Lucrative joint venture relationships can make you rich – depending on your project with your partner. I turned a $29.95 book into $8,000 with a JV partnership. Many people are surprised to discover one of the unintended or unexpected benefits of writing a book: Opportunities for joint venture projects.
The term “joint venture” implies you work together with a person to create something new. That new project might be an online course, a coaching or consulting arrangement, or creating a series of speeches or trainings.
Other people in your industry or industries adjacent to your industry will often seek you out in hopes of starting a joint venture project together. This opportunity allows the two of you to leverage your combined knowledge to create an information product designed to appeal to all partners’ audiences and, perhaps, to help expand each partners’ influence.
The ideal joint venture partner serves the same audience as you do and has something valuable to contribute to a collaboration.
For example, in April 2020, when the cancellation of an in-person conference eliminated my changes to sell my newest book in an exhibit hall, I decided to create an online course on the book’s topic. The book revealed how legal nurse consultants could get business through networking. Developing a lucrative business can make you rich.
Seeing the need to shift the book a bit, I decided to create an online course on online networking. My joint venture partner prepared the content on LinkedIn and how to use it for networking.
We taught the course twice in 2020 and netted about $8,000, far more than I would have earned in book sales at that conference. Will $8000 make you rich? No, but it was a nice income for not a lot of work.
How Does the Joint Venture Process Work to Make You Rich?
Joint ventures may involve one or more partners who come into the process and collaborate to create products and then promote those products to their email lists and within their social media circles.
The first step is the “meet and greet,” which can, and often does, happen in a virtual environment. My joint venture partner was a person I’d gotten to know through being in the same mastermind. I knew she had in-depth knowledge about social media, and we had mutual trust.
I approached her about a possible project collaboration. It helps if the interested party has a specific idea they’re interested in bouncing off the other person, and then the magic brainstorming can commence from there.
We worked together to present a masterclass to my audience, and once we sold the course, we began developing the content. From idea to the first class was 21 days. After teaching the course for legal nurse consultants, we made minor modifications and repeated it for entrepreneurs. The second time we taught it was so much easier, because we had the masterclass and all the course session slides done.
How Does Writing a Book Attract JV Partners?
Writing a book lends enormous amounts of credibility to your name in the circles where you travel. Most JV prospects will be in industries that complement your own very nicely. You’re not direct competitors, but people who buy your products make excellent target markets for the JV prospect. In addition to lending credibility to your name within your industry, writing a book tells potential partners other things, such as:
- You have product creation experience.
- You understand the marketing process.
- You can finish a product.
In other words, it tells them everything they want to know about your abilities to get things done. Writing a book takes a lot of time and effort; there’s no doubt about that. The fact that you’ve not only written a book, but gone through the marketing process, built a list, and actively participate in social media makes you a hot commodity for JV partners. Just remember to vet your partners well so that you’re not left doing all the work while someone else reaps the rewards of your efforts without contributing much of their own.
Finally, there is no reason for you to wait for joint venture opportunities to present themselves to you. Look around in industries that complement yours. Seek out partners that inspire you or who you believe will inspire your audience and come up with a proposal to present to them. Present your proposal along with your own list of credentials and accomplishments (and perhaps a copy of your book). Then, see what kind of magic you can make happen!
The first step is to write the book. Picking your topic is critical. Can it make you rich? We’ll discuss that. Join me in my free masterclass, Your Secret Weapon, in which I detail how to focus on how to write an authority building book. Register here.
Pat Iyer is an editor, author, book coach and ghostwriter who helps individuals create books that encourages their expertise to shine and advances their businesses. She has written or edited 49 of her own books.
