Back in March, I wrote a book about Search Engine Optimisation. I wanted to keep the book accessible and as jargon-free as I could write it so that it would appeal to my customer base. They are mainly marketing people - not technical.

Now, I know that if I had written the book, published it to sell, I would not have made much money out of it but I had always wanted to write a book and over about six weekends, I managed to get it done (about 100 hours max.).

So, I gave the book away for free and I also had some printed via Lulu, which I have been handing out to prospects and clients.

Anyway, six months later and the book has now been downloaded over 1,050 times and created untold amount of incoming links to the website.

Moral of my story. If I had written the book to sell and sold 1000 copies, how much would I have made? I am guessing it is not much. But, how much business have I ‘clinched’ as a result of me being able to place my book in someone’s hand? Not easy to quantify but I reckon my investment in time (100 hrs x £100 per hour - £10k) has been paid back at least five times over.

Marketing a business is about reach, profile and belief in what you do - especially for the B2B service sector. It’s also about creating more authentic pieces that add value to a business offering.

Writing the book was not only something that has given me a huge sense of a achievement, it’s delivered business and in terms of my ongoing experiments in marketing - I’ve learned something new… again.