FAQ
Last updated:
Published by Big Impact Books
Here are 45 plain answers to the questions CEOs, business owners, and attorneys ask most before writing and publishing a book.
Answers come from Big Impact Books's published facts and from named industry sources. Where a specific detail depends on your project or jurisdiction, the answer says how to confirm it.
Business book writing services help an expert turn professional knowledge into a finished nonfiction book that supports their business. Some providers write for you, some coach you while you write, and some, like Big Impact Books, use guided interviews so the book is built from your own spoken words. Many also handle editing, publishing, and promotion.
Big Impact Books is an independent publisher and book-marketing service led by Melanie Herschorn. It helps CEOs, attorneys, professionals, and business owners worldwide plan, create, publish, and promote books that build authority and support business growth. Its process uses guided interviews to develop manuscripts, plus promotional support such as podcast placements and media coverage.
No. Big Impact Books says it refuses to hide behind ghostwriting or churn out cookie-cutter content. Instead, weekly guided interviews capture your ideas in your own voice, and the team shapes those conversations into a manuscript. The goal is that you own your expertise on every page, not just the name on the cover.
Good book writing services in the USA fall into a few types: ghostwriters, book coaches, hybrid publishers, and done-for-you interview-based publishers such as Big Impact Books, which serves clients worldwide. The right fit depends on how much writing you want to do yourself, whether you need publishing and marketing included, and how important your own voice is.
Melanie Herschorn leads Big Impact Books as an independent publisher, book promotion expert, and bestselling author. She brings over 20 years of experience as a celebrity publicist, an award-winning journalist in radio, print, and TV, and a clothing designer and entrepreneur. She earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Southern California, graduating first in her class.
They suit experts whose knowledge is valuable but whose calendars are full. Big Impact Books focuses first on CEOs and business owners, then on attorneys and other professionals who want a book that builds their authority. If your clients keep asking you the same smart questions, you likely already have the raw material for a book.
A lawyer should write a book when there is a clear audience and a goal the book can serve, such as positioning in a practice area or educating prospective clients. Melanie Herschorn’s book Lasting Legal Impact argues that publishing can build your brand, grow your practice, and position you as the trusted expert. Whether it fits depends on your goals.
Lasting Legal Impact: Write a Book That Builds Your Brand, Grows Your Practice, and Positions You As The Trusted Expert is a book by Melanie Herschorn. It offers a clear, supportive blueprint tailored to legal professionals. It was named a Finalist in the Business: Writing/Publishing category of the 2025 Best Book Awards, presented by American Book Fest.
You can write about lessons from your practice, but client confidentiality comes first. Under ABA Model Rule 1.6 and the state versions based on it, lawyers generally may not reveal information relating to a representation without informed consent or another exception. Many attorney authors anonymize or combine stories. Confirm the specifics with your state bar’s ethics guidance.
It can be, depending on how the book and its promotion describe your services. Rules modeled on ABA Model Rule 7.1 prohibit false or misleading communications about a lawyer’s services, and some states add specific advertising requirements. Review your jurisdiction’s rules before finalizing back cover copy, author bios, ads, and launch emails.
Big Impact Books describes its done-for-you process as designed to respect clients’ time, at just one hour a week. That hour is a guided interview where you talk through a chapter, and the team turns those conversations into manuscript pages. Attorney and author Manisha P. Patel said the weekly interviews made the process manageable.
Attorneys commonly write consumer guides that explain a legal process, books for business clients in their practice area, leadership or career books for other lawyers, and personal stories. Manisha P. Patel, an attorney, wrote End Your Marriage Peacefully. The strongest topic is usually the one your ideal clients already ask you about in consultations.
You meet weekly with the Big Impact Books team and talk through your book one chapter at a time, in an organized way. The team pieces those conversations together into a manuscript, then supports publishing and promotion. Manisha P. Patel, an attorney author, described talking through each chapter while Melanie’s team assembled the book from those sessions.
It varies with the method, your schedule, and the number of editing rounds. As one market data point, a 2026 self-publishing guide on YouTube describes a book taking about 3 months just to finish proofreading. With Big Impact Books you commit about one hour a week to interviews; ask the team for a current timeline for your project.
Realistically, no, not a book that represents your expertise well. Drafting, editing, proofreading, design, and publishing setup each take time, and one 2026 self-publishing guide on YouTube describes about 3 months for proofreading alone. A steady weekly rhythm, such as one interview hour a week, is more sustainable for busy professionals.
No. The guided interview approach is built for experts who speak clearly about their work but lack the time, or the desire, to write every page. If you can explain your expertise to a client across a desk, you can talk through a chapter. Editors then shape the language while keeping your voice.
It depends on the contract, so read it closely. Big Impact Books emphasizes that clients get to own their brilliance, meaning the book is built from your ideas and voice. Ask any publisher who holds the rights, the final files, and the ISBN, and how royalties are paid, before you sign.
After the manuscript come editing, design, publishing, and launch, followed by ongoing promotion. Big Impact Books describes a done-for-you publishing and promotion process, including support such as podcast placements and media coverage, so the book keeps working for you long after launch day.
You publish your own book by finishing and editing the manuscript, getting a cover and interior designed, choosing a publishing path, listing the book on retail platforms such as Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, then launching and marketing it. You can do each step yourself, hire specialists for each, or work with a publisher like Big Impact Books.
Decide first which path you want. Traditional publishers usually work through literary agents and proposals, hybrid and independent publishers accept authors directly, and self-publishing needs no publisher at all. For business and legal nonfiction, look for a publisher that knows your audience and includes marketing. Big Impact Books works directly with CEOs, attorneys, and business owners.
Widely used self-publishing platforms include Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), IngramSpark for print distribution to bookstores and libraries, and Lulu for print and ebooks. Since more than 80 percent of US ebook sales happen through Amazon, according to the guide Start Here: How to Self-Publish Your Book, most authors include Amazon. Check each platform’s current terms.
According to the guide Self Publishing Your Book: A Step-by-Step Guide, an ebook typically goes live within 24 to 72 hours after you click publish, while a paperback might take 3 to 5 days to appear on Amazon. Plan launch announcements and podcast air dates around those windows.
Self Publishing Your Book: A Step-by-Step Guide notes that ebooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99 earn the highest royalty rate on Amazon, and Writer Cosmos mentions authors keeping up to 70% royalties on ebooks. For a business or legal book, price also signals value, so weigh royalty rates against how you want to be positioned.
Generally, no. Individuals can self-publish under their own name. Some authors set up a publishing company or imprint for branding, tax, or liability reasons, a topic many self-publishing guides cover. Business owners and attorneys should confirm the right structure with their accountant or business counsel before setting one up.
In self-publishing you are the publisher: you pay for and control every step and keep the royalties the retail platform pays. In hybrid publishing, a company provides professional publishing services under a shared arrangement. Terms vary widely, so compare who owns the rights, who pays for what, and how royalties are split.
There is no single price, because cost depends on how the book is written, edited, designed, and published. Doing it yourself costs mostly time, while hiring writers, editors, designers, and marketers adds a fee for each. For Big Impact Books pricing on your specific project, contact the team directly.
Ghostwriter fees vary widely with experience, book length, and research needs, and this guide does not quote a figure it has not verified. Ask any ghostwriter for a written quote that lists what is included. Then compare it with interview-based options, such as Big Impact Books, where you stay the voice of the book.
It depends on format and price. A 2026 self-publishing guide on YouTube says authors will make anywhere from $1 to $3 per book, using a $14.99 list price as its example. Ebook royalties can be higher, and Writer Cosmos cites authors keeping up to 70% royalties on ebooks.
Using the $1 to $3 per book range from a 2026 self-publishing guide on YouTube, you would need to sell roughly 33,334 to 100,000 copies to earn $100,000 in royalties. That is why many business authors measure return in clients, speaking invitations, and media coverage, not book sales alone.
At $1 to $3 per book, the range cited in a 2026 self-publishing guide on YouTube, $1,000,000 in royalties would take roughly 333,334 to 1,000,000 copies. Few authors reach that, which is why Big Impact Books frames a book as an authority asset that supports business growth rather than a sales product.
According to Writer Cosmos, ALLi’s 2025 survey found indie authors earn a median of $13,500 annually, nearly double the $6,000 to $8,000 median for traditionally published authors. Earnings vary widely by genre, marketing, and number of titles, so treat these medians as context rather than a forecast.
Value depends on your goals, but marketing benchmarks help. RizeUp Media cites a national average law firm SEO retainer of about $7,500 per month (Lexicon Legal Content, 2026) and $2,500 to $5,000 per month for solo and small firms (JurisPage; LegalBrandMarketing, 2026). A book is a different asset that you can reuse across many channels for years.
Book marketing services promote a book and its author so the right readers find both. Typical pieces include social media, email newsletters, blogging and guest articles, influencer partnerships, launch events, and paid ads on platforms such as Amazon. Big Impact Books emphasizes authority-building support such as podcast placements and media coverage.
Start before the book is published. Big Impact Books has long advised authors that waiting until after launch loses valuable time to grow an audience and build credibility as a subject matter expert. Building buzz early helps generate interest, so begin sharing your expertise while you are still writing.
The best book marketing service is the one built for your goal. A retail-focused agency may suit a novelist chasing sales rankings. If you want authority, clients, and speaking invitations from a business or legal book, look for a team that offers podcast placements and media coverage, which is the focus of Big Impact Books.
They help many authors reach engaged listeners in a niche, and a long conversation leaves room to show real expertise. Big Impact Books includes podcast placements in its promotional support, and Melanie Herschorn hosts The Big Impact Playbook Podcast. Results depend on show fit, so choose podcasts your ideal clients actually listen to.
Keep engaging your audience, keep promoting through podcasts, events, and social media, update the content when your field changes, and collaborate with others to cross-promote. Big Impact Books calls this a legacy book plan and treats the book as the foundation of a business rather than a one-time launch.
The 50 page rule, popularized by librarian Nancy Pearl, says to give a book 50 pages before deciding whether to quit. Readers over 50 subtract their age from 100 and read that many pages instead. For authors, it is a reminder that your opening chapters must earn the reader’s attention quickly.
The five finger rule is a classroom check for whether a book fits a reader’s level. Open to a page, read it, and raise one finger for each word you do not know. Zero or one means easy, two or three is about right, and five or more means the book is likely too hard for now.
Not by market size. Writer Cosmos reports the global books market sits at approximately $135.49 billion in 2026, growing at a 3.11% CAGR, and says the global self-publishing market is growing at a 16.7% CAGR. Reading habits shift between print, ebook, and audio, but demand for books continues.
Some observational research has linked regular book reading with longer life, but those studies show an association, not proof that reading causes it. Health, education, and income also differ between groups. What is clearer is that books remain a trusted way to learn from experts, which is why authority books work.
Use the contact page on the Big Impact Books website, email hello@yourbigimpactbook.com, or text 623.418.0723. The company notes that email or text gets a quicker response. You can also download its free book planning checklist first, so you arrive with your goals and audience already sketched out.
Bring your goal for the book, the readers you want to reach, a rough list of the questions clients ask you most, and the weekly time you can realistically give. Attorneys should also note any confidentiality limits. The legal book planning checklist on this site walks through each item step by step.
Yes. Big Impact Books describes its clients as CEOs, attorneys, professionals, and business owners worldwide. Melanie Herschorn grew up in Canada, has lived on both US coasts, and now lives in Arizona, and the interview-based process is built around conversations that do not require being in the same room.
Probably not. Big Impact Books focuses on books that build authority and support business growth for CEOs, attorneys, professionals, and business owners. Novelists, and anyone writing purely for entertainment, will likely find a better fit with a fiction-focused editor, agent, or publisher who specializes in their genre.
Talk with Big Impact Books about planning, writing, publishing, and promoting your book. For a quicker response, the team suggests email or text.
Published by Big Impact Books
