Writing My Second Book in Public
Last year I wrote my first nonfiction book, Differently.
My book is a compilation of the major lessons I learned during my transition from education to entrepreneurship. It zig zags through making sense of knowing your skillsets, designing the type of life you want to live, sales frameworks, and learning to live, you guessed it, Differently.
You should read it if you enjoy mildly funny self-help. Go to the landing page here, and then follow the trail to the stripe checkout.
It’s either spend $5.97 on a couple bag of frozen vegetables or buy my book. We don’t know eachother , but you and I both know the right decision.
I go through things I picked up as door-to-door salesman, a quasi healthcare consultant, and startup team member. It was a lot of shin scraping and head bumping. Tons of mistakes and regrettable situations.
Plenty caused by my own ignorance.
So I packaged it all up and made an attempt to push it out the door, get it running around in the wild. Time to spread your wings librito and fly!
I used a considerable amount of time sending DMs to friends and acquaintances. I built a small list of people that might be interested in reading. Started writing more regularly on my substack.
And so now I’m going to spend the year going through the hustle of getting people to spend time in its pages. No matter what happens, it’s a good exercise in perseverance.
Differently took me a couple years. I’m proud of it. I think it has some decent ideas that will make people take a look at how life is shaping up for them.
Which leads me to 2023. What do I tackle now? What do I write next?
Like I mentioned, I think there are decent ideas in my first book. It will get a few chuckles, moments of, “that was clever,” and potentially a post on LinkedIn if you read it. It’s short enough to plow through in a couple of hours and has some other writing in there for fun.
After looking over the landscape of what it is, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just the ground work for the next 10 years.
It’s cliché to say, “I’m just getting started.” Oh well. I’ll say it anyway. There are hundreds of thousands of words, if not millions in front of me.
Maybe I feel this way because I’ve spent such a huge amount of time with it, but I feel like Differently gives a nice overview of my journey. That’s where it stops. It doesn’t go deeper.
You finish it and think, “that wasn’t bad, actually.” It was my first nonfiction book after all.
If I’m being honest, the book says, “I went through this process, and look! You are not stuck! You can start to dig your way out of your situation too!” It then gives you a freelancers guide, a taste of my fiction writing, and then sends you on your way.
Now that I’ve laid the groundwork, I can showcase the things that really matter to me since that transition: the tactical steps that are changing my life right now.
Why go with that approach?
I think people are growing tired of strategy — high level, big data, “must have an Ivy league MBA or consult at McKinsey” type stuff.
HBR and other publications have some interesting things to say for sure. I’m not discounting that. I barely unsubscribed because I’m putting my money on Category Pirates to be the biggest bang for my buck.
More importantly, I don’t want to write about that junk. (better said, I can’t really because I’m not a big, important person)
You don’t want nebulous, 10,000 ft. perspectives on how to run an effective business, find the right market fit, and drive sales. There are a billion books about that. There are a kajillion writers putting out content like that.
Snoozeville. Slumberland.
How about a book that draws out what you should do to find physical, social, intellectual and spiritual balance?
A book that provokes you to be completely honest with yourself?
I don’t want to write a page turner. I don’t want people to wrap up my book in an afternoon.
They should feel the need to put the book down.
I know, crazy.
Not because it’s terrible or boring.
Simply because they want to go out and try to put the things I’m writing about into action. They could read a few pages, see something marvelously helpful, and be inspired to try it.
People are starving for signifance. They’re dying to understand their purpose. They crave a gameplan they can implement yesterday.
I’m not saying that I have all the answers. In fact, I don’t have many.
I’m also not promising that I can even produce something that hits people as hard as Carnegie, the Heath Brothers, Sax, or Koch.
But I can say this: I will try.
Even if it does take me 10 years.
