The WRITE Strategy
Welcome to The WRITE Strategy newsletter for business book writers and self publishers.
The Write Strategy is a community of business experts and leaders who want to share and leverage their knowledge, build their profile and be recognised as a leading voice in their field.
Own, protect and leverage your book's IP.
August 2025 Edition
When self publishing you can control your IP, ideas, processes and outcome.
Self published books can be brand assets, lead magnets, and business accelerators, elevating you as a thought leader, intellectual capital builder speaker and more – or less.
Your book can be the base content leveraging your knowledge in an AI-saturated world, securing recognition as the trusted human front and centre.
Notice that I use the word CAN in the previous three sentences. That’s because you need to understand why and how you can protect your intellectual property in a world where the tech companies routinely scrape the net for ‘new content’ to train their models.
To some degree it’s almost impossible for individuals like you and me who self publish a book to take on the behemoth broligarchs of the tech world for stealing our IP and they know it. Hell, they’ve even been trying to convince the Australian government to water down our IP laws to make stealing our content lawful, saying that our ‘fair dealing’ approach should be changed to ‘fair use’ as it is in the USA.
This debate is a live one right now as ‘productivity’ seems to now be the issue of the day. How ripping off self published authors (and other creatives) is meant to improve our productivity I am yet to discern. If you want to read a bit more about this here’s a link to a recent article I wrote.
Suffice to say there are some things you can do to protect your IP.
1. Recognise that anything you share on the web/platforms or your website is ‘free game’ for scraping.
2. If you want to make it a bit harder for bots to scrape information on your website, put content behind an opt-in link (and you’ll also pick up emails for further marketing).
3. When writing your book, think carefully about what you want to share and what you don’t. Only share what you expect might be scraped. You might share some methodologies, charts, diagrams…but not all. It’s a good idea not to share everything anyway.
4. Put the copyright symbol (plus date and your name) on everything you send out and only send out drafts in PDF form with a watermark on them and a “Confidential. Not to be circulated” message in the footer. This shows those you are sharing with that you are serious about your IP.
5. Don’t be afraid to ask for an NDA (Non-disclosure agreement) to be signed. I sign them all the time and often suggest them.
5 things to do
1. If you are using your book to build visibility, personal or business brand relationships, it’s worth taking a two-pronged approach. Start by using two platforms you are already familiar with. One as a discovery platform – LinkedIn, Instagram or X, the other as a relationship platform – an email newsletter, Substack, Patreon or podcast. The discovery platform will help you reach a wider audience. Then move across to your relationship platform, where you build trust, engagement and new business.
2. The central hub of your engagement with readers MUST be your website. If you have been distracted by posting on LinkedIn, Instagram, X, or other platforms RETHINK. You own and control your website. Get back to your weekly/monthly blogs, if you don’t have a newsletter, think about one. Creating a direct relationship with your readers is the most valuable action you can take for building trusted, long-term relationships
3. Make sure you copyright all versions of your manuscript. Before you send out drafts of your manuscript to anyone, put a copyright symbol on the bottom of each page followed by the date and your name. And NEVER send it out as a Word document, always as a PDF. Protect your intellectual property.
4. Take a free (or paid) training course on how to create AI tool prompts. Spend at least half an hour a week learning how to get the best out of the AI tools you are using, and please don’t waste energy, water or your time asking it for recipes, travel tips, psychological advice/support (the latter is downright dangerous).
5. Did you know if you want your LinkedIn connections to be notified about your posts/articles they need to click on the ‘bell’ on the top right of their profile page. Why would you do this? So you can engage with them…and then ask them to ‘click on your bell’. I can hear some of you groaning from here . . . but it’s engagement that matters.
5 things from The Book Adviser
1. There’s a debate going across government and AI companies about Australian copyright laws. AI companies want Australian copyright laws to change so they can use content/IP for free to train their AI models. Currently AI companies just steal it. In non-technical terms, the AI companies want Australian copyright laws changed from ‘fair dealing’ to ‘fair use’ (as it is in the USA). We’re having none of it. If you’re interested you can read my article about this here.
2. Should you get your ‘final’ manuscript proofread? YES is the answer. The quality of your book depends on the quality of your words. Spelling and punctuation errors make it look like you don’t care and, possibly, that you ‘wrote it’ with AI. If you want your book to support your reputation as a thought leader, expert, commentator in your field deliver the highest quality content that you can.
3. The cover of your book matters. Potential readers do judge a book by its cover so spend some money to get the best cover you can. While you might enjoy the process of being a design creative with AI tools, the cover of your book is NOT the place to experiment. If you want a template for how to brief a designer CLICK here to request and we’ll send one to you.
4. LinkedIn has changed. Across my networks everyone is saying LinkedIn is not what it was. Engagement with posts and articles is down and it’s hard to know just how many people in your connection network are even seeing your posts and articles. I’ve seen it too, so it’s another reason to consider where you spend your time in terms of content and engagement.
5.Endorsements. Do you need them? Endorsements are social proof that your book is worth buying. It’s always better to have your peer group say great things about your book, than you alone. And you can use the endorsement in your book, on the back cover, across your social media and website.
5 things to know
1. Having an Amazon best-seller could be the worst way to generate book sales over time. Amazon tracks a 180-day weighted moving average of your eBook sales AND it tracks if people are actually reading your book. So, daily spikes (to game the best-seller badge) could actually hurt your ranking in Amazon. Think about consistency over short spikes and attract genuine readers
2. eBook options. If you don’t choose KDP Select (exclusivity to Amazon). Go direct where you can (KDP, B&N, Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play) and use Draft2Digital to reach the rest. By going direct where you can, you'll have higher revenues, more control, and access to any promotional opportunities the individual platforms may offer.
3. Want to monetise your content and retain control over it? Think about third-party platforms such as Substack, Patreon and Medium. They are a great way to extend the reach of your content and you can repurpose your blog posts/articles for them. Like most things, this approach is a long-term proposition.
4. GPT-5 has landed. According to Sam Altman, the new version of the technology, is “the smartest, fastest and most useful model” it has released and will be available to all individual ChatGPT users. The new model has four optional personalities which will determine how the bot interacts with its user, whether concise and professional, thoughtful and supportive, or “a bit sarcastic”. The personalities – cynic, robot, listener, and nerd – will initially be for limited users before a wider rollout. Initial feedback is that it's pretty underwhelming so let’s hold off on the excitement.
5. Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is here. Just when you thought you understood SEO – even if you actually haven’t deployed it – GEO is here. Just what is it and why does it matter to you? Read this article I recently shared.
author profile
Debra Graves
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