97 How to Create Companion Products for Your Book
Many books, especially nonfiction, now come with workbooks, study guides, video courses, and more. These companion products connect you with readers on a deeper level. They can also create additional income for you as the author.
Paper and digital don’t need to be at war. They can work together to help and minister to people in different ways. People need a book for some things and videos for other things.
But how do you create a workbook, companion, or study guide for your book? How do you create the right content? How do you decide what to create at all?
To help navigate these waters, I invited D’vorah Lansky. D’vorah is the bestselling author of over 40 books. She has taught thousands of authors and entrepreneurs how to transform their knowledge into books, workbooks, products, and online courses.
What are the benefits of creating a workbook companion for your book?
D’vorah: First, you increase your visibility and credibility, and you help your readers. We all have books in every room of the house. Readers will go through your book in more depth if a companion guide keeps sending them back to it.
A workbook also helps readers retain what they learn because you point out the key things they should walk away with. They benefit more, and you help more people.
And you make more money. The more books you have that feed your target audience, the more your sales grow.
Thomas: It’s the difference between knowledge and education. We’ve all read a book and nodded along, thinking, “I agree with this.” But agreeing with a book is different from putting its teachings into practice. That’s where education comes in, whether through an interactive workbook or a teacher who holds you accountable.
Workbooks help with application. They connect the heart and the head, and for many topics, they connect the head with the hands. Knowing how to work out doesn’t matter. You have to work out. A checklist where you can record, “I worked out six times this week,” is very helpful.
D’vorah: Research has also found that people retain more when they write things down. If they skim a book while thinking about other things, they retain only a fraction of it. If they have to put it into writing with their own hand, they retain much more.
Should you put exercises in your book or in a separate workbook?
Thomas: Many authors wonder, “Why not add blank pages at the end or discussion questions in the appendix?” Sometimes that’s the right decision.
D’vorah: With my teaching background, I always strive to give people ways to apply what they learn. So I have workbooks that go with my courses and journals that go with the workbooks. So many things are vying for people’s attention.
A workbook encourages readers to take action. A companion journal builds in even more accountability because readers think, “I don’t want to miss a day.” They write down what they studied, what they took away, and what they’d do differently. They create a path to mastering the topic of the book.
Thomas: And they end up with an artifact. It’s hard to throw away something with your own handwriting in it, and the journal lets readers revisit the points that jumped out at them.
I think minor exercises belong in the book. The more in-depth they are, the more it makes sense to pull them into their own product.
Should you give your workbook away for free or sell it?
Thomas: I see authors doing both. One school of thought says to give away an amazing companion workbook in exchange for an email address. That lets you grow your email list quickly and email readers about your next book.
The other school says this is your chance to make money directly from readers without Amazon taking 80% or your publisher taking 90%. If a reader buys a $10.00 workbook from you, you keep $8.00 or $9.00, or $7.00 after shipping. The margins are good.
D’vorah: I always ask how the reader can best be served, and I believe that’s by having a workbook.
Very few people opt in to get something free. Say 10,000 people buy your book and half of them reach the last page. Maybe 500 go to your website, and maybe 20 opt in. Wouldn’t you rather have many more people benefit from your knowledge by selling them a workbook?
You can still offer something free, like a checklist of the book’s key points. But selling the workbook helps more people because more people see it.
Think about how many books you’ve read that end with an offer of a free gift. How many did you sign up for? Probably not many.
Thomas: Or how many free things have you downloaded and never read?
D’vorah: They’re gathering dust on your hard drive.
Thomas: Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Sometimes people need to pay a little to convince themselves to work through the workbook.
Building a Funnel of Companion Products
You can offer a free checklist, then a more substantive companion, then even more substantive ones, all the way up to one-on-one coaching.
Say your book helps readers lose weight. You have the book, a checklist, and a video course or workbook. Some readers need personal coaching, which costs more because it requires more effort from you.
This is a funnel. Lots of people get the free thing at the top, and each step down has fewer people. A funnel lets you serve each reader at the level they want. Some people just want the $15.00 book. Others want hand-holding and will pay for it.
D’vorah: A funnel also lets authors make a living. On a $15.00 book, most indie authors make $2.00 to $7.00. Traditionally published authors make $0.80 to $1.00 per book, and they wait six months for royalties. With a funnel, you can build a six-figure income on one $15.00 book.
The More You Offer, the Fewer Readers You Need
Thomas: If you make $1.00 per reader and need $50,000 a year to live on, you have to find 50,000 new readers every year. That’s a lot of readers.
Some traditionally published authors write books that appeal to huge audiences and find 100,000 or 500,000 readers a year. The money gets good at that scale.
But what if you only have 1,000 readers? At $1.00 each, that won’t cover rent or groceries. A $100.00 product for those 1,000 readers brings in $100,000. That meets your needs as an author.
How do you make a workbook valuable to readers?
Thomas: You can’t throw some words on a checklist and sell it for $100.00. Readers should be saying, “Don’t just buy the book. Buy the workbook, because that’s where the real value is.”
D’vorah: I think about how I can help more people, and I can’t do that if I’m scrambling to put food on the table. When you sell your book, workbook, and courses, and then offer group or private coaching, you can help more people.
When people tell you how your book changed their lives, it will change your life. It will no longer be about the money. The money will be the blessing that comes from living your dream and doing what you were put here to do.
Start With Three to Five Key Points per Chapter
I’m a big pen-and-paper person. If a book has 12 chapters, I divide a piece of paper into 12 squares and write one chapter title in each.
Before I go through a chapter, I ask, “What are the top three to five key points here?” and jot them down. Each point can become a workbook page, so now you have 60 pages. It doesn’t have to be complicated, and you can finish the process in a matter of weeks.
Some people create a workbook for each chapter. You may find a chapter has 30 key points, not three. With 10 chapters like that, you have enough content for a new workbook every month for a year.
Ask what you want people to walk away with and how you can bring it to life painlessly for yourself. Starting with three points per chapter makes it easy. You may go deeper later, but once you see how easy those worksheets are to create, it can propel you forward.
Readers Pay for Transformation, Not Thud
Thomas: People who buy workbooks and other higher-ticket add-ons aren’t paying for the thud.
With a book, what people expect to pay is proportional to how loud it is when it thuds on the table. If a 400-page book goes “boom,” you expect to pay a lot. If a $50.00 workbook goes “flip,” you won’t.
That is not how people think about workbooks. They’re paying for transformation, the outcome you promise in your book and workbook.
A common mistake is putting a lot of thud in the workbook. Authors overwhelm the reader with a million questions and activities because they think, “I have to provide value.”
That’s not valuable. Don’t give readers the dirt and the diamonds mixed together. Give them just the diamonds. Focus on the most transformational questions, not the 100 questions you could come up with for each chapter. Too many questions scare people away or keep them from finishing the workbook, which keeps them from recommending it.
Think in 30-Day Chunks
D’vorah: I like to think in 30-day chunks. Many of my books have titles that start with “30-Day.” That’s a manageable amount of time, and it leads to more products. My 30-day products led to 60-day and 90-day products.
As you said, you don’t want a page crowded with questions. It’s better to have three questions on a page with room to write.
The left-hand page can hold those questions, and the right-hand page can be a journal page with a prompt on the topic. You’ve just doubled the size of your book and added a lot of value. It’s not a blank journal page. It’s a specific prompt based on the previous page.
Can you legally create a workbook for a traditionally published book?
Thomas: This is one reason traditionally published authors need a literary agent. Talk with your agent about your plans for a workbook.
When you sell your book to a publisher, you may also sell its derivative rights. These cover copyrighted works derived from the original. If you wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, a 7 Habits workbook would be a derivative work.
Derivative rights are negotiable. Some publishers insist on publishing the workbook themselves at their quality level, with a royalty arrangement in line with the original book. Others let you retain the rights.
Still others keep the rights but won’t let you create a workbook and won’t create one themselves. That’s what you want to avoid, because then you’re stuck.
What Happened With Audiobooks
I used to see this often with audiobooks, another derivative work. The publisher holds the audiobook rights but doesn’t produce the audiobook and won’t let the author produce one either. It wants to protect its reputation but won’t spend the money. I think that’s awful.
Everything Is Negotiable
If you plan to create a workbook, decide with your agent which way you’ll go. Will you fight to keep the derivative rights? Will you insist the publisher use them? Sometimes agents negotiate a clause giving the publisher six months to create the workbook. If it doesn’t, the rights revert to the author.
Don’t treat the publisher’s contract as law. Everything is negotiable.
D’vorah: Many authors get tripped up by that. They think the contract is written in stone. Read it yourself with a fine-tooth comb and pull out the things you want to negotiate so you can retain those rights. I love the idea of giving the publisher a set time before the rights revert to the author. That’s brilliant.
What software should you use to create a workbook?
D’vorah: I love Microsoft products, but sorry, Microsoft, I wouldn’t create a workbook in Word unless it’s a Kindle book. Word is the best place to create Kindle books.
For print books, I like Adobe InDesign, which is book publishing software. I’ve also used Canva, PowerPoint, and Word, in that order.
Thomas: Vellum is a typesetting software made specifically for the Mac, and it’s amazing. It’s not as powerful as InDesign, which is more useful for complicated layouts with many visual elements and wrapping text. But for a regular book, authors swear by Vellum.
It’s not as robust as Adobe, and the icons are small and hard to see. But once you learn your way around, it’s powerful, and there are many videos and courses. Sometimes I use it because the Adobe products take so long to open.
Thomas: The Affinity products are award-winning, and you buy them in the App Store. This isn’t a recommendation from me, but it might be worth paying $50.00 for Affinity Publisher to try it. Paying for InDesign every month for the rest of your life gets expensive and eats into the profitability of the products you create.
D’vorah: One caution: InDesign configures your document when you plug in the spine dimensions. Affinity doesn’t, so you have to calculate that yourself. Your first book may take some juggling to get the proportions right, but after that, it works fine.
Should your workbook be in print or digital?
Thomas: I imagine ebook workbooks aren’t very helpful because people want to write in them.
D’vorah: I use three approaches. First, most of my workbooks are companions to online courses. I create the workbooks, journals, and courses side by side, one module and one chapter at a time.
Second, I sell them on Amazon as books you can hold in your hand, not on Kindle. Kindle has specific rules about where you’re allowed to post things.
Thomas: So you’re talking about Amazon KDP print books, which give you much more freedom than Kindle ebooks.
D’vorah: Exactly. Third, I sell printable workbooks on Etsy. I had many products in my Etsy shop that first year, but 98% of the sales came from one 30-page workbook.
That workbook had five chapters, so I also divided it into five six-page products. It was my main seller for the whole first year.
It also led people to join my courses and buy my books on Amazon. After buying a workbook they can print out, people often buy it on Amazon too because they like having it bound.
Where can authors get help creating a workbook?
Thomas: Maybe you like this idea and want your workbook to match the quality of your other books, but all the talk about spine widths spooked you.
D’vorah: First, check with your publisher to make sure you have the rights. Then look for people who teach workbook creation or offer it as a service, and ask friends who they used.
In our community, someone on a call joked, “You should write a workbook on how to write a workbook.” I said, “Take that to the bank.” Within a year, that one idea turned into six figures.
My workbook on creating workbooks walks people through the whole process, including publishing. It can help if you’re a do-it-yourself person or have a team that can put that knowledge in place. Many people offer workbook creation as a service, but it comes with a big price tag.
Thomas: It’s often cheaper to learn to do it yourself.
D’vorah: I think so. Once you learn it, you can replicate it. Your team can study alongside you, and you can create more books moving forward.
It’s not that hard, but it is intimidating. I wanted to write a book for 10 years and was daunted the whole time. Then I realized it’s like writing an essay plus learning a few key technology components. After that, it was smooth sailing. Writing books makes me feel the way some people feel when they eat chocolate.
Thomas: Yo dawg, I heard you like workbooks, so I made a workbook on how to make workbooks so you can workbook while you workbook.
Can fiction authors create companion products?
Thomas: Even fiction sometimes has workbook companions. For fiction, it’s more common to offer a free study guide because the goal is to get people sharing your novel.
But if your fiction teaches something, readers may want a more direct presentation of that lesson. If your novel explores forgiveness, you could create a course on forgiveness. That can be a powerful companion.
If you write nonfiction, you have to think about these extended products. They help you provide for your family, and they help you better bless your students.
The book isn’t the end-all be-all. Before the book, blogs and articles help people. After the book, courses, workbooks, and journals help people. You want to help your readers from start to finish.
Isn’t it egotistical to promote my book?
D’vorah: Sometimes authors think it’s egotistical to promote our books. We think, “No one’s going to buy it. How am I going to do this?”
Stop, take a breath, and think about how your book can help others. From that perspective, your book becomes the gift you give the world. It doesn’t feel egotistical, and it’s full steam ahead.
Thomas: And your book has to actually help others. You have to believe in it, and it has to deliver. If your book makes people sad, maybe you shouldn’t promote it, unless it makes them sad for a purpose.