Case studies
Three books that did something.
Written up with what we can evidence, and honest about what we cannot. Only one of these three had any marketing behind it, which is worth holding in mind while you read the outcomes.
Memoir · Editing, design, distribution, marketing
Truth That Fights
Years of writing with no route to publication. The book is now used in schools in Rwanda, stocked across Salford’s library network, and led to an author evening at Walkden Library.
- Rwandan schools
- Salford library network
- Invited to headline an author evening
- International speaking
Transchribe · Built from sermon recordings
The Mind of God
Years of preaching, none of it written down, and real scepticism about whether self-publishing could produce something he would hand to a peer. Five hundred copies in the first run.
- 500 copies, initial run
- Hardback to trade specification
- Peer enquiry and referral
- No marketing at all
Repeat author · Eight titles
Eight books, and a business built on them
A rough draft and no idea where to start, then eight weeks to publication and sixty copies on launch day. Seven more books followed, and a speaking and training business on top of them.
- Eight titles with Schribe
- Draft to live in 8 weeks
- Second print run
- Speaking and training business
The pattern across all three.
A library network and a stage. Five hundred copies into a congregation and a peer referral. Eight titles and a training business. Those are the things the authors actually wanted, and not one of them appears on a sales dashboard.
Two of these three had no marketing at all. The outcomes happened because the books were good and properly produced, and then largely by chance. The Authority Programme exists because results like these should be designed rather than hoped for.
Elsewhere in the list
Books doing quieter work.
Start Now is the closest thing in our back catalogue to what the Authority Programme is designed to do. The engagement included author branding alongside the publishing, and the book went on to position its author as a business voice rather than simply someone who had written one. It brought her paid speaking engagements, and she uses it the way a consultant uses a business card: handed over, and the conversation changes.
My So-Called Friends launched in Dubai and has kept selling since. When the Rain Falls launched into the UK and Nigeria on the same day and sold in both. The Reintroduction by Lola Lawal has become part of how she introduces herself professionally: she works today as an international speaker, host, journalist and media consultant, and author sits in that line alongside the rest. What Manner of Spirit by Pastor Folarin Sanya and 52 Lessons of My 52 Years were both built through Transchribe from spoken teaching, the latter going from recordings to published in ten weeks with forty copies bought by the congregation for the launch.
Authority Programme case studies will be written up in the same format: what was agreed at the start, what activity we ran, what came back, and where it fell short of the objective. Including the ones that do not work out.