You know that book you’ve been thinking about writing?
The one you’ve mentioned to friends, talked about at networking events, and maybe even started outlining in a Google Doc?
The one that has been quietly sitting on your someday list for approximately forever?
I have a question for you.
What if writing that book isn’t just a creative goal? What if it could become one of the smartest business decisions you make?
I’m not talking about becoming the next celebrity author or landing on the New York Times bestseller list. I’m talking about something much more interesting to a business owner: attracting better clients, creating new opportunities, building authority, and making your business more valuable.
I recently sat down with publishing expert and book strategist Holly Ostrout on the Accidental CEO Podcast to talk about exactly that.
And as someone who’s writing a book myself, I had questions. Lots of questions.
When are you ready? Which idea should you choose? How much does publishing cost? And is writing a book actually worth the investment?
Turns out, the biggest mistake might be thinking about the book before thinking about the business.
Why Should a Business Owner Write a Book?
Most people think the goal of writing a book is to sell books.
Seems reasonable, right?
You write something, publish it, and hope people buy it. Ideally, enough people that you get a very exciting royalty statement.
But Holly challenges that approach.
In her work with entrepreneurs, the real value of a business book often comes from what happens because the book exists.
A potential client reads it and suddenly understands your approach. An event organizer sees it and considers you for a speaking engagement. A business partner recognizes your expertise and wants to collaborate.
The book becomes something you can use to create opportunities long after you’ve finished writing it.
During our conversation, Holly referenced a survey in which 96% of entrepreneur authors reportedly experienced significant positive business results after publishing a book. She also cited a finding that 76% were able to double their prices.
Those figures are worth checking against the original research before treating them as established statistics. The bigger point, however, is one worth paying attention to: a book can influence how people understand and value your expertise.
And if you’re an established entrepreneur who’s already spent years proving your work, that matters.
You’re not trying to become an expert by publishing a book.
You’re making the expertise you already have easier for people to recognize.
The Five Business Goals a Book Can Support
Here’s where this conversation became especially useful.
Holly doesn’t begin the book-writing process by asking clients what they want to write about.
She begins by asking what they want the book to accomplish.
Because the right book for someone trying to attract high-ticket consulting clients might be very different from the right book for someone who wants to become a paid keynote speaker.
She identifies five common business goals.
1. Attract more high-ticket clients
Imagine a potential client spending several hours reading your ideas, learning your approach, and understanding how you solve problems.
By the time they book a call, they already know a lot about you.
They aren’t meeting a stranger who needs to prove their expertise in 30 minutes.
They’re meeting someone whose work they’ve already experienced.
That’s a very different sales conversation.
2. Land more paid speaking opportunities
A well-positioned book can make it easier for event organizers to understand your message and the value you bring to an audience.
It doesn’t guarantee a speaking contract, but it gives you a tangible way to demonstrate what you teach and why it matters.
For entrepreneurs who want to become more visible beyond their existing networks, that can be significant.
3. Sell more digital products
Maybe you’ve created a course, workshop, membership, or educational product.
A book can help readers understand the problem your product solves and why your approach is worth exploring.
The key is making the book valuable on its own.
No one wants to pay for an extended advertisement disguised as a book.
4. Become a recognized thought leader
Thought leadership isn’t simply having opinions and posting them on LinkedIn.
It’s developing a clear perspective, explaining it well, and giving people a reason to associate your name with a particular idea.
A book provides room to do that.
Instead of trying to squeeze your entire philosophy into a 60-second reel, you can build an argument, challenge assumptions, and show readers how your thinking works.
5. Create strategic partnerships
Books can support consulting relationships, licensing opportunities, collaborations, and educational partnerships.
Think about your business beyond your current offers.
Where could your expertise create value if more people understood it?
That’s the conversation worth having before you write chapter one.
How to Know If You’re Ready to Write a Business Book
Here’s something Holly said that I think a lot of entrepreneurs need to hear.
You’re probably ready sooner than you think.
There’s a catch, though.
If you’re completely new to your business and haven’t tested your ideas, writing a business book might be premature.
You need enough experience to understand what works, what doesn’t, and why.
But if you’ve been building a business for five, ten, or twenty years, serving clients, refining your offers, and solving real problems?
You may have more than enough material.
The issue isn’t necessarily expertise.
It’s confidence.
We’re very good at convincing ourselves that we need another certification, another milestone, another few years of experience before we’re allowed to share what we know.
Meanwhile, we’re sitting on years of valuable lessons.
And here’s the unexpected benefit Holly brought up: writing a book can actually make you better at explaining your own business.
When you have to organize your ideas and communicate them clearly without the ability to answer follow-up questions, you start noticing where your thinking needs work.
Your framework becomes clearer. Your message gets sharper. You may even begin seeing your offers differently.
In other words, the book-writing process can be useful before the book ever reaches a reader.
For founders who have built a business largely through instinct, that kind of clarity is valuable all by itself.
How to Choose the Right Book Idea
One of the most common problems Holly sees isn’t a lack of ideas.
It’s having too many.
And I get that.
Entrepreneurs are practically professional idea generators. Give us a free afternoon and we’ll come back with three new offers, a potential partnership, and a business model we definitely don’t have time to build.
The challenge is choosing which idea deserves an entire book.
Holly’s approach is to start at the end.
What business result do you want?
Then ask yourself what your reader needs to understand, believe, or experience before they’re ready to take the next step with you.
Work backward from that transformation.
For example, imagine you’re a brand strategist who helps established service providers reposition themselves for premium clients.
You might be considering two books.
One explains your proprietary brand strategy framework in detail.
The other explores why successful entrepreneurs outgrow the positioning that initially made them successful.
Both sound useful.
But which one should you write first?
It depends on the audience.
If your readers already know they need a new brand strategy and are comparing solutions, a detailed framework might be exactly what they want.
If they don’t yet understand why their positioning is holding them back, that first book may be too advanced.
They need to recognize the problem before your solution becomes relevant.
This is one of my favorite takeaways from the episode: Your best book idea isn’t necessarily your most impressive idea. It’s the one that meets your reader at the right moment.
Don’t Turn Your Business Book Into a 250-Page Sales Pitch
We’ve all experienced this.
You buy a business book because the description promises something exciting.
You start reading.
The author keeps teasing a secret formula.
You keep turning pages, expecting the good stuff.
And then, 200 pages later, you discover that the secret formula is conveniently available inside a very expensive program.
Fantastic.
You just paid to read an advertisement.
Holly is not a fan of this approach, and neither am I.
A strategic business book should absolutely support your business goals. But it also needs to deliver real value.
Readers should finish with a meaningful understanding, useful perspective, or practical next step.
They’re not obligated to become your customer just because they bought your book.
In fact, trying too hard to sell them can undermine the very trust you were hoping to build.
Give them something worth reading.
Let your expertise speak for itself.
Then make the next step available when they’re ready.
How to Write a Business Book People Actually Finish
Here’s a mistake experts make all the time.
They assume that because they’ve already taught their material in a course, podcast, presentation, or workshop, they can simply turn those transcripts into chapters.
Technically, you can.
But that doesn’t mean you should.
Holly explains that reading a book is a different learning experience from attending a workshop or listening to a speech.
When you’re speaking live, your audience can ask questions. You can read the room. You can adjust your explanation when something isn’t landing.
A book doesn’t give you that luxury.
Your reader is alone with your words.
And if something doesn’t make sense, they may simply close the book.
Your reader needs a journey, not an information dump
A strong business book has progression.
You introduce a problem, help readers see it differently, challenge assumptions, share examples, and gradually guide them toward a new understanding.
It’s not enough to stack ten educational essays together and call them chapters.
There needs to be a reason for each chapter to follow the previous one.
Think about the transformation you’re promising.
Where is the reader at the beginning?
What must they understand before they can move forward?
Which stories will help the lessons stick?
What should change by the final page?
Holly emphasizes storytelling because people connect ideas to experiences.
A well-placed story can make an abstract concept easier to understand and remember.
That’s especially important for established experts, because we often forget how much background knowledge we’ve accumulated.
In my previous career as a physical therapist, I had to learn how to switch between professional medical terminology and language a patient could actually understand.
You cannot assume that because something makes perfect sense to you, it makes sense to the person hearing it for the first time.
The same principle applies to your book.
Your job isn’t to impress readers with everything you know.
Your job is to help them understand something that matters.
Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing: Which Is Better?
Once you have your book idea, another big question appears.
How are you actually going to publish it?
For a long time, traditional publishing was seen as the ultimate achievement.
Find an agent. Get a publisher. Sign a deal. Celebrate.
But Holly believes that, as of 2026, professional self-publishing or hybrid publishing can be a better option for many entrepreneurs.
Her main reason isn’t just money.
It’s control.
Traditional publishing
With traditional publishing, a publishing company generally handles important parts of production and distribution under the terms of your contract.
But you may give up significant control over your title, cover, branding, content, or promotion.
Royalty structures and rights also need careful attention.
For a business owner, those details matter because your book isn’t necessarily a separate artistic venture.
It may be an extension of your business, your intellectual property, and your brand.
That doesn’t mean traditional publishing is always a bad decision.
It means the agreement needs to make sense for what you’re trying to achieve.
Professional self-publishing
Self-publishing gives you more direct control over how your book is developed and sold.
You can choose your editor, designer, production partners, distribution options, and marketing approach.
The downside?
You’re also responsible for making those decisions and funding the work.
And there is much more involved in publishing a professional book than writing a manuscript and uploading a cover.
Hybrid publishing
Hybrid publishing can combine elements of both approaches.
Depending on the provider and contract, you may receive professional publishing support while contributing financially to production and retaining negotiated rights.
But the label alone doesn’t guarantee a good arrangement.
You still need to examine what you’re paying for, what services are included, who owns the rights, and how the book will be distributed.
My takeaway?
Choose your publishing path the same way you should make any important business decision: based on your goals, your resources, and the control you need.
Not because one option sounds more impressive at a dinner party.
How Much Does It Cost to Self-Publish a Book?
Let’s talk money.
Because writing a book might sound romantic, but publishing one involves actual invoices.
During our conversation, Holly shared several illustrative budget levels.
| Publishing approach | Approximate cost discussed |
|---|---|
| Bare-bones DIY approach | $1,500 |
| DIY writing with professional editing and packaging | $7,000–$8,000 |
| More extensive, professionally supported projects | $40,000–$50,000 |
These are examples from Holly’s experience, not universal publishing rates or guarantees of quality or return.
The right budget depends on your manuscript, the services you need, the formats you publish, and the complexity of production.
And no, spending more money doesn’t automatically guarantee a more successful book.
But there are areas where cutting corners can be expensive in a different way.
Poor editing can damage credibility.
Confusing formatting can make the book frustrating to read.
Weak positioning can make an otherwise excellent book difficult to sell.
And a poorly designed cover can prevent someone from ever discovering how good your content is.
Your book cover is a marketing tool
Holly made a point I loved: your book cover isn’t simply artwork.
It’s marketing.
Think about the last time you browsed books online.
Most covers appeared as tiny thumbnails.
Could you read the title?
Could you understand what the book was about?
Did anything make you want to click?
Your cover has a job.
It needs to communicate clearly and compete for attention without being unnecessarily busy.
This is where being a creative entrepreneur can actually work against us.
We know design. We have opinions. We might even have a friend who’s an excellent artist.
But designing a beautiful image and designing a commercially effective book cover are not always the same thing.
The right question isn’t whether you personally love the design.
It’s whether the design helps the right reader recognize and choose your book.
Can a Book Make Money Without Becoming a Bestseller?
Absolutely.
And this might be the most important business lesson in the entire conversation.
Holly recommends thinking of direct book sales as only one potential revenue source.
In her view, the bigger opportunity often comes from what happens afterward.
Imagine publishing a book and selling a modest number of copies.
If one of those copies reaches the right person and leads to a valuable consulting engagement, the return could exceed your book royalties.
If the book helps you land a paid keynote, the financial impact could be even greater.
If readers purchase your course, join your membership, or eventually hire your company, those outcomes matter too.
None of this is guaranteed, of course.
A book doesn’t magically make strangers throw money at you.
You still need positioning, a clear audience, strong offers, and a way for interested readers to take the next step.
But the book can support the trust-building process.
Someone who spends hours learning your philosophy may enter a sales conversation with far more context than someone who discovered you yesterday through a social media post.
That’s why I think business owners need to stop evaluating a book solely by copies sold.
The more useful question is: What opportunities did the book help create?
Should You Create an Audiobook?
Holly’s answer is yes, ideally.
But she also recognizes that producing an audiobook takes work.
Her suggestion is to consider it part of your publishing plan, even if you don’t release the audio edition immediately.
She also prefers business authors to narrate their own books when practical.
Why?
Because your voice is part of your brand.
The way you speak, tell stories, emphasize ideas, and connect with people is part of what makes your expertise yours.
As someone who loves listening to audiobooks, I understand that.
I’ve listened while cooking, driving, and doing everything else that seems to occupy an entrepreneur’s day.
And yes, I’ve absolutely stayed in my car longer than necessary because I wanted to finish a chapter.
An audiobook allows people to connect with your ideas during parts of the day when sitting down with a physical book isn’t realistic.
That’s another way to make your expertise accessible.
How to Use AI to Write a Book Without Losing Your Voice
We couldn’t have a conversation about writing in 2026 without talking about AI.
And Holly has a very clear position.
Don’t hand over the entire writing process to AI.
Use it to support the process instead.
I think this distinction is important.
There is a big difference between using technology to organize your knowledge and asking technology to manufacture your voice.
Use AI to organize your ideas
Maybe you have twenty client stories, five frameworks, and a hundred lessons you’ve learned the hard way.
AI can help categorize ideas, identify recurring themes, and organize material into a useful structure.
That’s especially helpful before you start writing chapters.
Use dictation to get your words onto the page
Holly recommends tools such as Wispr Flow or other dictation apps.
Once you have a clear outline or book map, you can talk through each section instead of staring at a blinking cursor.
For entrepreneurs who are comfortable explaining their work out loud, that may feel much more natural.
And because you’re speaking the material yourself, there’s a better chance that your personality survives the process.
Use AI for research support
AI can help you explore comparable books, identify potential gaps in the market, and organize findings.
But don’t confuse an AI-generated research summary with verified information.
Check sources, confirm claims, and make your own strategic decisions.
Your book deserves that level of care.
Use AI as a conversation partner
This is one of the ways I’ve found AI useful in my own writing process.
I’ll ask it to interview me about a topic or a memory.
Sometimes a question pulls out part of a story I hadn’t thought about in years.
And suddenly there’s an example that makes an idea much easier to explain.
That’s a helpful use of technology.
The experience and insight still come from you.
AI is simply helping you get to them.
The Real Reason to Write a Business Book
Here’s what I hope you take from this conversation.
A book isn’t a credibility shortcut.
It’s not a replacement for doing good work, building a strong business, or understanding your audience.
But if you’ve already spent years building expertise, developing a point of view, and helping clients solve meaningful problems, a book could become a powerful next step.
It can give your ideas structure.
It can help people understand your work without you having to explain it individually every single time.
It can support new opportunities that move your business beyond your personal availability.
And maybe most importantly, it gives you a chance to turn what you’ve learned into something useful that can outlast your next social media post.
For those of us who accidentally became CEOs, that’s a pretty compelling thought.
You started with a skill.
You built a business.
You figured out more things than you ever expected to need to know.
Maybe the next opportunity isn’t learning something else.
Maybe it’s finally organizing what you already know and sharing it with the people who need it.
So before you open a blank document and start typing, ask yourself:
What would I want this book to make possible?
Start there.
The chapters can come later.
Frequently Asked Questions About Writing a Business Book
How do I know if I should write a business book?
If you’ve developed experience, tested your ideas with real clients, and have a clear perspective that could help a defined audience, you may be ready. Start by identifying the business or reader outcome you want to create.
Do I need to be famous to publish a successful business book?
No. A book can be useful even without a huge audience or impressive sales numbers. Its value may come from attracting qualified clients, supporting speaking opportunities, and building authority in a specific niche.
Should I self-publish or use a traditional publisher?
The right option depends on your goals, budget, desired control, publishing expertise, and contract terms. Compare the financial and rights implications before deciding.
Can I write a book using AI?
AI can help with planning, organization, research, transcription, and light editing. Your original experiences, judgment, and voice should remain central to the manuscript.
How can a book help me get more clients?
A useful business book allows prospective clients to understand your expertise and approach before contacting you. Pair it with clear positioning and a relevant next step so readers know how to continue working with you.
Listen to the Full Conversation
Want to hear Holly’s advice on choosing the right book idea, publishing professionally, and turning your expertise into business growth? Listen to my conversation with Holly Ostrout on the Accidental CEO Podcast.
Holly’s The Book Strategy Workshop HERE:
Take this Quiz HERE:
Follow Holly on Instagram HERE:
And if writing a book has been on your someday list, consider this your invitation to stop treating it like a vague dream and start evaluating it as a real business opportunity.
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