How to Self Publish

As mentioned in previous posts ... now is a great time to write that book you're always talking about writing!! Unless you have a large social platform I wouldn't expect this to become a source of income (but you never know what can go viral these days), but it will no doubt add to your resume and your self-esteem. So this has a huge return for the investment, which can be about $0. 

Nice. The world is your oyster.

Article from James Althur:

You know how to do something better than anyone else in the world. How do you let the world know that you are better? A business card won’t cut it. People will throw it away. And everyone’s got a website with an “About” button.

A) Give away part (or all) of your ideas in a book. You’re a brand new social media agency? How should social media work? Write it down. You’re a new CRM software package? How should CRM be better? Tell me. How should online dating services work? Tell some stories. Heck, make them as sexy as possible.

Don’t have time to write it. Then tell it to a ghostwriter you outsource to for almost no money. You don’t need 60,000 words. Do it in 20,000 words. Throw some pictures in. Just do it. Then when you meet someone and they ask for your business card, how cool will it be when you can say, “Here, take my book instead.”

B) You have more to say. More and more companies have blogs. Many of the posts on the blog are “evergreen”. i.e. they last forever and are not time specific. If you just take the posts (mentioned in the point above) and publish them people will say, “he’s just publishing a collection of posts”. A couple of comments on that.

1. So what? It’s ok if you are curating what you feel your best posts are. And for a small price people can get that curation and read it in a different format.There’s value there.

2. Don’t just take a collection of your posts.  A blog post is typically 500-2000 words. Usually closer to 500. Do a bit more research for each post. Do intros and outros for each post. Make the chapters 3000-4000 words. Make a bigger arc to the book by using original material to explain WHY this book, with these chapters, presented in this manner is a different read than the blog. Have a chapter specifically explaining how the book is different from the blog.

I had original material in each chapter and several chapters that were completely original. Instead of it being a collection of posts, the overall book was about how we have been brainwashed in society, and how uncovering the brainwashing and using the techniques I describe can bring happiness. This was covered in a much more detailed fashion than the blog ever could even though the material was inspired by several of my posts.

 C) Amazon is an extra platform for you to market your blog. Or vice versa. You won’t make a million dollars on your book (well, maybe you will – never say never) but just being able to say, “I’m a published author” extends your credibility as a writer/speaker/enterpreneur when you go out there now to sell your book, syndicate your blog elsewhere or to get speaking engagements, etc. And when you do a speaking engagement, you can now hand something out – your book! So Amazon and publishing become a powerful marketing platform for your overall writing/speaking/consulting career.

D) Nobody cares. Some people want the credibility of saying “Penguin published me”. I can tell you from experience – nobody ever asked me who was my publisher when Penguin was my publisher. And, by the way, Penguin was the worst publisher I ever had.

E) How will I get in bookstores? I don’t know. How will you? Traditional publishers can’t get you there either. Often bookstores will look at what’s hot on Amazon and then order the books wholesale from the publishers. In many cases, tradtional publishers will take their most-known writers (so if you are in that category, congrats!) and pay to have them featured at a bookstore. As for my experience, my traditional publishers would get a few copies of my books in the bookstores of major cities (i.e. NYC and that’s it) but nothing more.


OK, I’M CONVINCED. HOW DO I SELF-PUBLISH
There’s lots of ways to do it but I’ll tell you my experience.

A) First write the book.
For my last two self-published books, as mentioned above, I took some blog posts, rewrote parts of them, added original material, added new chapters, and provided an overall arc as to what the BOOK was about as opposed to it just being a random collection of posts. But, that said, you probably already have the basic material already.
B) Createspace.com.
I used createspace because they are owned by Amazon and have excellent customer service. They let you pick the size of your book and then have Microsoft Word templates that you download to format your book within. For my first book I did this by myself, for my second book, for a small fee, I hired Alexanderbecker.net to format the book, create the book design, and create the final PDF that I uploaded. He also checked grammar, made proactive suggestions on font (sans serif instead of serif) and was extremely helpful.
C) Upload the PDF.
Createspace approves it, picks an ISBN number, sends you a proof, and then you approve the proof.
D) Within days its available on Amazon.
It’s print-on-demand as a paperback. And by the way, your total costs at this point: $0. Or whatever you used to design your cover.
E) Kindle.
All of the above (from Createspace) was free. If I didn’t hire Alex to make the cover I could’ve used over 1mm of Createspace’s possible covers (I did that for my first book) and the entire publishing in paperback would be free. But with Kindle, Createspace charges $70 and they take care of everything until it’s uploaded to the Kindle store. Now you are available in paperback and kindle.
F) Marketing.
1. Readers of my blog who asked for it got the first 20 copies or so for free from me. Many of them then posted good reviews on Amazon to get the ball rolling.
2. I’ve been handing out the books at speaking engagements. Altogether, I’ll do around 10 speaking engagements handing my latest book out.
3. I write a blog post about how the bo0k is different from the blog and why I chose to go this route.
4. Writing guests posts for blogs like Techcrunch helps and I’m very grateful.
5. Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google+ are also very helpful.

G) Promotions. You’re in charge of your own promotions (as opposed to a book publisher.). For instance, in a recent blog post I discussed the differences between my latest book and my blog and I also offered a promotion on how to get my next self-published book (“Bad Behavior”, expected in Q1 2012) for free.

Entrepreneurs are always looking for ways to stand out, promote their service, and get validation for their offerings. Writing a book makes you an expert in the field. At the very least, when you hand someone a book you wrote, it’s more impressive than handing a business card. It shows that you have enough expertise to write the book. It also shows you value the relationship with the potential customer enough that you are willing to give him something of value. Something you created.
And you can’t say the excuse “I don’t have time, I’m running a business.” Entrepreneurs make time. And they have the ideas so, again, at the very least you can use elance.com to hire a ghostwriter.
Over the next year I have five different books planned. All on different topics. I’m super-excited about them because I’m allowed to push the barrier in every area I’m interested in and there’s nobody to stop me. There’s nobody I need validation from. I get to pick myself.
You can do this also. And now, you should do it.

RESOURCES:
 25 Things you need to know
CreateSpace
Amazon's Author Central
LuLu.com

10 Things To Do If You Were Fired Yesterday

from http://www.jamesaltucher.com

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE!

I would pace at three in the morning. "I'm going to lose this house. My kids are going to switch schools. I have three months to live. I'm going to lose this house. I'm going to this and that and this/that." The chatter doesn't stop, and it's nightmarish at three in the morning. And at four, and at five, and it doesn't stop when the kids wake up and they don't know anything is different but I cry then because everything is different. Because the house is a prison. Because my head is a mental asylum.

No advice helps. You can't meditate. You can't exercise. You can't eat healthy. You can't shave. Or bathe. You can't even take deep breaths. They feel like bullshit breaths. Shit breathes in and shit breathes out. You can't pray or read spiritual texts. None of that stuff helps, you think. None of that immediately deposits money in the bank. None of that brings back your self-esteem which was so randomly stolen from you by faceless bureaucats living on the outskirts of cubicles.

So here's advice that helps. I hope you follow it because I know it worked for me:

Do just one thing today.

And then do one thing tomorrow. And the next. That's all. Just one thing a day. If you do your thing, then feel good. You did it. Tomorrow you do the next thing. That's all you need to do.

Some preliminaries: First, you need to sleep. Make sure you sleep 8 hours a day, every day. And you can't drink. Delete your news-intake. You don't need news now. Things are bad. But they aren't as bad as they seem. The media lies every day about how bad things are. Trust me.

And then do one solid thing each day.

Here are some possible "one things":

• Schedule a lunch with someone you haven't seen in three years. Could be anyone. But it has to be someone you haven't seen in at least three years. This injects new blood into the system. You need a total transfusion to get rid of the infected old blood.
• Ideas. Find your "customers." Treat yourself like a one-man business. Make a list of customers (i.e. places or people you might want to work with) Then come up with a list of 10 ideas for each customer/place you might want to work. Ideas that can make them money. This way you keep your idea muscle intact. Don't let your idea muscle atrophy! Pitch your ideas to that customer if you can. If you can't , move onto the next customer. But wait until tomorrow. You did your thing for today. Be proud. THIS TECHNIQUE WORKS. It's worked for me.
• Gratitude. Make a list of the people you've worked with over the past ten years that you are grateful you worked with. Email them and tell them why you were grateful you worked with them. Ask them sincerely how they are doing. This is one of the most important things on this list.
• Wake up early, exercise, take a shower, wear a suit, go into the city, and walk around. Smell that freshness on you. It makes you feel as if you are ready for anything. And you are. That's all you need to do that day. Heck, go to a museum. You won't have this opportunity for freedom forever.
• Slash. Make a list of all expenses you can slash. Make your runway as long as possible. There are plenty of sites to advise how to do this. Picture your worst-worst case scenario. It's never as bad as you think. Write it down. Write down the plan for the worst-case scenario. Then take a nap. You just had a hard day. You need to rest.
• Lunch, part II. Have lunch with one person in your industry. Have your ideas ready for that person. Have him critique your ideas. Learn.
• Reconnect. Contact other people who used to work at your old company. Maybe they even worked there ten years ago. Reconnect. Come up with ideas for them.
• Write. Write a book in the next three days. You can write a 30 page book about dieting ("100 ways to Lose 100 pounds") and put it on sale on Amazon in one day. Why not? The traditional book industry is over. Write the book "100 things to do the day after you are fired". Make it funny. Time to dominate the publishing industry while you are unemployed. Today make a list of all the possible 30 page books you can do. Then tomorrow start one of the books. I have one friend who just self-published a book. He was dead broke before that after being fired from his job. He made $100k in 90 days. No joke. This was about a month ago.
• Resentment. You are going to feel resentful about people at your old job. They wronged you. But listen closely: they are just trying to survive also. They aren't different from you and me, no matter how much you feel they wronged you. You need to make a list of all the good qualities that person has and send them an email why you think they are good at what they do. Thank them.
• Brainstorm. Go completely in a different direction. What other industry can you work in? What other location can you live in? Make up the wildest fantasies about what you can do. Keep going until there is one possible direction you can execute on today. Brainstorm what blog you can do (and what products you can sell on the blog). Brainstorm about photography (anyone need a photographer this weekend?) Brainstorm about ecommerce (check out penny auction sites where you can buy stuff for pennies and resell on Ebay). I don't know. I'm making stuff up. But brainstorm for an hour and some little slice of reality might peak through.

Remember: just one thing a day at first. Some of these things above seem crazy. But I'm not recommending anything that I haven't done and made money doing. All of them.

If you are feeling better, go for the full Daily Practice. But don't stress it. The Daily Practice has always worked for me when I've hit my low points on repeated occasions. But first do "one thing a day". No pressures.

And anyone who was fired yesterday, March 10, feel free to call me anytime to chat. Contact me first thru the email on this site, leave me your number, and I will call you. Corporate stability has always been a myth. But entrepreneurship and risk is also a myth. We were never without risk. Risk is life. But now you are forced to embrace it. The good thing is, sometimes embracing leads to love.

James Altucher has written five books on investing, started and sold a few companies and runs a small VC fund. Lost all his money, made some back. Repeated that adventure a few times. Now tries to live a simple life. Writes at jamesaltucher.com and you can find him on twitter at @jaltucher.