of North Florida come and that guy’s the most famous comedian in the world right now. Like, that is a lot. Now, over time, you can get there, but you can get high 10 high ticket clients in two months from your book with good strategies. One of those is a lot easier and more quickly profitable than the other is. So, you’ve got to think about these things. If your book produces 20 speaking engagements, 50 strategy calls, eight new consulting clients, it’s a winner. Now, all you have to do is is repeat, rinse and repeat for that situation. Get it into more people’s hands that would produce that. So last but not least, books fail because in a general sense because authors tend to write emotionally, not with enough thought, pre-thought about it. Many authors tend to launch it casually, push the publish button, cross their fingers, and then market very little because they hope that Amazon or Barnes & Noble or the book selling gods will do it as they passively wait for the revenues to come in. Those things cause books to fail. Successful books are positioned right. There’s strategy involved in it. They’re built with intentionality. There’s a focus involved in it. They’re launched with a checklist, right? Just like you’re launching a rocket or an aircraft, there’s a checklist. Very deliberate. We have to do this. We have to do this. We have to do this. And then they’re monetized systematically. There’s a system built or multiple systems that you build around your book. This is not a writing problem. It’s it’s more a clarity and focus problem that authors have. And I want you to make sure. I want you to overcome that. Realize that like right from the get-go. All right. Six failure patterns. I’ll go through them one more time. Number one, the idea or the audience is unclear. Number two, your specific goal for the book is not clear. Number three, there isn’t a real commitment and a structure that you have to that commitment. When it comes to the writing, there’s no deadline or timeline. That’s number four. Number five, oftentimes there’s no real investment of time, energy, and yes, money. And because of that, there’s no priority. And then once the book is done, too many authors fail because there’s no real marketing plan when it comes to the book itself. Okay, those are the six things that I talk about in one way or another on a regular basis. and that many of you here as BSP clients, you know that, you realize that you’re still trying to navigate some of that. I get it because some of you have already written your books before you came to us and so some of the idea of the audience and what your goal for and all that wasn’t quite clear before you did it. So, you’re still trying to navigate some of these waters. Understand it. Just understand these are the things that we should always have in place going forward because my hope for you is that you know whatever you’ve written thus far is not going to be the last thing that you write. That you’re going to continue writing. You’re going to continue focusing. It wasn’t John Maxwell’s first book that made him famous. In fact, he didn’t write another book for six years because his first book was a failure. It was the 2nd through the 70th that he wrote that made him who he is today, the foremost leader in leadership in the world. And that is true for every author that reaches the thought leader expert status.

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