BOOK the BUSINESS ISBN: 9781599324074 Advantage Media Group, copyright and written by Adam Witty and Dan Kennedy.
Sub-titled How to make BIG MONEY without Even Selling a Book, contains 13 chapters beginning with The Big Idea of making Money with your Book, No B.S. There follow chapters describing the Best Customers; why a book is a fine marketing tool; how to use it to build an authoritative position; as the Ultimate Lead Generation Tool; to gain Speaking Engagements; to obtain Free Publicity/media coverage; in Personal Selling; as the Ultimate Referral Marketing Tool; to boost your direct mail; for Fast Product Creation and Additional Income Streams; to Get others to pay for your Marketing; Fast Action Implementation Resources; and finally the One Secret Nobody Tells You and Putting Your Plan into Action specifically contributed by Adam Witty. An Afterword by Dan Kennedy follows and Resources, and About the Authors conclude the presentation.
Discussion: This book is based upon the long accepted, and probably largely correct, assumption that writing a book elevates the author to a position of authority providing he/she has presented verifiable material. Its authors are eminently positioned to set forth suggestions that this premise positions a pertinent book’s author to employ it as a powerful marketing tool that will provide far more than any compensation he/she could gain by providing it simply as a book for sale. Adam Witty is the Founder and CEO of Advantage Media Group that publishes self-improvement and Professional Development books. Dan Kennedy is author and/or co-author of twenty books on the subject, a leader in marketing, copyrighting and business building who has established a worldwide organization to which individuals pay monthly for membership. Thus, when they explain how your authorship of a book on the subject about which you are most knowledgeable can produce what they refer to as “Invisible Income Streams”, their suggestions appear to stem from a superior understanding of the situation. Specifically, your book “provides name recognition in your chosen niche”. As presented in the pages of this book, their suggestions with respect to how your omnipresence offers ways of having others market for you, to promote you without ‘selling’, obtaining speaking engagements, media coverage and more. From this reviewer’s perspective the authors have quite thoroughly, and quite adroitly covered their subject. However, it would seem necessary to provide a small caveat so as to mitigate any confusion for a budding author with respect to writing fiction and non-fiction. Having written and successfully published (as well as taught a university level writing course) in both areas, I believe their expressed opinion that the simple difference between the two is that fiction requires talent and creativity and can be arduous whereas non-fiction is what you know and what you’re willing to research may require a few more words. Fiction does require talent and creativity and can be ’arduous’ in the amount of research required to provide credibility to your plot and the activities included (unless engaged in the fantasy genre). This is why fiction writers usually are told ‘to stick to what they know’. Non-fiction also is described correctly as a collection of what you know and what you are willing to research. However, the newbie by no means should overlook the importance of creativity and talent. They first must have the creative spark that allows them to ferret out the fact(s) that others miss AND the talent to weave them into a single unit that supplies a usable tool to supply answers to the discovered ‘niche’.
5* Highly recommended with small caveat suggested.