What it’s like to write and self-publish a book (the behind-the-scenes of how to get your book to rank as an Amazon bestseller)

With the release of my new book – UnReasonable Transformation, I wanted to share what happened behind the scenes and what I learned if it might help other aspiring writers.

Why I wrote it

I don’t identify as someone who’s “made it” in life, I’m not a guru, I’m not someone successful claiming to show you how to find success. I’m still on that journey myself, but I do believe that the things I’ve learned have put me on a clear and purposeful path towards my destination. I’d like to share them so that you may gain the tangible tools and confidence to move forward with pursuing your interest and being the change you wish to see in the world.

To help the lost/wanderers find their way

When I graduated from UBC back in 2010, I was a ship without a compass; I knew that I wanted to go places, make it big, but I didn’t know where I wanted to go, how to get there, and what steps I needed to take to get started.

Because I didn’t know what direction to go in, I decided that the best thing to do was to first focus on developing myself as an individual. That led to me diving into personal development, self-help, and leadership. After pouring through tonnes of books, videos, and resources, I found that many of them were often:

• Lengthy and fluffy – choked full of anecdotes, examples, explanations, and references.
  • Just get to the point and tell me exactly what I need to do!
• Not actionable
  • Many tell you WHAT to do e.g. talk about the importance of purpose or the importance of doing what you love. But few show you HOW to find your purpose or figure out what it is you love.

Since then, I’ve read, watched, and listened to hundreds of books, podcast, videos, talks, and workshops. Combined with what I’ve learned through supporting over 500 entrepreneurs, I had a burning need to summarize all my life lessons in a logical manner.

As a legacy to help guide my child(ren)

Being a new father and an introvert, I foresee that I may not be able to give the best advice verbally. I’ve always been much more articulate on paper. I hope that Toby will get to read this one day without the perspective of me lecturing him as a parent.

As a vent for my values

My core values are Growth, Contribution, and Authenticity.

I’ve always felt the need to share what I’ve learned to help make the road a little less bumpy for others. Writing this was as cathartic for me as it was valuable for those who read it.

Not for profit

I’m not a professional author, nor is my book a lead generator that will serve my current business by opening up more opportunities. I’m not expecting this to be a massively successful book that will sit on the shelves alongside other must-reads like Think & Grow Rich, Atomic Habits, Lean Startup, or Grit. Though if it does make it big, I’ll be eternally appreciative of my opportunity to make such a meaningful impact in the lives of many.

As such, it is priced to be affordable and accessible to as many people as possible.

What it was like writing it

Deciding on the topic

This was the easy part, I didn’t need much time or support with untangling my thoughts and putting pen to paper.

Organizing + ensuring a good flow

This was probably one of the most difficult parts. If you don’t already know me, I like to be organized and logical. It took at least 3 different iterations on this book to develop this logical roadmap that gives you step-by-step advice on how to begin creating change and follow through with it.

Sitting my ass down and writing it!

Writing itself wasn’t too difficult, I tend to write like how I would speak (problem is – it isn’t always grammatically correct). To get started, I simply needed to schedule regular writing times into my calendar for every workday. Having that regular cadence also helped me carry the momentum to completion, it ensured that I did not have to overcome a huge momentum to restart if I stopped writing for a period of time.

2 things that helped:

• Being cooped up at home in 2019 due to COVID.
• Being self-employed/my own “boss”

Reference checking

I’m a skeptic by nature, I often want to see proof and facts before taking any advice for granted. Being a book about personal development, this was a little challenging. Many lessons came from personal experiences, anecdotes, and reflections/insights (which are often coloured by our personal biases). I’ve tried my best to reference resources, articles, or books to point you in the right direction, but recognize that there won’t be the same level of scientific vigour here as you might find in other research or topic-specific books.

I opted to link to a reference page hosted on my website instead of having a built-in reference page in the book. This would allow me to monitor & fix any broken links if the cited resources get adjusted.

Editing

• I’ve re-read and proofed the book at least 5 times myself (but I’m sure there are still a bunch of things that I might have missed).
• I also contracted a freelance editor to review and point out any spelling, grammar, or logical/flow problems in the book.
  • Thanks Viveca!
• To add to that, I also had 5 “beta readers” whom I gave free access to the book in exchange for editing + feedback work.
  • Thanks Miranda, Tiffany, Adrian, Fulya, and Henrique!

How I self-published

Self vs. Traditional Publishing

Publisher

By no means comprehensive, but here are the main points I evaluated

Self-publishing

I ended-up with a hybrid choice – Hired a publishing advisor to guide me through self-publishing.

• Thanks Leigh & Sandi for your support!

I found their guidance valuable because:

• It helped me understand what needs to happen and in what order.
• Kept me accountable to my deadlines.
• Leigh helped with managing the competition for my book cover design. His insight on best practices ensured that I would get a maximum # of submissions and a good variety of designs to select from.
• Sandi supported my Amazon pre-order launch and was crucial for helping my book hit Bestseller & Hot-new-release status in various categories.

Self-publishing through Amazon

I understand that some people have made a conscious and intentional decision to boycott Amazon due to their unethical practices.

However, as a self-publisher, they were my best and only option for my paperback because they were the most affordable + convenient. Print on-demand would allow me avoid carrying any inventory and reduce upfront investment.

Formatting

Probably the most painful process to go through once you’re done writing a book. If I could do this over and if I had a larger budget, I would hire someone else to format my book for me.

Some tips if you’re going to attempt formatting on your own:

• Write your draft in Google Doc, it makes it easiest for collaboration – commenting, tracking changes, multiple editors working on it at the same time.
• Once your book is “done”, copy it over to a Word Doc (you’ll need the word doc for Amazon, they don’t accept Google Doc).
  • You can download one of their templates to ensure you get the right margins in place.
  • Start formatting your paperback first, even if you plan on releasing your e-book before your paperback.
    • If you use Kindle Create to format your reflowable e-book first, you can’t copy the final text back into a Word Doc.
    • You’ll want to format your paperback first because you’ll likely catch a few more errors while formatting. It’ll be a lot easier to just import your final Word Doc to format in Kindle Create instead of having to cross-check your paperback to ensure it’s current with any new changes you’ve made to the e-book copy.

How to become an Amazon Bestseller

So here’s the dirty secret. Apparently, to cinch the Bestseller title or be recognized by Amazon’s algorithms as a Hot-new-release. You need to push a high volume of orders within a 24-hour window (the main window is actually 4-hours) but 24-hours counts. It doesn’t matter when your 24-hour starts/ends.

You can price at the minimum cost and change your pricing after – those that pre-order at your minimum cost are honored into that early pricing when it actually gets released.

What affects your chances?

• The categories you pick and how competitive they are.
• Which Amazon region you’re getting your orders from.
• How many other new books are being released on that same day you choose to release.
• Orders for existing books in the categories you select for that day.

Because of those variables, it can be as easy as hitting 5 orders to make the Bestseller list for a really niche category, or take a few hundred orders to do the same for popular competitive categories.

Marketing

As someone who lacks marketing experience, this it my one biggest weakness. Here are a few things I did:

• Ran a Workshop series a month leading up to the release.
  • Workshop topics were related to the content in the book.
  • I would tease the book at the end. It’s important not to actually have them pre-order the book at the end of the workshop, tease it the pre-order push date and tell them to watch out for the email with more details.
  • Emails you collect from attendee registration help build your promotion list.
• Newsletter
  • Promoted it to my newsletter base of about 1,200 subscribers.
• Facebook + LinkedIn
  • Crafted a post and ask for the day.
  • Posted twice on both FB and LinkedIn
• Direct messaging – Text/Whatsapp/Facebook Message
  • Didn’t send any LinkedIn messages.
  • Sent about 40 text messages, probably about 500-700 FB messages.

Results

165 orders in my 24-hour window.

Bestseller in:

• CA- #1 bestseller in 13 categories!
  • #8 for ALL books
  • #2 in all of Self-Help
  • Notably: Business Life, Business Consulting, Small Business & Entrepreneurship, Business Management & Leadership, Career Guides, Job Hunting & Careers, Vocational Guidance, Decision Making & Problem Solving, Personal Transformation
• AU- #1 bestseller in 3 categories
  • Notably: Business Consulting, New Business Enterprises
• US- #1 bestseller in 1 category
• DE- top 10 placement in 1 category

Too many #1s in different categories for Hot-New-Release so I won’t go into that, it’s easier to rank #1 in Hot-New-Release compared to ranking #1 as a Bestseller since they only pit how you’re performing against other recently released books.

What’s next?

I don’t have any immediate plans for additional promotion/marketing or book signing (who would want my signature anyways? I’m a nobody).

To be honest, I’m not sure, I’m just glad it’s done with right now. I’m hoping that early readers get good value out of it and will refer and share the book with others who may benefit from it. I’ll likely add and make revisions to it as I learn new things in life, I’ll keep a changelog so that current readers won’t have to re-read the whole book to get any new points.

How do I feel now that it’s officially released and done?

Relieved that It’s off my chest and I won’t have to look at it for a while again.

A little like an imposter – yes, like everyone else, I’m victim to the Imposter Syndrome as well. There’s always a nagging voice that says “But who are you to give me advice?” “Why would anyone want to read your book?” “Bestselling author? You’re just a fraud that gamed it to make it into the rankings!”. However, I’ll ignore that little voice for now and focus on other more pressing priorities and get on with my business.

For now, if you’d like to check out the book, below are the links to it on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca: