Amelia Earhart’s Fame-to-fortune Flight Plan

I’m an Amelia Earhart fanboy. So today, her 129th birthday, I’m going to put on my favorite party hat, raise a glass, and toast “A.E.”

And I’m going to tell you a story about her that you may not know…

In 1933, one year after A.E. became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, she launched her own clothing line, Amelia Earhart Fashions. This was practical, wrinkle-resistant stuff for active women. Macy’s and other department stores across the country sold it.

A.E. designed the clothing herself. Separate pieces so a woman with long arms didn’t have to buy a whole new outfit to get sleeves that fit.

She had a luggage line, too.

She was the aviation editor at Cosmopolitan. She endorsed products. She was active on the paid speakers’ circuit.

Most remember her as an “aviator.” But the flights didn’t make her rich. The flights made her famous.

The riddle she solved: How to turn fame into fortune.

That’s the same riddle facing most business-owner authors.

They pour a year of their life into a book. They hit publish. And then they wait for the book to change their life.

But the book was never going to change their life, not by itself.

Because the book is not the business. The book is the foundation. It establishes your authority. It’s proof. It’s the thing that makes a stranger think, “This person knows what they’re talking about.”

What then? How do you get that stranger to raise their hand and say tell me more? How do you get prospects to reach out and say, “I want what you’re selling?”

If you write the book, plop it on Amazon, and wait for the business to roll in, you’ll fail.

You have to build the business behind the book, just as A.E. built her clothing, luggage, and paid speaking businesses behind her flights. And that business needs the right strategy to attract leads and convert them to clients. It needs tech to help you scale. It needs a team to support you so you don’t work to exhaustion. All of that comes after you publish the book.

Most authors stop at “published.” And then they wonder why the book didn’t deliver.

Next week, I’m hosting a training where I’ll show you exactly how to use your book, podcast, or other resource the way Earhart used her fame, as a launchpad for a lucrative business.

Details and registration here.