7 min read · Written by Grant Rayner on 08 Nov 2023
Share by emailLast week, I provided a broad introduction to products. I also shared some of my own experiences developing products over the years.
In this article, I’ll focus on books as a product.
Literally anyone can write a book in any subject and have that book published online. However, as a writer, you’re entering a crowded marketplace. That said, if you are writing about a niche security-related topic, you may find that you’re one of a handful of people world-wide writing about the topic. Of course, just because you want to write about a particular topic doesn’t mean there are masses of people wanting to read about that topic.
For background, I’ve published 15 books. These books can be broken down into two categories:
Let’s start by focusing on the first stage of the process, which is ideation.
Before you put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboards, you’ll need to determine the focus of your writing. As an independent security professional, it would make sense to write about those areas of the profession where you believe you have unique knowledge and experience.
You don’t have to be the most experienced person in a particular field to write a book about that field. There are plenty of people with experience but no inclination to write.
My choice was travel security, security evacuations and crisis management. If you visit my website, you’ll see that these are three of my practice areas. There’s a natural congruency between what my books and my services.
Once you’ve decided on a topic of theme, you’ll need to start writing.
I’m not going to discuss different approaches to writing a book. There are plenty of great references online. Focusing on the business aspects, it should go without saying that writing a book takes a considerable amount of time. You may be able to complete a first draft relatively quickly (within months, perhaps), but fleshing out that draft into a document ready for editing will take a considerable amount of time. During this time you’ll have to decide whether to dedicate time to writing, or whether it’s best to balance writing with revenue earning activities, such as delivering services.
Each of my books took several years of writing, on and off. I sometimes take breaks of up to a month away from a particular book so I’m able to approach the draft with a fresh set of eyes. I may also be working on multiple drafts concurrently, with each draft being at a different stage of development. I mostly balance writing with other projects. Right now, I’m on a contingency planning assignment in Cambodia. I’m balancing my time by getting up early each day to do a few hours editing for a new book about information security for travellers.
So, aside from the mechanics of writing, the key consideration at this point is that writing a book will take quite a lot of your time and there are opportunity costs involved. More on those costs later.
Let’s shift focus to editing, publishing and pricing. In the sections below, I’ll share some of the actual costs I paid for editing, and share my rationale for pricing.
If you plan to self publish your books, you have several options with editing.
You could edit yourself, using online tools such as Grammarly or ChatGPT. The problem with these tools is they are really only useful for catching the occassional occasional spelling mistake and improving grammar. They won’t, however, tell you that your writing doesn’t flow well, or that you’ve repeated yourself in chapters 3 and 7.
The other option is to hire an editor online. There are plenty of online services available. Many of these services have editors that specialise in specific genres, including non-fiction. You probably won’t find anyone who is a specialist in security. However, on balance that’s probably a good thing as it ensures the published version of your book will be understandable by the masses.
The cost of editing is based on word count. To provide a sense of the money involved, editing ‘Under the Radar’ cost US $1,880. That’s not an insignificant amount of money. The most I paid for editing for a single book is US $2,235.
I used Kibin for editing my books. You can can either select an editor (they currently have 8 editors available, all from the US) or they’ll assign you one. Assuming you get on with your editor and you like their edits and recommendations, there are advantages in using the same editor for multiple books. For one, you’ll be able to maintain a more consistent style.
Don’t underestimate the time it takes to edit a book. Once I complete a final draft, I’ll make at least two full edits myself before passing the book to my editor. Once I get the book back from the editor, I’ll do another review as I integrate their changes. I typically do one last review before publishing. Aside from helping you save time and produce a better produce, one of the key benefits of using a professional editor is that it will give you the necessary confidence to release your book into the wild without being excessively worried that your book is rubbish.
You’ll have two paths open to you when it comes to publishing a book. You can either find a publisher or you can self publish. Here, I’ll focus on self publishing, which is the approach I’ve taken. In all honesty, I think if I had spent time trying to find a publisher, I would never have finished one book, let alone the others.
I published all of my books in PDF format and some on Apple Books. My decision to publish to PDF was because it’s a very popular format. Anyone can download a PDF and can view it in almost any device. It also gives me the flexibility to customise books for bulk purchase. For example, I can create ‘Company XYZ’ special editions for different organisations. PDFs can also be stamped to mitigate the risk of people sharing them (you can’t stop people sharing them, and it’s a risk you’ll just need to live with).
My decision to publish on Apple Books was largely due to the fact that I developed my books using Apple Pages and publishing to Apple Books is very easy. The quality of the product is excellent. One interesting challenge with Apple Books is that the Apple Book Store isn’t available in Singapore, where I live. It’s available in most other countries, however.
The other popular platform is Amazon. I have yet to publish to Amazon Kindle, but will eventually get around to it when I have time. Not all books are suited to the Kindle format, so I’ll probably only publish a few books on the Amazon platform.
My choice not to publish in hard copy was based on several reasons. First, I didn’t want to go through the emotional anguish of finding a publisher and having my book accepted (or repeatedly rejected). I’m also not a professional author, and aren’t able to focus 100% of my time to writing and promotion. Second, I didn’t want to pay the cost of publishing. Third, I didn’t want to have to worry about storing boxes of books and mailing books out to customers. Fourth, I knew I would want to occasionally review and update the books. It’s much easier to do this when the books are in digital format. That said, Amazon offers a print on demand service, which may be useful and is something I’ll explore when I get around to publishing for Kindle.
Pricing books is an interesting exercise. Given the niche nature of my books, I price them according to the value I believe they provide. When I originally considered pricing, I also considered that the majority of customers would be in corporate security and could claim the books as an expense.
The prices of my books range from US $4.99 for the quick reference guides to US $128 for a country contingency plan. Looking at The Guide to Security Evacuations, I consider the product to be inelastic. Either you want to know about security evacuations or you don’t. I could lower the price to $2.95 and I still don’t think I’d see a flood of people purchasing the book.
For books that I hope have a more universal appeal, such as ‘The Guide to Travelling in Higher-Risk Environments’, I priced the book based on what I believe is a reasonable price for a book: US $9.99. Again, I’m confident I could drop the price to US $4.99 and not drive any additional sales. US $9.99 is a fair price and is actually less expensive than other books on the same topic (if I can say, I also think it’s a much better book that other books on the same topic ).
The country contingency plan is a more recent experiment. I have a related product available as an online workspace, which I offer as a packaged service for US $2,500. The workspace has some additional features, and is regularly updated. If a customer purchases the contingency plan and then decides to upgrade to the workspace, I will deduct the cost of the book from the cost of the workspace. This is a good example of how I’m starting to merge publishing with packaged services, which is something I’ll discuss in more detail in future articles. It might interest you to know that I’ve sold more workspace access at US $2,500 than I have books at $128.
As a rule of thumb, I don’t offer discounts on my books. The primary reason for this is that I don’t want customers who have already purchased a book to feel like they were cheated. That said, there are a few ways I’ve used discounts to incentivise sales.
I sell bundles on my website at a small discount, including the Field Guide Series Bundle (4 books), the The Crisis Handbook Bundle (2 books), and The Security Evacuation Handbook Bundle (2 books). I do this to encourage potential customers to buy both books, increasing my potential revenue from the sale.
I also offer discounts for organisations making bulk purchases for their teams. (Noting that in such a scenario a customer is basically purchasing a license for a certain number of books for their organisation. I provide them with a single PDF for each book that they then distribute to their teams.)
A more recent approach is to offer a 15% discount to people who pay to subscribe to my newsletters, including this one.
Otherwise, I haven’t offered any discounts. Based on the likely readership of my books, I don’t believe a discount would necessarily incentivise people to buy the books and therefore drive sales.
If you were to publish physical books, you’d need to pay careful attention to all costs involved and price your books accordingly.
Next week, I’ll continue the discussion about books as a product, focusing on marketing, income analysis, and other aspects to consider if you’re considering writing and publishing books.