[edipet]

Working on a new non-fiction book for turning around $1MM-$10MM companies. Put yourself in the position of being a business owner with $10MM in sales and you've just been reduced to being on pace for $800,000. You're forced with layoffs, probably lose your home, possibly lose your family. You decide to read the introduction of a new non-fiction book that just hit Amazon (not really, not for another month or so), and you see these two introductory paragraphs. Which is the better approach?

1.
I am sorry that you have to read this book. If you are reading these words, it is likely your business is suffering. Which means you are suffering. Entrepreneurs are tied to their businesses and when one isn't doing well, the other feels it. The good news is that there is a way out. By reading this book you will learn proven strategies in turning around your small business. You'll have specific action steps to get your business back to profitability in the shortest amount of time possible. If you follow the outline found in this book, I'm confident you'll have the best chance of saving your business.

No 2 - wins, hands-down. Never start a book, article, essay, paper, etc with "I'm sorry...."

2.
Something special happens once a business passes the $1MM mark in annual revenue. The company starts to become a self-sufficient machine. Up to that point, you, as the business owner, wears many hats, and do almost everything yourself. After $1MM, you have to hire people to help you. You have payroll to meet. You need systems and processes in place to keep the operation running smoothly. You have to manage people and be even more strategic in how you run the business. You see a potential for your company to get to $10MM in a fraction of the time it took you to get to $1MM, and you are hungry to reach that goal.

However, in my opinion (and ALL indie writers are small-business owners) when a small business owner reaches the state of affairs you describe in your targeting-intro, he/she is not going to head for a book of any kind. People don't self-medicate with books. People who read how-to and other non-fiction books are steaming ahead in whatever their enterprise is. They might pick up a how-to-non-fiction book for affirmation (I'm doing this right), for inspiration (how can I run my business better), for advice (what else can I do in my business to make it grow) or sheer curiosity - where they read the opening that Amazon allows them to read for free and either pass or buy the ebook.

Distressed business owners, however, do not seek how-to-non-fiction advice from anywhere - least of all ebooks. If, as you say they've lost much of their business they've been operating for some time - they would know how to deal with payroll, manage people, spin strategies, hire people and generally run the business. They might benefit from seeing a therapist, but ebooks...re-think this in terms of your audience and targeting (if advertising the release).