How to turn a blog into a book
Introducing my book "Connect & Act - Systematic Social Selling", a practical guide to using LinkedIn for your profile, pleasure and profit.
Every two weeks I review books of fellow authors to learn from them on behalf of my audience. Those articles are added by an interview with the authors to provide more insight than a short review on Amazon or other e-commerce websites. The inspiration gaining from this process helped me to write my own book, too.
After 20 reviews of other authors I want to take the chance to introduce (not review) my first own business book, “Connect & Act – Systematic Social Selling”. Intended to be just a selection of my weekly Social Selling posts, it became a full book written from scratch using the foundation of my blogging activities.
The major difference: I added statements from a range of experts in their fields. Every social media channel is a raw place on its own like a micro cosmos. That’s why I wanted to add more voices to give a rounded picture about the topic of Social Selling.
What do I mean with Social Selling? Discussing a couple of definitions in the book, for me it is “a clever approach of using social media and digital tools to enhance business conversations.” This way we take a conversation offline into a call or a meeting to advance your business agenda, in my view the universal target of Social Selling.
The book follows a structure which I declared by LEGO bricks: This first regular step in Social Selling represents your digital representation or personal brand, therefore I call the chapter “Complete”. This is followed by “Connect” about finding the right people and building lasting relationships with them. The third step “Content” is all about writing and engaging different types of material while the fourth step “Convert” takes a conversation to the next level.
The book follows those four chapters including longer interviews with Roger Christie, Wendy Lloyd Curley, Scott Rogerson and Mark McInnes, added by an insightful foreword of Raul Kumar. Further 16 experts add other aspects of those four chapters.
Many people don’t read full books given the attention span challenges. Therefore I spread the content across 42 double pages, each of them with four practical tips to execute right away. When updates to those topics become available, a dedicated landing page with QR code gives further insight.
I am extremely grateful for the kind comments from members of my network about the book like Cian McLoughlin (“… Gunnar’s personal experience and research with long form interviews and shorter content segments, to deliver a very impactful and important new book.”) or Rema Lolas (“His tips and advice are practical and easy to implement to build your social presence and connect to meaningful relationships.”).
Want to read more?
Download a free chapter of this book and let me know your feedback! Or buy a signed copy here.
A belated congrats on turning shared insights into something so practical and generous. Your journey from reviewer to author is inspiring. And the LEGO structure is a brilliant touch!