The Fastest Way to Create an Online Course From Your Book

Wondering how do you turn your book into an online course? Or, maybe you’re thinking about writing a book that leads into your online course?

A book is a powerful tool in your business when you know how to make it work for you.

Nancy is a student of mine who first launched a successful online course with us in our Create 6-Figure Courses program. She then made her dream of launching a bestselling book a reality by building on the concepts she teaches in her course. Her book attracts her ideal audience for her course and the automated funnel leads her readers from the book to her course.

Let’s explore how you can quickly take your book and convert it into an online course or write a book that helps you find students for your online course.

The best way to monetize your book is to add an online course as a logical next step for your reader. It’s a powerful way to help your readers go deeper into applying the content you’re sharing in your book. And, big one — it is the best way to monetize your book.

How to Monetize Your Book…Even If It Is Free

I have written three non-fiction books. My first book was published with a small publishing house and my second with a large publishing firm. My most recent book was self-published and also happens to be free.

Here’s the crazy thing: my self-published FREE book was by far the most profitable book that I’ve ever launched.

Your return on your book does not come from the sale of the book. It comes from how you serve your readers after they purchase your book. My free book has generated multiples of the combined revenue of my two previous books.

If you want your book to build your business, you have to design a learning experience around the concepts you teach in your book. Click To Tweet

Get Clear On the Goal of Your Book

Let’s start by exploring your goals for your book.

Do you want to:

• Establish yourself as a thought leader?
• Help your people get results?
• Grow your audience?
• Create a bigger impact through your work by helping your readers to apply what you are sharing in your book?
• Monetize your book as an entry point to doing deeper work with you in your courses, coaching, or other offers?
• Attract the right audience for your existing online course or higher level offers?

If you said yes to any or all of the above, including an online course as a way for your readers to implement what they learn in your book can help you make this happen faster.

Let’s talk about how you can do this if you either already have a book or you want to write a book that leads into your existing online course.

How to Turn Your Book into an Online Course

Step One: Focus on the Problem You Will Help Solve

People buy books and online courses for the same reason: they want an answer to a problem.

What is the problem you are solving in your book?

For instance, think about your reader. Your reader opens your book and they are “here” firmly entrenched in their current reality. They want to get “there,” some desired future state where you make pain points go away, and dreams come true.

Where does your reader want to go?

What do you want to equip your reader to do by the end of the book?

An online course can help your reader get there faster because you can guide them in implementing the concepts you are teaching in the book.

If you’re not sure of how much overlap should exist between your book and your online course or how to make your ideas actionable, here are some things to think about:

• Think about the last time you read a great book. Did you make notes around key concepts that you wanted to apply?
• Go through your book and make notes of where your reader will be practicing what you are teaching.

Step Two: Outline Your Course Content

If you are like most non-fiction writers, you are moving your reader through a process in your book. You can typically see that process outlined in the table of contents of your book.

Review your chapters and identify the steps your reader will move through to apply what you are teaching.

When you think about your online course as a companion resource to support the implementation of what you are sharing in your book, it becomes easier to see what to include in your course.

For each step outlined in your book, you can have a corresponding module in your course that helps people implement what you are teaching in the book.

There are many ways you can support the learning process through tools, exercises, and community support:

• Checklists
• Cheatsheets
• Reflective exercises
• Workbooks
• Quizzes
• QA Calls
• Accountability challenges
• Implementation sessions

I’ve helped many authors do this even when they couldn’t easily see the steps in their table of contents.  

The great news is you likely don’t need to create any new content. You can simply focus on animating what you’re already sharing in your book.

How to Turn Your Online Course into a Book

Now let’s flip this around. What if you want to create a book that leads into your online course?

The very first thing you will need to do is decide on the goal of your book. You can revisit the goals listed at the beginning of this article. Once you are clear on your goal, you can use this as a filter for the content you will provide in your online course.

When you have an online course before writing a book, you have an advantage. You already know how you are going to monetize your book.

One short, powerful ebook can make a huge difference in attracting students into your course.

Step One: Focus on the Problem You Will Help Solve With Your Book

If you created your course in our Create 6-Figure Courses community, you designed your course working backward from solving a problem for your audience. You can write your book with the intent to lead prospects into your course. Or, you can choose to write a book as a next-level support tool for your course students.

Review the steps you outlined in your Course Content Storyboard. 

For example, if you are writing an ebook to attract leads for your course, think about the questions your prospective students are asking related to your course topic.

Step Two: Outline Your Book Content

Think about the places your audience gets stuck:

• Are there beliefs that are holding them back?
• Are they making it too complicated?
• Do they struggle to find the time?
• Do they believe they don’t have the resources or “what it takes” to get results?

Sharing stories in the form of case studies, client success stories, and your own personal experiences can help your students move into action.

Summary

Having a course and a book together is a really powerful way to help your people implement, and it is a great way to monetize the work you’re putting into in creating your book or online course.

Next Steps

Are you looking for deep strategic support in turning your book into an online course, laying out your business model, pricing, developing your offer, and so much more?

Our Course Creation Support team would love to speak with you about designing your revenue model and creating your course. As a team of specialized course creation and marketing experts that has created and launched hundreds of online courses in all kinds of niches, serving tens of thousands of students, and generating millions in revenue, we know the online course market in and out. We bring all that expertise and knowledge to the table to help bring your course to the finish line.

If you would like more information on how we can work together, simply click here and share more about your course, and our team will circle back with next steps.