Brad Burton's books
The story of Brad Burton’s four books (so far!) is a fantastic example of using business books as an integral part of your brand-building process.
Brad published his first book, the wonderfully provocatively titled Get Off Your Arse, in 2009. The book vividly charts Brad’s rise from being £25k in debt to successfully launching and running 4Networking, the UK’s fastest-growing business networking organisation. 4Networking started in Feb 2006, so this book came out when the organisation was still fairly new, as was Brad’s speaking career.
The three elements of the book, the speaking and 4Networking all fed into each other. Brad promoted the book at his motivational speaking gigs, using the classic formula of “I’ll be signing copies of my book at the back of the room after this event”. The book helped to provide a foundation, credentials and credibility to the speaking – being a ‘published author’ all helps on the CV when trying to secure speaking engagements.
In turn, the book covers, with great honesty, some of the challenges and the guerrilla marketing tactics used to get 4Networking off the ground. It’s a rollicking read as an ‘origin story’ about 4Networking and provided some great publicity for 4N. And of course, with (at that time) around 200 4Networking groups covering most of the UK, this was a ready-made distribution network, with the book being promoted and sold to its target market, SME business owners, at every 4Networking meeting.
Get Off Your Arse, with its lively blend of Brad’s honest personal stories and the lessons he’s learnt from them, was an instant hit, becoming one of the highest-rated and reviewed business books on Amazon. Ten years on, it now has 362 (and counting) reviews on Amazon, achieving 4.7 stars out of 5 average ratings.
Any successful debut deserves a sequel, and so Get Off Your Arse Too was published in 2011. Promoted as a ‘self-help/biz book for people who DON'T like self-help/biz books’, it followed the style and formula of Get Off Your Arse, packed with further stories from the networking/motivational speaking front line. In his role as founder and MD of 4Networking, Brad meets thousands of business owners each year, many with interesting stories to tell, so new and interesting material for this book wasn’t hard to find.
Get Off Your Arse Too, as with most sequels, didn’t quite repeat the success of the first book in terms of sales numbers, but it provoked a similarly strong reaction from readers, with again, to date, 4.7 stars out of 5 average ratings on Amazon.
Both these books were self-published, using Brad Burton’s own imprint 4Publishing. Back in 2009, the economics of print-on-demand were not as flexible and as favourable as they are now. As a result, the only way to get the economics of the cover price (and Amazon’s cut) to work, was to print a few pallets-worth of these books. Today’s print-on-demand pricing is far more favourable, with printing just 50 books (or even fewer than that) a realistic option.
The story of Brad Burton’s next two books, Life. Business. Just Got Easier and Now What? will be the subject of a future blog.
You can find all of Brad Burton’s books on Amazon. Visit the Brad Burton author page to see all the books, their reviews and their ratings, along with information about Brad as a motivational speaker.
Oh, and here’s a testimonial Brad has kindly given me, as I have worked closely with him on all his books:
“I have worked with Mark now for over a decade. I’ve written four books and I’m now in fact the highest reviewed and rated business book author on Amazon. Mark has been my sub-editor through those ten years throughout writing those books. We work really well together and what Mark’s done, he makes my colloquial language readable and gets the right grammar etc. And what he’s done as a sub-editor, he makes certain it doesn’t lose my voice, very important.
So, would I recommend Mark to support you with your books? 100%!
Will Mark be working with me on my 5th book? Absolutely!
So, 10 out 10 for editorial support for any aspiring book writer!”