Someone recently asked me why I write this series. These books donāt necessarily have actionable advice, theyāre not focused on any single topic, and, to some people, they might be perceived as vain.
I write this series for several reasons.
First, I write it for myself because by doing so, I am more likely to retain the information I learn. If I can articulate concepts simply in 500 to 1,000 words, then I've grasped them.
Next, I wrote this series because of great advice I heard from Gary Vaynerchuk a long time ago. He recommends that influencers and entrepreneurs should "document" their progress and use marketing tools as practitioners of those tools. People will follow you because they're interested in the process and the steps you're taking. That has been insanely true for my writing business.
This series will continue to build in value with every volume I create. Every four volumes (which represents a year, except for the first year), the series quadruples in value. I keep reminding myself of just how powerful a series like this can be ten years from now, or when my career really takes off.
I don't know of a single mega-bestselling author who documents their day-to-day experience like I am doing. For example, I believe it would be immensely valuable to know what Dean Koontz was learning early in his career, especially events that shaped his writing. People would pay a lot of money for that.
Therefore, if I start documenting my progress now while I'm a relative nobody, and I keep it up even when it's not financially lucrative to do so, and if I write honestly, thoughtfully, and intentionally, there's no telling what could happen with this series.
At the time of this writing, each volume of the series is worth $4.99. Every year, I add approximately $10 in value to the series. I do have an anthology collection that pulls all the quarterly volumes together, so I would expect a reader to buy that over the individual volumes.
With the current number of volumes I have published, if a reader bought the entire series, that would gross around $20 if they bought the anthologies (which would net me $14), and $40 if they bought the individual volumes (which would net me $28). Thatās per person, for just the early volumes in this series.
If 1,000 people bought this series in its entirety, that would make me between $20,000 and $40,000.
Traditional publishers would laugh you out of the room if you told them you were only going to sell 1,000 copies of a series. Successful indie authors would laugh you out of the room if you told them you were only going to sell 1,000 copies too.
But here's where they completely miss the point: this is just one series. And sales of this series could help to improve sales of my other titles too.
If I become a bestselling author with a lucrative career, I'll be making way more than $20,000 or $40,000, so this series just adds to my profit. Hell, that money is the equivalent of many peopleās salaries. Ten years from now, I'll have way more books in this series, and the average value per reader will be over $200.
If I do the same math but ten years from now, if I sell just 1,000 copies of this series, that will between $200,000 and $400,000.
Again, for just one series. For just 1,000 people. I'm assuming that this series will not be a bestseller. If it becomes one, the math changes.
Funny how the numbers add up like that.
Are these numbers delusional? No. Ambitious? Yes. But if Iāve learned anything over the last decade, itās always to bet on yourself and that success happens in ways that you least expect.
