How to Use a Book to Attract Clients: For Coaches and Consultants

Most coaches and consultants who want a book want it for one reason: more of the right clients. Not royalties, not a bestseller badge. They want the phone to ring with people who already understand how they work.

Books fail at that job in two predictable places. The first is before the writing starts, when the author picks a reader who will never hire them, usually other coaches or “anyone in business”. The second is after launch week, when the book goes on Amazon and the author goes back to client work, waiting for it to do something.

This guide covers both halves: how to design the book around the person who pays you, and what to do with it once it exists.

What a book can realistically do for a practice

The largest study we know of is the 2024 Business Book ROI Study, run by Josh Bernoff. It surveyed 350 authors, more than 300 of them published in nonfiction. 64% of books showed a gross profit and the median book generated $18,200 in revenue. Bernoff reports that speaking, consulting and workshops “generated much more income than book sales and royalties”. Median sales for self-published books were 700 copies.

In a later post on the study, Bernoff adds the spread: one in three authors saw higher speaking fees and 31% boosted their consulting revenue, but 34% had no gross profit even after counting that income. He says the report “probably overstates the benefits” because of survivor bias, since authors whose books went nowhere rarely answer surveys.

Two more caveats. The study’s four sponsors sell publishing, ghostwriting, PR and thought-leadership services, which are the services the findings favour. And every figure is self-reported.

Buyer research points the same way, more softly. In the 2024 LinkedIn and Edelman thought-leadership report, 9 in 10 decision-makers and C-suite executives said they were more receptive to outreach from organisations that consistently publish high-quality thought leadership, and 75% said a piece of thought leadership had led them to research a product or service they were not considering. LinkedIn sells B2B advertising and the summary gives no sample size, so treat it as direction, not proof.

Our reading: 700 copies is not a lead channel. A self-published business book will be read by hundreds of people, not tens of thousands. So the question is not how to reach a mass audience. It is how to make sure the few hundred readers include the forty people who could hire you, and that each of them has an obvious next step.

Half one: design the book for the client before you write

Almost every client-attracting decision is made at the planning stage. Once chapters exist, changing the reader or the problem means rewriting the book. Run these four tests on your idea first.

Test 1: Is the reader the person who signs?

Write down the job title of the person who approves your invoice. Then write down the reader you were picturing for the book. If they differ, you have found the most common reason business books produce compliments instead of clients.

Coaches drift towards writing for other coaches, and consultants for other consultants, because peers are whose respect they want. Both books may be good. Neither reaches buyers.

Sometimes the reader and the payer differ: a book for new managers is read by the manager but the coaching is paid for by their boss. Then write the main text for the user and one chapter for the sponsor, which the reader can forward.

Test 2: Is the problem one they already pay to solve?

“Leadership mindset” is a topic. “Your best engineer was promoted to manager and the team’s delivery dropped” is a problem with a budget line. Buyers spend money on problems that cost them something they can name.

Look for the problem in your last ten sales conversations. If prospects described it in their own words and some paid you to fix it, it can carry a book. If it only appears in your keynote, it probably cannot.

Test 3: What does the reader do on the last page?

Decide the next step before you outline. The three that work best for coaches and consultants are a diagnostic (a structured set of questions that tells readers where they stand), an assessment or scorecard (the same idea, scored, often online), and a workbook (the exercises from the book in a form people can fill in).

The rule we apply: the next step must be useful even if the reader never hires you. A diagnostic that only works as a sales call fails that test.

The next step also changes the manuscript. The diagnostic chapter usually moves early, often second or third. Exercises at the end of solution chapters become the assessment questions. Our main-site guide to using an authority book to generate leads covers where to place the calls to action and how to build the simple funnel behind them, so we will not repeat that here.

Test 4: How much of the method do you give away?

All of it. Plenty of book coaches disagree and advise you to “teach the what, not the how” so readers still need you. We think that produces thin books that sceptical buyers see through.

Clients do not pay coaches and consultants for secret steps. They pay for judgement in their own situation and for someone who has seen the pattern fifty times. A complete method on the page shows that judgement. A teaser shows that you are holding back. If you want help structuring it, see how to write a book around your methodology.

Planning decision	Book that attracts clients	Book that attracts compliments
Reader	The person who signs, or the user plus a chapter for the sponsor	Peers, or “anyone in business”
Problem	One that appears in your sales calls, with a cost the buyer can name	A theme from your talks
Stories	From best-fit clients, used with permission or anonymised	From your most famous clients
Method	Complete, with the judgement calls explained	A teaser with the steps withheld
Last page	A diagnostic, assessment or workbook that helps on its own	“Contact me to learn more”

For the client-story question in that list, see using client stories and case studies in a book.

A worked example: one coach, two versions of the same book

This example is hypothetical. Imagine a leadership coach whose clients are newly promoted engineering managers at software companies of 50 to 300 people. The coaching is usually paid for by the VP of Engineering.

Her first plan is a book called The Leadership Mindset: twelve chapters of principles, written for “new leaders” in general, with an invitation to book a discovery call at the end. The VP who pays her would probably never open it.

After the four tests, the plan changes:

• Reader: the new engineering manager in their first six months, with a final chapter titled for their VP on how to support a new manager without taking over.
• Problem: the drop in team delivery that follows promoting a strong engineer, which VPs mention in almost every first call.
• Next step: a 20-question self-check in chapter two that sorts the reader’s situation into one of four patterns, with a printable version.
• Offer link: her coaching programme starts with a team-level version of the same diagnostic.

Same expertise and roughly the same stories. One version is a nice book; the other gives a VP a reason to forward it, and gives a manager a result worth discussing.

Half two: put the published book to work

Most of what follows costs time, not money. Our rule of thumb: in the first year, give these uses as many hours as you gave the final draft.

In sales conversations: send a chapter, not the book

This is the most underused move. Before a first call, send the one chapter that matches the problem the prospect described, as a PDF or a page reference, with a line saying why you chose it. After the call, send the chapter that answers the objection they raised.

Consulting buyers often have to sell the decision internally to people who never met you. A chapter is something they can forward. Quote the book’s framework by name in proposals, so the language the client uses internally is yours. Our guide to writing a book as a consultant covers what the book does in a consulting sales cycle in more detail.

Giving copies: fifty well-chosen copies beat a launch week

Give copies to people one step from a conversation: past clients, referral partners, prospects you have already met, and event organisers you would like to speak for. Add a handwritten note that names the chapter you think they will find most useful. That note does more work than the book’s cover.

If you publish through Amazon KDP, you can order author copies at the “author price”, which KDP defines as the print cost of your book multiplied by the number of copies, with shipping charged separately. Amazon’s customer review rules let you give free or discounted copies to readers, but you may not require a review in exchange or try to influence one. Never attach a review request to the gift.

Talks and podcasts: pitch one chapter’s argument

Bernoff is blunt on this in his post on why business authors fail: “You need to do speaking in support of the book.” Hosts and organisers want a sharp argument for their audience, not your book as such. Pitch one chapter’s claim, give the talk on that chapter, and end by pointing to the diagnostic, not to “buy my book”. Listeners who take the diagnostic have shown you which problem they have.

A lead-magnet chapter: give away the diagnostic

Offer the diagnostic chapter, plus its assessment, as a free download on your own site. It is the part of the book that most directly produces a next step, and people who complete it tell you something specific about their situation. The main-site guide on turning the book into a lead magnet goes into formats and retailer exclusivity terms.

This is where many authors ask whether a tool can set up the plumbing. WritebookAI includes a Lead Engine in its one-time paid unlock: a hosted sign-up page, a lead-magnet outline and a six-email sequence. It does not book podcast slots, run your sales calls or guarantee clients, and you still write the diagnostic and check every email. If you already have a landing page and an email tool you like, you can do the same step there. Details are on writebookai.com.

Mistakes that stop a book bringing in clients

Measuring it by copies sold. Sales “didn’t predict success or ROI” in the Bernoff study. Ask every new prospect what they have read of yours instead.

A last page that says “contact me”. It asks readers to make a buying decision with nothing useful in between.

A book that does not match the offer. A book on personal resilience will not sell an operations engagement. The book’s problem should lead straight into the first stage of your paid work.

Stopping after the launch. Sending chapters and copies is work you do every month for years, and we would argue it matters more than launch week. For the launch itself, see how to market a business book.

Where to start this week

If the book is not written yet, run the four tests on your idea and write a one-paragraph answer to each. If the answers point to a different reader or problem than the one you planned, change the plan now. It is the cheapest change you will ever make to the book. Coaches can take the result into how to write a book as a business coach, which covers the writing itself.

If the book is already out, pick the five prospects you are talking to now and decide which chapter each should read. Then list ten past clients and referral partners who should get a signed copy with a note. Neither needs a funnel or a budget, and both put the book in front of people who could hire you.