Book coach tips: Should you publish a book or a course on your topic of expertise?

by Ameesha Green

If you’re an entrepreneur, solopreneur, freelancer, or small business owner, you’ve probably been told at some point that you should share your knowledge and expand your reach by writing a book or creating a course on your subject matter expertise. But if you’re limited in time or resources, you might prefer to do one or the other, rather than both. So, which do you choose, and is it really possible to do both? We’ll go through the pros (and potential cons) of publishing a book versus a course, and doing both.

The benefits of publishing a book

Books have been establishing people’s credibility for thousands of years, and contrary to what some articles might suggest, books are not going anywhere any time soon! In fact, the evidence shows that publishing a book significantly improves people’s perceptions of your authority, ability, and expertise. For example, a Journal of Business and Psychology study found that published authors are seen as more competent, credible, and trustworthy than those who have not published a book. In other words, becoming an author boosts your authority.

Not to mention, books can:

• Open doors to opportunities such as speaking engagements (some speaking events actually require you to be a published author).
• Be a lead generator for people to work with you and your business.
• Leave a legacy that you have created.
• Create long-lasting impact by reaching a wide range of people who might not otherwise be able to access and afford your services or offering.
• Be reframed to into multiple formats to create other content (more on this later).

Because publishing a book helps to establish you as a thought leader in your industry, it opens up many more opportunities for future work, media engagements, and business prospects.

The drawbacks of publishing a book

With all of those benefits, you might be tempted to open a document and start writing immediately. But wait… what’s the downside? We’ll be honest with you:

• Firstly, it can take a lot of time and effort to write a quality book.
• And because of that, you might not see the results of your efforts for a long time.
• It can be difficult to know how to go about publishing your book.
• Because you want the book to improve your reputation, it needs to be high-quality and have a professional finish.

Does that mean you shouldn’t do it? No, it just means you should ideally hire a team of professionals (coach, editors, designers, and proofreaders) to guide you on the path to publishing and help you produce a book that shines the best possible light on you.

The benefits of publishing a course

The alternative often suggested is publishing a course. Courses are quite versatile in nature, as they can be in-person or online, though in recent years, there has been an increased demand for online learning. With online courses, you can either host them live in an interactive format or record them once and then let people to complete them in their own time. The latter option enables you to reach a much wider audience than in-person workshops or live events.

For business owners, courses can:

• Offer the ability to share your personality and engage people through your voice, body language, and facial expressions.
• Deliver an in-depth auditory and visual learning experience to viewers.
• Enable you to share demos, for example, showing someone how to use an online tool.
• Create passive income to supplement business sales.
• Be relatively quick to create.

In other words, courses are a quick way to start sharing your knowledge then scale to add more over time, without requiring such a large up-front time investment.

The drawbacks of publishing a course

While there are a lot of benefits of releasing a course, there are also downsides, with the most obvious ones being:

• You have to be confident using the software to create the course or hire someone to create it for you.
• There are lots of different ways to do courses and different software available, and the options can be overwhelming.
• It can feel uncomfortable videoing yourself, though you can just do a voiceover if you don’t want to appear on screen.
• Not everyone is a natural on camera, and you may not come across as you would like to.

Does that mean you shouldn’t do it? It really depends how you feel about it. For some people, how awkward it makes them feel is enough to make them park the idea. Other people love being on screen.

Can you do both?

If you’re comfortable with a pen in hand and in front of a camera, then you might wish to release a course and a book. So, is it possible to do both at the same time? The answer really depends on how much time you have available to not only create both but also market them. Books and courses don’t market themselves, so you need to dedicate time and effort to ensure that they reach readers and viewers, otherwise your efforts might be wasted.

The other factor to consider is that books and courses can be lead generators for each other, so you might wish to publish a book first, then launch a course off the back of it—or vice versa—without trying to split your time between both and diluting the results. And the good news is that you can use your book content to easily create a course or multiple courses, which many nonfiction authors do.

Do you need help?

If you need help planning your nonfiction book or getting it ready to publish, we can help. Our team of editors and designers can create a professional book that establishes you as a thought leader, and we can give you ideas on how to turn this into a course. Get in touch today for a free consultation and we can bring your book to life.