In today’s guest post business coach and mentor Karen Williams shares her personal experience and some advice:

Your Book is the Hook

by Karen Williams

Have you got a secret desire to write a book?

You know you’ve got something to say; if only you had the guts to do something about it. You know you want to write, but perhaps you don’t know what people want you to say or how to share your message.

I tell you this. Writing a book is something that will change the direction of your business. Although very few people make millions from writing a book – it won’t be your retirement plan or the thing that allows you to give up working – but a well written book will help you to stand out in your business.

Your book is the hook that allows you to:

• Build your credibility, allowing you to get noticed by your ideal clients
• Grow your community, reach more people and change more lives
• Position yourself as the go-to person in your area of expertise

Writing a book certainly changed the direction of my business. It was a little over 3 years ago that I published my first book, so let me share with you some of my story.

Why I decided to become a writer

When I started out in business, I didn’t have a clue where to start. Although I’d studied business at College, putting the theory into practice was very different. Making the transition from a pretty secure corporate job to the uncertainty of working for myself was tough. I had to put myself out there, develop the courage to do new things and I had to stand out to get noticed. And it was my first book that allowed me to do that.

However, I never set out to write a book. I did research for a project where I was modelling the mindset behind a coaching business. I contacted and spent time with some of the best coaches in the industry – including Michael Neill and Dawn Breslin – and learnt strategies that changed my life.

When I put these strategies into place in my business, it turned it around. I realised that I had cutting edge information that I had to share, so I decided to write a book. . The Secrets of Successful Coaches came out in 2011, which was followed 18 months later by How to Stand Out in your Business, which shared my own step by step guide to get noticed.

Is your business book ready?

Writing a book, however, is not the start of your journey; there are certain things that you need to do initially. You’ll struggle to achieve success if you just put pen to paper or hand to keyboard without nailing some of the fundamentals first. Your business needs to be book ready.

Without a clear target audience or a message that resonates with them, any book you write is more likely to fail. Without having a specific focus for your book or knowing what you want your reader to do next, you will struggle to make a difference.

Also, as I said earlier, your book is unlikely to make you millions, but when you develop a strategy to use the book to raise your profile, and have a process that allows your readers to work with you on a more intimate level, it will make a huge difference to your business success.

Want to write a book?

If you want to write a book, here are some questions to get you started:

1. What is your goal or intention for the book?
2. What is the topic that your readers need to know now?
3. What is your hook?
4. What else has been written about your subject?
5. Who is your ideal reader?
6. Why should they read your book?
7. What do you want your reader to do once they have read your book?
8. What makes your book different from those of your competitors?
9. What else do you need to do to get your message out?

Then writing it is actually the easy part as you’ve got to get published, promote it, and then you might choose to do it all over again!

Take the next steps

If you know that writing a book will set you aside from other people in your profession, contact me to find out how I can help you.

To find out more about why writing a book will help you to stand out, you can download a copy of my brand new report ‘Your Book is the Hook’ here, where you can also find out more about the writing retreat I am running in Spain later this year.

About the Karen Williams

Karen Williams is the founder of Self Discovery Coaching and is a Business Coach and Mentor, Author, Speaker and Fire Walk Instructor. She predominantly works with solopreneurs (coaches, consultants and therapists) who want to make a difference, but know that to do this, they need to learn the skills to create and grow a successful business. She helps them to get more clients, make more money and do what they love. She is known for helping her clients to succeed by standing out from the crowd, getting noticed and being an expert in their business.

She is the author of The Secrets of Successful Coaches, which reached #1 in the Business charts on Amazon. Her second book, How to Stand Out in your Business, was published in 2012. In the second book she shares the 7 Step Success System that she uses to help her clients to become more visible and create a successful business. She is half way through writing her third book.