Five years ago this month I made a decision. After self-publishing my first book, The Entrepreneurs Guidebook, I had caught the attention of a publisher in Malaysia, who published the first edition of Lifestyle Entrepreneur.
That experience of traveling around Asia and speaking about lifestyle design & entrepreneurship, meeting people who told me my book inspired them, in turn, inspired me. So I attended a number of author events in America and found a publisher to release and updated and expanded edition of Lifestyle Entrepreneur.
All the preparation and anticipation eliminated in my book coming out stateside in March 2014. It was then that I made a decision to start a publishing company. I had been informally advising a few author friends and the experience of helping their books come to life, coupled with my own nascent success as an author all pointed the way.
I put together a business plan for Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Press and flew to Shanghai to meet a wealthy investor friend of mine. Sitting high above The Bund, overlooking the Shanghai skyline I recorded the audiobook for Lifestyle Entrepreneur in a most appropriate fashion and prepared to present my plan for the publishing company, along with a request for $50,000 to get it off the ground.
We met in the Roosevelt Club, an exclusive VIP members club overlooking the riverfront and iconic skyscrapers of Pudong. Besides a delicious meal and engaging conversation, nothing else came from it. But my decision was made. So I self-funded the publishing business to get it off the ground.
In those early days I did it all; advise on content, hire editors, work closely with cover designers, develop the launch strategy and build and run ads for each launch.
One thing led to another and we had some initial successes. So I launched a training course, then started hosting live events, Bestseller Summit Live in 2015, 2016 & 2017. I hired staff, empowered them, built a culture and an audience, built meaning in the name Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Press.
“The hardest working man in the book business,” one author said. “The author’s secret weapon,” said another. For the love of books, I went all in. Invested everything I had. Leveraged myself to accelerate and go from strength to strength, disregarding anything that wasn’t inline with my vision.
Soon we had dozens of authors, signed a distribution deal and – 3 years later – actually didraise $50,000. The team grew, payroll grew, my responsibilities and obligations grew and for the love of books I leaned in further at every opportunity.
For years I wanted Ingram Publisher Services to be our distribution and sales partner. For years we just weren’t big enough yet. Then, last year at BookExpo NY we had a corner booth, exhibiting for the second year in a row with back-to-back author signings, me a proud publisher watching our authors work the floor, sign books, shake hands and press the flesh just I like did many years ago…and then it happened!
The director of publisher acquisitions for Ingram Publisher Services came by our booth and all our authors turned on the charm. We sat down, talked numbers and agreed to follow-up soon. When he walked away I dropped to my knees in the middle of the conference floor and thanked God for the opportunity.
This, less than one year ago. We signed the deal. Fate paved a way to get out of our previous distribution deal 18 months before the term and now I am sitting in Nashville, TN after previewing our Fall 2019 releases to the 50+ sales team at Ingram Global HQ.
For the love of books, I never gave up. For the love of books, there was always just enough. For the love of books, 5 years later we have 90+ books under contract and despite the extreme emotional roller coaster that I’ve been on for the last half a decade, I have never been more excited, never been more committed, never been more optimistic for the glorious future that lies ahead.
Not just for the next 5 years, but the next 50 and the next 500 because books have an infinite shelf life. And the work I’m doing now, the moment I am in now working on close to 20 books at once will transcend me. It will live on long after I’m gone, will inspire and instruct the next generation to passionately pursue their every dream.
The first time I met Daniel Munro, he wasn’t yet envisioning becoming an author and I wasn’t a publisher.
It was 2012, and Dan was working as a probation officer while using his spare time to study personal development. During his exploration, he picked up a copy of my best-selling book, “Lifestyle Entrepreneur,” and was inspired by the lessons he encountered.
Shortly after reading my book, Dan was driven to do something different — to step outside the rat race.
That “something different” was to write a book conveying many of the ideas and the methodology he’d developed through his own studies.
Dan spent two solid weeks over the Christmas holidays writing the first draft of what would eventually become “The Legendary Life: Build the Motivation and Confidence to Create an Authentic Lifestyle.”
But it wasn’t quite there yet. After sharing his manuscript with a handful of friends and family, they ripped the draft to shreds.
Based on their feedback, he tripled the word count, adding examples, stories, and layers of authenticity to his book.
The goal was to share his knowledge with a wider audience and establish himself as a “confidence coach,” helping others towards the discoveries he’d made himself.
When he finally felt he was ready, he self-published his book to Amazon Kindle. He pushed the “publish” button and the labor of love was met with… crickets.
He sold about five copies …mostly to people he knew.
Dan did some research on publishing with a traditional publisher and even wrote query letters to almost a dozen agents, hoping one would agree to represent him.
Only one responded, and they said no.
Publishing seemed like a closed system — you couldn’t get in unless you were already in. And Dan was securely on the outside — or so he thought.
Because of this, Dan resigned to himself that he’d never be an author, so to speak, but that the book he wrote would be a resource he’d give to his coaching clients.
And then Dan happened to send me a nice email, thanking me for the knowledge that set him on the path to writing his own book and establishing a new career path.
That’s how our relationship began.
I answered quickly, and a correspondence began. Within short order, it came up that Dan had written and self-published a book of his own.
A few more exchanges, and suddenly Dan had a new publisher — Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Press.
Working with Dan was a no-brainer. I had a personal connection with him and our value aligned.
Dan used his book to build a business and Dan used Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Press to raise his profile and reach a larger, international audience with his ideas and message.
Also, the idea of having a physical book, not just an electronic version, was alluring — and something that seemed a distant possibility after his first, failed attempts at getting traction with his self-published book.
Publishing Dan’s book was a collaborative process. I gave Dan an informed expert opinion on elements like design and marketing. But the decision was eventually up to him. I made sure Dan felt in control of the process to the extent he wanted to be.
The result in early 2015?
A polished, professional manuscript published in Kindle and paperback, which has reached #1 status in the Self-Esteem, Psychology & Counseling and Creativity categories of Amazon and continues to bring new clients to Dan month after month.
Dan says he regularly hears from readers who have devoured his book and want to work with him more deeply.
He thinks that having a book helps in several ways:
First, it’s an instant badge of authority that positions himself as a trustworthy expert.
Also, people who have taken the time to read his book and absorb his ideas have already determined whether they’re on board with his program.
The book has been so instrumental in building his coaching business that Dan’s second book, “Nothing to Lose: Using Curiosity to Destroy Hesitation, Procrastination and Limiting Beliefs,” is slated to be published by Lifestyle Entrepreneurs Press this October.
It’s the first in what he plans to be a three-book trilogy, something he couldn’t have imagined a few years ago.
Another benefit of having a bestselling book is the amplification of Dan’s big ideas and messages.
While he may have originally written the book as a way to document his ideas and methodology, he did so with the intent of sharing them with a wider audience.
When asked what he’d say to other aspiring authors, Dan responds that self-publishing successfully is nearly impossible unless you have excellent writing, design and marketing skills — which is rare to find in a single person.
In contrast, the “big” publishing world is closed to anyone without a ready-made platform of tens if not hundreds of thousands.
Don’t let the fears and doubts and blocks that usually hogtie aspiring authors hold you back.
Anyone can be a published author.
If you have the ability to send me an email, you have the ability to write a book.
Pre-order a copy of Dan’s forthcoming book “Nothing to Lose: Using Curiosity to Destroy Hesitation, Procrastination and Limiting Beliefs.”
Meet Daniel Munro and many other inspiring authors at Bestseller Summit Live, October 28-30 in Los Angeles!
Registration closes this week, come join us in LA for the premiere author event of 2016 🙂
