I’m a Best Selling Author

It’s official, I’m a best selling author. Well technically, my book “Dad Jokes for Business Folks: Written for those Paid Weekly, Very Weakly” was the number two best selling book in the Puns & Word Play Humor category. In addition, it was the #1 new release in that category. Yup, add it to the resume. The New Yorker called for an interview and I couldn’t fit them into my schedule. That’s how big of a deal I am. 

Why I Did It:

For someone like myself who spends the majority of his available time working on building businesses, I struggle with doing things without a purpose. If I’m building a business, it’s to grow. If I’m biking, it’s to get to the top of the hill. If I’m surfing, it’s to eventually get barreled. It’s unlikely that will ever happen, but it’s worth dreaming. 

One of my goals for 2023 was to do things that don’t matter. Have fun in life. Do things that will make you and your friends laugh. When I’m 80, what will be a funny story to tell around the dinner table? I love Dad jokes and I was actually becoming a Dad in February. What better way to celebrate my son’s birth than to publish a book of Dad jokes? 

How I Did It:

I’m lazy. Not lazy in the sense of not wanting to do anything. Instead, I’m lazy in the sense that I don’t want to do things that anyone can do. My time is valuable. So when it came to writing the book, I put together a word document with my favorite ~100 Dad jokes and broke them down into the 6 main categories I wanted for the book. I then proceeded to hire a freelance graphic designer to design the entire book and put it into the necessary formatting for Amazon publishing.  

Amazon handled all the logistics for me. I uploaded the book in paperback and kindle versions and then had Chat GPT write the book description from me. As you can see below, I think it turned out pretty well. I was able to adjust their output a bit and launch the books!

What’s next? Well, I had to go for the best-seller rank! I had recently found out that Amazon re-ranks books based on hourly sales. So if your book sells a lot in a single hour, it’s likely it will become the bestseller when that hour resets which is typically 18-24 hours later. I’m not famous, nor do I have a history of writing great books. So what did I do? I turned to my 30 close friends and family, my 6,000 twitter followers, and my 800 newsletter subscribers. I was able to get ~75 people to commit to buying my book doing a certain hour period. 

As I waited to see how the book performed, I checked my phone every 90 seconds. The 18 hours until the rankings came out, I could barely sleep. I should probably start working on patience. I did it. I made it into the top rankings! My excitement was at an all time high.

Why This Matters:

This project doesn’t matter. It furthers nothing in my life’s mission or purpose. But, it probably took under 10 total hours of work and is a cool accomplishment. If there’s anything I’ve learned in life, doing random experiments opens doors and can create opportunities. We’ll see if anything comes from this project.