If you want to write a book, get your head examined

And if you've already written a book you're insane

You kill yourself for hours and hours writing a book that you sell for cheap.

It’s dumb.

At least it feels like that to me as I start my second book.

If you need to make fast money and lots of it, don’t write a book.

I can show you how to write an 8 page PDF that you can sell for half the price of a book and probably shake out thousands of dollars in sales (or more) quickly.

The problem with those ebooks though is they are dust in the wind. They don’t get you…

Legacy.

I’m reading the Book of Virtues at bed time to my youngest. It’s a book I read as a kid 30 years ago. In it our stories that go back to 300BC.

Status.

Influential people read books by the boatload. They read your book, then book you on their stage. That stage drives books sales, which means more influential people get your book.

A virtuous cycle.

Word of Mouth.

I’m convinced 90% of people who read “Thinking Fast & Slow” don’t understand any of it. I went through it 3 times before it clicked and I’m supposedly a genius.

Yet the book is a constant best seller because people like to tell other people they are reading it.

On the other side there is “Crush It” by Gary V or “4 Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferris… overly simplistic pop-business books that everyone from a billionaire to a beginner can read, get value from and refer others to.

If you can get it to click with the masses, you will go from obscurity to everywhere all at once.

I could’ve done it, too!

The book $100 million dollar offers by Alex Hormozi - which has sold a million copies - was heavily influenced by my book One to Many and my old training program Genius Webinars.

The difference was I taught offers in relation to webinars. Too niche. Alex pulled it out and made it broad - offers to anything.

He also did one other thing I didn’t - spent hundreds of hours writing it. Every sentence purposely placed with the intent of clarity - impossible to misunderstand. No fat anywhere.

In contrast, my book One to Many - besides being too narrow in scope - was also too dense. It was a manual, a field guide, a step by step process similar to the $1,500 training program it was derived from - and it was also the single best book on the topic by a million miles.

It still made me millions despite selling less than 20,000 copies in total.

The right people bought it and referred it. I landed some big ticket, six figure deals from it and made some connections that I parlayed into big pay days.

It costs me though in other ways. Cannibalized my backend. Fewer people bought the high ticket webinar coaching program because they didn’t need it - the book had everything.

Some people wouldn’t even refer others to the book because they didn’t want their competition finding out about it.

Lessons learned.

My intent on this next book is different.

I want it to be as broadly applicable to the masses. I want anyone who reads it to be able to think of at least three friends they can share it with.

I want it to have stories that entertain as much as educate. Wisdom more so than information. Paradigm shifts more than step by step processes.

I want people to put it up on the shelves behind them in their podcast studios so when they go on camera, I’m one of the few books they choose to put on display.

I want the book to by social media crack that people post and write about and do reviews on.

I still want impact though. And I think this will help.

I see what Alex’s book has done. Before him, Russell Brunson’s Expert Secret - a book Russell told me was written as inspiration from a training I did years prior - has reached more overall people about webinars than anything I’ve done.

I see impact likie this: Maybe less as a percent who buy it are successful, but more TOTAL successes from the readers.

And indirectly, WAY more success because I’ll get on more stages, increase my social media following more, be on more podcasts and reach more countries.

I remember once I did a a webinar for Brian Tracy’s audience. They were not big ticket buyers. Most attendees had names I couldn’t pronounce. But they read his book. In some countries, a $20 book IS a big ticket purchase. I want to reach those audiences, too.

I digress.

To write a book, the writing is the least of it.

Research and rewriting are where the bulk of your time goes. So I eat it like an elephant, a bite at a time. I do about an hour each day right now on research. In two months that gets me to about 60 hours worth.

I’ll write the book in a month - one hour a day or about 25 hours total.

Then I’ll rewrite for an hour a day for the next two months. Another 50 hours.

Grand total is about 135 hours. Not too bad when you put it like that.

Then there is the marketing… a post for another day.

I once heard a fiction writer say:

“to write a good book first write three bad books”

The worst thing that can happen with this book is it gets me closer to writing the next book.

It also gets the book out of your head and into the world. Once it’s there, the raw ingredients of it can be pulled apart and put back together in different ways - content for social media, material for keynotes, articles and even other products.

I’ve put it off too long. The last book I wrote was nearly 7 years ago.

These articles have got me back in the groove. When the first draft is done, I’ll want some alpha readers before it’s released. Let me know if you want to be one.

Even if you don’t ever write a book, you should write the outline to one.

The clarity you get from an outline can unlock all sorts of insights for you in your business and life.

Even if you don’t ever write a book, get a cover designed of a book you would write if you had the time and know how. Put the cover up next to where you work.

Watch what it does for your creativity and productivity.

Even in the age of AI and where everything is digital, the book still has the biggest impact. Every movement has a book. My life was quite literally saved by a book.

I am now declaring to the world, you and everyone else, my next book is in motion. This is my accountability to you. Hold me to it. Otherwise I may slither out of it for another 7 years.

The best part of the book in the end is how it changes YOU in the process of writing.

Stay tuned.