How Writing Books Has Changed My Life

Guest post Rebecca Livermore

I first learned the power of the written word in fourth grade, when I got a top grade on a book report that was fueled by my imagination rather than by reading the book. In eighth grade, when I wrote about the results of a science experiment that I didn’t actually do, I was again reminded of how you can convince people of anything if you have the ability to write. Thankfully, by the ninth grade I got my scholastic act together and never again wrote deceptively.

By the time I graduated from high school, I had decided that I would be a writer. I’m happy to say that I’ve successfully made a living through my words for many years.

But one thing that I never felt capable of was writing a book. Books seemed so lofty. All the authors I knew of were not only capable of writing, but also appeared to have mad skills or a bunch of letters after their names. This indicated that they were much more qualified to write books than I, a mere college dropout, could ever be.

Then Amazon gave an incredible gift to people like me—Kindle books. What used to pass as a long blog post can now be fleshed out and turned into a book. Amazon even handles most of the technical aspects of listing and distributing the books, and deals with customer service, too.

Suddenly, authorship is within the reach of everyday people like me—and you.
Here are the benefits that I’ve personally experienced as a result of writing books:

1Books enable me to test out my ideas on a small product before committing to bigger products.

Since Kindle books can be short, they can be written in as little as a week. They are also much easier to produce from a technology standpoint than courses are.

Since the investment in a Kindle book is much smaller in terms of both time and money, it is an excellent way to test out a product idea before creating the product. If a Kindle book sells well, chances are that a course on the same topic will also sell well. If a Kindle book flops, I can move on to the next idea rather than wasting time and money on a big product that won’t sell.

Even when a book sells, the feedback on the book lets me know what things I need to tweak to make the product even better.

2My books have given me expert status.

Authorship is a great way to establish yourself as an authority. If you’ve written a book, people automatically see you as an expert, so long as the book is well written and free of grammatical errors. (Hint: I use Grammarly to help in this regard!)

Books also make impressive business cards that people won’t throw away. Giving your books to the people you really want to make an impact on is an excellent way to be remembered.

3Writing books brings clarity.

If you’re anything like me, you have a jumble of information in your head. So many facts and ideas can seem like a tangled ball of yarn rather than a coherent book-to-be.

When you write a book, you must make sense of all of the chaos in your mind and put it into logical order. As you do that, you’ll see things in a much clearer light than you did before.

4Books are an excellent source of passive income.

Authorship is definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme. If you expect to write one book and watch the dough come rolling in, you’ll likely be sorely disappointed. But if you are willing to stick with it and write book after book, things snowball. Before you know it, the amount of money that’s deposited into your bank account each month is sizeable.

5Books broaden my circle of influence.

My books have led people to my blog and email list. I’ve made great friendships and grown other aspects of my business as a direct result of publishing my books.

There are so many benefits to writing books, and today it is easier than it’s ever been to get published. Even if you don’t consider yourself to be a writer, the risks are small and the potential gain is high. I fully believe that your life, like mine, can be changed by writing books.

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Rebecca Livermore is a bestselling Kindle author and the owner of Professional Content Creation, a company focused on helping small business owners expand their reach and income through the use of content marketing.

from Grammarly Blog
http://www.grammarly.com/blog/2015/how-writing-books-has-changed-my-life/