Many non-fiction authors ask the question “How much money will my book earn?”
While a book can generate income from people purchasing the book, this is not the only revenue a book can earn.
Often the book opens doors for the author to earn money from the book that is not based on how many books are sold.
The book creates more opportunities for the author to develop various income streams from the book.
The correct question to ask is “How many different revenue streams can I create based on my book?”
The first thing that you need to realize is that a book is an asset. Once you create it, you can earn money from it for the rest of your life.
You can even build your entire business based on your book.
So how many different income streams can you create that are based on your book?
How many of these revenue streams will generate revenue for years into the future?
Master marketer and publisher, Eugene Schwartz explains how each piece of the publishing business creates an asset that can be leveraged to generate additional revenue and profit. “a book can lead to a newsletter, the testimonials for which can lead to turning a catalog, all of which produces mailing lists of which produce names which can be rented.”
There are 6 different categories of revenue a book can create.
Each category has multiple ways of generating revenue.
Let’s look at each one of these categories and how you can generate revenue based on your book.
1. Developing Products Based on the Content of The Book:
The first revenue category is information products that are based on the content of the book.
Book Revenue – Book revenue is generated from people purchasing your book. This can be from people buying on Amazon, other online bookstores, your website, etc. These can be offline ways that people purchase your books also.
Workbook – This can be sold in addition to your book, or packaged together and sold on your website at a higher price. The purpose of the workbook is to help people that have purchased your book to implement the book’s content. This helps them achieve the results faster.
Online Course – an online course that is based on a book, provides more in-depth training and resources that help the user implement the content faster. For instance, an online course can include videos tutorials, worksheets, checklists, access to a Facebook group of other people trying to achieve the same goals, etc. Plus, customers may be able to get their questions answered in a forum, a Facebook group or via Q&A sessions.
Paid Newsletter – Create a premium paid monthly newsletter that is based on the topic of the book. Creating a newsletter is a quick way to generate additional revenue. The newsletter can be in a pdf format that is delivered via email or print version of the newsletter can be mailed to the subscriber.
Membership Site – Membership sites are like paid newsletters, except membership sites can be multimedia driven. They can include articles, reports, videos, mp3 files, tutorial videos and Q&A sessions.
2. Monetizing Your Email List
Books and a publishing business should build an email list. The list owner can monetize the list in many ways from promoting their own products, coaching programs, and events. Here are two other direct ways to create revenue from an email list.
Affiliate Revenue – Affiliate products are when you promote other people’s products and then receive a commission based on the number of people who purchased the product from your recommendation.
Sponsored content– Sponsored content is when companies purchase an advertisement to reach the people on your email list and website. This can be in the form of banner ads, dedicated emails, and sponsored stories. These types of ads are normally sold on a cost per thousand amount or at a flat rate.
3. Coaching Creates High Margin Revenue
Coaching programs help people achieve results faster and can be combined with online courses to help clients achieve results.
Group Coaching Programs – Group coaching programs allow the author to deliver value and speed of results in a one to many relationships. Group coaching programs can also provide value by creating a community and participants can interact, answer questions, and help each other.
One on One Coaching – provides the highest level of coaching support and speed of results.
Mastermind groups – Mastermind groups are created by a specific number of people joining together to solve problems, gain insight from others in the group, and achieve results.
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Did You Know One of the Fastest Ways To Build Your Audience Is to Build Your Email List?
4. Speaking To Build Your Audience
Keynote Speeches & Breakout Sessions – Keynote speeches and breakout sessions are another way to earn revenue from your book. During these speeches, you deliver content that is based on your book and earn money by either being paid by the event owner or by the number of people in the audience who purchase your book and other products.
Keynote and breakout sessions can lead to additional book revenue from corporations purchasing the books and workbooks as ongoing training for their employees.
Online Webinars – Webinars are a great way to build your authority. Each webinar can be training that you deliver to your audience. These can be paid or free webinars. Plus, you can deliver webinars and presentations for other people’s audiences.
Teleseminars – These are like a conference but are held over a bridge line on the phone. Normally each person speaking on the summit is interviewed by a host from 30 to 90 minutes.
Online Summits – Online summits are like teleseminars except they are video interviews. One of the biggest benefits of participating in an online summit is the number of people watching the summit. If there are 30 speakers and each speaker promotes the summit to their own email list, then the potential audience for the summit can be huge.
5. Hosting Events For High Profit and Raving Fans
Retreats– Retreats are a great way to earn money and can be held at vacation destinations to rejuvenate your spirits. Typically, with retreats, they are focused on a topic or theme. They can be writing retreats, marketing retreats, finish your book retreats, etc. Retreats are normally limited to a certain number of people and are held for a specific time period like 3-5 days.
Workshops/Bootcamps– Workshops and Bootcamps can be anywhere from a couple hours to 3 days long. They provide valuable content and help attendees achieve their goals. These can be held online or offline.
Conferences – normally span 1- 3 days and can have 1 or multiple speakers with break out sessions. Authors can speak at conferences or host their own conference to build their audience and earn money.
6. Done for Your Services
If you offer done for you services they should be the highest level of service available to your client. They provide the client with the ultimate experience in speed and results. If your book is about launching a podcast, then this would be you actually helping the client launch the podcast.
There you have 6 different categories and 17 different revenue streams based on a book. The most important thing to focus on is to build your audience. Once you have an audience of loyal followers, then you can create different revenue streams based on your book. People will purchase different products at different price points based on the results, how fast they want to implement the content in your book, their overall experience, and reaching the results they are trying to achieve.
The fastest way to build your audience is to build your email list.
Download 101 Ways to Build Your Email List.