Your Book Should Be a Million Dollar Asset. Here's Why It's Not:

What Is an Asset and the Truth of Passive Income Nobody Wants To Talk About.
The concept of a passive income has been a subject that has taken off over the last 10 years and it’s an easy idea to sell to people because it’s enormously appealing. To make money while we sleep via some mechanism or business that runs itself is the dream but the reality is very different.To be completely honest I could write an entire book about this subject but to save you from all the details, the truth is no income is truly passive and the only thing close to it can only be implemented with assets. If you buy a property you can receive rental income or if you buy enough good dividend stocks then you can receive a reasonable income in annual dividends. There are other examples but you get the point, you invest money, you get a percentage cash income based on the value of your investment.In these cases the amount of income is only directly related to the amount of money you invest. If you invest a million dollars in stocks with reasonable dividend returns you could (if you do it right) receive upwards of fifty grand a year in direct income, plus the increase in stock value. The results would be similar when investing a million dollars in commercial real estate. To receive $50,000 in cash income per year, you’d need to invest a million dollars in cash. These are also good to best case scenarios, just a few bad choices or some lack of knowledge could lead to yearly income returns of less than half that, so your million dollar investment might only get you $10,000-$20,000 in the first few years.What If You Don’t Have a Million Dollars?
There’s only one other way of acquiring an asset and that is to create one out of thin air, this is not easy or straightforward and let’s face it, if it was, absolutely everyone would do it. This can take many forms, a master cabinet maker when making some furniture from just piece of would has created an asset with his bare hands. It might only be a $500 dollar asset but it’s one he can sell and make money. However a table is not an asset that can create an annual income, in financial terms it’s more like a commodity like gold, not dividend return stock. An asset that returns annual royalties would be something like music or a book. Paul McCartney receives millions of dollars a year in royalties for music he created decades ago with just his effort, work and talent, that’s a passive income from a built asset. This is an extreme example but there are thousands of unknown artists creating music for ads, radio jingles and basic beats used in other’s music who receive good royalty incomes every year.The one thing that tracks hard and fast between bought assets and built assets is the rule that ties the amount invested to the amount returned. When buying an asset it’s the amount in cash directly invested, when building an asset it is work, effort and time (plus money if you want to take shortcuts). If you do use money to take shortcuts with your built assets, the amount of money is also directly related to how much time or work you want to save yourself, you can’t expect to spend $25,000 dollars to save you half million dollars of time and effort.A Book As a Built Asset.
A book is one of the few strategic assets you can create alone with no money and it can generate value repeatedly until the end of time. If done right. Unlike a service which requires your time, every time, or a basic product that you can only sell once.It is important to recognize when building an asset like a book, it’s a long game but not just time based long game, a book appreciates through effort and strategy over time, not just time alone or a once only burst of effort at launch.When creating a book as built asset and re-evaluating one that has already been published a vital question to ask is: What is this book selling? This might seem like a straightforward question for business books but what about fictional novels? The truth is these days one book is not enough, it needs a sequel, preferably a series or at the very least a Netflix or movie deal. All the big publishers know this and the first book from from an author will make a loss when accounting for marketing and promo costs.This is also the reason it’s so hard for even the best business or self-help authors to pick up a publishing deal because the publishers know the follow-up income is going direct to the author in speaking gigs, consultancy work or just other income flowing directly to the authors business, not the publisher. For a fictional author, the publisher needs to bank on follow up books and tie that author into a lengthy contract for all rights, future books, TV, film, merch etc.So, what is your book selling? The next book? Speaking gigs? Consultancy? Film rights? Merch? PR for your existing business? Credibility for career advancement? What?A properly marketed book with consistent sales (doesn’t need to be big sales, just consistent) builds an audience that belongs to you, that audience compounds over time. That in itself is a very valuable asset. What’s in your pipeline to sell to that audience?Why Most Authors Never Get There.
Following on from this previous point, it’s imperative to have a strategy beyond that one book. Whether it’s a sequel, series, consulting, selling course, the revenue streams leading from the book needs to be the beginning of an ecosystem, never a standalone book.Authors believe the investment needs to be made in writing, editing and launch when in reality that’s just 20% of the project. Some have a launch and done mentality and some understand that it requires more but few keep enough energy, enthusiasm and resources in reserve to continue into the long term. A book launch is not a finish line, in many ways it’s the start.There needs to be a mindset shift from just a creative project to creating a strategic asset, that’s exactly the mindset and approach a successful publisher would take, regardless of the subject or the authors feelings on creativity. Be able to wear both metaphorical hats but also able to separate yourself as the creative author and the commercial asset builder. This mindset shift can change everything.Authors need to take ownership of their audience, it’s a huge part of the asset. Most authors rely entirely on Amazon and don’t lead their following to their own website and email list. If you don’t truly own your audience then you don’t fully own your asset.Many authors navigate publishing and marketing alone or with little guidance and support. I have been working with authors for almost 20 years in this field and the overriding statement I hear is
“I wish I’d heard this earlier, I could’ve saved so much time and money”. The publishing and book marketing industry is both complicated and forever changing, there are very few people in the independent publishing sector who truly understand it and even fewer who truly understand the commercial aspects. Getting no support in this area of publishing for an author, or worse the wrong guidance is where years of potential value quietly but painfully disappear.