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.
April 2026 Edition
Why building your book community is possible and essential.
If Oprah, Reese Witherspoon and Dua Lipa can do it, so can you.
Books were ‘so out’, but it seems that they are now ‘back in’.
There’s Book Tok (although I do not recommend it for a host of reasons), book clubs (Oprah’s being the most well-known), Influencers sharing their favourite books and then there’s Dua Lipa, who has her own book club https://www.service95.com/book-club and has just been announced as the curator of the London Literature Festival running October 21 to November 1. Goodreads and Reddit are also platforms where books, reviews and commentary are alive and well. In a way I am surprised that LinkedIn hasn’t picked up on this. Maybe I should suggest a BookedIn ‘sister’? You heard it here first.
Being a book nerd is now back in fashion. Well, it never went out of fashion for me. But, let me get back to the topic of building your book community.
One of the key parts of marketing a business book that I share with everyone is that you need to start a book community and keep nurturing it. Whether you start with 10, 100 or 500 people, your book community will grow over time and they can be/will be some of the most important elements of the visibility of your book.
I’ve often commented that there’s no point self publishing a business book (any book for that matter) for it to be the world’s best kept secret. To make your book visible you HAVE to have a plan to make this happen and building a community around your book – however that looks to you – is essential.
Which brings me to the key point. You have to know what your goals and objectives are for your business book. If you want to be the next Simon Sinek you’re going to have to work at it relentlessly as he did, over years and decades. If that doesn’t sound like you, be realistic as to what you want, the timeframe you want it and what you are prepared to do and invest to achieve it.
Get clarity as to what you want your book to achieve for you. Business/personal brand recognition, thought leadership, speaking gigs, business development, sharing your knowledge and insights to build a better world, leave a legacy – all of these? Once you know what’s most important to you, you can then build a marketing/visibility plan around this…a focus on building a community around this.
Wherever you are with your book, take the time to review what you are doing to create, build and nurture your book community.
5 things to do
1. Ask for recommendations and reviews of your book from readers. AI LLMs rate recommendations and reviews highly. Don’t be shy to ask…the more the better. And I am not just talking about Amazon reviews…although these are good. Consider Reddit, Goodreads, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, via Podcasts you are on.
2. Keep up your engagement on LinkedIn if this is a main content channel for you. While there’s a huge amount of commentary about how LinkedIn has changed, engagement is down and it’s becoming increasing full of AI slop, it’s still a great source of reference for your potential audience and AI search. Consistency is key. Don’t just post short posts. Write longer form articles (it’s easy- draw on the content of your book or blogs you are writing). Tag key people you want to see these articles.
3. Secure endorsements for your book and use them. You’ve probably seen endorsements on the back cover or inside books you have bought. You may have even secured some for your book. If the latter – are you still using these in your social media and content? Have you asked for more? If not, regroup and ask for some more. It could be as simple as asking someone to take a photo of them holding your book and making a positive comment, or providing a 1-2 sentence comment about a key thing they learnt from your book. I know it’s not natural to ask for this but I guarantee you’ll be surprised and humbled by how people are willing to help you. Just ask.
4. Learn about how to maximise being referenced in an AI overview. There are two main metrics to be aware of:
mentions and citations.
Mentions are the number of times your brand (or product) is mentioned in AI answers.
Citations are the number of times your website/blog is cited as a source in AI answers. LLMs generate their answers. First, they search the web, then they put together a massive “library” from which the LLM extracts its sources and crafts its answer. The books mentioned in the final answer depend on the sources the LLM pulls together in its library — and in particular, the ones it ends up citing. Not all sources in the ‘library’ are treated equally. A blog post by an unknown author will carry less weight than, say, a Forbes article.
The types of domains LLMs trust depend heavily on the prompt itself — and on the results of their searches.
So, try this. Ask your favourite LLM for book recommendations in your niche — and analyse not only the results, but also the sources it pulls from. This will give you a clear idea of where your book needs to be featured.
5. Read some books – writing is like breathing out. Reading is like breathing in. I love writing–you all know that. And I love reading, widely. I am intensely curious about everything. And, I am constantly learning how to think and write better from my reading. I keep track of my reading on Goodreads. Here’s a link to my profile https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/14409532-jaqui-lane . Join me.
- What have I read in the past month?
- The Work, Bri Lee
- Blind Spot. Southeast Asia and Australia’s Future, Michael Wesley
- Killer in the Kremlin, John Sweeney
- Gilded Rage. Elon Musk and the radicalisation of Silicon Valley, Jacob Silverman
- The Conscious Instinct. Unravelling the mystery of how the brain makes the mind, Michal S. Gazzaniga, and
- Words are Eagles, Selected writings on the Nature and Language of Place, Greagory Day
5 things from The Book Adviser
1. A new look for The Book Adviser. In the next week or so you will notice that we have rebranded and have a new-look website. It’s been a few months in the making and brings together the two parts of what I do – The Book Adviser business self publishing expert and my company history writing. Given that I’ve written over 50 company histories, and am currently writing three, it’s about time they came together in a more seamless way.
And, there’s a brand new bookshop section. If you sell your book through us, we’ll be in contact as we want to provide potential purchasers with more information.
IF you would like to sell your book through The Book Adviser, as well as your own website, let us know. More platforms, more exposure.
2. Upcoming book launch: Exit Like an Expert by Simon Bedard. Simon’s been busy promoting his book before his official launch and is securing great media coverage and engagement. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7441648609487597569/
3. Audio/eBook Launch: On 4 April Christina Gerakiteys planned to launch her eBook and audio book, Celebrating Success, One Failure at a time. Did she do it? Watch this space: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-failure-matters-me-christina-gerakiteys-gaicd-rmzoc/
4. Company histories Jaqui is writing. I thought I’d share some of the company history books I am writing and publishing.
-The 100th anniversary of Edgells
-70 years of Thomas Global Systems – a family business specialising in defence and aviation electronic solutions worldwide
-40 years of Independent Cement and Lime
-The Genus Group – a listed electricity infrastructure company based in Perth
-Birdon at 50 – a second-generation family business with global reach in the defence, maritime and environmental sectors
It’s a diverse range of businesses something I love about the work I do.
5. New to The Book Adviser network. We’ve started working with the following business leaders on their books: the Hon. Victor Dominello (Government 3.0), Eileen Doyle (Start-up investing. Success, stamina and serendipity. Her 2nd book with us), Jonathan Rolley (Undivided), Ben Logan (LEAF program).
5 things to know
1. 2025 was a banner year for self publishing. Thorpe Bowker reports that self-published titles jumped from 2.5 million in 2024 to more than 3.5 million titles in 2025. As always, there’s a good and not so good side to this. Self publishing is now firmly a mainstream way to publish a business book. However, the number of scams and ‘too-good-to-be-true’ offers are flourishing. BEFORE you sign up to anything do your homework and/or check with me.
2. The debate around copyright laws in Australia continues. The Federal Government has made it clear that they don’t want to legislate for the ‘text and data mining’ (TDM) exclusion that the big tech companies and now data centre owners want (aka to be allow to steal our IP and pay nothing. The Attorney General, Michelle Rowland is yet to formally respond…and I’ll be watching this closely.
The same ‘discussion’ is going on in the UK where that government has just released the Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence and its companion Copyright and AI Impact Assessment.
In essence: the UK is deciding whether it wants an AI ecosystem that is fed by permissioned, high-quality, provenance-rich content (a licensing economy), or an AI ecosystem that is fed by ambiguity, leakage, and endless disputes (a scraping economy). The report implicitly argues that the former is the only sustainable path if the UK wants both creator legitimacy and durable AI innovation.
3. Grammarly's "expert review feature," as reported on by The Verge. Grammarly recently pitch a new ‘expert review feature’ saying that the feature can "sharpen your message through the lens of industry-relevant perspectives" including options ranging from The Verge editors to notable figures like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Stephen King.
But guess what? Grammarly didn't secure authorised participation from any of the experts. Sounds like the other big tech companies…steal first and see what happens. Well, a class action happened so Grammarly has since removed this feature. I’m sharing this with you so you know what you’re dealing with if you use Grammarly.
4. Don’t’ rely on your favourite AI to write even parts of your book or Blogs/posts.
Google and other LLMs are getting smarter at spotting content that’s been ‘formulated’ using AI – and I use that word rather than written as I am strongly of the view that AI can’t write high-quality content. So, if you have been building an AI driven content slop machine stop now as it’s not going to work with most of the algorithms AND, most of you have brilliant content you can draw from – the book you wrote.
5. Register your book with Proudly Human. A reminder to register your book with Proudly Human. They verify work is human authored so creators can prove it and humans can choose it.
is it time to publish your book?
The Book Adviser has helped more than 400 business leaders, owners, consultants and entrepreneurs to successfully self publish and market their business book.
Find out more about The Book Adviser Program CLICK HERE.
subscribe to The Book Adviser YouTube channel for more tips and insights
Are you curious about:
- How AI is impacting book publishing
- What to do after writing your own book? or even
- What makes a good business book?
Subscribe to The Book Adviser channel
CLICK HERE
help spread our message
We’re passionate about business books and helping people share their knowledge and insights to a wider audience as we believe each of us can change the world for the better, one book at a time. If you’ve found this newsletter informative, inspiring or want to share some of the books we’ve mentioned, please share it with your colleagues, friends and family.
get more of The WRITE Strategy
Do you know of someone that would benefit from our services? DM us or email jaqui@thebookadviser.com.au
Was this email forwarded to you? Get your own subscription by clicking SUBSCRIBE and completing our form.
Copyright 2024 - The Book Adviser
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.
April 2026 Edition
Why building your book community is possible and essential.
If Oprah, Reese Witherspoon and Dua Lipa can do it, so can you.
Books were ‘so out’, but it seems that they are now ‘back in’.
There’s Book Tok (although I do not recommend it for a host of reasons), book clubs (Oprah’s being the most well-known), Influencers sharing their favourite books and then there’s Dua Lipa, who has her own book club https://www.service95.com/book-club and has just been announced as the curator of the London Literature Festival running October 21 to November 1. Goodreads and Reddit are also platforms where books, reviews and commentary are alive and well. In a way I am surprised that LinkedIn hasn’t picked up on this. Maybe I should suggest a BookedIn ‘sister’? You heard it here first.
Being a book nerd is now back in fashion. Well, it never went out of fashion for me. But, let me get back to the topic of building your book community.
One of the key parts of marketing a business book that I share with everyone is that you need to start a book community and keep nurturing it. Whether you start with 10, 100 or 500 people, your book community will grow over time and they can be/will be some of the most important elements of the visibility of your book.
I’ve often commented that there’s no point self publishing a business book (any book for that matter) for it to be the world’s best kept secret. To make your book visible you HAVE to have a plan to make this happen and building a community around your book – however that looks to you – is essential.
Which brings me to the key point. You have to know what your goals and objectives are for your business book. If you want to be the next Simon Sinek you’re going to have to work at it relentlessly as he did, over years and decades. If that doesn’t sound like you, be realistic as to what you want, the timeframe you want it and what you are prepared to do and invest to achieve it.
Get clarity as to what you want your book to achieve for you. Business/personal brand recognition, thought leadership, speaking gigs, business development, sharing your knowledge and insights to build a better world, leave a legacy – all of these? Once you know what’s most important to you, you can then build a marketing/visibility plan around this…a focus on building a community around this.
Wherever you are with your book, take the time to review what you are doing to create, build and nurture your book community.
5 things to do
1. Ask for recommendations and reviews of your book from readers. AI LLMs rate recommendations and reviews highly. Don’t be shy to ask…the more the better. And I am not just talking about Amazon reviews…although these are good. Consider Reddit, Goodreads, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, via Podcasts you are on.
2. Keep up your engagement on LinkedIn if this is a main content channel for you. While there’s a huge amount of commentary about how LinkedIn has changed, engagement is down and it’s becoming increasing full of AI slop, it’s still a great source of reference for your potential audience and AI search. Consistency is key. Don’t just post short posts. Write longer form articles (it’s easy- draw on the content of your book or blogs you are writing). Tag key people you want to see these articles.
3. Secure endorsements for your book and use them. You’ve probably seen endorsements on the back cover or inside books you have bought. You may have even secured some for your book. If the latter – are you still using these in your social media and content? Have you asked for more? If not, regroup and ask for some more. It could be as simple as asking someone to take a photo of them holding your book and making a positive comment, or providing a 1-2 sentence comment about a key thing they learnt from your book. I know it’s not natural to ask for this but I guarantee you’ll be surprised and humbled by how people are willing to help you. Just ask.
4. Learn about how to maximise being referenced in an AI overview. There are two main metrics to be aware of:
mentions and citations.
Mentions are the number of times your brand (or product) is mentioned in AI answers.
Citations are the number of times your website/blog is cited as a source in AI answers. LLMs generate their answers. First, they search the web, then they put together a massive “library” from which the LLM extracts its sources and crafts its answer. The books mentioned in the final answer depend on the sources the LLM pulls together in its library — and in particular, the ones it ends up citing. Not all sources in the ‘library’ are treated equally. A blog post by an unknown author will carry less weight than, say, a Forbes article.
The types of domains LLMs trust depend heavily on the prompt itself — and on the results of their searches.
So, try this. Ask your favourite LLM for book recommendations in your niche — and analyse not only the results, but also the sources it pulls from. This will give you a clear idea of where your book needs to be featured.
5. Read some books – writing is like breathing out. Reading is like breathing in. I love writing–you all know that. And I love reading, widely. I am intensely curious about everything. And, I am constantly learning how to think and write better from my reading. I keep track of my reading on Goodreads. Here’s a link to my profile https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/14409532-jaqui-lane . Join me.
- What have I read in the past month?
- The Work, Bri Lee
- Blind Spot. Southeast Asia and Australia’s Future, Michael Wesley
- Killer in the Kremlin, John Sweeney
- Gilded Rage. Elon Musk and the radicalisation of Silicon Valley, Jacob Silverman
- The Conscious Instinct. Unravelling the mystery of how the brain makes the mind, Michal S. Gazzaniga, and
- Words are Eagles, Selected writings on the Nature and Language of Place, Greagory Day
5 things from The Book Adviser
1. A new look for The Book Adviser. In the next week or so you will notice that we have rebranded and have a new-look website. It’s been a few months in the making and brings together the two parts of what I do – The Book Adviser business self publishing expert and my company history writing. Given that I’ve written over 50 company histories, and am currently writing three, it’s about time they came together in a more seamless way.
And, there’s a brand new bookshop section. If you sell your book through us, we’ll be in contact as we want to provide potential purchasers with more information.
IF you would like to sell your book through The Book Adviser, as well as your own website, let us know. More platforms, more exposure.
2. Upcoming book launch: Exit Like an Expert by Simon Bedard. Simon’s been busy promoting his book before his official launch and is securing great media coverage and engagement. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7441648609487597569/
3. Audio/eBook Launch: On 4 April Christina Gerakiteys planned to launch her eBook and audio book, Celebrating Success, One Failure at a time. Did she do it? Watch this space: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-failure-matters-me-christina-gerakiteys-gaicd-rmzoc/
4. Company histories Jaqui is writing. I thought I’d share some of the company history books I am writing and publishing.
-The 100th anniversary of Edgells
-70 years of Thomas Global Systems – a family business specialising in defence and aviation electronic solutions worldwide
-40 years of Independent Cement and Lime
-The Genus Group – a listed electricity infrastructure company based in Perth
-Birdon at 50 – a second-generation family business with global reach in the defence, maritime and environmental sectors
It’s a diverse range of businesses something I love about the work I do.
5. New to The Book Adviser network. We’ve started working with the following business leaders on their books: the Hon. Victor Dominello (Government 3.0), Eileen Doyle (Start-up investing. Success, stamina and serendipity. Her 2nd book with us), Jonathan Rolley (Undivided), Ben Logan (LEAF program).
5 things to know
1. 2025 was a banner year for self publishing. Thorpe Bowker reports that self-published titles jumped from 2.5 million in 2024 to more than 3.5 million titles in 2025. As always, there’s a good and not so good side to this. Self publishing is now firmly a mainstream way to publish a business book. However, the number of scams and ‘too-good-to-be-true’ offers are flourishing. BEFORE you sign up to anything do your homework and/or check with me.
2. The debate around copyright laws in Australia continues. The Federal Government has made it clear that they don’t want to legislate for the ‘text and data mining’ (TDM) exclusion that the big tech companies and now data centre owners want (aka to be allow to steal our IP and pay nothing. The Attorney General, Michelle Rowland is yet to formally respond…and I’ll be watching this closely.
The same ‘discussion’ is going on in the UK where that government has just released the Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence and its companion Copyright and AI Impact Assessment.
In essence: the UK is deciding whether it wants an AI ecosystem that is fed by permissioned, high-quality, provenance-rich content (a licensing economy), or an AI ecosystem that is fed by ambiguity, leakage, and endless disputes (a scraping economy). The report implicitly argues that the former is the only sustainable path if the UK wants both creator legitimacy and durable AI innovation.
3. Grammarly's "expert review feature," as reported on by The Verge. Grammarly recently pitch a new ‘expert review feature’ saying that the feature can "sharpen your message through the lens of industry-relevant perspectives" including options ranging from The Verge editors to notable figures like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Stephen King.
But guess what? Grammarly didn't secure authorised participation from any of the experts. Sounds like the other big tech companies…steal first and see what happens. Well, a class action happened so Grammarly has since removed this feature. I’m sharing this with you so you know what you’re dealing with if you use Grammarly.
4. Don’t’ rely on your favourite AI to write even parts of your book or Blogs/posts.
Google and other LLMs are getting smarter at spotting content that’s been ‘formulated’ using AI – and I use that word rather than written as I am strongly of the view that AI can’t write high-quality content. So, if you have been building an AI driven content slop machine stop now as it’s not going to work with most of the algorithms AND, most of you have brilliant content you can draw from – the book you wrote.
5. Register your book with Proudly Human. A reminder to register your book with Proudly Human. They verify work is human authored so creators can prove it and humans can choose it.
is it time to publish your book?
The Book Adviser has helped more than 400 business leaders, owners, consultants and entrepreneurs to successfully self publish and market their business book.
Find out more about The Book Adviser Program CLICK HERE.
subscribe to The Book Adviser YouTube channel for more tips and insights
Are you curious about:
- How AI is impacting book publishing
- What to do after writing your own book? or even
- What makes a good business book?
Subscribe to The Book Adviser channel
CLICK HERE
help spread our message
We’re passionate about business books and helping people share their knowledge and insights to a wider audience as we believe each of us can change the world for the better, one book at a time. If you’ve found this newsletter informative, inspiring or want to share some of the books we’ve mentioned, please share it with your colleagues, friends and family.
get more of The WRITE Strategy
Do you know of someone that would benefit from our services? DM us or email jaqui@thebookadviser.com.au
Was this email forwarded to you? Get your own subscription by clicking SUBSCRIBE and completing our form.
Copyright 2024 - The Book Adviser