Most authors spend, on average, three and a half years from the time they decide they want to write a book until the time the book hits store shelves. That is a massive investment of time that thought leaders and executives could be using to increase other revenue streams. What if you could speed the process up, without sacrificing quality?

Today's guest, Aurora Winter, has a method for doing exactly that. Aurora is the Founder of Same Page Publishing and creator of the Spoke Author Method. Both help authors get their ideas on the page faster and on track to having a final product they can be proud of that will impact the lives of others and the author's business. Aurora is also the best-selling author of Turn Words Into Wealth: Blueprint for Your Business, Brand, and Book to Create Multiple Streams of Income & Impact (Turn Your Words Into Wealth).

Having started as a television writer and producer, she grew frustrated with the financial restraints and turned to books. As a first-time author, Aurora faced many problems. However, in solving those problems, she found a passion for helping other authors, too. Today, Aurora shares some of the common hardships authors face, and gives suggestions to help those problems be overcome.

Many authors forget they will have to promote the book themselves. While the publisher is a partner, they will publish the book and then quickly move on to the next book in their lineup. We discuss with Aurora the pros and cons of traditional vs self-publishing, why you need a clear business goal for your book, and how you should be looking at your book as a long term legacy piece.

As we wrap up, Aurora gives us the perfect example of how a solid business plan can create more revenue than book sales. She gave her book Marketing Fastrack: The Little Book That Launched A New Business: $250,000 in 90 Days (which you can download for free) away to interested readers for just the price of shipping. She followed that book with a video series, and offered "business breakthrough" sessions. After 90 days, Aurora had generated $250,000 in sales from a book she was literally giving away.

If you want to better understand how your book can amortize over the years and gain a huge ROI, you'll want to listen to this episode!

Three Key Takeaways:

Thought Leaders don't have to be constantly at the keyboard. Many successful books are dictated to a team who can shape those ideas into magic.
Once your thought leadership book is done, the real work starts. You have to put in a lot of effort to promote your book, as the publisher will only do so for a relatively short period of time.
A book is a mass-market product, but you must have a solid strategy if you want to use that book to increase your thought leadership business.

Asia correspondent Ed White