Remember the RainToday survey about business books I linked to a few months ago? The results are out, and you can read the summary and order The Business Impact Of Writing A Book on RainToday’s website. I haven’t read the full report, so I can’t tell you whether the 71-page download is worth $149.
As for the results: 34% of those surveyed said that becoming an author had a very strong influence on their ability to get business, with another 22% saying their books had a strong influence on lead generation. Only 5% said that becoming an author had no influence.
The more copies of the book an author sold, the stronger the influence reported, which is only logical. Things really start happening when you sell 10,000 copies.
Another interesting point is the difference in number of books sold between authors who did and did not use agents and publicists. Agented authors and those with publicists sold roughly twice as many copies of their first book as those who marketed the book on their own. That statistic should be a nice boost to the business of agents and publicists.
I noticed that many of the authors surveyed are now endorsing the report—and that most of them are business book authors of whom I’ve heard. Of course, there wouldn’t be much point putting the endorsements or names of the unsuccessful authors on the site.