The best bad reason to write a book (and it’s not as a great big business card)

For years, people have talked about justifying writing a book as an “oversized business card.”

This is a dumb idea.

If you write a book like this quickly, don’t invest in editing or cover design, and self-publish it, it does indeed tell people something about you. While people in general don’t know much about books, most of them know you can publish one cheaply on Amazon regardless of quality. So your self-published book is a business card that says “This person here invested the minimum possible effort to say they are an author and this is the crappy result.”

Impressive, eh?

Well, suppose you do invest some effort. You pay a developmental editor $10K or $20K. You pay a designer. You invest a little effort and money in book promotion. Maybe you work with a hybrid publisher or a more sophisticated book production service company.

Now you are out a few tens of thousands of dollars. The book is no longer embarrassing — it might even enhance your reputation. But if you’re going to go to all that trouble, then you are expecting the book to generate some influence, consulting leads, or speaking opportunities. That’s worth it for many people, but it’s a lot more effort and a lot more value than a business card.

The good bad reason to write a book

There is another reason that people write books, and it has little do with their reputations or generating business.

The write books because they have an idea and want to explore it fully and write it down in a way that reflects thoughtful research, reflection, and wisdom.

To do this right, you still likely want to work with a decent developmental editor and do a solid job of design. That’s what it takes to do a professional book, even if you self-publish it.

People who do this rarely regret it, even if the book doesn’t generate enough financial value to pay off. It’s notable that in our 2024 survey, 72% of business authors said that writing a book was a good decision.

Fully exploring and writing about an idea at book length is one of the best ways to ensure that you truly understand the idea. That’s the best bad reason to write a book.

AI magnifies this

A business-card-type book written by AI tells the whole world that you can’t think for yourself.

Exploring the idea fully demands writing about it yourself. Even if you use AI to help, you don’t truly understand an idea until you write about it.

Of all the bad reasons to write a book, “because I can do it quickly with AI” is the worst.