The Business Of Business Books

Every entrepreneur today seems to have written a book. But here’s what they might not tell you: The book wasn’t really written to be read. And they didn’t always do any writing.

- Jennifer Miller

Sebastian Rusk always wanted to be a professional speaker. “That’s why I was put on this planet,” he says. “To impact thousands of people.” He hadn’t reached his goal yet, but he had lived the kind of inspirational life that makes for great talks. He’d lost everything in the recession and, with only $80 in his pocket, founded a successful social media consultancy called SocialBuzzTV.com in southern Florida. But that next step—the one onto the stage—eluded him, which is why, in July 2013, he attended the annual National Speakers Association Conference in Philadelphia.

On the conference room floor, Rusk got to chatting with Adam Witty, CEO of a publishing company called Advantage Media Group. And Witty told Rusk that he was missing a crucial step in his path to keynote success.

“Have you ever considered writing a book?” Witty asked.

Rusk laughed. “I think about it every day,” he said. “But I’d rather wake up and eat my pillow.” For the past year, the social media consultant had labored to write a table of contents and some bullet points, but he just couldn’t get any further than that.

Witty knew this problem well. He’d come to the conference precisely to find folks like Rusk—which, as he defines them, are entrepreneurs with a message but no bullhorn. And he knew exactly what they wanted to hear. “What if you didn’t have to write?” the publisher asked Rusk. “What if you could write a book just by talking?” Then he laid out his publishing company’s process: Rusk would spend between 10 and 12 hours being interviewed over the phone by an Advantage editor, and those interviews would then be transcribed and molded into a series of chapters. Rusk would work with the editor to refine the manuscript, and Advantage would design the book and publish it.