The author who sells books and gives keynotes — but has no direct sales channel for either

The situation

Lieselot wrote a book. It is published, it is good, and people who read it invite her to speak. She gives keynotes, half-day workshops, and lunch sessions for teams. The book and the speaking feed each other — every talk leads to book sales, every reader is a potential booker.

On paper, she has two income streams. In practice, she has two separate problems. The book is sold through her publisher and a handful of online retailers. She earns a few euros per copy. Her speaking engagements are booked by email, priced by negotiation, and invoiced after the fact. Neither stream has a clean payment moment. Both feel harder than they should be.

What she does today

Someone wants to buy her book directly — maybe at a talk, maybe via Instagram. Lieselot points them to the publisher's website or a retailer, where she earns her royalty margin. She has no way to sell direct. No way to add a signed copy. No way to bundle the book with a workshop for a company that wants both.

Someone wants to book her for a keynote. She replies by email, negotiates scope and price, sends a quote, waits for approval, sends an invoice, and waits again. Sometimes the event is three months away. Sometimes she invoices after the event. Either way, there is always a gap between agreement and payment — and always a chance the booking falls through before money arrives.

What the real problem is

Lieselot has defined products — a book at a clear price, a keynote at a clear rate, a workshop at a fixed half-day fee — but she treats all of them as custom work. Every sale is a conversation. Every payment is delayed. The products exist. The checkout moment does not.

What she does with bookto checkout

Lieselot creates four products in her bookto checkout dashboard:

"Signed copy — shipped to your door" at €24. "Book + keynote bundle — company order" at €18 per copy (minimum 10). "Keynote — 45 min including Q&A" at €1,200. "Lunch session — 90 min for teams" at €950.

Each gets its own checkout page. The signed copy link goes in her Instagram bio and email signature. The keynote and workshop links go in her speaker page and in replies to booking enquiries. When a company asks "what do you charge?", she no longer sends a quote. She sends a link.

What happens behind the scenes

Each product has a checkout page with a description, price, and VAT rate. For the signed copy, the post-purchase email contains a short note from Lieselot and her shipping timeline. For the keynote and workshop, the post-purchase email contains a link to her intake form where the client fills in the date, audience, and context. Lieselot receives a notification the moment someone pays — including full company and VAT details for B2B invoicing. The Onfact integration on the Flow plan turns every payment into a draft invoice automatically.

The numbers

On direct book sales, Lieselot earns €10–12 per copy instead of the €2–3 royalty margin from her publisher. Selling 20 signed copies a month directly adds €160–180 in margin she was not capturing before — without changing the price the reader pays.

On speaking engagements, her average lead time from first contact to payment drops from three to four weeks to the same day. With four engagements per month at an average of €1,075, she stops carrying €4,000+ in outstanding invoices at any given moment.

bookto checkout costs her €11 per month on Flow.

What changes

Lieselot no longer negotiates by email to reach a number she already had in mind. She no longer loses direct book sales to the extra click of a retailer. And she no longer waits weeks to know whether a speaking booking is real.

The products were always defined. They just did not have a place where someone could pay for them — until now.

Try bookto checkout free for 7 days.

No credit card required. Your first product is live in five minutes.