This is the first post in a series dedicated to the anniversary of the publishing of my first book, Conquer the Entrepreneur’s Kryptonite. The purpose of this series is to share what I’ve learned to help inspire you to do the same if there’s a book in your heart waiting to get out.
It’s hard to say exactly when the idea for the book was born. I can certainly look back to my childhood for the general idea of writing a book. In the third grade, as part of a mini-book, template-based assignment, I wrote Some Snakes Have Tails. I cringe at the poor writing and worse artwork today, but back then I was proud!
So I pretty much always knew I wanted to write a book. I started a lot of them, some never getting past a cool title idea or a few paragraphs (and some may get written yet!). But four years ago, three things converged to get me started.
1) The Seed of Confidence
In 2009 I began investing in my crazy idea to start a business. I was frustrated with the company I was working for. I’d been passed over for promotion twice and figured I’d just promote myself rather than working that hard for someone else. I started going to 48 Days and Free Agent Academy events. I didn’t know what I wanted to do yet, but I liked learning and dreaming.
2) Growth of an Idea
Out of those events I met my mentor and friend, Chuck Bowen. Chuck is an uber-coach. He helped me see my strategic superpower, and through him I began teaching classes for Free Agent Academy. Using his Simple Strategic Planning template and process, we co-led the initial classes for my students. Those classes were the genesis of the book. I listened to them again and again, capturing notes and reformatting the structure of the lessons. Those notes became a core of content around which I was able to write the rest of the book.
[Shortly after those first classes we did a seminar on financial management that flowed so well I used it to quickly create my first e-book, Show Me the Money. It needs an update, but it’s still pretty good and you can get it for free by signing up for my Newsletter.]
3) The Structure to Support the Idea
The concept was an unformed mess until I purchased Michael Hyatt’s Writing a Winning Book Proposal e-book. I didn’t really intend to submit a proposal to an agent or a publishing company, but the e-book gave me a framework from which to start writing. It was via this simple but powerful product that I was able document the purpose of my book and create the chapter structure. Without that structure, I would have struggled to tie the pieces of the book together in a way that not only made sense to the reader, but allowed me as a writer to dig in as I did.
I wrote out my book proposal for Conquer the Entrepreneur’s Kryptonite (the working title was Make It Look Easy) on June 14th, 2010. Three years to the day later, on June 14th, 2013, the book was published and available for sale.
Stay tuned as I write about the writing process, the finishing process, formatting, creating the trifecta (book, e-book, and audiobook), crowdsourcing, my support team, and so much more. I don’t know how long the series will last and I haven’t written the next post yet, but I’m going to share all of the ups and downs I can remember!
If you have specific topics you want me to cover, leave a comment or send me a note!
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