I have a passion, created a book for it. Now want an online business

Hi Paul,

I work as a writer but quite different to you.
As with all writers, you need a website to act as your "home base."
You can write posts so others can read them on your site.

You then have a link you can share with people who ask if you do this work.
I can't speak for the popularity of your experience and how that translates but this is the best thing I believe you should do.

I'm sure you'll get other people chiming in and offering advice as well.
You need to weigh up all the different replies you get and take it from there.

The SHORTEST way to get started is to Google "change management" and
see what other businesses are doing in this field. How are they advertising,
and look at their website and see what they are offering.

If they are at the top of the organic search or steadily advertising in Adwords, then
you know they must be doing something right. Optin to their newsletter
if they have one and see what they are writing about.

Now the idea here is to MODEL, not steal.

-Ray Edwards

First off well done on taking action and writing a book on something you love.
Change management is an interesting field.
You stated you would like to accomplish the following:

1. I would like to make passive income out of this.
2. I want to build my authority online to positively influence my offline business.
3. I want to generate leads for my offlinebusiness.

1. The first one is the hardest one.
As far as passive income is concerned you need to be realistic and use your knowledge of this field and determine if the level of income you want to generate is possible. If you have been consulting in this niche for 17 years then what opportunities have you spotted or identified that would cause your target market to pay money monthly to solve issues? Generally this involves some sort of membership/training/newsletter etc..

Most people fail miserably at accomplishing #1, take tons of time trying different things and learn the hard way that this "passive" income is not really passive at all in what they are trying to offer or they can't scale it to a level that meets their income goals. It's more work and time and less money than just doing what they do. Quickest way to passive income is do what you do best and buy real estate to rent ;-) Seriously though of course it can be done but it is often much more difficult than anticipated.

2. Building Authority. Well this one is much easier and you are close to your goal if your book is any good ;-). How you posture yourself, A nice clean web site, great Linkedin profile and the title of "author" under your belt with a published book that has great reviews and you are well on your way.

3. Generate leads for your business. Pretty easy as well once you have completed step #2. You need the pieces of #2 and simply develop a lead magnet. You can make mention of your lead magnet in your book. So "Visit managechange.com to receive our special report on X...." You could also use the book as a lead magnet or pieces of it. You can identify your ideal prospects and easily target them on Linkeden, Facebook etc... and offer them this lead magnet.

Good luck.

I agree. I think you might not be able to generate a substantial passive income with JUST your book, but you'll definitely be able to use it to generate leads, since you're already successfully operating your offline biz. It could be a stealth advertising opportunity via radio interview. Can't think of the name of the PR guy I'd recommend but he knows his stuff. If you want passive recurring income, and an even better lead generation funnel, you'll have to look into putting out your own monthly newsletter. Look up Shaun Buck and The Newsletter Pro. He's a great provider with plenty of cred and the results to back it up.

Actually it's Paul Hartunian. The first guy to actually sell the Brooklyn Bridge.

Did you do any market research before creating the ebook?

I suggest you research the market thoroughly and see if there is money being spent and what it's being spent on.

How are others presenting their information? What are they charging, etc.

Then, do it better then the existing vendors.

Make sure when you do your market research you are searching for things like "change management course" " change management training" "change management program", etc...

The one thing that pops up immediately is that there is a designation "Certified Change Management Professional" - how important is it to the market that their investment results in students who have this designation?

Second, I notice many phrases that, in my past experience helping launch products, trigger caution - these are mainly around "I had an AHA moment", "I love this area", etc... You having a passion for the field is but one aspect (important, but not sufficient).

You really MUST begin to look at this in terms of, will this be an AHA moment for my target market?

Will they be so convinced by your differentiation in terms of getting them the results they want that you will be an obvious choice? Do you KNOW that or do you HOPE or FEEL that is the case?

What I would do, assuming you get past this professional designation obstacle, is to run a sample training based on the content in your book. Pull the key points out into a Powerpoint and either teach it in a half-day seminar, a series of online videos - the objective is simply to get 5-20 people that will help you test your ideas, flush out the real value and even help develop more of a training/course mentality so you have that as either your core product or back-end upsell product.

What I see taking a very cursory look is a lot of free ebooks, books and intro stuff selling to back-end training programs that go for $1500-$3000 - you have to take that into account when you plan your product strategy.

Hope that helps,

Jeff