Why Publish or Self-Publish a Book?
Maybe There’s a Better Way to Monetize Your Content
I was born to write even though I got pissed at my dad for making me take a high school typing class. The year was 1977. We had just finished celebrating 200 years of independence from an oppressive Monarchy.
Being the smart-ass I am, I said to my dear old dad, “Dad, why would I ever need to type if I want to be a tennis pro?”
Dad said, “Because there’s nothing more important than your education if you want more choices for a career later in life. The world is changing fast. I think you’ll thank me later if you follow my suggestion. Take the typing class.”
My father was a modern-day mystic, but he didn’t know it. He had a sense of adventure, loved exploring the world, reading many books, and teaching his three children how to make sense of a seemingly insane world.
Born to Write
Dad knew before I knew that I was born to write. At this stage of the game, I’ve lost count of the articles, videos, websites, online courses, speeches, blog posts, email campaigns that crushed preceding conversion rates, and kick-ass love notes and letters to my amazing wife whenever I want to get out of the dog house.
The bottom line is I was born to be insatiably curious, off-the-charts creative, and never able to fit in a box which is why the only thing I’m good at belonging to is the human race, including all the souls in the universe. Yeah, we call it unity. It’s way better than duality and feeling the suck around us.
But, I digress. I’ve also written and co-written five incredibly marginal non-fiction books. The first four were “Chapter books” I paid a publisher to be a part of because they had dudes like Deepak Chopra let me use his name on my book.
It was a shitty business model and an even worse way to write a book. But I didn’t know any better. The good news is even though I thought the books sucked, other people liked them and I used them as a calling card to drum up speaking, consulting, content campaigns, ghostwriting, and business coaching gigs.
My crappy books helped me bolster my confidence and public image. Because of that, I could charge “Big Ticket” coaching fees of up to $120,000 per year, per client.
Self-Publishing Is Tough
The only book I’ve self-published is Radical Clarity for Business — How to Empower People at Work to Get Better Results. Holy cow, was self-publishing a lot of work.
At first, all my hacks to format and design the book failed. Then, I hired a few freelancers until I found one in New Zealand who priced his services fairly and did great work. I probably invested $1,500 to get the finished manuscript into a softcover and digital format using Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing or KDP.
Once the book was ready, I had to sell it, of course. Talk about chasing the wind; marketing and selling your self-published book is harder work than putting in a split-rail fence on a Pennsylvania farm during the summer of 1983, and earning the minimum wage of $3.35.
Again, the good news is, I sold less than 200 books like most numb nut no-name writers like me. I made a few bucks. And I won a few more gigs and made tens of thousands more doing the stuff I love; making shit up so I never need another day job.
Here’s the deal with my books; I’m grateful for the lessons learned. I’m grateful for having fun learning and improving my skills. I’m grateful for all the mistakes I made. I’m grateful for the new income. And I’m most grateful I get to wake up every day and do shit I love.
But I may never write another book because I’m launching an experiment to publish the 30,000 plus words I’ve drafted and edited 10,000 times. I’m going to push all the content through a new YouTube channel. I will also use the experiment to report back to my tribe of fellow creative, outlying misfits who equally hold disdain for being told what to do, where to be, and how much we can make because making minimum wages sucks dearly.
Get Clarity for Life
My new YouTube channel is @GetClarityforLife. It’s the life design and planning follow up to Radical Clarity for Business now on Amazon.
It’s about the art of human transformation, finding deep meaning in life, and being happy, healthy, and wealthy no matter how fast we continue to whack each other in stupid-ass wars, trash the planet, and reverse human life expectancy.
In closing, my new book will become new video scripts, videos, stories, interviews, book summaries, short videos rich with prayers and affirmations to heal our wounded minds and bodies.
That’s it. No more book writing for now. My storytelling is being polished and published via YouTube.
I will keep you posted on my progress. If you’re willing to watch what happens on the front line, head over to YouTube and give me some love @GetClarityforLife.
And last but not least, dad, thank you for being you. I love and miss you dearly.
