5 Reasons to write the book first

Many people see the book as the ultimate goal-- as the final achievement as a content creator. However, in the Amplify framework we teach the opposite. Rather than stopping at the book, start there.

The reason to undertake this work is multi-faceted. In fact, here are five.

Let's walk through each of them...

Reason 1: the discipline of creating the book provides you everything you need to effectively create a cohesive brand. 

Take a look at the stairs below. I refer to this graphic multiple times throughout the Amplify resources, so familiarize yourself with it. 

If you write the book— even if it’s only an unpublished manuscript, you have months (maybe even a year) of content ready to infuse throughout the meta verse and build your brand. The discipline of sitting in the chair and writing the book achieves this.

In fact, to test this theory, I decided to write Amplify and build all the collateral needed in order to build its brand before launching anything. If you’re reading this post, you know the strategy works. The podcast, the posts, the course… everything is based on the book and the content within it.

In fact, in the book, you’ll learn how to transform your book into a podcast, a course, a coaching program, and more. Building the most robust— and lucrative— parts of your ecosystem is easier if you have a book (even if it’s not published) in hand. For instance, after writing everything in the Amplify book, I pulled some of the most robust content and placed it exclusively in the coaching program. 

Reason 2: books convey authority in a way nothing else quite does.  

Books are great calling cards. In effect, they serve as long form sales-letters demonstrating how you can help others. 

Even though we’ve all skimmed enough bad books to realize that not everyone who writes a book actually has something worthwhile to say, the average person readily assumes that anyone who has written a book actually does have something worth knowing. 

Your book becomes a calling card, a low-cost resource that highlights what you can do to serve someone at their point of need. It provides you the opportunity to explain, in long-from, far more than you can share in a face-to-face meeting or even on your website. People toss business cards to the side; they click away from websites; they place actual sales letters and proposals in the trash. People don’t, however, as easily dispense with books. 

Why?

Because, fair or unfair, a book exudes authority and expertise. 

Reason 3: people like things they can hold in their hands.

We used books at live events as the “driver” to move people “up the stairwell” (deeper in the funnel) and to our higher-ticket items when I was working with a different organization.

We always created special event-pricing for the resources, selling the books 1 for $15, 2 for $25, or 3 for $30. Though we allowed people to “mix and match,” choosing the books they wanted, we pre-banded groups of them together stacking bundles on the table which were easy to grab.

Eventually, we featured 10 of our books in the bundle.

People came to the table, cash in hand, asking for the complete bundle without even browsing the titles. They just knew it was “one of everything” we had.

We also learned how many books to ship to each event, based on the number of attendees, such that we often “sold out” just as the event ended. At the final event we did during that season, I returned home with 7 books. I’d sent a few thousand. And, since we cleared almost $8 per book— even at the discounted pricing— we used those sales to fund our travel. 

Here’s why it worked...

When people go to live events, they have a certain amount of money they’ve already set aside to spend. It doesn’t feel like they’re “out any money” when they buy something from you, because they’ve already mentally removed that cash from their budget. In the same way we suspend our “regular financial rules” when we go Christmas shopping or venture forth on vacation, so also do people step into a different mindset when they show up to live events. 

During those moments, they like to purchase something they can hold in their hand. Moreover, they perceive the money as already spent…

We encouraged people to visit with our team, snap selfies, and share what they were learning. Many of them purchased books; many of them upsold to our online membership— a much higher-ticket item with recurring revenue. 

Reason 4: the book allows you to go broader, deeper, and longer. 

Let me explain each of these briefly:

📣 Broader = a book expands your audience as it reaches people you don’t know and see.

In other words, the book goes places you can't-- or won't-- apart from the book.

📣  Deeper = a book allows you to dive into your topic with more detail and application.

When I’m onstage, I’m aware that I have a limited amount of time, and that people can only remember a minimal amount of content. I’m pressed on multiple sides. Furthermore, unless they record the live talk there’s no way for the person to rewind and re-listen.  A book helps you burst through these barriers. 

📣  Longer = a book lives beyond you.

Words on the page can certainly extend beyond your lifetime, but let’s think more near-sighted and less-morbid. Technology changes, rapidly. The way people consume it shifts. However, the one form of tech that hasn’t significantly changed in over 500 years is the book.

A few months ago Beth recreated covers and typesetting for books our friends Kent & Bev wrote 10-15 years ago. She effectively repurposed them, giving them new life for another audience. 

Reason 5: books have a low cost and can create a great return— if you don’t stop with the book.  

There’s not much money in books— unless you move massive quantities of them. But, if you continue moving people up the stairwell— often referred to as a “value ladder” (read: deeper in your funnel)— there is big money to be earned. 

I’ve found that the greatest cost in the book is the investment to create it, specifically, the time you spend in the chair not doing other income-producing activities.

However, if you write the book with an eye towards repurposing all of the content for other purposes, your horizon expands and it actually becomes easier. You sense— in the beginning— that every moment at the table will amplify into something exponentially more. 

By writing the Amplify book first, I accumulated all the content I need to: 

📣  Subdivide the big book (8.25 x 11 hardback, 550 pages)  into several smaller books

📣  Release a podcast— with over a 18 months of content already in hand

📣  Shoot a video course

📣  Launch a membership / subscription-based coaching group

📣  Coach and consult other clients 1:1

📣  Do contract work with clear expectations 

It's a shift

I get it. Writing the book first is a perspective-shift. Or, as we call them in the Amplify framework, a mind-shift.