Is a business book worth the investment?
Tens of thousands of dollars and months of your time is a real investment whether you write the book yourself or hire a ghostwriter, so it’s fair to ask whether business books produce returns at all. For the numbers, see the ROI breakdown, why a book is the best investment in your business and how books build trust.
The 2024 ROI study established that they can. The question is whether a book makes sense for you, right now, given your goals, your market, and where you are in your career.
If you aren’t yet perceived as the obvious expert, a book can accelerate the process by years.Share on X
I’ve ghostwritten 54+ books for executives, entrepreneurs, and public figures.
Some of those books were brilliant strategic moves that transformed my clients’ businesses. Others should have waited a year, or been something other than a book, and I said so at the time. The difference was timing and fit. Here’s the structure I use to help clients evaluate the decision.
I tell every client the same thing about money: they’re very unlikely to earn it back through book sales. The return comes from using the book as the foundation of their marketing. Anyone who sells a business book on the promise of royalties is setting the author up to feel cheated, and I won’t do it. You can sell five copies of a book and land a million dollars in business because the right person read it. So I tell business authors to stop counting copies and start counting the business the book brings in.
What Should You Ask Before Writing a Business Book?
Three questions, and most people skip all of them: who the book is for, what problem it solves for them, and what it has to do for your business.
From the podcast
Joe Rockey argues that the problem you think you solve is rarely the one the buyer is paying to fix, on Leaders and Their Stories:
The problem you solve is probably not the problem in your prospect’s head that you solve.A book is bought for what it does to a career, a reputation, or a legacy, not for the pages.
1. What will the book do that your current positioning can’t?
A book is a credibility tool. It signals expertise, creates perceived authority, and gives prospects a reason to choose you over competitors who don’t have one. But if your positioning is already strong (strong referral network, full client roster, established speaking career), the marginal benefit of a book may be smaller than you expect.
The book produces the strongest returns when there’s a gap between your actual expertise and how the market perceives that expertise.
You know more than your competitors, but prospects can’t tell. You have a structure that produces results, but it lives in your head instead of on a shelf. You’re competing for speaking engagements against people who have published and you haven’t. The book closes that gap.
Aim at the right reader, too. CEOs don’t wander bookstores looking for this kind of book. The mid-level person who recommends a vendor does, and when that person walks into a meeting with your book open to the chapter that fits their situation, you’ve made the sale.
If you’re already perceived as the obvious expert in your space, a book adds to an already strong foundation. If you’re not yet perceived that way, a book can accelerate the process by years.
2. Do you have something specific to say?
This sounds obvious, and it kills more projects in the first conversation than anything else on this list. “I want to write a book about leadership” is a category.
The market has thousands of leadership books. Yours needs a specific argument, a distinct structure, or an experience base that separates it from what already exists.
I’m happy to lose a project in that first conversation if the alternative is months of writing about a category. A concept that can’t survive two sentences won’t survive a whole manuscript, and the client ends up paying for pages nobody asked for.
The test is whether you can explain your book’s core argument in two sentences.
If you can’t, the concept isn’t ready. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write a book. It means you need to develop the concept before committing to the investment. You can find current book discovery intensive pricing on the book discovery intensive page.
3. Will you use the book actively?
The 2024 ROI study found that the primary returns from business books came from downstream opportunities instead of royalties. Speaking engagements, consulting opportunities, workshops, and organizational sales generated the real revenue. But those opportunities don’t materialize automatically. They require the author to use the book as an active business tool.
That means sending copies to prospects before meetings. Speaking pitches built around the book’s structure. Content drawn from the book’s chapters. Mentioning the book in podcast appearances and panel discussions. If you plan to publish and then wait for the phone to ring, the investment won’t produce the returns the study data suggests are possible. The clients of mine who got the most from their books did exactly this work. Their books turned into more consulting contracts, speaking, courses, and in one case a promotion. None of that came from royalties. Be honest with yourself about whether you’ll do that work, because plenty of people don’t. The book still works as a credibility signal if you skip it, but the money stays on the table.
4. Can your business absorb the opportunity the book creates?
A book that works generates inbound interest. Prospects reach out. Speaking invitations arrive. Consulting inquiries increase. If your business can’t handle increased demand (you’re already overbooked, you don’t have a team to support growth, your service model doesn’t scale), the book creates pressure without producing revenue.
The best time to publish is when you have capacity to convert new opportunities into revenue. If you’re operating at maximum capacity with no path to scale, consider whether the book should wait until you’ve built the infrastructure to capitalize on what it generates.
Timing cuts the other way, too. Hard deadlines are common in my work: a conference, a startup launch, even a birthday. A rush book carries a higher rate, because for those months the client becomes one of my only clients, so put the deadline into the plan early and don’t let it ambush you.
5. Are you willing to invest at the level that produces results?
A clear pattern shows up in the ROI study data. Authors who invested in ghostwriting, launch PR, and strategic planning saw dramatically stronger returns than those who tried to minimize costs. Ghostwritten books produced four times the revenue of self-written ones. Authors who invested in launch PR saw higher visibility and engagement.
A professionally ghostwritten business book is a significant investment (my rate is on my ghostwriting services page), and editing, design, publishing and launch promotion add to it. Plan the whole budget around the business returns the book has to produce.
That budget is right for a lot of professionals and wrong for anybody who wants to spend a little and see what happens. The study data strongly suggests that underfunding a book produces poor results. Either fund it at the level that gives the book a real chance of performing, or put that money into marketing where a smaller budget can still work. Ask your accountant how to handle the fee; many of my clients have deducted it.
When Is a Business Book the Wrong Move?
Not every professional should write a book. Not every professional should write one right now. Five situations make me advise clients to wait or reconsider.
- You don’t have a clear concept yet. Writing a book to “figure out what I think” is an expensive way to brainstorm. For more on the book as a business investment, hear Richard on Business Innovators Network. Develop the structure first through speaking, workshops, articles, or coaching engagements. The book should codify thinking that already exists.
- You’re in a career transition. Publishing a book positions you as an expert in the book’s topic for years. If you’re about to shift industries, niches, or business models, the book may lock you into a positioning you’re trying to leave. Wait until the new direction is established.
- You need revenue in the next three months. Even a fast ghostwriting timeline is four to eight months of active work plus revisions and editing, plus production and launch time. If your business needs cash now, a book won’t help. Invest in activities with shorter feedback loops and plan the book for when the financial pressure has eased.
- You’re doing it because everyone else has. “My competitor published a book” is a reaction. If you can’t articulate what the book will do for your business beyond matching what competitors have done, the motivation isn’t strong enough to sustain the project or produce strong returns.
- You won’t use it. A book sitting in a box in your garage doesn’t generate speaking invitations, consulting leads, or credibility shifts. If you know yourself well enough to know you won’t actively promote and deploy the book after publication, save the investment.
When is a business book the right move?
The clients whose books produce the strongest returns share specific characteristics. Each has a clear structure or argument and an existing audience or client base that the book can deepen. They’re willing to use the book as an active business tool, and they have capacity to convert the opportunities the book generates into revenue.
One client’s book helped raise over $30 million in venture capital because the book established credibility with investors before the first meeting. Others received TEDx speaking invitations. Others turned their books into consulting work and speaking engagements. These outcomes weren’t accidents. They came from books that were strategically conceived, professionally executed, and actively deployed.
If ROI is the point, think hard before chasing a traditional publisher. Three of my clients’ books went that route, and each took 12 to 18 months to reach print. I don’t recommend it: the delays are long, the royalties are much lower, and you give up control of your own book during the months it’s supposed to be working for you.
For the detailed data behind these patterns, see What the 2024 Business Book ROI Study Actually Found. For the book concept development process, the AI-Enhanced Book Proposals Handbook covers everything from initial idea through finished proposal. For promotion strategy after publication, see the AI-Enhanced Book Promotion Handbook. If you want to evaluate whether a book makes sense for your situation, schedule a conversation. I’ll walk you through the economics based on your market, your goals, and the study data. What frustrates me is watching a smart professional pay for a book and then treat it like a trophy. A book that never reaches a prospect’s desk, a conference stage or an investor meeting has earned nothing, and that’s a choice the author makes long after the writing’s done.
