Education of a Lifetime

Hi Michael,

First off, I would like to thank you for being a teacher to me. I am very appreciative of all that I have learned from your writing and by working through the steps of your program.

I am married, have two beautiful children and I currently work as a software development consultant and I manage/own a company that develops mobile apps.

After working in the high tech industry for ten years I am ready to change to a career that will excite and challenge me. I aspire be a author and write books on architecture and home design. For my first project I am writing a book about something I am extremely passionate about: designing a modern home that is warm and enjoyable to live in. I love modern architecture, but it is often cold and designed more for creative expression than for comfortable living.

I am not a writer or an architect, so this project is going to be very challenging for me. Reading your post helped direct me along an attainable path to writing my book.

I did not read your blog post until early December, so I got a late start on the 9 step process.  I started by defining exactly what I wanted to achieve. Then I started this blog to keep track of my progress. So far in just one month I have:

• Read three books (“Bird by Bird”, “Spin Selling”, “Getting Things Done”).
• Researched traditional publishing versus self-publishing.
• Started networking and had informal meetings with two new connections.
• Created a list of architects that I am going to contact in the New Year as research for my book.
• Researched how to successfully write a book.
• Created an outline for my book.

I would love to have the opportunity to have a mentorship with you. I also hope that I could find a way to add value to our relationship and help you out in any way that I could. I could certainly lend my expertise in mobile development, user-centric design, outsourcing, web development, etc.

Thank you very much for your consideration. I would truly appreciate an opportunity to connect with you.

Thank you,
Stephen Yates

I expanded my community by one today. I had a 25 minute phone conversation with Mark, who works with an organization that hires architects for various projects. I was introduced to him by Hugh, who you can read about in a previous post.

I was eager to speak with Mark because I need to start connecting with architects as research for my book. Our phone conversation went well.  We made plans to meet for a coffee in the New Year.

I am not sure if this will lead to any introductions to architects, but at this point I am focused on making connections, seeing how I can help people, and learning everything I can.

I just finished reading Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen. I read it with hopes that it could help me overcome two significant obstacles that I am facing as I undergo my career change. First of all I am very short on time. I have the usual husband/father/employee responsibilities, I run a small business, and I try to volunteer in my community once a week.

The second obstacle is my disorderly nature, which makes it difficult for me to keep track of everything on my plate.

Reading the book got me thinking about how much of my daily stress is caused by my need to keep track of all my ongoing “stuff” in my head, and the worry that I have forgotten to do something important.  The GTD processes could allow me to offload everything from my brain to various storage methods and lists.

GTD advocates taking the time to break each current project into next actions and keep a list of all next actions. It also advocates batching similar items by creating lists of errands I can do when I stop at the mall, or calls that I need to make. All of this seems to be very attainable and worthwhile.

David Allen’s ideas jive very nicely with the rational part of my brain.  I am, however, a bit doubtful about how well GTD will translate into real life habits. I am going to give it a shot. I went out and bought a filing cabinet, folders, and a label maker.  Tonight I am going to clear my desk and get started.

Reading List (I would appreciate any recommendations):

1. Self-Educated Millionaires: The Seven Skills You’ll Never Learn in College
2. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
3. Author 101: Bestselling Book Publicity

Today I stepped out of my comfort zone and made my first networking connection. I contacted a friend of a friend who I met once at a social event in 1996. Hugh has been the president and CEO of several large corporations and he has a lot of connections.

He agreed to meet me for coffee, and we met this morning. What I expected to be a slightly awkward 30 minute chat turned out to be an engaging three hour discussion.

During the meeting I was focused on finding ways that I could help him. He is interested in the value of outsourcing versus in-house software development.  I was able to share my experiences with him, and I sent him some links to resources to get him started.

One thing that I gained from the discussion was a connection with someone he knows who works for an organization that hires architects for many local projects. I am going to follow up with the contact and try to setup a meeting.

Overall I am very pleased with my first networking effort.  Hugh asked me to meet with him again next month and I think that this is going to be an ongoing relationship.

Step 3 in Michael Ellberg’s 9 steps to conquering the informal job market is to Learn the Basics of Good Networking. This is a subject that I knew very little about before beginning this process.

In a nutshell, he recommends spending a lot of time connecting with other people who own businesses and finding ways to help them. Doing can help you develop”an incredible community of business people who are grateful to have you in their life.”  I recommend listening to Micheal’s one hour talk on this subject.

As I learned about this I thought about how different the past few years of my professional life would  be if I was nurturing a relationships with business owners in my community. I believe that my current ventures could have been significantly more successful if I had used this networking strategy.

This has got me thinking about my current network of friends and associates. It is amazing that I cannot think of one person in my network that is an entrepreneur or business owner.  I can see now that most of my relationships are with people who work as employees (software developers, medical professionals, teachers, etc. ).

To be successful writing my first book I am going to need to develop a network that includes:

1. Architects: A lot of the content from my book will derive from interviews with architects and profiles of featured homes. All of this hinges on my ability to connect with architects and develop mutually beneficial relationships.
2. Authors and Publishers: I have a lot to learn about writing and the world of book publishing. I will benefit from any connections that I can develop here.
3. Marketing and Sales: Like any venture, getting my book to a captive audience will rely on marketing and sales.

Michael recommends focusing on how you can help those you are connecting with, and good things will come from that. I have been coming up with ways that I can add value to relationships. I can offer architects an opportunity to have their work and opinions featured in a book, which can provide them with credibility, publicity, and prestige.

I can also draw from my skills and experience working in software and mobile development for the past ten years. I can help with iPhone and BlackBerry development, outsourcing development work, etc.

In addition to the obvious benefits that building a community can have on my professional life, I am also feeling drawn to the less tangible aspects.  I am a social person, but I am accustomed to working in very isolated environments.  I am excited that part of my new career will include building social relationships with interesting people. This could have a significant impact on my quality of life.

I picked up Bird By Bird – Some Instruction on Writing and Life after it was recommended by Tim Ferriss as a must read for wannabe writers. It is a very informative book, and Anne Lamott’s sense of humor and anecdotes make for a very interesting read. Her inside view of a writer’s life delves into the emotional battles, jealousy, and writer’s block that I can look forward to.

Her guidance will significantly change the way that I approach my first book.  Here is some of the advice that I will implement:

• Write an awful first draft, then improve it with the second draft, and polish with a third draft.  This really hit home for me because my writing is often choked off by my need to write the perfect sentence/paragraph.  This idea gives me the freedom to focus on communicating ideas first, and being eloquent second.
• Break your work into small pieces and write them piece by piece, bird by bird. Writing a book seems much more attainable when I can focus on just writing on one idea at a time.
• When you sit down to write have a goal to write something specific and don’t stop until that piece is complete.  Even if it is just an awful first draft, stay focused until the idea is down on paper.

The most important lesson for me in the book is that writing is not supposed to be easy. I always imaged that words flowed like a tap for true writers, and I was some kind of impostor in this realm. I now understand that it is a difficult and daunting process for most authors, and that following a process is important for getting through it.

Another important message is that writing is not about getting published or achieving fame and recognition.  It is the writing itself that is the worthwhile pursuit.
 

I have continued researching this subject online and have read many different perspectives. A very important lesson I have learned about self-publishing is that success depends on either having a captive audience in place or being a marketing machine.  At this time I do not have any audience at all, so for me to achieve any kind of success I would have to get my black belt in eBook marketing. I think a common misconception is that an eBook is a source of passive income.  Just write a book, put it out there, and start counting the money as sales roll in.  What I have learned is that marketing can become a full-time and ongoing job when trying to reach customers and generate sales.

I am fortunate in a way because I love marketing and i it is something that I enjoy learning about.  A lot of my bedtime reading is already on this subject.  So the idea of working to market my own book is an exciting proposition to me.

At this point I am not prepared to rule out traditional or self-publishing.  As I go forward writing my book I am fully open to both paths. I would still like to find a publisher interested in taking on my book, but I am also feeling confident that I can successfully publish a book and reach an audience on my own. In a way I feel like I now have a solid fall-back plan if traditional publishing doesn’t work out.

Pat Flynn wrote a ten part blog series on How To Publish an eBook. If you are considering publishing an eBook it is worthwhile to learn from Pat’s experiences.  Here are some of the things I learned from this series:

• He chose to publish an eBook over print because they are easier and less expensive to create, the delivery process can be automated, and all sales are 100% profit.
• He recommends that you start by defining he parts (chapters) of your book in an outline, create a separate file for each section, and write them in any order.
• An eBook is really just a PDF file.
• He gets into details about how he has automated his publishing and distribution process. Pat is all about passive income, so it is no surprise that he uses a process that keeps him out of the loop.
• He describes how to create a landing page that is the primary sales tool for converting customers.
• It is easy to change the price of an eBook, so test out different prices.  Don’t be afraid to price if higher if you think it is worth it.
• He recommends using affiliate programs to drive sales.

Like most authors writing their first book, I hope to find a publisher who will fall in love with my work and sign me.  I am also, however, intrigued by the notion of self-publishing.  Five years ago (maybe even one year ago) I would not even be considering this as an option, but in the age of e-books, e-readers, and self-publishing printers it merits some consideration. I am currently having success “self-publishing” the apps that my company develops by listing them on the App Store, but the app market and book market are very different.

Related to this is the question of print vs e-books, which often overlaps discussions on self-publishing.

For my education on this subject I am going to begin by studying the opinions of authors with experience in self-publishing and traditional publishing.

Tim Ferriss weighs in on the topic in a blog post titled How Authors Really Make Money: The Rebirth of Seth Godin and the Death of Traditional Publishing.  He gives some useful insight into publishing economics.

If you choose to self-publish but stick with print format and retail distribution, you might double your royalty earnings. This is based on conversations with friends who own their own boutique publishing houses, all of which have distribution in large chains like Barnes and Noble. It’s fun to imagine that you could print a book with a $20 cover price and pocket $15, but that isn’t how the math works out. Once you factor in retailer discounts and distributor percentages, you might end up netting 30% of cover price vs. 15%, if you’re lucky and have a print run of 20,000+ units (Can you afford the upfront cost, especially if retailers are paying net-30, net-60, or beyond?). Keep in mind you also need to manage things as a publisher, which could make your dollars-per-hour earnings less than with a traditional publisher. There are a few promising companies, like Author Solutions, trying to solve this problem for authors.

He cautions non-fiction writings from jumping the gun on digital due to the greater popularity of fiction books on the Kindle.

He mentions that that greater profits can be achieved with e-books, but a very high understanding of marketing and affiliate and CPA advertising is critical in the highly competitive segment.

One very interesting point he makes is that there are several ways that authors can benefit from writing book besides earning royalties.

- Speaking: Particularly in the business category, if you target your Fortune 500 audience well enough, you can stair-step your way into $20,000 per 60-minute keynote without needing a miracle. Hundreds, if not thousands, of authors earn this kind of money. The higher echelon can make $80,000 or more per speaking engagement. Needless to say, this adds up fast.

- Reputation and audience: Money is a means to something else. Not unlike wampum, income is traded for either a possession or an experience. If you use your book to build a reputation as a thought leader, and if you can establish a direct line of communication to intelligent readers (through a blog, for instance), it is possible to bypass income and get almost any experience for free or next-to-free. The middleman of currency is removed, and you also have access to things money can’t buy, whether it’s interesting people or unusual resources.

In his opinion it is more difficult for authors to build a reputation through self-publishing.

I think that this is very interesting and thought provoking.  To this point I have not looked at this project as more then writing a book, or possibly a few books.  What I need to do is consider the bigger picture.  How could an audience and reputation open new doors?

Tim Ferriss concludes that self-publishing is a viable option for established and successful authors “because they have incredible reputations that were built, in part, on top of the traditional publishing machine.”  He feels that “there is still real value in having the rare stamp of approval that a ‘traditional’ publisher provides.”

He recommends three books to aspiring authors:

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (to help you craft the right message and themes)
Bird by Bird (to help you write the damn thing and not shoot yourself)
Author 101: Bestselling Book Publicity (to help you reach and excite big media)

I have just purchased Bird by Bird and I will be posting what I have learned after I finish reading it.