Rapport, disruptor and authority books
Many people have lots of ideas about what they want their book to look like, the size of it, the number of pages. Very few have clarity about the real purpose for the book.
At Immersive Publishing we focus on working with business experts who want to create books for a general business or personal development market. We are not publishers of technical books such as software manuals or legal texts.
Over the last ten years reviewing the market and working on our own projects and with other authors we have identified three distinct needs that business books fulfil.
Rapport
Your rapport book may be pocket-sized or much larger. The format is secondary to its purpose for you and your readers.
You want a brilliant book that demonstrates your value, delivers real value to your readers and encourages them to trust you as their ideal provider when they want a partner in the future.
It is designed to create rapport, not simply by promising future success, but by delivering insight and tools they can apply successfully today. This might be through a broad overview of a topic or an in-depth dive into one single area. The key is value for the reader.
A couple of examples from within the last year or so of mPowr books that are designed as rapport projects:
Ges Ray’s Speak Performance – How to be a confident, compelling and convincing speaker – see on Amazon
Lucia Knight’s X Change: How to torch your work treadmill, retire your boss, dump the ingrates, torment the passive-aggressives, escape the toxic office, get your fierce on and design the career that lets you live, love and laugh after 40 – see on Amazon
Rapport books are developed online in a group context (maximum of ten participants). This takes place over six months.
Each month:
- A two-hour online guided group session
- A one-to-one online session with Martyn focused on content structuring and authoring development (with prep work and individual review)
- A one-to-one online session with Richard focused on the business aspects of your book (with prep work and individual review)
Our project management system steps you through the entire process and provides access to a library of resources designed to support your authoring journey.
At the conclusion of the process (based on your own effort and focus) you should have a complete rough draft of your book. You are free at this point to either submit your manuscript for a publication review to mPowr Publishing or to choose your own route to publication.
The next rapport group begins its journey in mid-April 2020. The monthly investment is £350 (+VAT).
Disruptor
If you are a business expert who wants to shift from the generic expert-among-experts position to a leadership position in the market, this is the key book to think about.
It does not present the standard, expected solutions or even the standard, expected problems. It challenges the sacred taboos of the field, exposes the snake-oil salesfolk’s doomed-to-failure approaches and presents a radical vision of the field and the world that fries readers’ brains in a powerful and helpful way.
Presenting a distinctive paradigm that allows the reader to experience the world and your field in a flexible and valuable way creates enormous value and trust and truly demonstrates your desire for their success.
This is a challenging project to develop, but is the foundation for those who are thinking of establishing their own leadership and product ecosystem to deliver transformation at scale.
An example of an mPowr project that is rooted in the disruptor function:
Mel Loizou’s When Fish Climb Trees: Can-do leadership in a world of can’t – see on Amazon
Disruptor books are developed in exclusive, private sessions with the Richard and Martyn. If you are UK-based this six-month process usually consists of live in-the-room workshop days (usually in Central London) with other sessions taking place online. It is possible to experience this entirely online when you are based further afield.
Typical structure:
- Light preparatory work
- Full-day workshop
- Four sessions creating the book proposal, the paradigm blueprint and the foundation document for the book
- Second one-day workshop
- Twelve sessions as you work through the authoring process and establish your audience-building strategy
Our project management system acts as the hub for your project and provides you with access to supplementary resources throughout the authoring journey.
At the conclusion of the process (based on your own effort and focus) you should have a complete rough draft of your book. mPowr Publishing has the first right of refusal at this point. Should they choose not to proceed with publication then you are able to choose your own route to publication.
Current investment is seven staged payments of £1,000 (+VAT) with the first instalment paid when the development agreement is made and monthly thereafter.
Authority
Most business experts think they are writing an authoritative book, one that will turn them into the go-to authority.
Most won’t achieve this.
Establishing your distinctive intellectual property and demonstrating its effectiveness at getting results for readers (in a disruptor book) comes first.
Only when you are ready to start training others, licensing others or franchising your intellectual property should you consider writing an authority book. This presents the systemic foundation of your work in all its glory.
Unless someone already has an established and effective paradigm that delivers great results for the audience we do not recommend anyone attempt an authority book. If they do, they will simply present a brain dump that overwhelms, dissatisfies and demoralises the reader and risks damaging the writer’s brand and business.
Many of Martyn’s own books in the complementary therapy sphere are authority projects. His most recent book, Storyselling: Give your business a happily ever after flows from thirty years of publishing and business experience. See it on Amazon.