📚 Publishing Pivots (Part Three)
Catch up on part one and part two first. Where we left off . . .
Imagining myself typing in front of a West Village window à la Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but wonder . . .
Is it harder to sell 5,000 books or give them away?
If a tree falls in a forest to print your project, will you do it justice or let its sacrifice sit idly on dusty warehouse shelves?
In the summer of 2021, as I was contemplating how many copies of Free Time to print (and how to drum up the six figures needed to do so), I recorded a podcast interview with my friend Mike Michalowicz. Before recording the official show, he recounted a story about self-publishing his first book, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.1
Because you get larger per-unit price breaks for printing at scale (rather than print-on-demand as each book sells), Mike bet big on himself, electing to print 20,000 copies.
On the first day of his launch, he sold . . . zero.
“Don’t worry, that’s just the quiet before the quiet,” a fellow author cautioned.
“[His words] shocked me,” Mike said, “but also inspired me to hustle. One book at a time. Non-stop hustle.”
Eventually, his book tipped, but not before the warehouse he was storing them in had become too expensive. He remembers the day a big 18-wheeler rolled up to his house:
“I started hauling books box by box until, by the end of the day, my knees were screaming. I stored some in the basement, some under the bed, some supporting the kitchen table. I could either wallow in ‘I’m the biggest loser and cry’ OR just f*cking sell these books.”
Mike jokingly told me, “If you want to make your life depend on [your book], spend every penny you have and your life will depend on it.”
Some people really don’t listen. 🤦🏻♀️