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Your self-help book has the potential for profit.
By revealing the wealth of expertise, experience
and passion that’s stuffed inside your head, your
saleable book tells the world you are an expert. It
gives you instant credibility and respect. What’s
more, people will pay you handsomely to share
your expertise.
Having trouble sleeping? Can’t cope with your
kids? Want to improve your love life? Stuck in a rut
at work? Want to grow organic strawberries? Al-
most half the population has grabbed a book to
help solve their problems and better their lives at
some time in the recent past.
Self-help books have been around since 1859
when Samuel Smiles published the first personal
development, self-help book called Self-Help. It be-
gan: “Heaven helps those who help themselves.”
What’s new is the scale and variety of the busi-
ness today. Self-improvement book sales exceed
$2.5 billion a year in the U.S. alone, and there’s no
sign of this slowing down. There are currently
345,227 self-help titles listed on Amazon alone.
Once you have a book, the sales it generates are
just the beginning. A successful self-help author can
substantially increase his or her income giving
speeches and workshops. With fees ranging from
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