Is It Profitable to Write a Book? Yes, especially if it’s a business book.

EDITOR’s NOTE: This article originally appeared in Jonathan Grimm’s fascinating “news feed” of short columns analyzing the latest financial news. That news feed is called The Grimm News, a free service we described in this September 2024 column.

Is it profitable to write a book?

As someone that decided to devote a large portion of time over the last four years to write a book I wanted to know. You can watch the video below for more about that.

Will it make money?

What impact will it have on my business?

Is this actually worth all the time?

Luckily a friend, that happens to work with a publisher, sent me an article by Josh Bernoff earlier this month about my very questions. 

Turns out, it is a pretty good idea to write a business book since about  ⅔ of them are profitable. This is pretty good considering the amount of books that get published and how few copies end up getting sold. 

The article studies the ROI (return on investment) and calculates revenue factors beyond copies sold. Some interesting highlights were the median book generated $18k in revenue and that number is 3x for traditional publishers and 2x for hybrid publishing.

More than direct revenue from copies sold: Publishing a book is a gateway.

Those studied cite more revenue from speaking, workshops or consulting than book sales. That tracks given how different avenues for income work. $1000 to speak might be the equivalent of profit from selling 200 books. 

89% said it was a good idea to write a book and I would agree. It is a commitment to do that much work and wait for payoff.Yet, when it is about something you believe in, not writing the book may be letting yourself down. 

If you are thinking about writing a book then give it a try. Don’t be scared. Don’t do it for others. Famed music producer Rick Rubin tells us to create for you first and the audience comes last in his work The Creative Act. 

Here is a link to Josh Bernoff’s original clumn.

As always, if you come across a financially related article you’d like to send my way please do! 

Best place to send them is to my email address as “the Financial Ethicist”.

More next time!

Jonathan