Share your ideas, grow your company, and become a thought-leader by writing a business book
From the global success of TED Talks to Steven Bartlett’s wildly popular podcast The Diary of a CEO, there is a tremendous appetite to hear more from the world’s top business leaders.
If you’ve risen to the top of your field, chances are you’ve got some invaluable insights and inspiration to offer others who want to learn from your success journey. A business book is a powerful medium for sharing your ideas with a wider audience, and can also be useful for building and marketing your own company.
What’s more, memoirs and biographies are consistently the top-selling non-fiction genre on Amazon, meaning there are lots of interested readers who seek knowledge and are still keen to learn that through the authority books have over other media.
To give your book the best chance of success, it’s a good idea to think about hiring a ghostwriter or editor, who can turn your germ of an idea—or even a rough first draft—into an all-singing, all-dancing manuscript that’s ready for professional publication.
Why Write a Business Book?
Luke Shipman, Founder of The London Ghostwriting Company, explains:
“A book can be a tremendous asset for a business or entrepreneur. The right book will open the right doors—it can enhance and professionalise an entire organisation.
“It’s a great way of reflecting on your career journey so far, and the challenges you have overcome—as well as the triumphs you have achieved—to reach where you are today. It’s also an ideal tool for showcasing your knowledge of your industry, and offering advice on how other people can succeed through the lessons you have learned.
“Publishing a book can also help your business to expand and flourish. As you are aware, success at a high level has a lot to do with personal branding, and a business book can help to share your professional identity and ideas with the world. It can also act as a powerful marketing tool, in turn helping to grow your business further.”
How Can a Business Book Help With My Professional Development?
The first stage of writing a business book involves considering your life and career up to this point: the choices you have made and the paths you have taken. Through this activity, you can then identify the key lessons or takeaways that have led to your success that are worth sharing with your reader.
This is a useful exercise for your continued professional growth, as it requires you to objectively analyse your past actions and decisions, and how they benefitted—or not—your career trajectory, ensuring that, going forwards, you continue to maintain healthy habits and avoid any unhealthy ones.
The Three Types of Business Book
The Memoir
If you’ve achieved significant success in your field, then an autobiography can be the best way to share your journey. It can include both personal anecdotes and professional learnings, and how together they have shaped your career and business.
Example: Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
The Advice Manual
This type of business book gives its readers clear, actionable advice to solve a specific problem, for example scaling a start-up or increasing your personal productivity levels.
Example: Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
The Knowledge Bible
Do you have a lifetime of in-depth knowledge to share, garnered over years of study and work? Or a unique opinion on your industry? If so, you can share this in a business book that’s geared to presenting your insights to a wider audience.
Example: Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
There are also business books that combine all three: autobiography, advice and subject-specific knowledge. It all depends on how you would like to connect with your readers.
The Ghostwriting Process
A professional ghostwriting service will provide the help and support needed to turn an idea for a business book into a manuscript ready for publication.
The right company will set you up with an experienced ghostwriter who you will meet with in-person and online. This writer will begin focused discussions with you, study your ideas, review any notes or drafts you have produced so far, and come up with a plan, often working with their own editor. This will involve creating a skeleton framework of the book, as well as some sample chapters to determine style and tone of voice.
After these have been agreed, the writer will go on to complete an initial manuscript draft, which will be returned to you for feedback. Once any changes have been completed, the second draft will be refined, edited and polished until it meets the highest of standards, including proofreading and packaging for submitting into the trade.
How Do I Get My Business Book Published?
Once your manuscript is ready to go, you will need to contact agents and publishers bysubmitting a winning cover letter—these are all services that can be solicited, with some companies and freelance ghostwriters offering this on-going support.
Alternatively, many business leaders choose to self-publish their books as they want to retain their profits and control the process of design and marketing. A reputable ghostwriting service will also be able to recommend specialist hybrid publishers who operate in much the same way as traditional publishers.
How a Book Can Help Your Business
Business books and memoirs are popular for a reason: people will always be eager to hear more about the insights and habits of successful entrepreneurs and business leaders. People want to make money and develop themselves, and they know they aren’t going to learn how down the local pub; people are hungry for knowledge, and when this happens, they like to move fast: tips and tricks for such avid learners will help them, but also help you…
Whatever you wish to share with the world, writing a business book is an important way of imparting your valuable advice and experience, as well as building your profile as a thought-leader. It’s also an important tool for self-reflection, helping to ensure continued personal development and success in your chosen career.
Ultimately, it is the ideal way to build your legacy as a business leader, and ensure your ideas can be shared with as wide an audience as possible.
The London Ghostwriting Company is a leading ghostwriting and editorials firm providing editing and ghostwriter services for new writers, established authors, agents and publishers.Visit londonghostwriting.com to find out more about its business ghostwriting service.