One of the great things about Rand's book is he's got quite a few radians on the book.
And I have a feeling you worked with an editor. I need an editor when I'm writing stuff. So
did you work with an editor and a publisher? Did you do the entire thing by yourself? I'm curious.
Oh gosh, no. You know, there's several steps along the way. This is an adventure,
a non-stop adventure. You gotta be tough and you gotta be prepared to not just walk around the block.
You gotta do the 10k and then followed by the marathon. So I wrote a manuscript,
many drafts before I was satisfied with it. And I shared it with three really good friends who had
written books and who knew me really well. And I told them, you know, give me real feedback. I want
the real stuff from you. Don't tell me just what's there and what could be better. Tell me what's
missing as well. And I'm writing this book. My thought right now is to have a legacy project that
I would give it to special friends and family. And they all three came back and said, no, no,
this is much bigger book than that. You have to get this published. You have to get it out there
and share it with as many people as you possibly can. Well, that was a real big plus. I really
appreciate you hearing that. They also gave me some very serious and very valuable feedback.
Okay. One of those three said, I suggest you work with a content editor. So there's two levels of
editors. There's a content editor, which is talking about concepts and themes and is this in the right
place. And then you have a copy editor who's making sure your grammar is correct and you have enough
comments and so on and so forth. Well, the content editor was nothing less than fantastic.
Um, really, really great. He gave me a 15 page report and he said, uh, Randy, you can take none
of these pieces of advice or you can take them all. It's a total, totally up to you. Well, I read
through this, uh, with great interest and I took 14 of his 15 suggestions and applied them. And he
then, when I was ready, said, now you're ready to meet with the copy editor. It's the one he uses.
He's written seven books himself. This copy editor is, um, in Pennsylvania here. I'm in California.
And she, she called me up. She says, I rarely, rarely call people up, but I had to talk to you
because although I love your book and I'm really happy to be your copy editor, you have 90% of
your book. You have 90 citations and your book needs maybe twice that many because I'm reading
a page and I cannot tell, I cannot tell whether it's your voice or whether you're referring in
paragraph one of the page to somebody else where you do have a citation. So we need at the minimum
to add more citations to clarify that, or you need to change it to make absolutely sure it's your
choice. And your choice, whichever one you want to do with that. So now whatever it is, uh, 170
citations and I was sweating bullets because the citation, you have to go back to the source. You
have to say it's on page 72 and so on and, um, all that. And so I worked really hard on that. So yes.
Then, then it came time to picking a publisher. Then it did. I love this. I love this, Rand. You
are becoming very fast. One of my book publishing heroes because so many people are launching books
right now for getting these steps and not realizing that it is a reputation killer to have a failed
book launch. Um, so keep going. I mean, everybody who's listening, I hope you're all eating this up
and not getting terrified from doing the thing. Just do the thing right. That's all we're looking
for. It's we put it right. So go ahead. Well said Jackson, do it right. I mean, so, so my content
editor, a great guy, uh, said, okay, um, publisher. Now your book is good enough. I can get it to one
of the big boys in New York, but with two provisos. I said, okay, well tell me what the two provisos
are. It says, well, first thing is that they will own the book. If they don't like your title,
it's going to change. If they don't like chapter three, they're going to make you rewrite it or
replace it with something else they like. And I said to him, look, my book may be a dud, but it's
my dad. He says, I knew, I knew you'd say that it's no problem. Okay. He says, well, let's keep going.
And I said, well, no, you said there's a second proviso. He says, oh yeah. Yeah. That's, they
don't do any marketing. The world has changed around publishing. They don't do any marketing.
They pick people who are really well known already, who have a million email addresses and
contacts and social media up the, uh, the wazoo. No, no, no. It is. And so I said, well, I'm willing
to do my own marketing. I'm, I'm looking forward to that. I'm willing to learn about how to do that.
He says, great. Well, then let's do self publishing. It's a whole new world in self publishing.
It's big. It's represents, uh, maybe 80, 90% of books published are done in the self publishing
thing. It says, I will contact six self publishers I've worked with. I think very highly of, I'll call
them. I'll talk to the head of the organization. I'll tell them about you. I'll tell them about
your book and they'll take a call from you. So I had six, I did interviews, multiple interviews
with each of the six and I learned a lot. You know, it's a thing, you know, in life, if you,
if you're working on, uh, make some guesses. I hope if you're willing to reveal them, make some
guesses. And I'd love to know what the six are, but there's NG NG enterprises, um, self publishing
school, Chandler bolt. Um, I would prefer you knew about the tail publishing as well, but in
Rakesh pitman's program and the other one that's coming to mind is a speaker lab. Um, but who,
who else, who was, who were these six? Well, there's, um, there's a, a really great,
well, she's a hybrid Jen grace in Connecticut. Uh, boy, her style is really good. She's very,
uh, very, I don't want to make this all about them. Uh, and someone make it about you, but who, so
who are your six quick that we're going to interrupt Charlie Levin, Charlie Levin is also
really good. Um, but at the end of the day, um, and, and, uh, I went through his six,
multiple interviews and I was about to press the button on one in my tummy. I listened to my tummy.
Yeah. Something's not right here. Uh, I think they could do a competent job, but they're not
listening to me. It's kind of a, in mathematics, we call it orthogonal. You know, I'd say one thing
and they'd come back with something that was sort of related, but wasn't really connected, did not
really answer my question. And they were good questions. They, I needed the answers to it.
Yeah. So I said no to that. And then I kept on, you know, we're in the living in the world of
Google. Uh, so I kept, and I kept coming up with, uh, self publishing.com. And so I reached out,
um, I connected with a guy. He spent a lot of time with me. Uh, he gave me, uh, a list of people for,
uh, testimonials. I called all of them. They said, this is a real deal. They're fantastic.
Just keep in mind, you have to do the work. They'll tell you, they'll give you the pathway.
They will do certain things for you, but there's a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff you have to do
yourself. I said, okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. Okay. And this guy, Matt, I actually have him in,
in my acknowledgements. He said to launch the book properly after you're all ready. It's all,
it's published, it's there, it's ready to go. You have to launch it and you have to create a launch
team. And I want to be your first launch team member. And as soon as he said that, I said,
I'm signing up with you guys. I'm signing up with you, Matt, and don't disappear on me. I
know you're going to, you know, pass the baton on to the rest of the team, but stay, you know,
if I reach out to you, will you take my email or whatever? He says, I absolutely will. I love
who you are and what your book is about. And that's Chandler bolts company, Chandler bolts
company. Yep. That's, that's the one I had a feeling, um, cause self, it used to be self
publishing school. And I was in the middle of studying my, well, I had the flu badly years ago
and I couldn't do anything except for like roll over and look at my phone, but I wanted to be
productive. And so I found, I went to look up how to publish a book and I found his book
on publishing books. And I can assume that as I was throwing up and you know, miserable. Uh,
and I was like, man, this is amazing. And long story short, Chandler bolt, um, ironically,
I was, I think I was working with video power marketing at the time. Then, um, I, I left video
power marketing, launched my own company and Chandler bolt became a client to video power.
Um, and it made perfect sense cause him and Jake Larson are very, very similar in their leadership
styles. Um, but yeah, I've very much modeled and watched what they've been up to as I've also
tinkered with the idea of, okay, when are we going to finally launch these books? But
I want to do it right. Um, when I do it. So it's really neat that, that that's the, uh,
that's the company you ended up working with. I can't say enough about them. Uh, it's a great
company. I had a one-on-one coach. I had a office hours with another group of six or eight really,
really good people. When I had a three minute question, I could just, you know, go in and
have those questions answered. They did the formatting. I'm very happy with the formatting.
They stayed with it all the way. The many, many, many additions. Uh, they, they helped with the
cover. I did the design brief for the cover. Uh, that went through 18 different versions to finally
get to the, the, the cover I have now, which I'm very, very happy with. And people really caught
my eye about your book. Um, I was, I was looking over it just now as we were sharing it with the
audience. Um, and I came across a page that stood out to me because one of the books that's been
one of the most pivotal books towards my business growth and everything that I've taught to companies
is this book right here, peak by Chip Conley. Yes. Who says in your book that your book is a must
read book. And I can't responsibly ignore that man with all the wisdom that he has given us. So,
uh, that's amazing. I, this, tell me about those about the book. Go ahead first, go ahead and wrap
that up. Cause that's, that's huge to have chip on your book. To thank you very much. Chip is a really
big guy. He is, uh, his story is amazing. Uh, what he's done and what he's doing now with modern
elder academy down here in Austin. He's right near me. I'm not, I'm not old enough for that, but
yeah, no, he, yeah, yeah. But, uh, but it's a path for the future. He's great. He's contributing so
much, you know, chip, uh, chip was just, just so, uh, so delightful to work with in writing a
testimonial. There are a number of other amazing testimonies, including the head of Kaiser
Permanente. She wrote Dr. Ansari wrote a testimonial. So that was another adventure, uh,
you know, and, and there were some people say I'd love to write a review, but I'm just slammed. I
can't, I can't do it. I can't do it. Um, and it's not you. I'm saying no to everybody. So, uh, so,
so there's that, um, yeah. Uh, I can't say enough about chip. Yeah.
Oh, that's amazing. I'm glad to hear that. Um, I've, I've studied his life and his companies far
more than I should admit. I even tried really, really hard to get the Joy de Bois organization
as a, as a customer when I was at restaurant connect, I must've called their, their establishment
a hundred plus times, um, did probably four different demos with four different GMs. I never
ended up crossing the threshold, but I just, I, I could see how amazing what they were building was.
Um, so who knows someday you, you mentioned, uh, chip's book he's written, I think five now,
um, peak being one. And one of the things that my readers tell me, uh, that they love about my book
is the back, the last section of the book is 75 books that I've written that really impacted me.
And I have a paragraph that you've read each one that you've read. Absolutely. I digested, gobbled
up and affected me. And peak of course is one of them. And emotional equations is another one.
Uh, so, so I refer to chip in several places, like I do a number of people repeatedly, because
they're, you know, I have so much to offer and so much to say in this, this world of thriving and
how to get on the road to doing it as the, you and all this, you know, you standing on these shoulders
of giants and the formulas that they've created, you've been able to utilize that to build your
own. And I hope again, more visionaries who are listening and take the opportunity to realize that
the research, the study, the diligence, it pays off tremendously. Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned into vision pros live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more
and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving
us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.