The 5-Year Journey of Publishing Building a Second Brain
Summary
TLDR这段视频脚本讲述了作者在过去五年中创作和推广书籍的经历。他分享了自己在创作过程中的时间线,包括写作、编辑、合同谈判、书籍推广和销售等各个阶段。作者反思了自己在过程中的决策,提出了一些改进的建议,如更早地雇佣项目管理者、建立自己的平台和系统,以及在书籍发布前后的营销策略。他还讨论了如何通过电子邮件营销和YouTube等渠道建立和扩大读者群,以及这些努力如何最终转化为书籍销售和电子邮件订阅者的增长。
Takeaways
- 📈 五年的时间线显示了作者从开始创作到书籍发布的整个过程,包括不同的阶段和活动强度。
- 🚀 书籍推广是一个持续的过程,作者建议投入大量精力,就像争取风险投资一样。
- 💡 在创作高峰期,作者意识到应该更加有策略地分配时间和精力,专注于最重要的任务。
- 📝 写作提案和合同处理的时间比预期长,作者建议在这些阶段要有耐心等待。
- 🔄 出版过程中有多个所谓的“最终”截止日期,作者建议不要在第一个截止日期上过度投入。
- 💰 与推广代理合作可能不是最佳选择,作者建议自己建立平台和系统。
- 📅 作者在Q3 2021雇佣了项目经理,认为这是一个明智的决定,有助于处理繁琐的细节。
- 🎨 设计完整的品牌形象和媒体包是值得投资的,它为内部和外部沟通提供了便利。
- 📚 预购期长达7个月,这段时间内作者的预购量达到了13,000本。
- 📈 书籍发布后,作者建议准备好低价位的自学课程,以满足读者的需求。
- 📊 书籍销售在发布后9个月内从100,000增长到180,000,显示出书籍和YouTube的推广效果。
- 📧 电子邮件订阅者数量在书籍发布后显著增长,从65,000增长到近140,000。
Q & A
作者在五年的时间轴上经历了哪些主要阶段?
-作者经历了从开始创作到书籍发布后的推广,包括等待、缓慢工作、突然忙碌、雇佣人员、建立系统、销售书籍、建立个人平台等阶段。
作者在书籍创作过程中最后悔没有做的事情是什么?
-作者最后悔的是没有在书籍创作高峰期更加深思熟虑地分配自己的精力和时间,没有拒绝更多不必要的项目。
作者在书籍推广过程中遇到了哪些挑战?
-作者在推广过程中遇到的挑战包括处理多个项目、维持高强度工作、管理时间线以及与出版相关的复杂合同和文书工作。
作者为什么推荐在书籍发布前就开始推广?
-作者认为在书籍发布前就开始推广可以更好地利用预购期,为书籍发布积累动力,并且有助于在书籍发布时获得更好的销售成绩。
作者在书籍发布后多久开始盈利?
-作者在书籍发布后大约三个半季度才实现盈利,主要是因为推出了与书籍内容不同的新课程。
作者如何看待与推广代理合作?
-作者认为与推广代理合作的时间不宜过长,两到三个月足够,因为作者认为将时间和金钱投入到建立自己的平台和系统更为重要。
作者在书籍创作过程中最看重的资源是什么?
-作者最看重的资源是时间,特别是在书籍创作高峰期,合理分配时间和精力对于成功至关重要。
作者在书籍发布前后的邮件订阅者数量有何变化?
-作者在书籍发布前从6,000增长到60,000,发布后18个月内增长到140,000,显示出书籍和YouTube对邮件订阅者增长的显著影响。
作者在书籍销售方面有哪些策略?
-作者通过建立个人平台、利用预购期、发布新课程以及通过额外的分销和口碑来推动书籍销售。
作者在书籍创作过程中有哪些建议?
-作者建议在书籍创作过程中要认真对待,合理分配时间和精力,避免在高峰期过度压力,同时建议在书籍发布前后积极推广并建立个人平台。
作者在书籍发布后如何维持销售增长?
-作者通过持续推广、建立个人平台、发布与书籍内容不同的新课程以及利用邮件列表来维持销售增长。
Outlines
📈 五年创作历程回顾
作者分享了从开始创作到书籍发布的五年历程。他提到了在创作过程中的不同阶段,如等待、写作、推广等,以及这些阶段对个人生活的影响。作者强调了在创作高峰期时,应该更加专注和有策略地分配时间和精力。他还提到了在创作过程中的一些教训,比如在高峰期没有改变生活方式,以及在出版过程中遇到的一些意外挑战。
📚 出版过程中的挑战与策略
作者详细描述了出版过程中的多个关键点,包括与代理和编辑的合作、提案的撰写、合同的签订以及书籍销售的策略。他提到了在出版过程中遇到的多次“最终截止日期”,以及如何围绕这些截止日期集中精力工作。作者还分享了与推广机构合作的经验,以及在书籍发布前后的推广活动,包括预购和媒体包的准备。
🚀 品牌建设与平台发展
作者讨论了在书籍创作过程中,如何建立和维护个人品牌和平台。他提到了从MailChimp迁移到ConvertKit的决定,以及这一转变如何帮助他更好地管理电子邮件营销。作者还分享了在YouTube上的投资,以及如何通过建立自己的平台来持续推广书籍。他还提到了在书籍发布后,如何通过创建新的课程来实现经济效益。
📈 成果与影响分析
作者分析了书籍发布后的影响,包括电子邮件订阅者的增长、书籍销售情况以及YouTube和书籍如何共同推动品牌发展。他提到了在书籍发布前后,电子邮件列表的显著增长,以及书籍销售如何从依赖个人平台转向更广泛的分销和口碑传播。作者还强调了在书籍发布后,如何通过新的课程来吸引读者,并最终实现盈利。
Mindmap
Keywords
💡甘特图
💡五年时间线
💡推广
💡代理和编辑
💡提案
💡合同和签约
💡预购
💡电子邮件营销
💡YouTube
💡电子邮件列表
💡课程
Highlights
作者在一年半前出版书籍时创建了一个甘特图风格的时间线,现在更新并回顾了过去五年的工作历程。
作者在亚特兰大的酒店房间中更新了这个时间线,感慨五年的时间和投入的精力。
作者建议在出版过程中要全力以赴,就像筹集风险投资一样。
作者在项目高峰期没有改变生活方式,同时处理多个项目,包括照顾两个孩子,感到压力巨大。
作者建议在项目高峰期应该更加策略性地分配时间和精力。
作者提到在出版过程中,等待和准备的时间比预期的要长,例如等待合同签订就花了近六个月。
作者强调在出版过程中,应该在每个阶段的最后期限前集中精力工作。
作者与一家推广机构合作,花费了六位数,但后来认为这是不必要的,建议只合作两到三个月。
作者在2021年第三季度雇佣了一位项目经理,认为这是一个很好的决定。
作者在2021年第四季度中期开始接受预订,这是推广的开始,持续了七个月。
作者在2019年转换到ConvertKit邮件营销平台,这是对作者非常重要的决定。
作者在2022年初开始认真投资于YouTube,雇佣了第一位YouTube总经理。
作者在书籍发布后一年半才实现收支平衡,通过推出新的自我学习课程。
作者的电子邮件订阅者数量从6,000增长到140,000,书籍和YouTube对增长有显著影响。
书籍销售在发布一年内达到100,000册,之后九个月内增长到180,000册。
作者在书籍发布后推出了两个课程,第二个课程“生产力支柱”取得了成功。
作者通过这个五年的时间线,得到了深刻的洞察和视角转变。
Transcripts
hey uh great questions those are exactly
the right questions I think you should
be thinking about at this point um I
started answering them a couple times
but then I realized and remembered I had
created a little uh Gant chart Style
kind of
timeline uh when the book was released a
year and a half ago and I just realized
uh when you mentioned the fiveyear uh
timeline that this January right now
basically as we speak is the 5 year
anniversary of when I first first
started working on
this and so I'm here in a hotel room in
Atlanta and I thought I would just
update it and kind of take you through
that five-year
Arc um it's long that's like kind of the
tldr I wish I could go back in time and
like shake myself and be like this is 5
years of your life take it seriously
wake up and slap myself around a little
I mean I did take it serious seriously
but it's still I mean to this day really
hard for me to wrap myself around wrap
my head around uh how much of my life
this has occupied and the energy that's
gone into it and it's still going you
can see those bars go off to the right
because promotion basically never
ends so basically here's how I'd think
of
it yes there yes it is 5 years at least
but each year is so different the energy
that you you are expending and the
proportion of your time that's going
into it very
wildly uh as you can kind of see just by
looking at this towards the early years
um there's not much going on a lot of it
is just waiting you're just waiting for
things to happen or you're slowly
working on you know one thing at a
time and then a couple years in or a few
years in suddenly everything starts
happening all at once it's the critical
path as suddenly you went from just
locadas sort of doing your little author
thing to having to hire people and build
things and spend a lot of money and make
decisions as you can see in the
middle so that's kind of like the it's
like a bell curve the the activity and
intensity starts low gets high and then
it kind of more slowly tapers off as you
just keep promoting it doing things like
YouTube like
courses um of course all that is up to
you how much of that you do some authors
launch the book and then just they're on
to the next thing I really don't
recommend you do that I recommend you uh
really swing for the fences which it
sounds like you're doing I think that's
the only way that traditional publishing
makes sense is if you swing for the
fences it's kind of like raising VC
funding um
but I can sort of see in this timeline a
few lessons um that I'll kind of
highlight uh things I would have done
differently uh the first one is really
especially in that middle part like the
the peak of the bell
curve um I I basically didn't change
anything in my life I'm used to handling
multiple projects multiple goals at the
same time especially with my second
brain notes and I just thought this is
just one more project and it was for a
while but then when that middle part hit
it was really crushing and overwhelming
especially also uh having you know my
first kid and then the second one in
that time uh I really should have more
thoughtfully and strategically set aside
like all my bandwidth or nearly all of
it you know I had other people teach the
cohorts which I was still teaching at
this time um said no to way more other
projects that I really didn't need to do
uh spent more money although I did spend
a lot of money anyway uh it really was a
surprise to me how intense that middle
period was uh and I could have prepared
for it better
what else um let's see so you can see
you know it took a couple months few
months to hire my agent and my editor
then took a long time like almost a year
it was like nine months to write my
proposal I really wanted to get it
perfect and then this is when things
really started happening is when we sold
the book cuz then the book was actually
going to happen uh and even then it took
what is this almost 6 months just to do
the paperwork the Contracting if you can
believe that so you don't really want to
start on writing the book until it's
like signed sealed and delivered so
right when you're really excited to get
going and you want to jump into it
you're just sitting around for six
months I mean of course you can get
started and I did a little bit here so
after six months of more or less waiting
and just kind of passively reading and
researching I started on the
manuscript but even this is kind of
deceptive I mean according to this I
went on 1 two 3 four five six quarters
so what is that a year and a half but
that was from the very very first words
on the page all the way to the final
final Final deadline and that's
something that was really a surprise to
me is they call every deadline a final
deadline and so in the blogging world
you're used to you know hitting publish
and that's it that's the one deadline
but in publishing uh there's like three
or four quote unquote final deadlines
the first one that you that you submit
which they'll call a final manuscript is
only final in the sense that everything
is there more or less it's not final and
like you know you've you've polished
every sentence you found every typo
everything is perfect so I put way too
much energy and stress into the first
final deadline when in fact I had
another like six to eight months to
further work on him so that's one thing
to watch out
for um I found that within the I mean in
total there's probably four five six
individual deadlines within this period
so almost one a quarter if you think
about it uh and I found that the energy
and time I was putting in was very
concentrated around deadlines I think
that's why they do it that way uh most
people have trouble maintaining
intensity for months at a time so the
two to four weeks between each or before
each deadline I would really find the uh
the the wherewithal to push everything
else aside and really go deep on that
which I think is kind of how you should
do it how it makes
sense um I worked with a promotional
agency p them six figures which I would
not do again we can talk more about why
um but I think your money and time is
much better spent down here building
your own platforms and own systems that
was also way too long if you're going to
work with an agency just do just do two
to three months which is more than
enough time for them to do the few
things that they do so around Q3
2021 which was a little less than a year
before uh the book came out I hired a
project manager that was an excellent
idea really good idea even if they're
part-time even if they're a contractor
which they should be uh there's so much
minutia that you have to take care of
and it all arrives right in this period
that you can least afford to pay it
attention uh I would just pay them a
reasonable amount I think I overpaid as
usual uh to just be your assistant they
don't need to be a PM or a senior role
just have them be there from kind of the
beginning like the beginning of the
intense period so that when you hand
something off to them or forward them an
email they have all the
context uh the other thing we did during
this time was designed a complete brand
identity uh around the book plus a Media
Kit that had all the stuff head shot and
typography and colors to use and dos and
don'ts and Sample slides and all the
stuff that was an amazing investment I
think it was 20 or
25k uh but what it did is allowed
anytime anyone had any question internal
or external or they were creating any
kind of asset or whatever you could just
send them and I had it on a on a like a
text shortcut because I was using it so
often the media kit that literally had
everything they could possibly need
right uh so that was
good then um around Q the middle of Q4
2021 uh pre-orders opened that's why
promotion starts uh that was for us 7
months it's November 2021 book came out
June 202
2 so we had just about 7even months of
pre-orders which is long I think we did
make use of it um so I wouldn't have
changed it but that is on the longer end
of how much time you'll
have uh between right here and the
release those S months we sold just
short of 13,000 pre-orders which is
quite good uh especially for a first
time book uh was enough to get us on the
Wall Street Journal list but not the New
York Times list so keep that in mind all
right so I'd say the year before release
was the most intense right
because you can already promote the book
so everything entailed in promotion is
happening because pre-orders have opened
and yet there's a whole another round of
things that have to be ready for the
actual release uh when people can
actually read it including you know by
the way finishing the book so that was a
kind of funny thing was to be promoting
the pre-orders really hard and I don't
even have the final version of the book
ready uh it's really weird how these
things overlap uh so that's the
release uh and then I have kind of this
lower quadrant here which is such a
paradox which is you know you're trying
to have this book launch be not this
oneoff thing not be a uh a flash in the
pan and so there's all these big
platforms you want to build and kind of
need to build
that are enormous Endeavors in their own
right right people dedicate themselves
just to doing this without writing a
book so one thing we did is around
August
2019 uh this was a few quarters after I
first you know began working on the
project we moved to convertkit because I
saw that MailChimp was not going to do
it uh and that was such an important
decision convert kit has so many
features that are they design for
creators but also work really well for
authors um that I could I could go into
more but uh convertkit was was huge but
it's also complicated like email
marketing tends to be these days so it
took me like two
years and during this period I didn't
have employees so this was basically Me
by myself took me so long to feel like I
really figured convert kit out uh so
many tests and trial and error and
reading things uh Brennan Den's
mastering convict convert kit course was
like my Bible I just followed that thing
like a religion which was so helpful uh
and we we over the course of this period
basically adopted his entire stack all
the different pieces that he recommends
and in some cases offers
himself uh once that was finished
although it really never finishes right
you're always kind of improving your
email funnel only when I kind of felt
comfortable handing that off to someone
that's what happened about here when I
hired our head of marketing um did I
feel comfortable really turning my
attention to
YouTube um that was right around here uh
when we started investing in it
seriously by Hiring Our my first YouTube
general manager so that's what happened
right here this is when we started
spending money on it started buying
equipment started really taking it
seriously and I think the first video
that came out was very beginning oh no
it was February 2022 so right about here
so we invested like like a full quarter
or more in YouTube before a single video
came
out um and uh that is ongoing obviously
that's also forever right so not only
are you building these huge platforms
from scratch in some cases but you also
have to sustain them forever and somehow
do that either by yourself or find the
money somehow to pay them when most of
your time is going to writing a book
which does not make money it's spending
money so I don't know how people do this
um it was pretty stressful uh the other
thing I'll note here
is once the book was released I mean
ideally I would have had a self-paced
course at a reasonable kind of lower
price ready to go right here right that
would have been dream scenario but of
course I didn't I had the cohorts which
I I found were just way too expensive
for someone buying a book right you
don't pay 15 or 20 bucks for a book and
then say you know what I think the next
thing I should do is buy a $1,500
cohort so we didn't see a rise in sales
of the cohort in fact we saw a decline
it was really only a few quarters later
once we had the bandwidth to create a
brand new self-paced course um that we
really were able to make the economics
of this book make sense up until this
point you know three and a half quarters
after the release did we actually break
even on the thing and this first course
actually didn't do that well because it
was the exact same material as the book
that was a big lesson people don't want
to by what they just read in the book as
a course it was really only the second
course which is pillars of productivity
a brand new course that expanded and
went beyond what was in the book uh
which just launched in on Black Friday
couple months ago did the whole
financial picture of the book actually
become really compelling and be
something that was very Roi
positive what happened to our email list
so this blue line that's kind of
superimposed in the background is our
email subscriber
numbers uh the scale here over on the
left is the is the right scale right so
this was when we moved from MailChimp to
convertkit we only had I think we only
had 6,000 subscribers which had taken me
like six or seven years of extremely
slow growth to
achieve uh so I moved over to convertkit
that's that vertical line right
there and from then until the release
which was three years later it was
pretty slow growth it went from you know
6,000 to by the time the book was
actually released I think it was like 60
60,000 or so subscribers so not bad
actually that was 10x
growth um but what's really interesting
to see is that after the release it's
kind of hard to see at the scale but
there was quite an inflection point the
growth rate from here to here was really
changed after the release from there to
there right right so from the release 18
months ago until today it's it's more
than doubled from 65,000 or so to almost
140,000 so you see the clear effect of
the book and YouTube which unfortunately
kind of started around the same time and
so I can't really figure out how much of
the email growth is from the book and
how much from YouTube but it's probably
both because those are both very high
reach uh
channels um and so you see here when we
when we created these two courses the
one reason they they did so well
especially the second one was that we
had built such a big email list uh
organically by that time so I guess
there was some advantage in having some
time elapse from the release to the the
launch of the self-paced courses the
other thing I wanted to see was Book
Sales so I've actually never looked at
this it's kind of interesting uh
pre-orders began right here so that's
zero this is using the same scale um um
as email subscribers by the way so the
whole pre-order period 7 months we
achieved 13,000
pre-orders then it took us uh about 3/4s
about 9 months to go from 13,000 to
100,000 uh So within a year of release
we had reached 100,000 sales uh
sales then
from basically March the end of March
2023 to to essentially today so 9 months
it's gone from 100K to
180k uh if you added another quarter
here I think it would reach 200k so
we're on a very approximately 100,000
Pere run rate which is nice but you can
kind of see here since these are on the
same scale exactly when the sales of the
book went from being primarily driven by
my platforms right here to crossing over
and actually they re they both reached
100,000 around the same time but there
was that inflection point where from
here to here the sales were clearly
driven by something other than me in my
platforms which I think is that extra
distribution and word of mouth and all
the other things that you do to kind of
go beyond your own
reach uh and I'm hoping this red line
obviously continues to go up uh but
that's basically the The fiveyear Arc
The Five-Year big picture view that I've
never looked at myself until right now
and is
tremendously um insightful and
perspective shifting for me uh I'm
hoping there were some things in there
that benefit you that you learn from but
um just let me know if you have any
questions on any aspect of this
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