EPISODE 9

Preview:

How much it cost me to write my book is probably going to blow your mind. It did not cost me 20 grand to write my book. It did not cost me 15 grand or 10 grand. It cost me $21.

(INTRO MUSIC PLAYS)

Yo! Yo! Yo! What is up party people. Welcome to Fan Question Friday. Before we jump in, in today’s episode where we will be talking about how it’s way easier to write a book in 2018 than you think. Couple things first of all I just barely did something for you Android people so before first of all I’m giving away something every single episode every single episode I have this giveaway I’ve given away like a poop emoji fidget spinner gave away like an awesome headset giving away something every single episode. And how people have entered to win is leaving a review on the podcast and you can do that certainly by going to calvinwayman.com/podcastreview thank you to every single person that has already left to review it means the world to me because that means more people are getting a chance to join the podcast. But for you Android users it’s been kind of tough to leave a review on iTunes. So I came up with a new way to win or at least be a part of the contest and is this.

If you’re listening right now whether on Apple device or on Android then you can screenshot you listening to the podcast post it anywhere on social media Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and just hashtag it #CuriousWithCalvinWayman. So you can do that right now if you’re listening to this you can do a screenshot with the #CuriousWithCalvinWayman and you are entered to win any of the giveaways that we do every single episode. And what’s also cool is if you haven’t caught the buzz yet I’m also giving away a fucking car and that is for real. The goal is to get 2,000 subscribers and of course that’s kind of the one big caveat or the small print if you will that to give the car away we need 2000 subscribers or reviewers rather. But here’s the thing it’s not like I’m not giving it away it is happening no matter what. So we that just needs to happen first the 2000 reviewers thing but my aim is to get that in the first year we have a bunch of reviews on there already. So it for you to enter the contest with either a review or doing a screenshot you have a raffle ticket to win the car. So that’s a new thing I did for your Android users the Apple users can do that as well so again to enter any of the giveaways that we do every episode including the big car giveaway you can now do a screenshot with the #CuriousWithCalvinWayman and you are entered to win. Cool. So let’s jump in now this has been a ton of fun I’m loving this Fan Question Friday concept.

I foresee it getting larger and larger and having a ton of questions and something that I wanted to talk about today is a question that I get kind of often and it’s a question around writing a book. And I wanted to talk about it because I know there’s several people listening to this that want to write a book or have an idea to write a book. And they have all these big barriers in the way in their head with writing a book. And I know it’s the case because I was the exact same way.

And right now I’m actually running a course called “Hello you where I’m guiding a few first-time authors and writing their first book and I know like what they thought when the course started or even before. And what made them want to join the course to write their first book and there was these big barriers and so just wanted to touch about touch on and I think it’s gonna be a fairly short episode but I just want to break some myths. So here’s some myths around writing your first book.

Big myth is people think it requires a shitload of money and I’ve asked this question on my Facebook like how much money does it cost to write a book. This is the biggest myth I want to bust because it was a big myth in my mind and so many people said like 5 grand 10 grand 15 grand 20 grand to write a book at a publisher. And the big thing I want to say of the bat is how much it cost me to write my book is probably going to blow your mind. It did not cost me 20 grand to write my book it did not cost me 15 grand or 10 grand. It cost me $21. Yes $21, not twenty one hundred dollars, not twenty one thousand twenty one fucking dollars. And that $21 went to one thing it just was to hire somebody of Fiver to help me design the cover of the fish jumping out of the fish ball for my book “Fish Out of Water”.

By the way let me quickly plug myself if you want to see my book or read it you can go to calvinwayman.com/book. But yeah 21 books that’s it and that’s insane like if you think about it in times past maybe even in the 80s it would have cost a shitload of money to get a book or to have a publisher and all that. But it doesn’t take that right now in the world we live in. In fact this is not just an e-book either this is not just a digital book because people might think well you need to have a certain number of copies to get the cost now and you need to it’s like anything else you got to buy a bunch of copies so that it’s the cost per unit is way lower.

Not a not the world we live in now. Literally right now I have no inventory for the book except for any books that I bought myself. I have a stack of books here that I have here in Austin because I like giving them out as gifts if I meet someone like my Erben b-host. But other than that my book literally has no inventory and if you were to go buy my book off the Amazon right now even though my book has no inventory it would be purchased created and printed on your doorstep within 2 days. If you have Amazon Prime. That’s insane like literally going from not existing just being a digital file to where Amazon creates it prints it ships it on your doorstep within two days. It’s the same that’s the world we live in and that’s possible for you too if you want to write a book. So I just want to give some kind of guided things here so I hope I’ve busted that money myth that you need a lot of money to write a book because you don’t.

You might have needed to in the time class but you don’t so how did I write my book? I literally wrote my entire book on Google Drive in Google Docs or on my computer and where do you go from there? Let’s say you’re you have the content for the book and then where’d he go. Well there’s probably multiple options but what I used is Amazons create space and so I’m a big fan of it I’m not affiliated with this in any freaking way. I’m just using telling you the exact same thing I used. So if you have a book idea or a book that you have written you could go publish it right now and you can do it just by going to create space .com creating an account. An account and uploading.

It’s that simple upload the file. And that’s kind of the main thing I want to kind of give on this short episode is that if you have a message to share with the world. You don’t have to wait you don’t need anyone else’s permission like enough permission asking can we just stop with the needing of permission it’s something that I’ve dealt with in my own entrepreneurial journey and I still do in so many ways like thinking I need permission like I need permission to be a millionaire with the fuck am I waiting to get permission from. Like who are you waiting to get permission from to write your book no need anymore you can just do it. So create spaces the big thing is the thing I did for me. Now I think I want to give a few more tactical tips on how to actually get started with your book. People that’s a big thing for people is like how to actually get started.

First of all the book process the book writing process does not have to be five years either my entire book process was about  month and a half so six weeks from start to finish for the book “Fish Out of Water”. And how I did that is I just got focused and like super intensely liked it for two days and got shit done and once you realize that it doesn’t have to take forever then you can like block things out you can focus on the book that’s the one main priority for a long time and you can just bust it and get it done.

This is something that I’m doing in my course right now to push over that first big domino because once you get momentum going chances are you’ll keep going. So first of all if you haven’t started writing your book at all here’s one simple way to get started something that I recommend to all people and that is block out 15 minutes on your calendar to start. That’s it. 15 minutes. Write the title get some basic concepts in and then you if you want to take it to the next step you can do this concept that I call the Puke Athan.

So this Puke Athan is to make it really really serious. If you’re really serious about getting your book done in a fast way. And what the puke Athan is, is something I’m having people doing my course so just this is just a tactical thing to push it on get along your way get moving down the road and that is block out 2 days where you lock yourself in your office with no distractions no email no cell phone no conversations with the outside world for real. And if you have a significant other that can bring you food even better things that keep you in the office sleep in there if you if you need to and your whole job is just to write.

So that’s the Puke Athan the two day thing this is what I have people do this is what got me going off getting off the ground. Now there’s one other thing that you can do in the Puke athan why do I call it a Puke Athan first of all I call it that because the whole goal is to get the book out of you to puke it out of you. So many of us are perfectionists and we want to edit along the way that will be the quickest way to end the progress with your book. You need to just get it out of you out of your head and onto paper or into some digital form like it needs to be come into the real world outside of your brain. So you need to not worry about it being so perfect and just puke it out of you.

Now I’m gonna share with you the system that I use to puke my book out of me and what a lot of my students are using right now too. It’s something we’re in like you can if you just try typing you can try that if you like to just talk in a recorder and let it transcribe it cool that’s a way too. But this is what I use something called the post-it note method now what the post-it note method yeah I know super high-tech it is post-it notes. All you’re doing is any main idea that you have for your book you write it on a post-it note and stick it to the wall and in that two days that’s the first thing you do and if all you’re doing in that two days is writing on post-it notes perfect you’re gonna be well on your way with writing your first book.

So how it works is? Any single main idea you have write on a post-it note stick it to the wall if you have any story that’s related to your book write it on a post-it note stick it to the wall if there’s anything that you don’t want to forget some lesson that you think’s tied to your book write on a post-it don’t stick it to the wall before you’ll know it you’ll have a you have a wall full of post-it notes then you can look at the post-it notes and see if they trigger any other idea that you think is gonna be a part of your book.

You write on the post-it note again and stick it to the wall. Then when you think you’ve exhausted all ideas start organizing your prostate notes by organizing your post-it notes and putting them in sections it will also  jigger other ideas that are deeper around your book write on post-it notes and stick to the wall you’ll go from thinking that you didn’t have enough content for your book to realizing you have way more content than you know what to do with. You’ll start to wonder if you’re writing one book or five books and that’s a great idea. Do not filter keep writing anything that might be related to your book write on a post-it note and stick it to the wall. And then when you feel like you’ve exhausted everything and you have it organized then you can really start eliminating. Take out post notes that you don’t think are actually tied to your book and get your book main concepts they’re on your wall.

This has been such a powerful tool that other authors have used other first-time authors that it’s just awesome. And again this is something that some of my students in a course that I’m doing are doing and it’s working so what’s really cool is once you have your main concepts puked out of you and on the wall. Then the writing part becomes easy you then take a post-it note off fall off the wall that talks about a main story or main concept and you now know what to write about.

You do this. You do it for two days I promise you. You will get the book out of you so I just wanted to hopefully use this episode to encourage you to let you know you have a message to share. And if you’re someone that has always wanted to write a book there’s nobody stopping you but you. We live in a world now where you can get it out of you and you can publish it and nobody can’t like nobody’s gonna stop you from publishing it but yourself and your own limitations and I hope I put the made the walls a little bit lower so that you realize you don’t have any limitation.

You can publish a book essentially for free. Again for me $21 no big deal and so I hope you use this to realize yes if you really want to write a book you can do it. It doesn’t take a lot of time doesn’t take hardly it takes almost no money today and it can have such a dramatic upside in your entire life just having something out there into the world helping your business and everything else. So I hope you see the upside is way greater than the then the work to put it in such an awesome thing I can’t wait to do it again to write another book probably not happening in 2018 but certainly by like 2020 I want to have my second book out. But I’m wanna wrap it up here. I want this Fan Question Friday to be a short episode just to break down any burders. If you guys have any other questions related to book writing you can shoot me in email calvinwayman@gmail.com or you can reach out to me on any of the social channels.

I’m most active on Facebook and Twitter so feel free to reach out. And if you want a question for Fan Question Friday if you want a question that will be featured on the next week’s episode then all you got to do is either email me a question at calvinwayman@gmail.com or you can ask me a question on any of the social channels and hashtag it #CuriousWithCalvinWayman let me know it’s a question for the Fan Question Friday and if your question is picked I will talk about it on next week’s episode and I will also shout you out. So feel free any questions you have either deeper related to writing a book anything related to entrepreneurship business coaching social media any of the previous guests anything that you’re curious about let me know submit it to my email calvinwayman@gmail.com or post it on social media and hashtag get #CuriousWithCalvinWayman and we’ll get your question on the show.

And finally there’s gonna be a giveaway with this episode just like every other episode. So if you want to have your chance to win screenshot that you’re listening to this podcast right now hashtag are #CuriousWithCalvinWayman you’ll get a raffle ticket and that raffle ticket will be for this giveaway for today and also you’ll have that raffle ticket for good until we do the car giveaway. So do that as well to join in the fun. I’m Calvin Wayman thank you so much for listening to the podcast and I will see you on Monday. Peace out.