APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur. How to Publish a Book

Writing is therapeutic. It helps you cope with issues that seem gargantuan at the time. The process of expressing yourself about a problem, editing your thoughts, and writing some more can help you control issues that you face.

There are two kinds of people: eaters and bakers. Eaters think the world is a zero-sum game: what someone else eats, they cannot eat. Bakers do not believe that the world is a zero-sum game because they can bake more and bigger pies.

The first good reason to write a book is to add value to people’s lives.

Do you know what the difference is between PR and advertising? Advertising is when you say how great you are. PR is when other people say how great you are. PR is better.

A successful self-publisher must fill three roles: Author, Publisher, and Entrepreneur—or APE.

You’ll learn that the key to a great book is editing — grinding, buffing, and polishing — not writing.

Do not write to impress others. Authors who write to impress people have difficulty remaining true to themselves. A better path is to write what pleases you and pray that there are others like you. Your first and most important reader is you. If you write a book that pleases you, at least you know one person will like it.

Writing a book isn’t an easy process nor is it always enjoyable, but it is one of life’s most satisfying achievements.

Go APE: Author a great book, Publish it quickly, and Entrepreneur your way to success. Self-publishing isn’t easy, but it’s fun and sometimes even lucrative. Plus, your book could change the world.

The self-edited author is as foolish as the self-medicated patient.

Good blurbs are short, sweet, and limited to six. They answer the question “Why should I buy this book?

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying. dup

If achieving success were easy, more people would do it.

When you’ve worked hard and done well and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you.

The beauty of Goodreads is that you know you’re sowing in a field where everyone, by definition and self-selection, loves to read.

Starting your book is only the first five miles of a twenty-six-mile marathon that’s one-third of a triathlon (authoring, publishing, and entrepreneuring).

Writing is the starting point from which all goodness (and crappiness) flows.

Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very long time.

You’ll learn that the key to a great book is editing—grinding, buffing, and polishing—not writing.

To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind; or, if not, should never be published at all.

I have a hardcore attitude: a “self-published, ghost-written book” is wrong because the concept behind self publishing is that you have knowledge or emotions that you want to express. When people read a book—particularly a self-published one—they have the right to expect that it’s the person’s writing, not cleaned-up dictation or slapping a name on a book that someone else wrote.

…and you may know how little God thinks of money by observing on what bad and contemptible characters he often bestows it. Thomas Guthrie

Writing is often a lonely and difficult process, so take a moment to reflect on the good reasons and bad reasons to write a book. We still encourage you to do it, because it is one of the most rewarding experiences in life, but few things worth doing are easy.

Steve Jobs taught me that little details separate the mediocre from the excellent.

electronic realities of publishing. O’Reilly Media is one example. Let’s take a look at its approach to publishing:

Sportswriter Red Smith described writing by saying, “You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed.

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” C. S. Lewis

The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it. Benjamin Disraeli