How to Write a Business Book to Boost Leads & Sales

By Mike Capuzzi | July 15, 2024

Right from the start, I want you to know that my intended readers for this article are business owners, entrepreneurs, and corporate leaders who want to write and publish a business book that turns readers into customer, clients, members, students, etc.

(For the sake of simplicity, from here on out, I will refer to the first group as “business owners” and the second group as “customers.”)

I am creating this for men and women who want to write a business book to build authority, generate leads, and boost sales. Typically, these are non-fiction books focused on your expertise.

In other words, writing a strategic business book to build your authority and generate new business leads and sales. Typically, these are non-fiction books focused on your expertise.

In many types of businesses using a book to attract ideal customers is an effective strategy. Check out what marketing strategist, Dan Kennedy, says about this.

I also want you to know that this article is written for the person who is not looking to make money by selling books, but instead by connecting readers to your much more profitable products and services.

And finally, this article is written for time-strapped people who want to learn more about a proven book structure and template for writing a short business book that takes the average reader about 60-90 minutes to read, cover to cover, and takes you a lot less time to write.

Write a Business Book That Is a Short Business Book

I want to be very clear in describing the type of business book I want you to consider publishing and understand the two critical differences from 99% of the business books you are familiar with.

Difference #1-These Are Lead Magnet Books Meant to Be Given Away

The type of short business book I’m focusing on are first and foremost marketing and sales tools. You may have heard them called other names such as:

Lead magnet books
Authority building books
Customer attraction books
Traffic and conversion books
Micro books
Money making books
Promotional books
Lead generation books

Regardless of the name, these are tactical books that are designed to help targeted individuals solve a specific problem or achieve a specific goal and are meant to be given away for free (or almost free) to ensure your book gets in the hands of as many ideal target readers as possible.

With smart advertising, digital marketing, and lead generation, your goal is to get as many “ideal readers” (who fit your perfect customer profile) as possible to get your book, read it, and act on it.

To do this you must think differently than most business books authors and NOT FOCUS on book sales and making a few dollars selling your book, but instead investing in your future bank and making money when your book readers become customers.

People have all sorts of motives for writing a book, however in my opinion, the experience of writing a book that will help many people and help you and your business is a WIN-WIN opportunity.

Commit to writing a book that helps first and sells second.

Difference #2-These Are Short Books Written to Be Read in an Hour

Publishing a book has been an effective way for businesses to offer helpful information to solve a specific problem for over 120 years.

Throughout the 20th century books were offered to consumers who have a specific problem or desire, as a tool to help them.

The "free book" advertisement below is from 1903 from the Ostermoor Mattress Company, which used a free book marketing strategy for decades.

But there is one critical difference today than in previous years—the lack of free time available for people to read your book and for you to write it.

Most consumers (my estimate is 95%) don’t have the time or attention span to read long books, regardless of the subject’s importance or interest level. They may start with the best of intentions, but after a few chapters, something else gets their attention and the book is put down, never to be completed.

Unfortunately, the promise of the book, the reason they started to read it, is never fulfilled, which is why I want you to consider publishing a short business book instead.

Specifically, a short business book has about 100 to 120 pages and a word count of 12,000-15,000 words total. Typical business books are 200 pages or more and contain 75,000 words or more.

	# of Pages	Time to Read	Time to Write	Calls-to-Action
Typical Business Book	200+	Many hours	Many months	No
Short Business Book	100-120	1 hour	6-12 weeks	Yes

Instead of overwhelming readers with hundreds of pages of content (and sharing everything you know about a topic), give them the essential information they are looking for and nothing else.

Think of your book as an hour-long conversation between you and your reader.

If your topic requires more than a “conversation,” break your content into multiple short business books.

I have said it hundreds of times… I think it’s better to publish three 100-page books than a single 300-page book.

By intentionally designing your business book’s content with helpful, bite-sized chunks of information on a specific and focused topic you are much more likely to be able to help your readers and get more of them to work with you.

I have my own way of describing these types of short business books. I call them shooks™, which stands for short helpful books and make no mistake done right, these shooks are super effective at attracting quality leads and turning them into sales.

Before You Start Writing Your Manuscript

The key to creating a lead magnet book, which will position you as an expert authority and attract more ideal customers for your business, is to take some time and consider what you are trying to accomplish.

I’m not suggesting you invest weeks or months “planning” your book, but you do need to spend a few hours thinking this through.

To help you with this process, I have identified the following key elements to starting your book. Going through these and using them to plan your book will give you a powerful fast start.

Your Goals for Writing a Short Business Book

Like any worthwhile business and content marketing effort, you must start by thinking about and articulating your goals for the project.

Specifically, to your book, there are two types of goals you should consider before you start on your book content.

The first are your own personal goals you want to achieve with your book. Consider these questions:

What is your big goal with your book?

What is the #1 thing you want to accomplish?

How will you know you have accomplished it?

What metrics will you use to know if your book is doing what you want it to do?

The second are your goals for your targeted reader. Consider these questions:

What do you want your readers to achieve after reading your book?

What do you want your readers to do next?

Identify Your Ideal Reader

It’s important to have a clear picture of an ideal reader so you can work on creating content that attracts as many as possible while simultaneously repelling those who do not fit your ideal reader profile.

You should write your book for the type of person who is a great customer for you and who you want to serve.

You need to think about this person and what they want/need and craft your book’s content to give them both.

Remember, your ideal reader wants:

To learn more about you/your business and how you can specifically help them.
To get something they crave.
To reduce pain, expenses, wasted time, etc.
To gain pleasure, health, time, money, comfort, happiness, etc.
A trustworthy authority to give him or her a simple and clear path to getting all this.

Identify Your Book Hook

Your book hook is a big idea and purpose of your book. Your book hook should:

Be emotionally stirring and wake him/her up.
Be easy to understand.
Sound new, unique, original, and break through the noise and clutter.
Be instantly appealing (to your ideal reader).
Connect the dots to your product/service.

To help you develop your book’s hook, consider these questions about your ideal reader:

What is keeping them awake at night?

What are they mad about?

What do they desire the most?

Your readers want simplicity and clarity. Do your best to make the hook as specific and simple to understand.

Create a Compelling Book Title

The title (and pre-title and sub-title) of your customer attraction book are a critical aspect of creating your book. An effective, attention-grabbing title will make your book irresistible to your ideal reader, whereas a poor title will fall flat.

Developing a great title is typically an iterative process that takes time and consideration. Do not rush this process.

Personally, I prefer simple and direct titles and more detailed sub-titles. I like to try to keep the title short and sweet and then expand on it more with a sub-title. Here are a few of my clients’ titles/sub-titles:

5 Steps to Reset the Scale: Discover Why Weight Gain Is Not Your Fault and How to Take the Weight Off for Good

The Osteoporosis Breakthrough: The Natural Way to Reverse Causes of Bone Loss and Build Great Bones!

Medicare Made to Order: A New and Exciting Way to Think About Medicare and Get the Benefits You Deserve

Are Your Teeth Toxic?: What Your Dentist Never Told You About Mercury in Your Silver Fillings

How to Survive a First-Time DWI: 7 Critical Questions Answered

Snore No More!: An Essential Guide for Those Looking for Freedom From CPAP

You’re Not Alone: Living with Dementia

As you think about your title, keep these do’s, and do not’s in mind.

Do:

Make a promise of a benefit.
Be simple and direct.
Target an audience and use their language.
Use metaphors, alliteration, popular phrases.

Do not:

Rush this process.
Use “special report type” titles (e.g., hype).
Forget how important your title is!

Define Your Business Book’s Calls-to-Action

What I am about to share is one of the BIGGEST mistakes I see business book authors make.

In my experience, not providing simple ways for readers to either get more information from you or connect with you is a huge, missed opportunity.

Think of your book as a conversation starter.

To keep this conversation moving forward, you must offer at least two different pathways for readers to take after they read your book:

Your Active Call-to-Action.

Your Passive Call-to-Action.

Your book’s Active Call-to-Action is the #1 thing you want readers to do after reading your book. For most book authors, it is one of these main things:

Call you or visit you.
Schedule a call or visit with you.
Participate at an event or seminar.
Take an assessment.

Your book’s Passive Call-to-Action is the secondary action you want a reader to take and is designed for you to collect email contact information in return for additional helpful information.

How to write a business book - call-to-action

What simple and easy-to-digest information do you have that readers will want? This could be a tip sheet, action plan, a “lost chapter,” additional training, etc.

One smart strategy to think about here is what new problem have you created for your reader and then offer a fix for that problem with your Passive Call-to-Action.

An Important Reminder

Many business owners ask me “Who am I to write a book because I am not a very good writer?"

One of the most valuable recommendations I can offer you as you begin to work on your book is to “Strive for personality, not perfection.”

One of the biggest mistakes I see authors make it the obsession with trying to write the perfect book.

Trust me, there is no such thing. Instead, I would much rather you focus on writing like you talk and not be worried about literary perfection.

Your book is a printed version of you talking to an ideal prospect, so stress less about how well you write and more about creating a personal connection with readers.

I recommend you get feedback from individuals you trust and important team members on what you choose to write to create a great book you will be proud of and one that will help a lot of people.

A Proven and Profitable Short Business Book Template

What I am about to share with you has the power to transform your personal positioning and business marketing in unimaginable ways.

Whether this is your first business book, or you are a seasoned book author, this works.

I know this because I have worked with more than 250 business owners, entrepreneurs, and corporate leaders and helped them become short business book authors.

My “shook template” shows you what you should include in your authority building book starting with the front cover all the way through to the back cover.

Section by section. Chapter by chapter.

There is no need to reengineer this template and the astute reader will immediately begin to figure out ways to start using it to write their own short business book.

5 Essential Sections of a Short Business Book

My recommended short business book template has five main sections with each part containing a set of chapters specific to that section. These sections are:

The Cover Content.
The Front Matter Content.
The Main Matter Content.
The Bridge Content.
The Back Matter Content.

The specific content and chapters you decide to include are up to you, but I highly suggest you follow this proven formula to create a powerful book to differentiate you and your business.

Cover Content

Front Cover and Spine Details

Your book’s front cover is where you get the opportunity to make a powerful first impression, and unless you are a graphic designer yourself, you want to let a professional create your book cover.

Using the right graphics, fonts and other details is critically important, and you don’t want to be sloppy or cheap about this.

As far as the spine, you want to have your title and your name on it. Your goal is to make it easy to find your shook on a bookshelf.

Effective, attention-grabbing title and sub-title—crafting your book’s title and subtitle is an iterative and important process. It’s like developing a strong headline when copywriting and requires time, work, and rework to get it right. The good news is if you’ve identified your targeted reader and your hook, creating an attention-grabbing title that practically forces people to want to read your book is simple.

Back Cover Details

The back cover is the final piece of the three parts of your book cover (front, spine and back).

Regarding the back cover, here are some smart things to include:

Strong reason to read headline.
Book description including a few specific here’s what’s inside
V.I.P. testimonial.
Reader reviews/testimonials.
Short author bio and photo.
Main website or shook-focused site URL.
QR code to website.
ISBN and barcode (if selling via retail).
Price and book category.

Click here to read more and see business book cover design examples.

Front Matter Content

Reader Bonus/Gift Offer—we’ve finally gotten to the first page of your book. This is the right-hand side page that is first seen when somebody opens your book. In many books, this page is left blank or is the title page, but I recommend you leverage this valuable real estate and create a page that is specifically designed to be a reader bonus/gift page where readers can get a valuable bonus/gift. This is the Passive CTA I described above.

Also By page—this is an optional page, but if you’ve created other books, reports, trainings, etc., you should include them on this page.

Title page—your title page includes your title, subtitle, and name. I like to design this page so that it leaves room for you to write a personal note and autograph your book.

Testimonial page(s)—this is an optional page, but if you have testimonials/reviews of your book, you should include them here. The way you get them is to give out prerelease copies to specific individuals and ask them to write a short testimonial about it. Be strategic about who you ask to review.

Copyright page—this page includes all copyright information, disclaimers, publisher details and important legal information.

Dedication page—this is an optional page that allows you to dedicate your book to an important person or persons, a group of people, specific niche, etc.

Acknowledgements page—this is an optional page that allows you to acknowledge and thank people who were helpful to you in creating your book.

Table of Contents—the table of contents is an important part of your book and should entice readers to want to read it. Make sure you check and double-check the titles and page numbers to make sure they are correct before going to print.

Foreword—this is optional, but if it makes sense and you can find a V.I.P. to write the foreword to your book, it can make it that much more powerful. When thinking about a person to write it, consider who you would like to have associated with your book and who may be inclined to share it with their circles of influence simply because they were asked to write the foreword. If you cannot find a notable V.I.P., consider asking a valuable customer to write it for you.

Who Should Read This Book?—I like to be upfront and transparent with my book’s goals and exactly who I created it for. While I appreciate people who are interested in my book, if they don’t fit the profile of the types of business owners I’m looking to attract and work with, they do me little good. This chapter allows me to boldly proclaim who should and should not read my book. In turn, this will strengthen the bond with my target readers, since they know I wrote it specifically for them.

My Promise to You—starting your book off with a bold promise is a smart way to keep you focused on what you must deliver and prepare your readers for what to expect. Few business owners set any sort of lofty expectation these days, so making a promise from the beginning shows you are different than the masses.

Introduction—I recommend all short business book authors start their book with a “reason why” Introduction that articulates the reason(s) why you are publishing it. Let your readers know what they will get by reading it, why it’s different, and why it’s important they read it now. An excellent book recommendation for crafting your “why” is Start with Why by Simon Sinek.

Main Matter Content

Main Content Chapters—this is where you include your main content chapters. Remember, these are bite sized chunks of information focused on helping the reader with your book hook. The typical length of these chapters is 1,000–1,500 words depending on how many you have.

If you are looking for a simple yet effective formula for your Main Matter content, I suggest you come up with 5–7 frequently asked questions, should-ask questions, secrets, tips, or ideas that are readers’ most common or pressing, and write your chapters around this content.

By “chunking” your content into 5–7 main ideas, you’re making it easy for readers to read your shook and making it easier for you to write it. Remember, short business books are NOT meant to teach readers everything you know about the topic. They are meant to provide valuable information and then guide the reader to the next step, which is typically reaching out and contacting you.

The Bridge Content

This section represents a “bridge” between your content chapters and your “selling” chapters. Up to this point, you have shared helpful information, and now it’s time to connect the dots for your readers and share with them how you can help them.

Who Relies on Us/Me?—I discovered this strategy from marketing strategist, Dan Kennedy, and tweaked its use for book authors. Including this chapter is a smart strategy for your book because it reassures readers that you serve people just like them-for a specific reason. This chapter allows readers to find himself/herself and learn the specific reason others like him/her work with you obtain/fix/strategize the specific reason articulated.

Your “Special Sauce”—this chapter should describe your unique product or service advantage, which ideally is branded to you and your business. If you can develop this for your business, you have a valuable and unique advantage over your competition.

The Next Step—it’s critical your book tells readers the next thing they must do to achieve the goal they were seeking when they first picked it up. Remember this is your Active CTA, and it’s the #1 thing you want the reader to do after reading your book. I like to keep this limited to one thing, so it’s clear and simple to do. Depending on your business, it could be to call you, visit you, fill out a survey, etc. Give detailed instructions on what to do next.

Back Matter Content

Author Biography—include your bio and important details about your background, experience, etc. This allows your readers to get to know you better. If you don’t have professionally shot photographs, now is a good time to get them done.

Reader Bonus/Gift Offer—depending on your book’s page count (all printed books must have a page count divisible by four, e.g., 104 pages, 108 pages, 112 pages, etc.), you may have a blank, last even-numbered, last page. Rather than let this go to waste, I suggest repeating the same reader bonus/gift offer that started your book.

Book Resources—this is an optional chapter, but if you have helpful resources you would like readers to know about, include them here or direct to a hidden page on your website (which makes it much easier to update and maintain).

Frequently Asked Questions—this is an optional chapter, but if you have many typical questions prospects ask you, including them in your book is helpful.

Author Podcast—if you have a podcast (or other online channel/community) include the details here.

A Small Request—if your book is going to be on Amazon, consider having a page where you ask readers to submit a book review if they found your book helpful. I suggest creating your own redirect link from your website directly to the review page on Amazon.

Essential Next Steps For Writing Your Short Business Book

What I have just shared with you is a powerful and effective template for a short business book that will generate leads and sales for your business. It follows a classic, direct-response marketing formula, and it works great.

Yet, this template is only part of the process of crafting an effective business book and there are many other factors to consider before starting your first draft, including:

Should you go the self-publishing or traditional publishing route with your book?

Should you consider a ghostwriter?

How do I choose my book’s target audience?

What is a good writing process?

How to create your content and follow a good writing schedule.

How to get your book designed.

Promoting your book.

Reaching bestselling status.

I have written extensively about these additional topics in my short business books, including The 100-Page Book, The Magic of Short Books, and The Magic of Free Books which you can buy on Amazon.

Of course, the best way to write a short book fast is to personally work with me to brainstorm and publish your short business book.

And the first step is a quick meeting.

There is no obligation and scheduling it is super easy.

Visit https://bitesizedbooks.com/nonfiction-short-book-author-program.

Click the Shook Strategy Session button and follow the prompts to schedule either a Zoom meeting or phone call with me and let's get started on helping you write a business book.