Can a book project be a start-up?

I’ve been looking for a start-up to get involved with in 2010. I’ve also been working on a book proposal. It dawned on me that the book proposal is my start-up. The proposal is a business plan. The literary agent is a business development person. The publisher is both an investor and the distributor. I am the founder, developer and chief marketing officer.

The book is called The Experience Architects: How Social Media Visionaries Are Redesigning the Way We Do Business. It is about people and companies that understand the positive potential of social media and are using that potential to completely revamp the way their businesses operate- on all levels. It is not about companies stumbling into social media because of some PR catastrophe nor is it about self-described social media gurus who have never actually changed a company with their knowledge.

Because the book is about entrepreneurs, it made sense to me to treat it and its related ‘products and services’ as a business. Once this concept clarified in my mind it made putting the proposal together a much more intuitive process. It also made me realize that my marketing plan consisted of a simple concept: Drink The Koolaid. In other words, use the Experience Architecture concept to build buzz about the book, to research resources and people to talk to, and to virally get others excited. So you’ll be seeing a lot of social media activity around this subject.

In addition to the proposal (business plan) I have written a social media ‘blueprint’ consisting of a set of 30 action items that will build a fully integrated social engagement for the ‘business’. I’ll be sharing that plan, open source style, here over the next month.

If you know someone who has redesigned their business (any size, any type, any location) because of social media please connect with me via MartinEdic.com.