Most publishers treat launch day like a finish line.

You get your books. Maybe a press release. A congratulatory email. Then they disappear to work with the next author.

But here's the thing: launch day is when your book should start working for you.

For founders building authority, a book isn't about hitting bestseller lists (though that's nice). It's about creating a marketing engine that closes $25,000 clients instead of chasing 25,000 book sales.

That shift — from book marketing to business development — requires a completely different publishing model.

Why Most Book Marketing Fails

Traditional publishers operate on a handoff model:

• Author writes → Publisher prints → Marketing team scrambles at the end

By the time your marketing team sees the manuscript, it's too late to align it with your actual business goals. The chapters don't map to your offer. The positioning feels off. The case studies miss the mark.

You end up with a book that sounds impressive but doesn't actually move your business forward.

Self-publishing isn't the answer either. Without professional support, you're too close to the trees to see the forest — and you lack the honest feedback about what will and won't actually work. Books are a team sport. You need experts who've done this 100+ times to tell you when your positioning is off, when a chapter doesn't serve your goals, and when your table of contents won't convert.

The alternative? Bring your CMO in from day one — and partner with a team that's built this system repeatedly.

What Changes When Marketing Leads From the Beginning

When we work with founders, we don't just ask "What book do you want to write?"

We ask:

• Who's your ideal client, and what keeps them up at night?
• What $25K+ problem does your framework solve?
• What should happen when someone finishes your table of contents?

Because here's what most people miss: someone can decide to hire you just by reading your table of contents.

They don't need to finish the book. They need to see that you understand their problem at a level no one else does.

This is why your CMO (or whoever owns marketing) needs to be in the room from day one — not to write the book, but to ensure every strategic decision aligns with how you actually acquire and close clients.

The Science of Great Tables of Contents

We've analyzed 350+ top-performing nonfiction books to identify the table of contents structures that actually work.

There are proven frameworks: acronyms, hero's journey arcs, problem-solution-transformation flows, chronological builds. Each serves a different strategic purpose.

We built custom tools loaded with these frameworks to ensure the best table of contents for your specific book.

The goal? Get every chapter into the 90s percentile. Then you bring it to our weekly strategy call. We pressure-test it against your actual business goals. 

Not "is this a good book?" but "will this table of contents make your ideal client want to hire you?"

Only then do we test it with 5 ideal clients. We're not asking if they'd read the book. We're asking:

• Does this table of contents solve your problem?
• Does it make clear, logical sense?
• Would you buy this for your team?

This is the difference between hoping your book works and engineering it to work.

Here's the combined banger section:

The Collaboration Model in Practice

Instead of handing off marketing at the end, we build it into the foundation — and the returns multiply fast.

Your CMO stays in the driver's seat. We're not replacing your team. We're giving them a system that turns your book into a compounding asset.

Here's what that actually looks like:

Before Launch: Build the Machine

While you're writing, your marketing team is building the infrastructure:

The Landing Page That Converts: Skip Amazon as your primary destination. Build a page that captures leads:

• Free first chapter (email opt-in)
• Video from you explaining why you wrote this
• Stripe checkout for bulk orders
• Calendar link: "Discuss bringing this framework to your team"

One founder using this approach converts at 40% to email signups. Of those, 12% book a call within 30 days. That's not book marketing — that's pipeline generation.

The Bulk Purchase Play: Design your pricing to encourage companies to buy for their entire team:

• 25 copies → Bonus chapter (the content you left on the cutting room floor)
• 50 copies → Group implementation call with your team
• 250 copies → On-site workshop to implement your framework

Result for one client? Average order size went from 1 copy to 37 copies. The book became a Trojan horse for $25K+ consulting deals.

The Authority Leverage: Start using the book before it launches. When one founder began telling prospects, "We're publishing a book on this framework — you'll see it everywhere in six months," conversations shifted from transactional to strategic immediately. Clients wanted in before the book dropped.

Post-Launch: Where Others Disappear, We Double Down

Most publishers move on after launch. That's when we go deeper.

Weekly strategy calls continue. Your CMO brings real data:

• "We're getting podcast requests — which ones move the needle?"
• "Three companies just ordered 100+ copies — how do we convert that into pipeline?"
• "We want to use the book for ABM outreach — what's the play?"

You're not figuring this out alone. You're working with a team that's executed this playbook with dozens of authors.

Six months post-launch, your book should be:

• On 500+ desks of your ideal clients (because you sent it to them)
• Converting cold outreach into warm conversations
• Generating inbound leads through evergreen funnels
• Opening speaking and partnership doors that didn't exist

That doesn't happen by accident. It happens when your marketing team treats the book like a living, breathing business development asset — and has expert guidance to maximize every opportunity.

The Bottom Line

Book marketing shouldn't be an afterthought.

It should be the strategic thread that connects your positioning, your offer, and your authority — all wrapped into one asset that works for years.

That requires collaboration from day one. Your CMO in strategy calls. Your team testing the table of contents. Your marketing engine ready to activate the moment the book goes live.

Because the goal isn't just to publish a book and make an impact.

It's to also build a marketing system that turns authority into clients.