Even though the business and branding aspects of books drive the economic return on investment and are thus important, I honestly think that the “intangible impacts” are what actually matter most to authors in the long run. Why do I say that? Because books help people make their lives better in ways far beyond what’s measured just by money. That’s why I wrote this piece: to help authors understand what the intangible benefits of a book can be, and to understand that it’s not only acceptable to want them—they’re often the point of writing a book. PERSONAL GROWTH A book helps you grow as a person in many ways, though these are not always easy to understand ahead of time: 1. Identity Change and Level Up: Before you write a book, you’re just a regular person like anyone else. But after you write and publish your book, you have a new identity: you’re an author. That’s a big deal. Being an author means you’re someone who has valuable ideas that can help people, and it means you took the time to sit down and write them out and get them published, and it means you shared them with the world. It means you’ve stepped into the arena. You’ve made your ideas real, in a format that allows others to assess, analyze, and debate them—and that opens YOU up to the next level of learning and expansion. In essence, it can be confirmation that the work you do matters to other people. This shift in identity moves you up a level in life. You are now in a 400 · ThE SCriBE METhOD