Why Paul Millerd REFUSED a $200K Book Deal (And Self-Published Instead)

0:00 Penguin reached out.

0:01 They said, "Well, we're going to take it out of print.

0:03 We probably want to put a new cover on it.

0:04 We might want to restructure it a little." There was no upside.

0:08 Readers were loving this book, and they wanted to take it out of print.

0:10 It just didn't make any sense to me.

0:12 Today, I'm speaking with Paul Millard,

0:14 the author of The Pathless Path, earning Paul $325,000 in royalties.

0:20 And last year, Paul decided to double down

0:22 and produce a new version of The Pathless Path,

0:24 an ultra premium hardcover book that is just beautiful.

0:28 So, in this episode, we talk about that decision.

0:30 I started asking myself questions that sent me down

0:33 the path of creating this new version of the pathless path,

0:37 the dark side of traditional publishing.

0:39 There's this cone of secrecy around the entire industry.

0:41 And I'm talking to authors, working with these traditional publishers,

0:45 and they're afraid to say these things in public,

0:47 and when traditional publishing actually makes sense.

0:51 So, the first version of the pathless path published in 2022, right?

0:56 Right.

0:56 Yeah.

0:57 January 2022.

0:58 And how long did you spend writing that?

1:01 I started in December 2020.

1:03 Now, a lot of the themes I had

1:05 been writing about pretty consistently since 2018, early 2018,

1:10 but really started open the draft of the book in December of 20120,

1:14 wrote for about 14 months, finished it and shipped it in January of 22.

1:22 And there was basically no lead time

1:24 between finishing the book and publishing it.

1:26 It was literally a few days because I messed up

1:29 some of the upload stuff and I just launched it.

1:32 And what were your expectations at the time?

1:34 Yeah, so about a year after I quit my job,

1:36 I had made a made money freelancing, doing a bunch of different projects,

1:41 but I had not really made any money from creating online

1:45 or writing or really thought that was even a viable path.

1:49 Literally, some of the only people I saw doing

1:51 it were people like Seth Goden and Tim Ferrris.

1:54 And I think in my head it was, oh, I'm not those people.

1:58 So obviously I'm just not going to make money.

2:00 I did a few small experiments and eventually moved abroad,

2:06 built this online course teaching strategy consulting skills and started doing

2:10 a little bit of coaching on top of that, was making money

2:13 from the course and that became my funding vehicle for writing which

2:18 increasingly had taken over my life in terms of energy and my interest.

2:22 And so I was spending almost all my time writing

2:24 from 2018 until I started the book and finished it,

2:29 but making most of my money from stuff from my old life,

2:32 this online course, basically just doing whatever I could to do it.

2:37 And so my mental model was fund

2:40 a writing and creative life through other things.

2:44 And so literally when I published my book,

2:47 I did not expect to make money from writing.

2:49 It was just to continue playing that game which was really great for me.

2:54 And about two weeks after I launched my book,

2:58 I took a consulting project actually working with our friend Andrew Barry.

3:03 He had an opportunity for me.

3:05 I had just moved back to the US.

3:06 I was really nervous about making money and I took that job.

3:10 And so my focus was not on, oh, I'm going to make a bunch of money from my book.

3:16 In my head, my best case scenario, and you can read my newsletters at the time,

3:21 was if I break even, this will be awesome.

3:25 So, I spent $7,000 on the book with editors, design, uh, stuff like that.

3:32 And it I was calculating I don't know how many books that would be.

3:37 That would be about 1,500 books.

3:40 And so, in my head, it was like selling a,000 books would be really cool.

3:44 If I sold 1,500 in the first year and broke even,

3:47 that would be best case scenario.

3:49 Yeah.

3:50 Uh, and fast forward to today, that's basically, according to your website,

3:53 like what you sell on a monthly basis right now, which is awesome.

3:57 Yeah.

3:57 I think last month I have two books now.

4:00 I probably sold 7 or 800 books, but yeah,

4:05 I I think this year I'll sell about about 10,000 books.

4:11 And total I've sold close to 70,000 of the Pathless Path,

4:16 which it's still just so wild.

4:18 Like I I can't believe this book continues to sell.

4:22 But in that first year,

4:25 I started getting these really lengthy passionate responses from readers.

4:31 And so as I'm in this consulting project thinking,

4:35 why did I take a consulting project?

4:37 This is not why I'm on this journey.

4:38 I'm on this journey because I want to write.

4:40 people are resonating with this book.

4:42 And so when that project ended, I said, "Okay,

4:44 I'm going to double down and just go full crazy.

4:48 I love my book, Pathless." Because it it was true.

4:51 I love the book.

4:52 I love the ideas.

4:53 And I renamed my podcast to the Pathless Path podcast.

4:56 I started taking myself more seriously and just started like planting seeds,

5:01 being a little more energetic.

5:03 And that's when the book really started

5:05 taking off when I leaned into that energy.

5:07 And I think for me a big thing really is connecting with the readers.

5:12 That's always been a consistent theme for me.

5:14 And so it's really hard for me to get

5:17 excited for something pre-launch because I'm not connecting.

5:22 I'm not getting that feedback.

5:24 And so yeah, with almost everything I do,

5:28 I'm always thinking I'll dedicate my energy

5:31 and excitement after it's out in the world

5:33 because then I can engage with the world in a way that's energizing.

5:37 Well, I want to talk about the the offer you got

5:40 from Penguin eventually for this book after it had been in print,

5:43 but when you first published this, my understanding

5:47 is you never even considered exploring a traditional deal.

5:49 It was just I'm going to write this.

5:50 I'm going to put it out there.

5:52 Um, so talk to me about that.

5:53 I think when I started writing,

5:55 I had about 2,000 subscri maybe 3,000 subscribers on my newsletter.

6:02 I think on social media, I didn't have more than 2 or 3,000.

6:06 Now, at the time, those were solid numbers.

6:09 The numbers for what was seen as like

6:12 a good audience back then was a lot smaller, right?

6:15 There were just less people in these spaces.

6:18 And I think it was a higher hit rate, too.

6:20 Like the people that subscribed to my newsletter probably

6:23 didn't subscribe to like a hundred like they might today.

6:26 They might subscribe to yours and mine and maybe one more.

6:30 Uh, so it was a very high signal audience, but I just had no indication that I

6:37 would have any potential for like a big audience.

6:40 I don't think I would have been able to pitch

6:42 myself and gotten a deal that would have been exciting.

6:44 So, I think combined with my sort

6:48 of fierce independence plus the small audience, like I never even explored it.

6:54 Now, throughout the writing process, you're writing a book now, too.

6:58 When you're writing a book,

6:59 it's this the most complex project you've ever done writing wise.

7:02 And so, you're constantly doubting yourself, questioning things.

7:06 You're like, what am I doing?

7:07 And so, there were probably four or five moments during the process

7:12 in which I sort of had this urge, I want to be saved.

7:15 I want somebody to just tell me what I'm missing.

7:17 I must be missing something.

7:19 And I' I'd dig a little.

7:21 I'd talk to people.

7:22 I talked to hybrid publishers, people in the industry,

7:24 and they'd be like, "No, you're you're not missing anything.

7:27 just keep going.

7:28 And so I basically just took that to the finish line

7:31 and I've learned a ton about figuring out all the small details.

7:35 It's a weird industry because it's simple and hard at the same time.

7:40 It's literally just a PDF you upload,

7:44 but there are hundred small details you

7:46 need to care about to communicate that, hey, this book matters to me.

7:50 It's important.

7:51 It's structured in the right way.

7:53 You care about the cover.

7:54 the and so those things I think I'm very good at uh that are hard to teach.

8:01 Yeah, it's interesting.

8:02 I'm I'm very early in this process obviously

8:04 and what strikes me about a book just

8:08 like you're saying there are more surfaces and opportunities

8:11 for packaging call it than is immediately obvious.

8:16 Like the obvious thing is title, cover, subtitle.

8:20 That's like the package of course,

8:23 but the way that you structure the book matters.

8:27 The way you title sections, the way you title chapters,

8:32 the way you start and end things.

8:34 Uh, what I love about this new version of the book that you have,

8:37 you've really intentionally designed a lot of these pages

8:41 to have like these breakout quotes and these ideas like this.

8:44 And that's really exciting to me because

8:46 those are opportunities to do things differently.

8:50 But as we can probably talk about, that's an easier decision to make when

8:55 you're not making that decision by committee,

8:57 which I'm learning is part of the traditional process.

9:02 Uh at least if you don't uh exert your will and filter for that a little bit.

9:10 Yeah, I think so.

9:11 For me, it was always about the readers I was talking to.

9:14 A big inspiration for my book was I

9:16 was having these weekly curiosity conversations with strangers

9:19 from around the world who were literally

9:21 just reading my writing and then reaching out.

9:24 So it was writing to these exact people.

9:27 Every Wednesday I had an open calendar.

9:30 Anyone could book a call with me.

9:32 And so it was this cycle of conversation, reflection,

9:36 writing, more people I talked to in this cycle.

9:39 And so all I was doing is writing

9:41 a book for them and me in this curiosity stream.

9:45 And so I think by focusing very narrowly,

9:50 I found a kind of person that absolutely loves my book.

9:54 And these people love my book so much that they buy 10 copies

10:01 at full price and gift them to friends and keep recommending it to people.

10:05 And so this is a huge lever for how like more popular books spread.

10:12 I've realized is it's word of mouth.

10:14 So you didn't know who that reader was?

10:16 I knew who the reader was.

10:17 I didn't know they would have this kind of response.

10:21 As you were writing, were you thinking about that reader?

10:24 Yes.

10:25 There's a there's a part in my book where I talk about my shift

10:28 of seeing generosity as like a trait

10:30 or skill and then shifting toward practicing generosity.

10:35 And I was talking about my experiments with generosity.

10:38 And so one fun thing I did in there was,

10:41 well, if you want to practice generosity,

10:43 one simple thing you can do if you don't

10:45 have other ideas is gift my book to a friend.

10:48 Oh, wow.

10:50 And so, but that works because it's genuine and it's something I would actually

10:55 say in my writing and I would I did it in a a playful way.

11:00 Like the book is a product of me and my creative expression and how

11:04 I live my life and how I approach writing and what I'm writing about.

11:08 And so it's so tightly linked to what I

11:11 care about that I think it works incredibly well.

11:15 Now I spent 10 years in strategy consulting.

11:19 I'm very good at like stepping back and figuring

11:21 out like what is the game being played.

11:24 The thing in traditional publishing is they're not

11:28 great at targeting a hyper narrow specific niche.

11:33 Their customer is literally bookstores, right?

11:39 And so bookstores want a certain product

11:42 and a certain package that they already know works, right?

11:45 And what already works?

11:47 All the books that are already selling in their bookstore.

11:50 And so they don't want to take risk.

11:52 That makes perfect sense.

11:54 But for me, there's literally no risk because I'm having

11:57 the time of my life writing this book and I

12:00 want to write it for these readers and so I'm

12:02 willing to take a year of my life and do it.

12:05 Yeah.

12:05 No.

12:05 Okay.

12:06 So, I want to drill into this idea of uh

12:08 traditional publishers customers being bookstores here in a second,

12:11 but something that I can't stop thinking about and I

12:15 probably should stop thinking about it because it's not super empowering.

12:19 Um, in most of life you want to take asymmetric bets.

12:24 You want something that has super high ceiling

12:27 and the floor is also not that low, right?

12:31 But in books and I would say especially in traditionally published books,

12:36 the floor is pretty low and the ceiling is unlikely to be that high.

12:42 Uh, so it's like the inverse of the typical

12:45 asymmetric bet that you would want to take that it kind of feels

12:51 crazy to do it unless you just like absolutely have to do it.

12:55 But on the other side of that because it is kind of crazy and there

13:01 is a lot of like inherent difficulty

13:03 even if it's psychological difficulty in doing it.

13:06 I guess kind of an opportunity in a world where

13:08 the barrier to entry in terms of content has never been lower.

13:13 I think you have to have something deeper than the money,

13:16 the status, the prestige, and even the up like the leads you'll

13:21 get to other things that might make you money.

13:24 For me, it was at the end of my life,

13:27 am I going to be satisfied that I did this?

13:30 And even just looking back on the last 8 years,

13:34 it's my two books that stand out above everything else.

13:37 It is like, man, that was that was such a satisfying experience.

13:42 That was the hardest thing I did creatively and work-wise.

13:46 And it honestly gets better over time.

13:50 And so in my second book, I sort of reflected on this.

13:53 I think back to the first chapter of my career, 10 years.

13:57 It's literally a blur.

14:00 I can't remember any of it.

14:02 Nothing stands out.

14:04 There's one project, a little bit, and I didn't even get my name on it cuz

14:09 the senior partners didn't want to put my name on it.

14:12 They put theirs on it because they thought

14:14 it would sell better uh to their clients.

14:17 And so that that was like the best thing I remember.

14:21 That's enough.

14:22 And I've done well with my book.

14:24 Think about this.

14:25 I started in December 2020.

14:27 It is now almost December 2025, 5 years later.

14:30 So, I spent 5 years of my life putting this out there, making money from it,

14:36 promoting it, writing it, and I've made probably close to $330,000 from it.

14:46 And so, five years, that's about 60 grand a year.

14:53 That's solid.

14:54 That's fantastic for living a creative life and funding your work,

14:58 but I'm not buying a new home from book sales.

15:03 But what's lost in that?

15:05 Some people might hear like, okay, 60,000 a year, that's that's good.

15:10 What you have to remember is with zero incremental work

15:15 other than like being a living advocate for the thing.

15:18 Like there is no better revenue stream than royalties.

15:22 It's beautiful passive income.

15:24 It's the best.

15:25 It's the finest.

15:26 It's like the fine wine of p passive income.

15:29 Truly the best.

15:30 Um and I think that's uh that that would be such an amazing

15:33 and but the the hard thing about books is if you're doing it for that reason,

15:37 it's going to be hard to realize that future.

15:40 I mean, I think you probably could brute force it in a way uh

15:44 and get a little bit better and treat

15:45 it as deliberate practice as anything else.

15:49 But if you're just thinking, I want to make money,

15:52 this is not the most sure or quick feedback loop to do that.

15:57 Yeah, my second book's been out a little over a year.

16:01 I think I've made $10,000 profit on it,

16:06 and I spent eight months writing that one.

16:10 And so for me, the I know I like this work.

16:14 It's satisfying.

16:15 I have proven yes, I can make money.

16:18 people like my writing.

16:20 And so I think the game for me is really a long-term one.

16:24 Thinking forward 20 years from now and saying,

16:26 "Okay, if I wrote five to 10 more books,

16:29 that feels like a really worthwhile approach

16:34 because there might be payoffs to that, right?

16:38 So it's just continuing to write and do these things.

16:43 Real quick, do you feel like you have

16:44 a solid peer group of other creators like you?

16:47 If you feel like you're operating in a vacuum, consider joining the lab.

16:51 It's a community of six and seven figure creators like me

16:53 and Paul sharing notes just like this and helping each other grow.

16:57 Learn more and apply at creatorscience.com/lab.

17:01 Talk to me about the penguin opportunity.

17:03 Tell me that story.

17:05 Yeah.

17:05 So, March 2023, it's about a year, little over a year after my book's been out.

17:13 The first year I sold about 10,000.

17:16 Toward Christmas, about 10 11 months after my book was out,

17:22 there were series of mentions online and sharing

17:28 on Twitter that started boosting my book.

17:33 And for some reason, Amazon's algorithm, I think, picked it up.

17:38 And there's something about the Amazon algorithm that you get to a certain

17:42 level and it just sort of stays there for a long time.

17:48 And when Penguin reached out, they said, "Hey,

17:51 we'd love to talk to you about future opportunities." And I took the call.

17:56 I was curious what they'd say,

17:58 and they almost immediately made me the offer, which was a little weird.

18:02 They didn't really talk to me.

18:04 I think they just thought like he's gonna take the offer.

18:10 And the offer was $70,000 for the lifetime

18:13 rights of Pathless Path and a second book.

18:17 And so the second book was basically anything I wanted.

18:21 This is a weird situation because I didn't have to do any proposal.

18:25 It was a very quick call and they

18:26 immediately made me an offer for a twobook deal.

18:30 and the second book was for 130,000.

18:33 And so they they just wanted me in their orbit, which is very flattering.

18:37 I I was flattered by this.

18:39 But at the same time, the month before I talked to them,

18:42 I made $10,000 in royalties from selling 2,000 books.

18:49 And the month I was talking with them, sales were even higher.

18:53 So I was probably going to make 12 to $15,000.

18:57 And so a $70,000 offer after agents fees is about $56,000

19:04 paid out in four installments over 2 years or so, right?

19:10 So you start breaking that down and that's

19:13 those are like 15,000 four $15,000 payments, right?

19:18 After taxes, you're looking at 10 to 12,000 four times.

19:22 It's not that good.

19:23 That's what I'm making per month right now.

19:26 And so the second thing is they didn't really have ideas.

19:31 I think I later realized they don't actually fully read the books.

19:35 I think one person, one of the junior people had read the book,

19:38 but the senior people I was talking

19:40 to, they actually have professional readers inside these companies

19:45 that read the books and summarize them and give

19:47 them just a tip sheet about what it's about.

19:50 They didn't understand my book at all, which is like carving your own path,

19:54 doing things your own way, embracing creative and weird experiments.

19:58 And so I was like, well, what's the pitch?

20:01 They said, well, we're going to take it out of print.

20:04 We probably want to put a new cover on it.

20:06 Uh, we're going to have a copy editor look at it.

20:09 We're going to give it a polish, upgrade.

20:11 We might want to restructure it a little.

20:14 And I'm just thinking this is like this is the pitch.

20:20 And so I just didn't understand what there was no upside.

20:25 The math didn't work.

20:26 The creativity was not exciting.

20:28 And I was having the time of my life.

20:30 Readers were loving this book and they wanted to take it out of print.

20:33 It just didn't make any sense to me.

20:35 And so it was actually very easy to turn that down.

20:39 Well, you countered first, right?

20:41 Yeah.

20:41 I told them I don't want to do a second book.

20:43 that's unnamed that we I don't even know yet.

20:47 Uh, give me the money for Pathless Path.

20:49 It felt like they were trying to give me this $200,000

20:53 two book deal and sneak in acquiring the Pathless Path.

20:57 Like, they have better models than me.

20:59 They could probably see it's worth way more than that.

21:01 And maybe I'd earn out and earn royalties and I'd sell a lot more books.

21:06 But yeah, it it just didn't feel good.

21:09 And I asked them there,

21:10 "What are your what are your creative ideas for spreading

21:13 the book out there?" And they literally were saying,

21:16 "We're going to send it to podcasters." They named a few in their orbit.

21:22 And I said, "Well, if you love the book,

21:26 you could send it to them now." And they got like cold and said,

21:30 "Ah, nice try." And it's like, well,

21:34 I I just I didn't feel the connection, right?

21:37 Mhm.

21:38 I in how I operate, if I love something, I want to share it.

21:42 So if they're playing this more transactional mode,

21:46 just everything was not a fit.

21:48 But after this call, I think I was so fired up because until then,

21:56 I still had this question of, yeah,

21:58 I I don't have any access trait to traditional publishing.

22:02 They must be way better than me.

22:04 But after this call, I'm just thinking, okay, th this doesn't make any sense.

22:10 I I can I can compete.

22:12 I can double down even more and do crazy experiments and bold experiments.

22:16 And I started asking myself, okay,

22:18 what are the degrees of freedom on self-publishing?

22:22 I can republish my book in any format, any way,

22:26 at any price, in any part of the world forever, right?

22:32 And so I started asking myself questions.

22:35 They say they can do hard covers better than self-publish.

22:38 And that was one of the questions.

22:40 I said, "Well, what if I make a hard cover

22:42 that is so sexy and so much better that I sort

22:48 of just debunked that idea." And so that set me down

22:51 the path of creating this new version of the the pathless path.

22:55 Do you think there could have been an offer that one, you would have taken,

23:00 but two, here in 2025, end of 2025, you would have been glad that you took?

23:04 From what I've seen, unless your offer is crazy money,

23:09 they're not going to devote their resources to it.

23:12 And so, I actually countered on the call because I said,

23:15 I'm not going to do a twobook deal.

23:18 I'll consider something for the Pathless Path, but it has to be much higher.

23:22 So, I literally countered with $600,000, right?

23:26 It's a proven successful book that has

23:29 readers that keep sharing it and it's growing.

23:32 As soon as I said that number, everything deflated in the call.

23:37 And they said, "Well, you have to talk to an agent." Uh,

23:42 that we typically never pay authors that much, but I do know author,

23:46 which isn't true.

23:47 Well, I mean, I guess typically

23:48 I know authors have gotten I know authors that have gotten bigger deals than

23:52 that in our world and those authors have

23:57 crushed it in traditional publishing because the company is

24:02 investing the adequate resources that they are going

24:06 to commit to it for more than just the one month cycle to try and get

24:10 the the perennial s perennial seller wheel kickarted.

24:16 So, I guess that kind of leads my next

24:18 question and maybe I that kind of eludes the answer.

24:22 You're a very vocal advocate for self-publishing.

24:26 And so, my question was going to be,

24:28 is there a legitimate case where you would say actually,

24:32 yeah, you should go the traditional route because of this?

24:35 Yeah, I think it would have to be somebody very senior

24:38 from these companies and it would just have to be a more serious offer.

24:43 I'm in this for the long game.

24:44 I'm going to keep writing books.

24:46 I have people that like my writing.

24:48 I sort of know the value of my approach.

24:52 I think I could actually do a lot

24:54 better with a traditional publisher with that reach.

24:58 One thing I would definitely do tomorrow is do a printonly deal

25:04 with one of these publishers exactly like

25:07 Hugh Howawei did with Chiman and Schustster.

25:10 And Hugh Howawei did this and as soon as he

25:12 did the deal and it got out in the public,

25:15 everyone blasted Simon and Schustster behind the scenes and said,

25:19 "Why did you do this deal?" He's talked about this on the Tim Ferrris podcast.

25:23 And so they don't want to take these deals because they're just

25:27 so ingrained with this is the one deal we do with authors.

25:30 And I don't blame them.

25:32 If you have leverage and control over the authors,

25:36 you should try and keep that as long as possible to protect your margins

25:41 and protect the the beautiful moat

25:43 of backlist uh royalties and things like that.

25:47 But yeah, I would do a I would do a printonly deal tomorrow and it

25:50 would be win-win for both of us as long as I could revert my rights.

25:54 I think one of the worst things that exists right

25:57 now for the creative I would say like the creative

26:02 uh quotient of the world is that authors sign

26:07 away their rights for lifetime plus decades after their death.

26:13 And this is terrible because most

26:16 of the books stop getting promoted after a year.

26:20 But many of these authors are still pursuing

26:23 a creative path and writing and doing things.

26:27 And all this serves to do is crush author's dreams,

26:31 get them to stop talking about their work

26:34 and tells them maybe you should stop writing.

26:36 It's terrible.

26:37 We need marketplaces to revert these rights.

26:40 Honestly, I think the publishing houses could gain a huge

26:46 positive reputation from gifting some of these rights back to authors.

26:51 I've talked to so many people and there's this cone

26:54 of secrecy around the entire industry and every everything I

26:58 share is because I'm talking to authors working with these traditional

27:01 publishers and they're afraid to say these things in public.

27:04 I don't know why people are afraid to say these things.

27:06 Maybe they're still holding out for future deals

27:08 or don't want to upset their friends who have deals

27:10 with these, but they tell me I stop talking about

27:14 my book because I have no chance of ever earning out.

27:17 I compromise in my subtitle and I feel really silly

27:20 saying it and I feel ashamed to promote my book now.

27:24 I hate my cover and I can't do anything about it.

27:27 The publisher won't even print my book anymore

27:30 and it's constantly out of stock on Amazon.

27:32 They won't respond to my emails.

27:34 This is terrible.

27:35 We live in the greatest creative age

27:37 of like the internet has changed everything.

27:40 You're on the front lines of enabling people to put

27:43 their gifts out into the world through the internet, reach anyone.

27:46 And these publishing houses are undermining the thing they say they care about.

27:50 It's terrible.

27:51 And the only point of leverage we have is to motivate

27:55 authors to stand up for this and push back and say,

27:58 you know what, I'm not going to keep doing these deals.

28:01 It's interesting because I also see the I

28:04 think in most cases traditional publishing doesn't make sense,

28:09 but I also have this feeling that uh

28:12 if you're trying to like have a massive book, it it helps at least.

28:19 I won't say it is absolutely necessary.

28:22 Yeah, I don't think I can go massive with the path path right now.

28:25 I need some form of partnership or distribution to make that happen.

28:30 I am still very open to making that happen as an entrepreneur in my book,

28:34 but I am not going to give up lifetime rights.

28:36 5 years with the reversion of rights.

28:38 This is how all foreign rights work.

28:41 Actually, I sell my book to a foreign

28:43 publisher like I did in China, Taiwan, France.

28:46 I give them a license for my book.

28:50 They translate it and put it out for 5 years.

28:53 No questions asked.

28:55 I can revert my rights back to myself

28:57 in that territory and sell it again after five years.

29:00 That is standard.

29:02 This is standard in other areas of the world too.

29:05 In Taiwan, if you do a book deal,

29:06 there's a reversion of rights after 5 to seven years.

29:09 This is standard in many territories.

29:11 It's just the US.

29:13 These companies have so much power and leverage.

29:16 And it's this aura of prestige that holds it all together.

29:19 And we're we are not aligned as a category of people.

29:24 We're all individual free agents.

29:26 We don't organize.

29:27 We don't form collective action.

29:29 And we're all just opting out one by one by one.

29:32 We're getting plucked off, right?

29:33 And the agents have no incentive to get us to negotiate

29:36 harder because they make all their money from these publishing houses.

29:40 Like, we really need to rethink these things.

29:43 It's possible.

29:44 And these publishing houses would make more and they treat authors better.

29:49 Think about this.

29:51 If you if I do a five-year deal for paperback and it starts going really well,

29:59 why would I revert my rights, right?

30:03 And if it's not going well,

30:04 why do they want the hassle of dealing with another author?

30:08 So, when you say you want to do a print only deal,

30:10 that's hard cover, that's paperback,

30:12 that's not audio, it's probably not uh ebooks.

30:16 Is there anything else that I'm missing here?

30:18 Yeah, it's just hard cover and paperback.

30:20 And a lot of publishers don't even put

30:22 out paperbacks because they still look down on them.

30:25 There's still a legacy of paperbacks are smut novels and not serious books.

30:31 But paperbacks have print ondemand distribution.

30:34 It's a beautiful uh opportunity in today's world and technology that exists.

30:40 I spoke to somebody who's building a new publishing house and he

30:45 was telling me a lot of the same things you're saying.

30:46 he's he's has a background in tech um and he's moving

30:49 into this and he's like a lot of this doesn't make sense and what

30:52 he found was there are a ton of uh a ton of books

30:55 a ton of titles that never left paperback that could sell more

30:59 or sorry never left hard coverver could sell more in paperback

31:02 but the publisher was not incentivized never

31:03 decided to print paperback and he was

31:07 going in and for very cheap buying the rights of these books

31:10 and now he's going to put them back into print it's basically like I love that

31:15 it's kind of a private equity play in book publishing.

31:18 It made me think like one all these authors

31:21 are frustrated cuz they're like publisher won't print anymore.

31:25 I can't get the rights back.

31:26 But then he goes and buys these rights and Tim Ferrris is famous for buying

31:29 the audio rights of a bunch of books before that was a big deal.

31:31 And I'm wondering can authors just go buy

31:34 their rights back if it's not going well?

31:36 Or is that another thing where it feels like maybe they negotiate

31:40 with another publisher but they won't

31:41 negotiate with an individual or the author?

31:44 I think it's hard.

31:45 I think anyone who's dealt with these companies knows

31:48 that it's a bunch of middle management and layers and bureaucracy

31:52 and so any sort of interaction with them is challenging

31:54 and so any sort of friction just slows these things down.

31:58 It's probably more possible,

32:00 but it's going to take a lot of work and probably rejections,

32:03 talking to lawyers, and yeah, it's probably going to to take some work.

32:08 But yeah, it's great that somebody's doing that because

32:11 I think there's a real opportunity for a publishing

32:15 sort of marketplace to buy back these rights

32:18 because these publishing houses print lots of books,

32:24 paperback and hard coverver, and stock them in a warehouse.

32:28 If they don't sell, what do they do with them?

32:29 Do you know what they do with them?

32:31 Uh, I think they just keep them.

32:32 Cuz another thing this guy told me is he was buying the literal stock.

32:35 He was getting like the the inventory, too.

32:38 Yeah.

32:38 Or they burn them like because I I think they're You might need

32:45 to fact check this, but I'm pretty sure they

32:47 dispose of them because you have to dispose

32:49 of them to actually take the the right off the loss.

32:53 Yeah, they could be leveraging print ondemand.

32:56 They could literally upload the books to Amazon's print

33:00 on demand and just do it one by one.

33:02 Lower the prices, give control.

33:04 But these companies are not set up to compete in this new digital environment.

33:11 They were established in an era in which you

33:14 literally had to fund construction and manufacturing costs for plates,

33:20 lettering, all these things.

33:22 The paper was 20% of the cost of a book a 100red years ago.

33:28 And so it's just not set up for this.

33:31 And we're going to see a lot of disruption.

33:33 And we're only 20 years into ebooks being

33:36 a thing and I'm just betting on the future.

33:40 It's obviously going to change.

33:41 It might take way longer than I want it to happen, but it's already changing.

33:46 I mean, you have James Clear doing Author's Equity, you have Infinite Books,

33:50 you have Stripe Press,

33:51 you have so many interesting experiments if you dig beneath the surface.

33:55 So, I talked to James about author's equity um because

33:58 I wanted to know more about the model and something interesting

34:01 he told me was that he's gotten a lot of data

34:04 back on this now and he says confidently that you

34:06 give up 25% of your sales if you're not

34:08 in retail outlets and that doesn't mean directly sales from outlets

34:12 but even just the exposure of seeing the cover

34:15 in the title places probably lifts your Amazon sales from doing that.

34:19 This is why I want a printon deal.

34:22 I think I probably could sell even way more than that because

34:27 the book already has sort of a known exposure and awareness.

34:32 And what I like about their model is they they have

34:34 this ownership reversion you're talking about

34:36 10 years by default on their deals.

34:39 Yeah, it makes perfect sense because people like you have more power.

34:44 You own your audience.

34:46 That is incredibly valuable.

34:48 And the only reason people still just go down this path

34:52 is because there's all this sort of lore around publishing.

34:57 Oh, you can't make money from books.

34:59 You got to do speeches.

35:00 It's all embedded in the system.

35:02 And so people repeat these lines.

35:05 If you look at all these things from first principles,

35:07 like none of it makes sense.

35:08 But think about this.

35:10 James Clear, literally the most successful author on the planet.

35:15 I've seen his book in random supermarkets in rural Mexican towns.

35:21 I've seen it in the countryside of Taiwan.

35:24 I've seen it in random bodeas in Thailand.

35:28 And he's not publishing another book with a traditional publishing house.

35:34 He's building his own.

35:36 So, what does he know?

35:38 It's really interesting because um there's all

35:41 these chicken and the egg types of things.

35:43 So, you know, a lot because of James,

35:46 the the playbook that I think is winding down,

35:49 but the playbook for launching a book was go on a ton of podcasts.

35:52 And it's significantly easier to get your foot in the door

35:57 of a major podcast if you had a major book deal,

36:00 but no sales yet to show because it's not out yet.

36:03 Uh, than sell a book yourself and then convince them that you're being

36:08 honest about your sales and get your foot in the door that way.

36:12 So, it's it's an interesting tension and it's

36:15 one that I'm actively playing with now.

36:18 Um, it's it's very interesting, but it does feel backwards in a lot of ways.

36:25 Yeah, it's been pretty interesting.

36:27 I have sort of given up trying to go on podcast for my second book.

36:31 I think I went on four or five.

36:33 I think for me, just the long game of building relationships and continuing

36:37 to share and write about my work and generally people reach out.

36:41 I'm not going on many podcasts for this one.

36:44 I thought it would be really fun to talk with you about this because

36:47 we've had a relationship for many years and I know you're writing a book, too.

36:53 And I think this is where the better conversations come

36:56 from anyway because if you're doing 50 podcasts repeating the same things,

37:01 the audience is aware of that playbook now, too.

37:05 And so people are just tired of it.

37:08 Yeah, I'm hearing now that people are seeing a lot

37:10 better results basically doing newsletter swaps for their book,

37:14 which is like infinitely easier to logistically do way less time.

37:21 Uh, so that's good news.

37:23 But the number one thing is to write a book.

37:26 People, this is the thing.

37:28 This is where I put all my energy.

37:30 I wrote a big long thing on marketing.

37:32 And I think the thing we were talking about earlier is

37:34 I obsessed over the book and putting the care into it,

37:38 writing exactly the book I would want in the certain way.

37:43 I loved writing about such that when it was done,

37:46 it would be so delightful to keep talking about it for 10 years.

37:49 That was always my mindset while I was writing.

37:51 How can I write something I actually want to talk about for 10 years?

37:55 And so I hate takeaways at the end of chapters.

37:58 Some authors have them, but this you're not going to get takeaways at the end

38:02 of chapters because that would diminish my excitement about the book, right?

38:07 You're not going to have lengthy um

38:10 storytelling on academic studies or historical figures

38:13 that weren't already things I had thought deeply

38:16 about or stumbled upon that really inspired me.

38:19 It's literally only things that were I was interested in and were

38:23 in the flow of my curiosity for those previous few years.

38:27 And so this is where people should focus.

38:31 Write a banger.

38:34 Don't worry about the marketing because the easiest way

38:38 to market a book is write something that people buy, finish, share, and gift.

38:47 That is the most important thing because

38:50 think about all the books you recommend.

38:52 What's a book you recommend a lot?

38:54 Uh let's see.

38:56 I recommend Hitmakers by Derek Thompson quite a bit.

38:59 How many time have you finished that book?

39:02 Oh, yeah.

39:03 More than once.

39:03 Yeah.

39:03 You finished it, right?

39:05 You finished it.

39:06 You spent time with it and you refer it to people.

39:09 And so, you need to actually finish a book to recommend it.

39:13 Those people recommend that book for literally the next 10 years.

39:17 I've been recommending books like How will you measure your life or Tuesdays

39:21 with my or the great work of your life or David White's books for years.

39:28 I've probably made the re recommendation 500 to a,000 times.

39:33 And so that is worth way more than one newsletter swap,

39:37 which is you do need to sell those first a,000 to 5,000 books.

39:41 That is very important.

39:43 You do need that.

39:44 But the next 50,000 are all sold by readers.

39:49 Let's talk about the new book,

39:51 which you told me I have one of the first two copies,

39:54 if not the first copy, which is insane to me.

39:56 Uh will hold this dear.

39:58 Um what I love about this is there are just so many counter design elements.

40:03 I shouldn't say counter, I should say, uh unique, remarkable, memorable,

40:11 mainstream, tactile.

40:11 Um, so this is obviously a big investment of time of uh

40:16 in literal money to get designs and things made of this.

40:21 So what uh what led to the creation of this?

40:25 And yeah, why basically renew your vows

40:28 to the first book versus write book number three?

40:31 One thing I realized is that once books start selling,

40:36 they can keep selling for a long time.

40:39 Ryan Holidayiday has talked a lot about this.

40:42 Some of his early books, I forget what it was, maybe Ego is the Enemy.

40:46 It didn't do incredibly well early,

40:48 but once it started taking off, it just kept selling.

40:52 James Clear talked about his book didn't sell crazy well, though.

40:56 It did very well compared to most uh until I think 2 or 3 years.

41:01 I had a conversation with Ramit Sadi.

41:04 I will teach you to be rich.

41:05 It was published I think in 2009.

41:08 He's still talking about it.

41:09 He literally landed a Netflix show three or four years ago.

41:14 That's 10 years after the book is out and he's still talking about it.

41:17 He's still talking to people about your rich life and not

41:22 wasting money on financial advisors and he's so passionate about it.

41:26 And the thing that struck me about that was, "Oh, I have that.

41:30 I can do that.

41:31 I love the book I wrote.

41:32 I love the readers that read it and reach out to me.

41:35 It's so fun talking to them.

41:38 And most people I observe lose interest in their book within a year.

41:43 And so if I can keep going,

41:46 let's just keep having fun and people are still buying it.

41:49 Let's invest some of this money back into the book.

41:53 It's sort of a a vote of confidence

41:55 from the readers buying my book in the f first place.

41:58 And I made over $300,000 from it.

42:01 Let's take a bunch of that money and really do something special and lean

42:06 into this self-publishing angle and sort of wipe away all the critiques of, oh,

42:10 you can't do these things if you're self-published.

42:13 And it's really fun just to do it on my own.

42:17 It It's definitely been weird though for me.

42:20 I'm sort of a bootstrapper that takes all the risk out of projects,

42:26 builds in public, launches early, quits things early.

42:30 And this was working behind the scenes for 18 months,

42:33 spending more than $75,000.

42:36 Longer than the first year, 10x the investment of the first book.

42:39 Yeah.

42:39 So, more than 10x the investment,

42:42 longer than the first book, a project behind the scenes.

42:45 I I'm going to price it at $100.

42:48 I knew that from pretty early on.

42:50 And I have no idea if it's going to succeed.

42:53 I'm scared financially as I'm doing that.

42:56 I'm having a kid or I had a kid and my all my income sources are declining.

43:01 Like most book sales decline over time.

43:03 And so last week before I launched, I'm like, what am I doing?

43:09 Have I lost my mind?

43:10 I have so much self-doubt.

43:12 A couple friends said I would never buy a $100 book.

43:16 And yeah, I don't know.

43:18 It's still early.

43:19 I I did launch.

43:20 It's done slightly better than I expected.

43:23 It's been out a few days.

43:24 about 100 people about 100 books have been sold which is so cool.

43:31 I think I'm ready to declare success already.

43:35 I think in my head be before I launched I was thinking

43:40 okay even if I spend all this money and I sold I

43:45 made back maybe 20% of it I think I could feel really

43:48 good about this because again at the end of my life this is

43:51 something I feel proud of and that feels satisfying to do

43:55 and so yeah it's going to take a lot of work and sort

43:59 of storytelling around putting this sort of thing out there but I

44:02 think it matters it's going to raise the bar for other authors.

44:05 It's also going to give permission to other

44:07 authors to do bold things like this and say, "Oh, it's possible to do this.

44:12 Maybe I can sell a,000 copies for $100 and that's $100,000.

44:21 That's amazing." Like, how do you do some of this?

44:24 This is not like your typical like just print ondemand style book.

44:27 Did you have to find unique suppliers?

44:29 I mean, part of it is hiring designers.

44:31 That that part is obvious to me.

44:32 And that's layout.

44:33 That's illustration, but the literal construction of the book.

44:37 How were you able to make this?

44:40 Quick answer is I found the right person.

44:43 So, I talked to hybrid publishers for a while.

44:46 I talked to several.

44:47 I reached out to people in the industry.

44:49 Eventually, I found the people that publish Derek Civers's books.

44:55 He sells direct from his own website.

44:57 He sells the first book at a normal price

45:01 and then you can buy his books at cost forever.

45:04 Really cool model.

45:05 He's so weird.

45:06 Does things his own way.

45:07 I found Otterpine who he works with.

45:10 And this amazing woman say Wood.

45:12 I get on the phone with her and she's sort of just like me.

45:15 She has a company.

45:17 She doesn't want to just scale and take every project.

45:20 She's very selective about who she takes.

45:23 She likes doing things weird.

45:24 She cares about books.

45:26 She really loved the story I was

45:27 telling about let's do something crazy and bold.

45:31 And she's really been my partner helping me through some of the self-doubt,

45:34 helping me dream bigger.

45:36 And one of the things I decided early is I'm not

45:41 going to approach this book like it's a good business decision.

45:45 And what I mean by that is a much smarter approach would have been trying

45:49 to sell this book at a reasonable hardcover

45:52 price like a stripe press book like 40 bucks.

45:55 and then working backward and saying how do I get

45:58 the cost down to actually make a profit on that.

46:02 I literally approached it with what is the most delightful possible book

46:05 I can make and the goal was I want this to be

46:08 the sexiest book my readers own and so SA knows how to make

46:15 a beautiful book and you can basically spend infinite money on books

46:22 in terms of like crafting it.

46:24 Yeah, you can just keep going.

46:27 You could add gold plating if you want.

46:29 But I was really inspired by this Steel Brothers book.

46:32 They are these two brothers.

46:34 They published this reimagined version of Walden and the front cover is a quote

46:41 from Walden and it's text on a page and it was a cloth

46:46 cover and it just as soon as I saw it I was blown

46:50 away by this book and I said I have to do something like this.

46:53 So, the original idea was this quote on the front and I

46:58 was going to have just the pathless path be bolded out,

47:00 but we we decided to put it on the back,

47:03 I think, because the illustrator we're working with just kept she came up

47:08 with this sort of motif around the the pictures and I I just loved it.

47:13 I was like, "That has to be let's just make that the cover."

47:17 And that sort of opened up a lot of doors around the colors.

47:21 the blue came to me.

47:22 It was like, I really like this bold blue.

47:25 There's a bunch of Easter eggs sprinkled throughout uh the ribbon.

47:30 And yeah, we had to find the right printer

47:33 that could do this without risk of messing up.

47:36 And so we found a company in Italy,

47:39 which definitely adds more cost than doing it in China.

47:44 But yeah, it it was a ton of fun doing this.

47:46 And then I hand selected all the quotes.

47:48 I went through and decided every single quote that would be on a quote page.

47:51 I asked Ali Abdal to write it forward.

47:54 Did a bunch of cool stuff and it comes through.

47:56 It's It's fantastic.

47:58 Um, is this still print on demand?

48:00 Like, will this ever be on Amazon for somebody to go and buy?

48:05 It could be.

48:06 I think I think the goal is to try I want to go direct first.

48:11 Uh and part of doing this experiment is I

48:14 want to sell direct to establish the channel, right?

48:18 So if people buy this from me,

48:20 they I can then loop in my other books selling direct.

48:24 And so selling my paperback on Amazon, for example, I can make $7 or $8 a book.

48:29 However, if I do it through Lulu,

48:31 which is a print ondemand company that has an API that can plug into Shopify,

48:35 I can then get my book to $15 margin, $145, but no free shipping.

48:43 So, there's some trade-offs,

48:44 but you can start getting more and more people to buy direct from you.

48:48 Then you can start offering bundles.

48:51 And I'm experimenting with this launch of doing a notebook,

48:54 some note cards, and some other things.

48:58 So I want to move more in this direction to say how can I actually

49:01 just sell really highquality stuff that is

49:03 all part of how I'm approaching my life, my work, all these things and make

49:08 more money rather than traditional publishing.

49:12 You're making about $3 a book on hard covers.

49:15 I make about $5 on average.

49:17 That's mostly because I price more competitively on Kindles

49:20 and I just sell a lot more than traditionally published Kindles.

49:25 And yeah, I'm trying to push up the margins,

49:28 push up uh the pricing power, which is what you do as a business.

49:33 Are you comfortable talking about the cost of making one of these?

49:36 Yeah, I think I I think I said before it was over $75,000.

49:41 So, the cost I mean the cost the cost to print one copy.

49:46 Oh, yeah.

49:46 Yeah.

49:46 I I don't know the exact Do you want me to Do you want me

49:50 to look it up real quick so I can talk in detail or just get

49:53 if if you can do it quick fine or if you just like know roughly that's fine too.

49:56 Yeah.

49:57 So I think one thing I did we

49:59 had to decide between printing a,000 or printing $2500.

50:03 I think if we're printing a,000 just the book we were

50:06 looking at $15 a copy and I think by printing 2500

50:13 it got down I could be wrong in that I it's

50:17 something from probably closer to 20 down to 10 to 12.

50:22 Oh so part of the $75,000 investment is inventory, right?

50:27 Yeah.

50:28 So it's a bigger bet and I don't know if I'm going to be able to sell these.

50:31 Um, and then the slipcase was about $8 per book.

50:36 And so that could have been a really easy thing to cut off.

50:40 And I ordered 2500 of the slip case, too.

50:42 I was going to do 500 of the slipcase and then I was just like,

50:46 I'm just going to go all out and push the edge on this and do something scary.

50:50 And so the cost dropped greatly when I went to 2500.

50:55 But yeah, eight times 2500 is another I don't know,

50:59 maybe it's less than eight with 2500.

51:02 But but anyway, like I think the total printing cost

51:06 plus the notebook printing cost is probably 40,000 40 to 50,000.

51:14 And so some of that I can smooth out.

51:17 You can account for your accounting cost over time.

51:21 It's different accounting standards because I'm storing

51:23 inventory at their warehouse in North Carolina.

51:26 And then the upfront design, illustration, consulting,

51:31 all the work we've done over the last 18 months.

51:33 SA's team, their warehousing team, their packaging team.

51:37 I think my investment there is like 35 to 42.

51:42 And so it's like 75 to 85 upfront.

51:45 There's going to be ongoing costs.

51:46 There's shipping costs.

51:48 There's going to be uh returned books

51:51 that people don't want to pay customs fees.

51:53 There's going to be lost items.

51:57 There's going to be uh packaging fees.

52:00 All all these small things add up.

52:02 So, you need the margin to really buffer against these things.

52:06 If I was doing at 40, it'd be very hard to make money.

52:09 And so, the goal is to price high early on.

52:12 I'm giving away the notebooks and the the card and creating a story around it.

52:17 Over time, we'll probably lower the cost,

52:20 potentially put it on Amazon as the collector's edition

52:23 you can select on Amazon and push down the price.

52:27 It's what most businesses do, right?

52:29 You launch high.

52:30 If you're launching a a robot, you price it high and then

52:34 over time it prices lower.

52:36 But yeah, the first Tesla was 80,000 to 100,000.

52:39 The Tesla you can buy now is about 30,000.

52:42 It's a pretty proven um business strategy.

52:46 So that's sort of the approach.

52:48 And you mentioned the ability to bundle as a pro to selling direct.

52:53 I've seen a few bundles on Amazon like Ryan Holidayiday.

52:55 You can buy some of his books,

52:56 especially like the new series as a bundle, but it's so uncommon.

53:00 Is that not just available to anybody to set

53:03 up a skew to sell a bundle of books?

53:06 You can sell multiple books together on Amazon.

53:08 So I have good work in the Pathless Path

53:11 as a series as part of the Pathless Path collection.

53:15 So, there is one part of the website where you

53:17 can click and add both to the cart at once.

53:21 Now, I have no clue when that happens.

53:23 All I see is six sales for this book and six sales for this.

53:26 I don't know if they were bought together, so I have no information on that.

53:31 But on Amazon, you cannot package the Kindle

53:36 paperback and audio book in one cheaper package.

53:42 You can't do that.

53:43 And I know Amazon is not doing

53:45 this because it would piss off the traditional publishers.

53:49 The traditional publishers want to control pricing.

53:52 They love pushing hard covers and so

53:54 they artificially inflate ebook prices really high.

53:57 This is why traditionally published ebook prices are

54:01 $16.99 and they're like 15% of author sales,

54:06 whereas mine are $4.99 and I sell like 3x more

54:09 than uh I did if I was pricing a lot higher.

54:13 Uh well, man, I'm pumped for you.

54:14 I'm excited for people to check this out

54:16 because genuinely most experiences of getting a book are

54:21 kind of the same and this is a marketkedly

54:24 different experience which is what you're going for.

54:27 So kudos, job well done.

54:29 I'm not easily satisfied.

54:32 I really appreciated your text because that was at a peak

54:36 moment of self-doubt and I hadn't gotten the book yet and I

54:41 had designed it for 18 months with the idea that I

54:44 want this to be a sort of experience of opening it where

54:49 somebody feels okay this is beautiful this inspires me to create

54:53 and do beautiful work and so receiving your text I think you're

54:58 like wow wow wow this is sexy something like that um

55:03 it was it was great and I think being on these journeys,

55:06 having friends like you doing these things

55:09 that understand what you're going for, it really

55:11 matters and I always tell people that's one

55:13 of the most important things on these journeys.

55:15 So yeah, just want to say thank you for for that.

55:18 I really needed that text.

55:20 Yeah, man.

55:21 Um is there anything we didn't touch on that we absolutely should have?

55:27 Yeah, I don't know what I'm doing.

55:32 This is completely new territory with me for me.

55:37 I'm still pretty scared.

55:39 I don't know if this is going to pay off or break even.

55:42 I don't know how things are going to go.

55:46 I'm feeling pretty good about it now that it's out in the world,

55:50 but I don't know what the future of publishing is.

55:52 I'm probably wrong about a lot of stuff.

55:55 I I advocate self-publishing because I hear

55:59 from the authors who are not as inspired,

56:04 but I've heard from so many so many early people or people without audiences

56:10 that tell me my story gave them the motivation to create and write a book.

56:15 And to me, that is so cool.

56:17 This is the work you do, too.

56:19 you help people early in beginning phases of their journey to to take boulder

56:24 bets and do these things and that's a big motivation of why I'm doing it.

56:29 I do have a little fun poking fun at huge

56:32 conglomerates like I'm it's not really a risk of offending people.

56:37 These are held by enormous holding companies

56:41 and employees don't have equity in these companies.

56:44 And so it's really about the the authors.

56:46 I want authors to dream bigger.

56:48 I want to see more creative work in the world and I hope

56:50 I can make a small dent in enabling people to see more possibilities.

56:56 If you're interested in publishing,

56:58 one of the best authors to learn from is Mark Manson.

57:00 Watch this video next where Mark and I

57:02 talk about his transition from author to YouTuber.