Advance Your Career. Write A Book!

Advance Your CareerWriting a book is often seen as a way to advance your career. It can be. Lots of people see things like that. That may be your decision, too. However, sometimes writing a book is a bad idea.

Let’s take a professional person’s situation.

You write a book, possibly a business book, or one linked to your current career and specialism. You hope to build your reputation and become a more marketable commodity in the world of employment because of the book. You hope that being an author means you will be able to get on further and faster in your career.

Remember that these days you can choose to self-publish your work which means the barriers to getting published are reduced. You do not have to find a publishing house to accept your work. As long as you learn how to upload and publish books to Amazon Kindle publishing will be easy for you. All of this can affect people’s perceptions of your being a published author. This can be a problem.

Will Writing A Book Help Your Career?

Writing and publishing a book can help your career. However, it can also be a waste of time, in terms of career advancement.

Look at things this way. You recognise that you need to be seen as an expert in your profession or marketplace. Let us assume, for the moment, that you have finished your book and it is pretty good. There is one thing you can do which will severely limit your book’s chances of success and your chances of success, too.

What is that?

Getting the title wrong.

Writing MistakeWhen you write a book to help to advance your career, the title you choose will help to make your book a success or doom it to failure. Therefore, choose the right title.

Think about how people choose books when they are shopping on Amazon or at other online stores. They spend very little time looking at particular books. They look for titles that seem to be right. They move on if a title does not interest them.

  • Titles that confuse potential buyers cause problems.
  • Smart and clever titles cause problems.
  • Obscure titles cause problems.
  • Titles that only insiders understand cause problems – unless there are so many insiders waiting to buy the book that is really does not matter what you call it.

One of your most important tasks when writing a book to advance your career must be to ensure that you choose a good title.

Good Titles Or Not

In the case of books I have written the most successful include in their titles the name of group of people for whom that particular book is intended. In other words, the target market is identified in the title. What is also clear is that in my most successful books I help individuals in that target market deal with a problem they face.

Marketing For School LeadersMarketing For School Leaders is an excellent example.

The title is clear.

I also specify the issue covered.

When you read the title you can work out for whom the book was written. There is no ambiguity in what the book is about.

This book sells well. It also sells worldwide.

Writing Career Development Books

You are probably going to write about an aspect of your work, and write for people in similar positions to your own. In my case I write books to help people to advance their careers.

When writing for these people, I have sometimes used a question for a title:

Is It Time To Quit Your Job?

I have also used arresting statements.

Warning! Your Job Is Not Your Life!

I would advise professionals looking to give their book the right title, to follow one of these approaches.

Finally . . .

Use a book to further your career. Spend time on making is readable and helpful. Above all choose a good title. Do all of those things and you will be advancing your career by writing a book.