If you missed yesterday, I’m using this week to report LIVE from the dizzying tail-end of writing and self-publishing my first book. Send in your questions, and I’ll work them in anonymously as we go.

Let’s tackle the big question: Why?

Let me start with what I’m not trying to do with this book:

❌ Make money: It might sound weird to hear it this way, but book revenue is not the primary goal here. In fact, I’m not sure the book will ever break-even on its own. Even the most basic napkin math shows I’d have to sell at least 1,000 books to recoup the $6-7k I’m investing to get this book out. Only a third of traditionally published books sell that many, much less self-published, so from the get go, I’ve always looked at this book as an investment, not a revenue stream.

❌ Become a professional thought leader: While it seems like a fun life to be Brené Brown or James Clear, they’re playing a different game. Their business is thought leadership at mass scale, and millions of copies sold feeds that model.

The talks build the audience, that buys the books, that drive the talks, and repeat. You know that I play a narrower, smaller game than that, built around 1:1 services.

❌ Fast-track paid engagements: My book is about the transition from corporate to solo, but the best-fit clients for my current offers are consultants who have already left corporate roles. With the book audience further upstream than my offers (as they stand), I don’t expect an immediate bump in client work either.

So what AM I trying to do with this book?

✅ Provide A Tangible, Shareable Resource: First and foremost, I want to be helpful. Through appearances and word-of-mouth referrals, I get a lot of solo-curious folks coming my way asking for advice, and so far, I haven’t had a great resource to point them to.

My Lightbulb archive is interesting, but not all that navigable. I often direct folks to certain articles, but the experience is clunky, and a clear, overarching narrative is non-existent. The book will fill that gap — a guide for those pondering a career transition, while seed-planting my POV should they decide to follow through.

Objective: POV transfer, awareness, long-term audience building

✅ Build Authority: Even in a content-flooded world, there’s still some caché that comes with writing a book. The enduring task of getting a long-form argument into print shines a spotlight not just on your POV, but on your deep commitment to your domain. This should open up speaking opportunities and other ripple effects within my pipeline.

Objective: speaking/guesting opportunities, list growth, prospect calls, pricing power

✅ Increase Exposure: Yes, a book is a vehicle for transferring expertise, but it’s also a means of attracting new (and renewed) attention, much like any other content format. Releasing a book gives you opportunities to remain visible before, during and after launch day, particularly if you share about the process 😉

Objective: awareness, word-of-mouth, prospect touchpoints outside the sales cycle

✅ Produce a Visual Portfolio: Given my flagship services and POVs are around expertise visualization (Intellectual Headshots, visual IP, positioning storyboards), I thought a visual-forward book that features a few dozen of my own illustrations/frameworks could pull double-duty as a portfolio of my output.

Objective: market education, output spotlight, sales asset

✅ And finally, Tackle a personal challenge. Yes, there’s an intimate, personal test built into this project. I’ve spent 3 years narrowing down and distilling my POV in this domain. I’d like to see my experiences and expertise codified into something real I can hold, reference, and send around.

And further, I doubt this is the only book I’ll ever write, so climbing the writing and publishing learning curve for myself will continue to pay dividends.

So, that’s my “Why?”. It’s not as straightforward as 'write book —> make money'.

But it’s a very intentional investment of time and money I didn’t take on lightly.

If you’re thinking about this path yourself, make sure you’re clear on your “Why?”

There will be many, many times throughout the process you’ll need to be reminded of your answer.

💡

-Wes