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 one 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 your 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.

FREE Magazines

This has been reposted from: http://freebies.about.com/od/booksmagazines/fl/free-magazines.htm)

Here's an up-to-date list of the free magazine subscriptions that are available right now. You'll see a lot of free one-year subscriptions as well as some two-year ones.
Glamour
Martha Stewart Weddings
Martha Stewart Living
Family Fun
Field & Stream
Shape Magazine ( I believe this has expired)
Parents Magazine
Entrepreneur (1-Year Free Subscription)
Parents (Seven Free Magazines)
Las Vegas Bride (One Free Magazine)
Lighting (One Free Magazine)

I also have individual lists for free wedding magazines and free baby magazines if you're particularly interested in those.

UH-OH, TIER 4 ELIGIBILITY ENDS IN CA

PLEASE NOTE : This was back in 2013.
I am unsure if there are any lack of California EDD funds after 2013.

"While the EDD will no longer be able to file NEW Tier 4 extensions that start
August 11, 2013 or after, already existing claims can still be paid. Anyone starting a
Tier 4 extension prior to August 11th and who continues to remain otherwise eligible
will be allowed to collect the remainder of their Tier 4 benefits."

Here's the full notice from CA EDD > http://www.edd.ca.gov/About_Edd/pdf/nwsrel13-46.pdf

So, first, yes TIER and EXTENSION are the same thing. Why the EDD doesn't use the same language across the board is beyond me. Just another perk to confuse you further. Yay.

Now if you are on your first or second extension you definitely WILL NOT be getting a 4th extension. Your benefits will end after your Third Tier/Extension.

If you're already on your Fourth Tier/Extension  then everything remains the same. Relax. Breathe. You are NOT affected by the change.

But what it does mean is, if your Tier/Extension 3 ends AFTER August 11th, 2013 - then you are done! You have exhausted your unemployment benefits. Finito. Exito. Elvis has left the building. You got no income.

NOTE: You can tell when your Tier/Extension 3 ends by looking at the top portion of your last claim form. There you will find the dollar amount left on your current extension. Divide this amount by your weekly unemployment benefit amount and that will tell you how many weeks you have left before you have to move back in with your parents.

If, like me, (thank you Jesus) your third extension ended just a few days before August 11th, you're golden and the EDD automatically filed your Tier/Extension 4 and you will receive all of the Tier 4 benefits they awarded you.

Heavy sigh. If you're still looking for a job - keep your head up. At the same time, if you're Tier 3 or 4- or heck even at the end of Tier 2, I'd start making new long-term living arrangements if you're currently paying rent. Remember most places require 30 days notice. And moving boxes, moving men, tape, trucks or caddys, gas etc in total can cost hundreds. PLAN as far ahead as you can so you don't have your back up against the wall your last 3 weeks of unemployment and find you're scrambling to find money to move. You don't wanna throw your hands up and end up putting expenses on a credit card, or worse - borrowing. Borrowing money sucks for your self-esteem. Avoid it w/ some planning if at all possible!

As an aside, have you ever calculated the interest on a purchase made with your credit card? You might shrug at putting a "necessary" $100 on a credit card, but do you understand that in a few months, what you've done is put is put $175 or more on your card? Always, ALWAYS pay more than your minimum due. Always.

One day when you're bored, take out a pen and paper and your credit cards (or loans) and calculate the interest you're paying. I can only guarantee you that it will make you utterly loathe to charge anything in future.  :-)  (which is good for us crazy Americans).

How To: Unlock Verizon CDMA iPhone 4S for Straight Talk

UPDATE:
OK so after I had to do the below hack several times, it failed - for good. It would not revert back to StraightTalk. It just said Verizon no matter how many times I repeated the hack below over the course of a couple weeks and any other method I could find on the internet. I stopped short of re-purchasing a gevey chip or a new staight talk chip.
Gave up - went to the no contract, $60 a month Verizon plan.
BOO HOO.
:-(

If you want to give it a try, you may have better luck, continue on...

______________________________________________________________________
THE HACK

Here's what you can do if you wanna keep your phone but get the (currently in 2013) $45 unlimited everything (the $30 plan won't work with this method) of AT&T and Walmart's Straight Talk plan. Walmart and AT&T teamed up for that. Kinda cool.

You can spend days googling this to understand what it is exactly that you're doing and since you have free time you might wanna do that. Its kinda interesting really, but not necessary.


TO BUY:
1. The little tool to open your sim card slot on the side of your iphone - around $1.50 on Amazon UPDATE: Embarrassed to realize you can just use a paperclip. 
2. The Straight Talk kit you can get online or at any Walmart - First months $45 fee and the AT&T micro sim card. Total $65
3. The gevey ultra sim card. You can go to gevey.com but I got mine at Amazon for half the price, about $17


GETTER DONE!:
Here is a lovely How-To (with pictures!). If you have NO idea what you're doing, pictures are brilliant:
http://www.gevey.com/unlock-verizon-cdma-iphone-4s/


GETTER DONE (AGAIN!):
This is what I did to get mine to work when it once again went back to Verizon. The above worked the first time but I had to do it a multitude of times the next. And yes, for some unknown reason my phone reverted back to Verizon 3 times. Utterly annoying. Heavy sigh.


Reboot with unlock chip in (the gevey white chip)
Select verizon when the screen asks for your carrier
Immediately (maybe 3-5 seconds or so) take out and replace w/ gevey + straight talk chip combo
Click accept when the screen pops up to tell you your phone has been unlocked
Reboot phone > its gonna say Verizon
Dial 1-888-634-9474 once connected, end call
The go to SETTINGS > airplane mode on - wait a few seconds - then switch airplane mode off again
It should now read HOME (which is the straight talk network name)
Good Job!


Set APN: Settings > General > Network > Cellular Data Network

FIELD	SETTINGS
NAME	straight talk
APN	att.mvno
MMSC	http://mmsc.cingular.com
MMS PROXY	WIRELESS.CINGULAR.COM:80

If you don't have the Cellular Data Tab:
1) Cydia > Manage > Storage > Sources
2) Add source iHacks Repo:  http://ihacksrepo.com
3) Then add TetherMe APN Editing
It should now appear in your Settings. (I didn't need to reboot).

If I'd Only.... the Art of Stockpiling

This post is about what you'll need to do for NEXT time. Its entirely possible you may find yourself "liberated" once more before you die. These are things to stock up on - both necessary and unnecessary.

Fair warning, this list is going to look really long and seemingly cost tons. Its maybe $500 for my list. At $25 a month - little over a year to get there. Do this little by little when you have a job and you won't feel it.


Stockpile:
Stuff you can easily save a surplus of and you'll most likely need for your job search. This is stuff that ended up taking a chunk out of my unemployment salary and made me resentful I had to pay for as I was swimming in these items at the office!

Tape/dispenser

printer paper

envelopes
stamps
post-its
Printer ink!!! This ran me about $150. Are you serious?? Yes!

Treat Basket
And one more thing > this hasn't happened this time, thank God I have $, but in the past there are those moments when you're really bummed you can't buy your top shelf stuff. I'm not sure how much of YOUR top shelf stuff has a long shelf life but you might consider stocking up on a sort of "treats basket" for yourself. The trick here is to get more than one of these luxury items. Remember you're doing your bit to recreate your higher end lifestyle, and believe me ANY lifestyle is higher end than what unemployment will afford you!

Note: you can buy the actual items or set aside its monetary equivalent. Just keep in mind, if its cash, when the time comes, your guilt will likely take over and you may just put it in your savings account - Ironically, not what we want in this case, so I really recommend getting the actual product.

Basically, this list really is made up of some items you don't think about when you have an income, and you'd easily downgrade or do without if you didn't. They are the innocuous items that make up your standard of living. You see its these little items that, when given up for an extended period of time, end up making you feel resentful, bummed and sometimes even 'less than'; they make you feel unemployed. 

Here are some ideas. Naturally, your list will look different!

1) $150 for a few nice meals. Multiply whatever your total (that means tax, title and license, parking, valet and tip) usually is by the number of splurge meals you want to allot yourself.

2) If your company offers half price tickets to movies, plays, museums or Disney etc - buy yourself some movie tickets every so often so you have a stash of at least 20. That should give you a movie every weekend for 4 months.  Stash some dollars so you can buy theatre tickets off Craig's List or the like -same process: check CL prices and then multiply that by as many shows/concerts etc you'd like to save up for. 

3) I happen to really like L'Occitane, which I rarely buy anyway, but a couple sets of nice specialty soap and hand lotion is grand. And one set can last months.  This is easily unnecessary and hardly missed, but it sure is nice to have. In general, it's the little things you wouldn't think twice about going w/out that end up making you feel like you're still your old self.

4) Hair products. That really great hair color (trust me on this - get enough bottles), that expensive hair oil, the shampoo you'd easily downgrade if you had to - stock up on these. Huge shelf life. If you color your hair professionally, stock some of that $ in an envelope earmarked for that purpose. Trust me, not being able to maintain your hair color can be oddly killing.

5) Your favorite fragrance. These last minimum 1.5 years in the fridge so best to get one of the classic summer and winter scents you love. Easy-peasy.

6) Pet Supplies. Call me crazy but I hated having to buy my pets cheap grain food -  my high quality and nutritious pet food is a bit pricey. (A brand called Orijens if you must know). So, if you're a pet lover too, every few months triple purchase your pet food of choice. You'll go through it you'll use this not stash it) so it won't go bad but should you become liberated you'll have a few months of good nutrition for your pets. Trust me - if you put the cash aside you'll likely use it for another purpose when the time comes.

So thats just my short list. Make your own list based on your lifestyle keeping in mind this list is to be made up of things you'd give up w/out much fuss. This is NOT a needs/must-haves list by any means!

Gifts
Lastly, nothing sucks more than not being able to get a nice card and gift for a friend. Not a bad idea to have one or two really awesome all-purpose gifts, nice cards and gift bags with tissue stocked away in a closet. You'll more than likely come up on a birthday, wedding, or like celebratory event during your "staycation".

And you're allowed to think of your own birthday as well! Sadly, I learned this recently as my Bday arrived and I had a lot of great celebration ideas and NO money to do any of them. Make sure you buy yourself a swank Birthday card and stash just $5 from every paycheck in it, keep it tucked in a back drawer. You'll LOVE that you did this should a birthday ever arrive when you're unemployed.
:-)

Get a large tupperware storage box or 2 from the Dollar store (time on your hands? Decorate the box with quotes from your favorite books) and stash these items, then store the boxes in a very out-of-the-way place, lest you get lazy one afternoon and break into your secret stash.

And in Breaking News....that break in your paycheck

I was warned about it and sure enough...when the time rolled around..... it happened to me too!

WHAT happened to me too? Well this:
When you reach the end of your unemployment here in CA - (pre-your first Extension) - you'll only get half your  "paycheck".
HALF.

So if things are tight for you now, get prepared for a rough month. AND should your parking violation department chose this month to throw that parking ticket at you for a sign that was obviously totally obscured by trees and branches well then....

SO PAY ATTENTION.
Set Siri on your iphone to set a reminder for the 4 weeks/month advance notice so you see it coming. Better yet, start saving right now.... Save from what?? you ask - well even $5 a paycheck will help offset this gap in your pay schedule if you start right now.

So what happens is - you get half your "paycheck" AND if you're not paying attention and fail to call that very next week (as opposed to your normal schedule of every OTHER week) you have a further gap in your pay schedule. Like me.

I was warned by my friend to whom this happened and then it happened to me!! GRRrrr. So please save yourself a super stressful month trying to make ends meet and mark your date on your calendars, on your phone and whatever else system you may have implemented!!!

You can find the end of your unemployment on the top right of your "pay stub". This will give you the end date of your first and regular unemployment period. Here in CA in 2012, its 6 months.

Outside of half your pay and calling 2 weeks in a row, you don't need to do anything else. The state files your extension automatically and on you go.