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Are You a Business Pro
Who Can Write About Excel?

Do you have spreadsheet knowledge and examples that could
help others to improve their performance? Earn $$$ by writing
or contributing to Excel books for business professionals.

by Charley Kyd

Would you like to earn extra income? Enhance your resume? And impress your friends and relatives? If so, read on…

Years ago, I worked as the CFO for a succession of small companies struggling in the marketplace. Business got so bad that I wanted to prepare for the worst. So in my spare time I wrote a book for McGraw-Hill about financial modeling with spreadsheets.

I soon wrote three more books about Excel. And then I stopped writing books for years. But last year I had a marvelous idea for a new book. Unfortunately, I couldn’t interest any publishers. So I wrote an ebook instead. In March, 2005, I sold the first copy of Dashboard Reporting With Excel from this site.

With the help of some excellent affiliate web sites, the book has been a big success...potentially much bigger than my four standard books about spreadsheets. Here are the details:

My ebook has 27,000 words. That’s equivalent to about 100 pages of a standard book. I won't tell you how many copies I've sold since March, but my sales in three years should be well above those projected for the Ebook in the following example.

I recently started an ebook publishing company to build on this success. And now, New Office Press is looking for authors. We're looking for books and chapters that help people in business to get more value from their Office software.

Suppose you write an ebook for New Office Press. Here's what your earnings could be when compared to writing a standard book:
 

Earnings Comparison	Standard	Ebook
Book sells for:	$40.00	$50.00	(Note)
Publisher receives about:	48%	%50
Net to publisher:	$19.20	$25.00
Author's royalty:	12%	25%
Amount received per book:	$2.30	$6.25
Projected sales over 3 years:	25,000	6,000
Expected earnings per book:	$57,600	$37,500
Pages per book:	600	100
Number of books written:	1	6
Projected earnings per 600 pages:	$57,600	$225,000

(Note: The price shown for the ebook is for the Dashboard Kit, which also includes nearly 20 spreadsheet files.)

As the table illustrates, you probably will earn less for any one ebook than for a standard book. But because ebooks typically are much shorter than standard books, because both books are priced about the same, and because we pay a higher commission, your revenue per written page could be much higher.
 

Additional Author Benefits

Authors will have additional ways to benefit by writing ebooks for New Office Press.

You'll be able to sell your own ebook and other New Office ebooks from your area of the New Office Press web site. You'll have your own bio page, with appropriate links. We'll provide software that will allow you to maintain a blog. You'll have an email address.

And we're planning on additional support services as well.
 

Possible Subjects

We're looking for two types of subjects for a book or chapter.

One type of subject is a book that concentrates on some aspect of an Office product.

For accountants, the product probably will be Excel. Books in this series could be about using external data in Excel, new features of Excel 12, macro programming techniques, and so on.

For other business professionals, the books might also be about Excel. But they also could discuss PowerPoint, FrontPage, Word, and so on.

The other type of subject is a book that will explain how to use an Office product to achieve some business purpose.

For accountants, the books could be about Excel and financial analysis in manufacturing, or cash flow forecasting in retail industries, or investment management, or Boardroom reporting, or whatever you think will sell.

For marketing professionals, the books might be about Excel and sales forecasting, pricing policy, media buying, sales force management, and so on.

One variation of this approach could explain how to use Excel with some common 3rd-party software. For example, books could explain how to use Excel with a specific ERP system like Great Plains, SAP, Oracle Financials, Microsoft SBA, and so on.

In either case, your book probably would discuss many Office solutions that you've already created. One challenge will be to modify those solutions in two ways.

First, you'll need to ensure that your sample solutions contain no confidential information; we don't want to upset your employers. Second, readers working for other companies must find your spreadsheet solutions to be useful; we want many happy customers to buy your book.

Possible Ways to Author a Book

The books can be authored in two ways. The most-common way is for one person to write an entire ebook.

The other way is for several people to write an anthology. Anthologies can contain several chapters written by several different people. An Editor will act as the book's CEO.

As the Editor, you will propose the book in the first place, and lead the effort to find contributors. You will ensure that the chapters are submitted on time, are well-written, and are technically correct. The author of each chapter will get one share of the royalty stream, but you, as Editor, will get two shares. You could earn additional shares by writing chapters for the book.

 

The Opportunity for Business Professionals

If you're interested in writing a complete book, or if you'd like to serve as the Editor for an anthology, please send me your ideas.

I'll set up a page at New Office Press, which can serve as a clearing-house for anthologies. After I've approved the subject for your anthology, I'll list it with other anthologies that need authors. We both can work to recruit other members to contribute chapters to those books.

If the quality is top-notch and the subjects have a market, there is no limit to the number of anthologies that New Office Press is willing to publish.

To learn more, please contact me right away.

All the best,

Charley Kyd