One of the most lucrative but also the lowest pay jobs relative to efforts put in is writing a book. For authors, you know how much effort or hundreds of hours you put in before a book is completed. However, it is normally sold for a few hours worth of your hourly rate. Then why so many people still want to be an author?
Well, the answer is leverage in terms of buying power. Authors do not aim to sell a few or even hundreds of books. They want to write a best seller that can sell ten of thousands if not million. That is the power of leverage which is much more powerful than multi level marketing for many other types of physical products especially foods and other consumable products that have limited shelf life. Writing a book is better than creating a new tool or product as the same author can write another book and sell to the same group of buyers again and again. You see people buy hundreds of books but have you seen anybody buy some other products again and again and add up to hundreds? A classic example is Chicken Soup for the Soul series....maybe is the all time best seller by now.
Therefore, food for thought business is more lucrative than food for the stomach. I always buy "outdated" book which was author 2 - 3 years back but remain relevant to me and for current application, at 60 to 80% discount. I don't think anyone wants to buy "out-dated or expired" foods at all. Furthermore, books can be sold from or to any part of the world.
The main benefit derived from selling a book is that it will make the author very famous and become an expert in the fields he authored. This branding and publicity can bring him million of dollars when people engage him to be a speaker for his field, co-author another book, invited to be in a forum, guest speaker for university or other similar occasion, and many more.
Therefore, despite not want to buy books so frequently, I bought 14 books and cost me more than RM300 despite all are "outdated" books. Unless I become a professional author or speaker, I don't think I need to buy books when they are freshly delivered from the printing machine now. We should be a smart consumer even for buying books, right?
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