Writing a book is a fantastic way to build your personal brand.

First of all, it gives you credibility: you can now refer to yourself as “the author of.” Secondly, your book can help to build other sections of your personal brand, like public speaking engagements, workshops, a book tour, or it might help to land you on TV, radio, or in the paper. Thirdly, you can make money with your book sales, especially if you take off on a big site like Amazon.

One of the greatest things about writing a book today is that it’s no longer out of reach. Pretty much anyone can do it–and you don’t need a book deal to start.

When I wrote my first book 4 years ago, I first published it as an e-book. I sold it as a pdf download from my website. Later on, I had some retail outlets express interest in my book, so I hired a designer, and had it printed at a local printshop. I still sell it in hard copy at a few different outlets around town.

You don’t have to sell your book, for money, though. You could make it available for download for free in exchange for email addresses, helping you to build your email list. It becomes a great marketing tool for that reason.

I’ve now written 3 books, and each one came about in a different way.

1. Build a book from your blog: if you have a blog, and you’ve been writing it for a while, you’ve already built up a wealth of information. Can you take some of those posts and use them as the basis of your book?

2. Create a deadline and get support: if you are teaching a workshop or have a speaking engagement booked in the future, using that as a deadline to have your book available can really help to light a fire under you. Alternatively, seek support. Create a group and make yourselves accountable to each other to produce a certain amount of pages per week.

3. Do an intensive: for my third book, I went away on writing retreat with my friend Paul, also a writer. We rented a remote cabin for a few days, and literally wrote for 12 hours a day. It helped to keep us going. I brain-dumped over 70,000 words on those three days. I had to go back and edit the book later, but banging out the first draft was a huge win.

Thinking of writing a book? Here are some useful links for you:

How to Launch the *** Out of Your E-Book is one of the best resources I’ve read on writing a book. It takes you through the entire process, from researching topics to actually writing your book, and then, of course, launching it.

If you’re thinking of going the Amazon route, read this great post: How to sell an eBook on Amazon using Amazon KDP

I think we’re gonna wrap this up next week!!