How to Find Yourself by Getting Lost in a Book

Getting to know who you are can sometimes be an endless journey. There are many aspects that we all must go through daily. Beyond learning what to do in the moment, we all change over time. In fact, our brains are set up to change every night by dreaming. This mechanism allows us to determine courses of action without actually doing them. So what are a few methods we can dream with our eyes open? We have TV and movies, but those are incredibly descriptive and don't allow for much mental wiggle room. Here are four ways you can find yourself by getting lost in a book.

Method 1: Escape

Our daily lives can be filled with necessity. They can be so filled with this maintenance that we grow weary. The monotony isn't a bad thing, after all it allows us to sustain our existence. If we are lucky it helps us derive purpose on why we are here. On occasion though, we need to escape from this constant pressure to continue. For those cases, we enjoy escaping into life and death situations. These escapes allow us several things: relief, excitement, and wonder. The best part of the escapes is that they help our brains switch tasks. By breaking up the tasks into different chunks, it allows us better focus on the individual pieces. Our brains were not meant to be focused for every minute of the day. Instead, we need to have regular brain breaks. Reading allows us to venture into new territories and then re-focus back on the regular stuff. That's why we admire the sense of tension in an action novel, wonder in a fantasy novel, or creepiness in a horror novel. These things allow us to marvel at the art without needing to be required to make it.

Method 2: Empathy

Another common method of finding yourself by reading a book is to read a story that is far from your own. If you read a story that entails hardships you've never faced, you get a better understanding of that person. This allows our empathy to grow and allows us to build better connections with each other. Instead of thinking we know it all, we can live it all in a variety of different ways. That perspective is extremely important to growing as a well-rounded person. Beyond teaching us how to empathize, books can also be centered around eras in time. That allows us to know what it was like to live in a time period or situation that is even further from our own. Living through the ages allows us to see what threads connect each generation. Some languages and traditions transcend time, and that's where historical books shine.

Method 3: Possibility

Intelligence and research often build unique results, and those results can be in books as well. Many modern-day inventions were talked about in books before they were created. This is because books can inspire the next generation to build unique products and ideas. Sci-Fi is full of different ideas on where we could go from a technical perspective. This can be a double-sided adventure as well. Not only can these tales tell us where we could go with wonderful inventions, they tell us what could go wrong. This not only helps inspire us to build inventions, but use them correctly for the future. Using them correctly may involve building oversight structures or put in key minimizing structures. The first thought into this was Frankenstein, which then helped Asimov write about the laws of robotics. These laws then help modern robot makers by thinking of the worst case scenario with their projects. Without these initial forays into the realm of creation, these scientists would not have as much progress.

Method 4: Movement

The last method I'll discuss is that books can start ideas. Some books speak to truths that society wants to keep buried or not discussed. Once the book is out, this can resonate with an underserved population. This frequency can spread and before you know it a full movement is taking place across the country. Many books have sparked controversy and build followings because of the political or social boundaries they smashed. To Kill a Mockingbird and Atlas Shrugged are two examples of each book. In addition, controversial leaders may publish manifesto's that give people an insight into how their minds work. That allows future generations to have an unfiltered look into the center of a particular movement. Not only can they see the results of the thinking, but they can also examine it right down to the roots. This can allow them to better understand the thought and the world's consequences with those particular thoughts.

While there are many ways to lose yourself in a book, there are also many ways to find out who you are in a book. Books can teach us to better focus on our routine filled lives. Books can teach us how to be full of empathy or how to relate to the past. Books can teach us about cool inventions and the potential downsides. Books can teach us about political and social ideas; including their place in the world. Ultimately, books can teach us where we fit in this world. The only thing that needs to be done is to flip the page and continue to read on. This could be sci-fi, history, romance, fantasy, action, non-fiction, and more. The trick with this flow of information is to continue it and make yourself happy with whatever you decide to read. If you continue to enjoy what you are reading, then you know you are slowly becoming what you desire to become. That may not be a wild adventurer or some time traveling cop, but it will be a more empathetic and intelligent human. While those may appear to be soft skills, they are some of the essential skills we need to learn. 

Minimal Viable Audience - Individual Connection Marketing

In a recent podcast with Seth Godin, one of the ideas mentioned was looking at the minimal audience needed. When people are thinking of what they can sell to make money, they are thinking that the more people that views their product the better. Therefore, they look to see advertising as an infinite source of views. This becomes a race of converting views into “funnel” travelers. At the end of the funnel is a customer who buys everything you put out.

Personal connection vs. Funnel travelers

The flip side that Seth Godin talks about is that true marketing is about personal connection. To me, that makes logical sense. In the small town I used to live in, my boss was like a celebrity. When he walked down the street, people waved, and he chatted with nearly everyone. In fact, he had to send people out to get items from the store sometimes because it would take too long for him to do.  He had a personal connection with so many people, which is the foundation of his business. He knows exactly who needs what and helps them out.

Seth Godin talked about creating raving fans that then create more fans. The idea is to focus just on the most fanatic and leave the rest to work itself out. I want to take this concept one more step forward. Instead of just creating raving fans, what is the least number of fans you need? If you want to sell two books a day, and you have 60 fantastic fans, then you are set for the first month of book sales. Great! But what about the next month’s book sales? What about some natural attrition from the list?

What is your aim as an author?

Perhaps here is a different way to look at it: What are you trying to go for as a writer? If you want people to read your book, and are not as concerned about the money, why not just go strictly for reviewers? Why do any advertising at all?

Talking one on one with reviewers and building that comradely is a unique idea. Most times authors look at reviews as a means to an end. If we get enough reviews, others will buy the book. What if we flip this and stop looking for end customers completely? What if we only looked for reviewers?

To me, this makes a lot more sense. Not only does it allow for more personal connections, but it helps build a platform. In the end, I think that this practice does something powerful. If you have a list of people you know and know you, that can lead to something Amazon can’t take away.

Better than Amazon

As an author, we know that there is a trade off between “going wide” and “going exclusive”. Going exclusive allows the author to get Amazon’s promotions and have potentially more easy revenue. However, going wide can provide an author with a revenue stream outside of Amazon. This can be important because it allows the author to adapt to the future. However, these are the two main choices, right? Well, there is a third one that few people think about “going narrow”. That is, having those close relationships with people. Amazon can’t duplicate this relationship and even if they change against you, you can pivot quickly. Furthermore, going wide can work even better because you can move people to the right fit for them. Perhaps they want to have a specific format or don’t want to jump through a lot of hoops. By building that personal relationship with them, you can figure out exactly what they need and fill it. Maybe Amazon is the best step for them? Maybe someplace else is the best place for them? Ultimately, the struggle no longer becomes what you want as an author, but rather what your audience wants individually. There is no way Amazon or anyone else can take that away.

The Money is in the List

This old saying relates to mailing lists. The idea is that a sales funnel slowly develops contacts and then you can section those most likely to buy. I would look at this from an alternative perspective. I would almost look at it from a Salesforce point of view. Instead of looking at a specific funnel, think of this as a mountain of value. You are being paid to be a Sherpa on this mountain. You don’t know where your people want to go, or how they want to go there, you are just there to provide value. In that regard, a CRM (customer relationship manager) may be a better fit than AMS (Amazon Marketing Service) ads. Think about the conversation from an AMS standpoint. You try out a sales copy, and the response is a simple: yes, no, or kinda. Is this what they are looking for? No? Let’s try that? All the while you are wasting a ton of money trying to get a clear picture. Why not skip all that and just send out an email (or call) and get an immediately answer? In addition, you can ask more detailed questions and have a wonderful conversation.

So the money is still in the list, but the truth is that the money is in the relationship building techniques. How do you provide value as an author? How can you tailor what value you build to fit their need, not your own? If you are able to hit that every time you become something other than “another marketer”. You become a resource for your readers. Your writing becomes that water in a desert that they know they can go to and get exactly what they are looking for. If it turns out that they aren’t happy, well guess what? They know the author! They can get it fixed. That gives them the power, which is ultimately, where it’s always been. No platform, no advertising, no gimmicks hold the same power that interested customers hold. Let them decide and they will reward you with more than money. They will reward you with loyalty.

Dismantling Bad Advice on How to Market an eBook

When it comes to how to market an ebook, there is a lot of bad advice out there. However, the advice can sound completely rational and logical. So how do you best separate out the good information from the bad? There are three main ways to do this:

Method 1: Ignore success, look for failures

There is an old saying that failures teach more than success. This is exceedingly true when you are looking for marketing advice. Many people will take a look at the success of a project and try to duplicate it. However, they may not see that the success of the project was an iterative approach, achieved just a bit at a time. That means that when you try to duplicate success, you could be missing steps or may not have the full picture. Instead, if you can see the road they took to get to success, you will be setup better. Things to look for include:

• How many failures did they have
• How much did each or all the failures cost
• What was the method that they experimented

That final thing can be more important than any other piece of information. However, this is often ignored in marketing advice. Giving an example of an A/B test is simply not enough. What led a particular marketer towards certain words? What websites did they visit for ideas? How did they generate each round of test keywords? This complete method of experimentation is the map towards success, or at very least, the same location.

Method 2: Are they talking about the 80% or the 20%?

Knowing the impact of each change can determine how much effort should be put in. When you put your time into an effort, you don’t want to waste that precious commodity. In addition, advice can also focus on a “shot gun” approach where the marketer tried a bunch of stuff and something stuck. However, when you dissect their advice, it is easy to tell that they don’t know what exactly stuck. Knowing the exact lever to pull is important to determine the validity of the advice.

Method 3: Does the advice fit the box you are trying to put it in?

Another common approach to any marketing advice is to keep it really broad. The idea behind this is that many more people can use the advice. The only problem is that many more people can use the advice in the wrong way. Instead of determining what fits their goals, they may focus on a broad aspect and hope it fits. One example could be the “just write” approach. However, if the writer is trying to determine the value of time to writing, this advice isn’t going to be helpful. If the writer is trying to build better books and needs to learn through trial and error, this advice will work. When it comes to marketing, the same is true. Pouring more money into keyword research isn’t going to matter if the problem is that the author doesn’t know their genre. That would just put the wrong product in the wrong hands. The result of that will be either negative reviews or no sales.