I came to a discovery recently that has drastically changed my values in regards to life and business.
I am fundamentally not a tried and true businessman.
Let me explain…
Ever since I read Felix Dennis’ book How to Get Rich, I had the idea in my mind that I would use business as a vehicle to earn enough income so that I could do what I really loved.
In the book, he shares that he only wanted money so that he could do what he loved, which was write poetry. One of his bigger regrets in life was not writing poetry until his old age.
This guy was worth ~$500 million at the time of his death. He founded a huge magazine publishing business.
He wished he had stopped the grind and started writing sooner.
I’ve always wanted to be writer. I’ve always loved film. I’ve always wanted a voice in the world.
When I first moved to NYC, I thought that making money was the pinnacle of success. I based all my activities around it. People who know me in that time period also know how I fed my brain with stories, movies, and books that supported those values.
My income quickly grew as a result. But, as I talked about in a prior post, I wasn’t happy.
I totally re-thought my approach to business. I did a lot of internal work. I’m still doing a lot of internal work, haha.
I’ve come to understand myself much more deeply and it’s lead to the revelation that I’m not, nor do I want to be, a standard businessman.
At my core, I am a teacher, student, experimenter, self-development junkie, and in a mild way, an artist.
I want to use my business skills and marketing knowledge to support my vision of positively impacting the world with my hard-won lessons and voice.
At my very core, I’m a writer.
I want to try things out, fail miserable, figure out how to master something, and then share it. I also enjoy creating bits of visual story, like my new vlogs.
The reason I wanted to share that bit of personal insight is because it is the mindset behind writing short books for this past year. Here’s what I’ve learned…
1. You probably won’t get rich selling books.
Of course, I knew this going in. Every author should know this. It’s very unlikely that you’re going to be making bank as an author.
Most nonfiction authors will use books as a lead generation tool to then get the reader on their website and sell them other products, like online courses.
One of the books that got me into business, Rich Dad Poor Dad, does this very effectively. The author, Robert Kiyosaki, licenses his brand and sells real estate seminars and other types of products.
2. It’s not the best business strategy
The time that I spent writing the books (not ghostwritten) could have been spent in many other ways. I could have made courses, done a paid membership website, coached clients, etc.
If I had sold 560 products at a higher price point, let’s say $500 each, I’d have made $280,000 from those products for the year.
I made a healthy income for my age, but not THAT much.
Most of my income comes from OTHER online assets that I’ve established. My book income is negligible.
Also, it takes a lot of energy to make a low-priced product, just as it does a high-priced product.
If I wanted to make bare bones living income, I’d have to produce 10x the revenue of my books. Keep in mind that if I continue to write books (because I’m always writing something), this could provide some side income over the next 20 years. That also doesn’t take into account the topics of the books.
3. It DOES create passive income
Despite the fact that writing books won’t make you rich, it WILL create passive income.
Aside from courses, digital products, and affiliate income, this income is as passive as it gets. As long as you keep driving traffic and ranking well in Amazon, you’re going to continue to get purchases (assuming demand for the book).
I am a huge fan of creating passive income streams. You can be making $120,000 a year, or let’s say $72,000 after taxes. If you’re living in a good section of NYC, you can expect $2,500 for rent, and you might spend $2,000 a month in personal expenses.
After all is said and done, you might be saving $18,000 a year from that paycheck.
Best case, you might be able to make 10% ROI per year from that income, which is probably going into your retirement fund, but let’s say your aim is produce passive income.
That’s $1,800 PER YEAR in passive income that’s generated from saving $18,000 for the year or $150 per month.
Oh boy. It’s going to be 15-20 years before the passive income grows enough until you can live off of that lump cash sum.
That makes sense though, because most people expect to retire and be financially well-off at the age of 55/60.
The great thing about writing books is that you can generate that same level of passive income, but from digital products that you OWN.
You can then take the savings that you generate from those products AND invest it.
You won’t be rich, but you’ll be living off of passive income streams and your time won’t be tied to earning money.
Writing these books has simply affirmed what I’ve known all along since I was very little. I want to continue to write books and eventually, I want to be able to consider myself an author. I also want to be a speaker.
For some reason, books seem more tangible in my mind than blog posts. Last year, my websites did over 1 million views. My podcast did over 50,000 listens. My YouTube channel is quickly growing and I think it’s going to do more views this year than podcast listens.
Those numbers are all cool, but they seem much more fleeting than someone actually having a book in their hands and reading your words. That book then goes on their bookshelf, with the rest of the people that have influenced their life.
The big difference between this year and last year is that I want to learn to get better at storytelling. All of my books were very strict informational guides. They explained step-by-step how to accomplish something.
I want to learn how to tell stories so that I can emotionally affect my readers AND help them retain knowledge better around core subjects. I want to entertain my readers.
5. It’s a privilege to be a teacher
I’ve come to realize that it’s a privilege to be a teacher. People are using me as their informational resource. I have a responsibility to give them the best information. I also have a responsibility to make the learning process engaging and fun.
They’re not just buying my content, they’re buying into ME as a teacher of that content. Part of my goal is to help them learn better and not just deliver content. I want to help them retain that knowledge and ensure that I hold them accountable so that they go on to transform an area of their business.
If I close my eyes and think about that number 560, I imagine all of the faces who are reading my books. That number would fill several classrooms.
To think that I had a small positive impact on the lives of these individuals is genuinely breathtaking.
It just makes me smile, because we are all more connected than we realize. If we really try, our words can make someone else’s day or change the course of their life forever.