How to Turn a Single Book Into Lasting Income, Authority, and Opportunity - BM520

What if your book isn’t the product… but the foundation of everything that follows? 

Many authors publish with hope that book sales will drive income. Few realize the real opportunity lies in what the book makes possible. This week’s guest, Dr. Lee Baucom, has spent more than two decades turning books into thriving businesses — and he’s sharing exactly how it works. 

A bestselling author of seven books and creator of the Book to Business Blueprint, Lee explains how to shift your thinking from “selling copies” to building a complete ecosystem around your message. When your book becomes the backbone of your authority and offers, new doors open. 

In this conversation, we explore how successful authors design businesses that grow from their books, stay focused on meaningful opportunities, and avoid the distractions that derail momentum. If you’re a coach, consultant, or expert who wants your book to generate more than royalties, this episode will expand what you see as possible. 

What You’ll Discover: 

• Why your book should be treated as a foundation, not a finish line
• How authorship instantly elevates authority and credibility
• Ways to design a business that grows naturally from your book
• Why readers are looking for solutions, not simply a book to read
• How to use feedback to spot real opportunities and ignore distractions
• Practical ways to turn your message into scalable offers and programs

A well-positioned book can support your speaking, programs, and long-term growth for years to come. The key is knowing how to build around it with intention.
 
Tune in now to discover how your book can become the backbone of a business that continues to grow, evolve, and create impact long after publication.

Here's how to download your copy of Lee's Business to Business Blueprint

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Transcript

Susan Friedmann [00:00:00]:
 Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters. Every week I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, my special guest is Dr. Lee Baucom. Lee is the author of over 7 books. When his first book came out in 1999, he thought that was it. It turns out that the book was the backbone to his business. For over 2 decades, Lee has used books to build his business.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:00:36]:
 And it is such a pleasure, Lee, to welcome you to the show and thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:00:44]:
 Well, Susan, thank you for having me. I must admit, a little fan here. Yours is one of the few podcasts that I actually have automatically downloaded to my listen today list. So I am so happy to be here.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:00:55]:
 Well, that just warms my heart to hear that. Thank you so much for being a loyal listener. And hey, this is your reward. What can I say? And I did not know that, ladies and gentlemen, beforehand. He just told me that before we came on the air. Lovely. So Lee, you have used books as the backbone to your business. Talk to us more about that because so many authors think that the book is the business rather than a tool to support the business.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:01:30]:
 Help us understand how this works for you.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:01:34]:
 I thought that too. I was the one who thought that all the sales will be it, you know, I'll get some sales off of this and that will support it. But so to go back, I was trained as a therapist and then switched hats to coach. And part of the reason was because I was disappointed with how the success rate of therapy, at least in the marital world, that's kind of my background. So I decided to write a book to kind of lay out what I actually believed. And I thought I was just an author. And I, I kept trying to hold to that belief for a long time. I had my practice and there was the book, and that's where I saw it.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:02:10]:
 I was actually at a coaching conference that another coach said, you're playing too small, that your book should be more. And I did have book sales. In fact, it never was a published book. I always kept it as a program online. Now, back in 1999, no Amazon, no ebooks, and I called it an ebook then and then had to switch when Amazon decided that every book that was an ebook was $0.99. And it changed my model, but I had to shift to a system So my program became a system and it fed into the business in ways that I never saw. So where I was just seeing clients, suddenly it expanded into a number of different possibilities, all because of the opportunities that came from the book, the people who would seek me out, the ways I could say, hey, I'm the author of this book. After that, I got more strategic and each book that came after that began to be kind of the building blocks of that.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:03:10]:
 But even if I had stuck with book number 1, it would have still built the exact business I have. The others just add to it.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:03:18]:
 I love that. I love the fact that you called it a system. There's just something different about a system that it's like, oh, I want to know more about that.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:03:29]:
 Yeah. The book was the foundation and it still is that same book. I just added pieces to it.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:03:35]:
 I love hearing that as well, because so many authors think that 3 months out, if the book hasn't done well, it's like a has-been. And that's not the case. I've had authors say to me, how long can I, or should I be marketing this book? And I'm like, how long do you want to keep selling the book?
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:03:57]:
 Yeah, 26 years and still going is my answer to that. You know, just today I was on a group on Facebook and the person said, I can't make it make financial sense. I'm going to put all this money into, you getting it edited and the COVID and all of that for what, 200 sales? He listed his investment and said for the money off of 200 sales. And I said, well, that depends on what you're going to do with the book. If you're looking at it as selling the book, not many authors do that. 3 months or a year, the number of copies that are just going to naturally sell, not if you push the marketing, but just naturally sell, are probably going to family and friends and a few others. The real question is what comes out of the book, not what is the book.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:04:43]:
 Yes, thank you for that. The whole purpose of the book is to help build authority and awareness. And the more that you build that authority and awareness, the more likely you are to get speaking engagements, do your coaching, your training, your byproducts from this, like your system. Absolutely. And that's where you make money. I think and you've come across this with so many authors as well, is that people think they're gonna make money from the book. And very rarely, unless you're a celebrity, chances are you're not gonna make money with your book. So it's not about that.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:05:20]:
 Yeah.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:05:20]:
 [Speaker:MICHAEL] That's right. The statistics are not on our side for that. And that's where we make the mistake. So I don't know, I noticed it long ago and I thought it was obvious once I noticed it, but sometimes I have to point out to people that the first part of authority is author and to remember that there's a reason for that, that the author creates authority. So just briefly, a story about one person I was working with who does consulting, and he's like, I don't know what to do with my book. And I'm like, there it is. When you're with somebody, you have something to hand them. And so he called me and he said, I can't believe this worked.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:05:56]:
 And so he was in a president's office. There were two people. He's in a very specialized field. There were two people vying for a contract. The president was trying to get him to lower his price. And he said, why should I hire you over this other person? My guy reached into his satchel, pulled out his book and said, because I wrote the book on it and dropped it on his desk and said, if you're interested, let me know and walked out the door. He got the contract.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:06:22]:
 I want to applaud that. Yes, absolutely.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:06:25]:
 I wrote the book is the line.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:06:28]:
 Absolutely. You wrote the book, therefore. I mean, that's a brilliant example, is that you're already differentiating yourself from somebody else in the competition. And so yes, you stand out from the crowd. I remember when I wrote my first book, I was exhibiting at trade shows, Tips and Techniques for Success. I was in the trade show industry and there were very few of my competitors who had written a book. That helped me sort of jumpstart more of my career in that field. So yes, having that book gives you enormous credibility, but then as you rightly say, then what? What are you going to do with it? So let's talk more about how you've used your books as this backbone for your business.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:07:22]:
 Talk more about that.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:07:24]:
 Part of what I find true for authors is that as much as the information is that they're putting into the book, they themselves, their thinking is transformed by the book. I'm sure that happened for you where you had more clarity and more of a framework coming after that. What I have often noticed is that then people forget that that's in there, that it's embedded in there, that they have a new approach because they spent the time to write the book and think through it. And so the framework is part of what we're looking for. I always think that this building a business from the book is really an architecture problem. You've got to find out where the foundation is. The book is the foundation, but then the business is what you build on it. Years ago, I was at an author event for my publisher, and I was sitting at a table, and this person had a great book, and I was leafing through it.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:08:14]:
 And I looked at him, I said, so what are you going to do now with it? And he said, well, That's it. And I said, that's it? And he said, yeah, that's it. I wrote the book. And I thought to myself, wow, what a loss of opportunity, because I saw the power that's in the book. And it happens in, in lots of different ways. But for him to build something, but he was missing seeing this as the foundation, not the endpoint. For me, my natural background as a therapist, as a coach, put me in the self-development world. But instead of just waiting for clients to come to my office, I now have a membership program.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:08:52]:
 I now have courses that are online, and a lot of those courses are based on the conversations that happen because of the book. Someone would make a comment about something that came out of it, and I would dig deeper. The book becomes the entry point depending on what somebody wants to build.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:09:11]:
 Yes. And thinking that it's the end of the journey. That's it. You have the book and it's like, okay, I can check that off the bucket list. I wrote a book. But you're right. Now, what do you do with it? How do you find a business that might be hiding in your book?
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:09:34]:
 I think a piece of this is to ask the question, what kind of business would I want to have? Not meaning, the structure of it, because that can come out of the book. But like, how do you deal with the business? I mean, do you want to be hands-off and want to create something that runs itself? Not entirely, but I mean, for instance, courses or things like that that are more hands-off. Or are you looking for something that would bring clients to you? Or do you want to do more speaking engagements? Or what is exactly the thing you want to do? I've had a few people I've talked to that had launched into this kind of a direction. And when they started thinking of what that direction would mean, suddenly realized they were heading off in the wrong direction. I had a person who had been told that their book would be a great way for them to become a speaker. We were talking about that, and I said, I mean, do you want to do that? Because speaking means you're going to be traveling, and there's those pieces. And this person was like, I don't want to do that. But they felt like because somebody had said that's what you have to do, That was it.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:10:36]:
 That question of what's there for you, like how do you want your life to run, is a central piece of that architecture. And so architecture means you're designing it the way you want it to be, and then we'll build around that. But you have to start with that question of what would it look like that would fit my life?
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:10:55]:
 And also looking at what problem challenge is your book solving, your methodology, your system. 'How can you help me? I've got this issue.' That's what people are interested in. They're not buying a book, they're buying a solution to a problem.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:11:13]:
 And in fact, I would say that every business is solving a problem. The question is whether you step into it knowing the problem you're solving. I've had this conversation with lots of people and they challenge me on it and I said, 'Well, give me something that's not that.' And they said, 'Like a restaurant doesn't solve a problem.' I'm like, 'What?' It is if you're hungry and you want a piece of pizza, that pizza place solves my problem. From the inside though, you may have someone who goes, I just love making pizza. That's great. But the reason people are there is not because the person loves making pizza, but because they want pizza. The central question is, you're correct. Number one, what do I want a business to be in my life? And number two, what am I going to solve to get people through the door?
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:11:53]:
 I'm going to add a third one, which actually should jump to number 1 is that where's your passion?
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:12:01]:
 Absolutely. That's a great point.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:12:03]:
 You can't sell books or your system, your business, anything without being passionate about what you're doing.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:12:10]:
 Yeah. I take that for granted, but you are correct to point that out. Years ago, I was at another kind of an author starter point. You know, people trying to write their book or finish their book, and it was in Vegas. Nothing against Vegas itself, but we were in a hotel that made you walk through the casino every single time.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:12:28]:
 I know that hotel.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:12:30]:
 My gosh, I think they're all designed to draw you in. And I walk in and it's like this weird lighting. It's very low light, so you don't know what time of day it is. There are no clocks on the wall. And I looked around as I walked through to get to the conference area, and people were sitting at the machines with a drink in their hand at that point, a cigarette hanging out in the hand. You know, there's great ventilation there because they know that's going to go on, and they were hitting the button. This is past pulling the lever, so they were just hitting the button, and they just looked like they were hollow. And I walked through there to get to the other side, and I walked into the conference area, and it was lit up, and people were energized.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:13:09]:
 You could feel it when you walked in the room, just the energy around because of the passion people had for their message. And I sat down beside an author I'd got to know, and I said, do you believe in zombies? And he said, what are you talking about? I said, I just walked through a room full of them. I come in here and it's like the exact opposite. There's liveliness here. And that is part of why I'm so committed to this process, because so many authors have both passion, a process, and they have the drive to help bring the message to the world. So back to my that's it story with the person, that was what saddened me. He had the passion. He even had a framework for people, but he hadn't figured out how to activate it to bring his message to even more people.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:13:56]:
 For me, there's nothing sadder than getting to the end of a book that you want to take action on and there's no next step. That's what the business does.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:14:06]:
 Love it. Absolutely love that. So an author comes to you with a question. How do I start looking for business in this book? What would you say to them?
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:14:18]:
 First of all, I liked the question of how do I start because part of what we're trying to do is build the momentum. We start with looking at what is the framework you offer. We have two pieces now. What is the framework you offer? What's the problem you're solving? And then what does that— how does that business form around that? At one point in my career, I realized I could not continue seeing as many people who were coming to me for coaching. So I had to bring on coaches to help me work with people who were coming because of my book. We realized that some people couldn't afford direct coaching, so we created a virtual coaching program that was a membership program. All of that came because I kept starting the next process to solve the problem that was at hand. When I had filled my practice, problem was we needed more.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:15:11]:
 That's coaches. When we realized there was a difficulty with people who wanted to work on their marriage but couldn't afford it, then we created programs there. But we started with the momentum of that one piece. What am I going to do? For me, my natural inclination was to work with people one-on-one because that's my background. But each book can have a different direction based on the author who wrote it and the message that's embedded there.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:15:38]:
 Yes. So Lee, let's talk about your business as the marriage counselor, the way you did it. Talk us through that program, step by step.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:15:51]:
 After I wrote the book, and the interesting thing back in 1999, there was a whole different world on the internet. There's no Google, or there was, but it was many iterations before. I remember I wrote the book, released the website, and we drove from then— it was around Christmas— and we drove to my in-laws, and I unplugged their phone, plugged the wire from my— they call it a laptop, but it was a heavy thing that would never fit on your lap— and I ran it over to their phone line. We did the dial-up, and there were several sales. And I thought, okay, well, that's interesting. So now it's— there'll be some sales. But what was interesting was it didn't take long before I started getting some emails, and my first inclination was, well, what am I going to do with this? That's not what I was intending. And as I got a few who were saying, how can I get more help? That for me was the start of going, okay, I can work with people by phone.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:16:51]:
 At that point, there was no Zoom or anything else, so I can work with people by phone. I, I actually saw that for me, that was a, I guess I'll do that. I didn't mean to do that. There was no intentionality to it. And as that began to grow, I had to recognize that there were some questions that were coming to me. People would say, well, what about this? That's how the book ended up being The System. It was because I was hearing the same question. I said, okay, well, people need coaching, but if we can get them past this problem, so many are having the same problem.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:17:28]:
 If I can address that, then the coaching doesn't have to do that, then we can streamline that. And so I would build another piece, and that's pretty much the way I just kind of put it together. It took me— I remember it was probably 3 years in, and I went, oh, I'm an entrepreneur here. I've got a business to attend to, not just my practice. In fact, I ended up leaving my office practice for that work because it had grown so much. But each step, I will tell you, I wish I had not resisted so hard how it was naturally, organically growing. I wish I had been able to step back and go, let's see the organics of this. Like, what are the opportunities that come? Not just naturally, because at that point I began to take over by running some pay-per-click ads.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:18:18]:
 This was pre-Google. There were a couple of little pay-per-click search engines. And so that gave me some more momentum. And I just kind of went, what's the next option? Starting a podcast, writing articles. Those were all just ways of continuing to spread into new areas of business.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:18:38]:
 Hmm. So if you were to start all over again and fast forward and you were doing this now, what would you do differently?
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:18:48]:
 Yeah, so the same book would have been there, and I would have been listening intentionally to the questions that were coming, listening intentionally to the, the kind of the requests that were coming. In fact, that's one of the pieces that I have in my program is how to listen to your reader, because they often point to things you haven't thought of. Let's call it the difference between signal and noise. The signal is some realistic feedback of things that would be really good to add on. People asking for more training on something, people asking for more ways to work with me or work with my ideas— that's signal. Then there's noise, and sometimes it can feel very similar. I got emails from other therapists saying, you need to teach your method so that we could be certified in your method. And my business brain was like, oh, I could do that.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:19:41]:
 That'd be a way of making money, but it wasn't something that I wanted to do. Like, that didn't fit how I wanted to do things. I didn't want the responsibility of how they might carry that out. I didn't want the responsibility of figuring out how to actually certify them. That just wasn't what I wanted to be about. And I realized that I was being attracted to the noise. The first thing I would say is it's about listening. But making sure you're listening for the signal, not the noise.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:20:13]:
 And we're in a really noisy environment.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:20:16]:
 We are.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:20:17]:
 I mean, everything is noise. What might you recommend for an author to, let's say, break away from that noise? You're listening for the signal, but yet it's so maybe embedded in the noise.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:20:33]:
 Yeah.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:20:34]:
 What would you recommend?
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:20:35]:
 There's going to be some noise that is critiques. I mean, that is the nature of online, and we just accept that. That's the noise. I long ago— two things, my daughter liked one of them, and that was that I adopted the Taylor Swift brush it off. You know, I'm gonna shake it off. And so I'd get a criticism that they would say, I can't believe you just taken— I'm like, I just shake it off. I mean, that's the nature of this, it's shake it off. I decided that other people's opinion of me was none of my business.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:21:04]:
 And those two things helped with the critique noise. The noise that I think is more important for this is recognizing there are some things, some ideas that are going to come along that you check with your gut and go, I don't want to go in that direction. So for me, that certification was one of those where, yeah, it was an opportunity, but there are always opportunities. And the question is whether the opportunity that I'm hearing fits with where I want to go. And if I go, yeah, that catches me, like there's a place, and I think in everybody's gut that goes, oh, that's got my attention, I like that idea. And this is especially true for people who have written a book that has a message in it, and they go, oh, that will further my message, not pull me in a different direction to dilute the message or to dilute what I want to do. If it doesn't strike you as that is a yes, then it's likely to be noise.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:22:03]:
 Yeah, I love the fact that you pointed out that you can't control how other people think. There's always going to be somebody who criticizes what you do. I remember when I was doing workshops, I was working for a company and I went from one city to another to another. I remember reading the evaluations and somebody's like, I don't like her accent. I don't like what she was wearing. I was like, please, that's not why I was in the room.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:22:31]:
 No. Before we moved, I was off and on the local television show for doing coaching stuff. And they would always, all of the anchors would say, you know, I just got this email today about my hairstyle. I can't believe I got another one. I'm like, that's not you. Don't worry about it. Let it go. And I get back to doing the news.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:22:50]:
 But we all have those points and you can't help but take it in. Which is when you then have to go, I'm going to just shake that off and move on.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:22:58]:
 Yeah. You just don't want to absorb all of that stuff because it doesn't serve you.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:23:04]:
 It does not.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:23:04]:
 Now, if it's a constructive criticism, something that you're like, hmm, maybe they've got a point. Maybe I could change this. It's just like, you know, I said to you before we came on the air, you've been a loyal listener of this podcast. What do you think? Maybe is this something I could do to improve? What I'm currently doing. I'm asking for some constructive criticism, something that I can use. But if it's destructive, hey, forget it. Don't share that with me, please.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:23:34]:
 No, thank you.
 
 Susan Friedmann [00:23:36]:
 This is a wonderful segue, Lee, for you to tell our audience more about you and your services.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:23:44]:
 I've had so much success with using my books to build a business and heard so many people who either didn't see that it was there or didn't know what to do. And one of One of the things that I heard when people wanted to take that next step and figure out what to happen, the what could happen seemed to overwhelm them. Many times it felt like there was a fire hydrant firing at them. They would look at some big program and it was 100 things to do, mostly technical, and they didn't do anything. And so the paralysis of not finding what's in the book and the paralysis of having too much coming at you. Seemed to be two big pieces that kept people from doing kind of what I did. That's when I started the Blueprint. It's a book-to-business blueprint.
 
 Dr Lee Baucom [00:24:31]:
 I try to be pretty direct in what I'm doing. It's book-to-business and there's a blueprint to that. This is really a step-by-step blueprint that gives it to you one step at a time, one clear step at a time for people who believe that there's something there, but recognize they have that architecture problem. The book is the starting point, but what we're trying to build is a sustainable business that lives within that person's— what they want in life, how they want it to go. And what we realized is most people can handle one step at a time when it's clearly stated and they're ready to go. That's what the Book to Business Blueprint is all about. BookToBusinessBlueprint.com is the location for that.

Susan Friedmann [00:25:17]:
Fantastic. And I'll put that in the show notes. I love that. I love names that say what you do.

Dr Lee Baucom [00:25:24]:
Yeah.

Susan Friedmann [00:25:24]:
I mean, yeah, then I don't have to guess.

Dr Lee Baucom [00:25:28]:
That's right.

Susan Friedmann [00:25:28]:
This is many years ago, I wrote a book, Riches and Niches: How to Make It Big in a Small Market, and I talked about naming your business and it had to be something that people could clearly understand. And Hey, you've done it. Oh, what a perfect example. Unlike me, who started off life as Diadem Communications. Nobody knew what I did.

Dr Lee Baucom [00:25:54]:
Yeah, yeah. Communicated.

Susan Friedmann [00:25:55]:
I communicated. And so people thought I was a wireless company because I overthought it because a diadem is like this laurel wreath, a sign of distinction. And that's where I was going with that. But Nobody understood it. Yours was much better than what I did.

Dr Lee Baucom [00:26:14]:
You just named a key piece of this that many authors get themselves frozen because they overthink it. Having that step-by-step, even if it's a clear name, is the way around that.

Susan Friedmann [00:26:25]:
Yes, very much so. Don't get too clever and cutesy. It doesn't pay. You might think it does, but in the long run, people don't know and people are embarrassed often to ask. So if you make it crystal clear, No problems, or fewer, let's put it that way. As you know, Lee, um, always ask our guests to leave our listeners with a golden nugget. What's yours?

Dr Lee Baucom [00:26:50]:
The book is the entry point to the business. It is not the business, but it is an entry point. What you've got to do is figure out what's in there to build what you want.

Susan Friedmann [00:27:01]:
Beautiful. Short, sweet, to the point, concise. Exactly. And as I started off saying, the book is not the business, but a tool to support it. As you said, the backbone of the business. Beautiful. Thank you for being a guest. I love it.

Susan Friedmann [00:27:19]:
This was so much fun. Listeners, if your book isn't selling the way you want it or expect it to, let's you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales because you've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy., and it's time you got the return you were hoping for. So go to bookmarketingbrainstorm.com to schedule your free call. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas you can use to sell more books. Until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.

Here's how to download your copy of Lee's Business to Business Blueprint