Build a Better Business Book: How to Plan, Write, and Promote a Book That Matters. A Comprehensive Guide for Authors by Josh Bernoff
About the Book
Your brain burns with a powerful idea worth sharing.
Could writing a business book spread that idea, create real change, and launch your career on the path to visibility and influence?
Definitely. But don’t start by piling up words.
Instead, focus on the story.
What urgent problem does your reader face? How can they solve it?
And what journey must your readers take as you guide them from confusion to understanding, action, and success?
Build a Better Business Book is the first accessible and comprehensive guide for authors who want to create impact.
Josh Bernoff, a bestselling author, veteran editor, and insightful writing coach with decades of experience on 45 successful book projects, explains the systematic way to refine your idea and then research, write, publish, and promote a book that matters.
Learn how to:
- Build your book not just from ideas but from people and their compelling stories — and how you can research and tell those stories.
- Write a first chapter that creates powerful motivation by emotionally connecting with readers.
- Select among the three major publishing models — traditional, self-publishing, and “hybrid” — on the axes of speed, cost, and influence.
- Plan your book as a project, then efficiently execute that plan with a low-stress, high-potency tool: the fat outline.
- Structure chapters that no reader can put down.
- Collaborate with coauthors, editors, and ghostwriters without excessive bloodshed.
- Promote your book to maximize your sales, revenue, and influence.
Josh Bernoff’s book projects have generated over $20 million for their authors.
This guide includes the results of an extensive author survey and secrets from interviews with successful business authors like Jay Baer, Laura Gassner Otting, Phil M. Jones, Joe Pulizzi, and Scott Stratten.
Don’t waste valuable energy without accomplishing your goals. Construct your business book as a compelling story, and you won’t just get your words in print.
You’ll create change in the minds of your readers. And that is the first step to making a meaningful impact on the world.
About the Author
Josh Bernoff is an expert on how business books can propel thinkers to prominence. Book projects on which he has collaborated have generated over $20 million for their authors.
Josh’s previous book was Writing Without Bullshit: Boost Your Career by Saying What You Mean (HarperBusiness, 2016). Toronto’s Globe and Mail called it “a Strunk and White for the modern knowledge worker.”
He is the co-author of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies (Harvard Business Press, 2008), which was a BusinessWeek bestseller.
He works closely with nonfiction authors as an advisor, coach, editor, or ghostwriter.
He has authored, coauthored, or ghostwritten eight business books, and has collaborated on more than 50 nonfiction books.
He was formerly Senior Vice President, Idea Development at Forrester Research, where he spent 20 years analyzing technology and business.
Prior to Forrester, Josh spent 14 years in startup companies in the Boston area.
Josh has a mathematics degree from Penn State University and later studied mathematics in the Ph.D. program at MIT.
And, interesting fact – he has appeared on 60 Minutes!
Listen to the Interview…
Links…
- Build a Better Business Book: How to Plan, Write, and Promote a Book That Matters. A Comprehensive Guide for Authors by Josh Bernoff (Amazon)
- Josh Bernoff (website)
- Josh Bernoff (LinkedIn)
- Josh Bernoff (Twitter)
- Josh Bernoff’s books
- Free Book Proposal (which sold for a six-figure advance)
- Mike Wallace (Wikipedia)
- Marketing to the Entitled Consumer: How to Turn Unreasonable Expectations into Lasting Relationships by Dave Frankland, Nick Worth and Josh Bernoff (Marketing Book Podcast interview)
- Isaac Asimov (Amazon)
- The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson
- The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
- Jay Baer (Amazon)
- Daniel Pink (Amazon)
- Buyer Personas: How to Gain Insight into Your Customer’s Expectations, Align Your Marketing Strategies, and Win More Business by Adele Revella (Marketing Book Podcast interview)
- Ideas, Influence, and Income: Write a Book, Build Your Brand, and Lead Your Industry by Tanya Hall (Marketing Book Podcast interview)
- Get the Word Out: Write a Book That Makes a Difference by Anne Janzer (Marketing Book Podcast interview)
As mentioned in the interview, Josh Bernoff is “Bookman!”
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