You are an indie author enjoying typical indie success. You spent a few bucks having your book professionally edited, sprang for a professionally designed eye-catching cover, and you took the precaution of paying to have the book professionally formatted for multiple platforms. It’s been available from the biggest bookseller in the whole world for over a year now and you have raked in $9.72. That leaves you a little over $400 in the hole. At least a few thousand people downloaded it when it was free, right? You got two reviews out of that.
It may be that your book about time-traveling vampire elves who solve murder cases is the exemplar of its genre. You’ve followed all the advice, building your back catalog. Now you have three books out in the Time-Traveling Vampire Elf Murder Mysteries. It seems that no one cares. You’re still getting jack squat. You’re probably a book or two away from writing yourself into the poorhouse.
My friends, I am going to share with you a little-known secret of the publishing world. The real money is in How to Make Money books. Whether we are talking arts and crafts or real estate and investment, the actual goldmine is in writing books that tell other people how to get rich doing whatever it is they think they want to do.
You’re probably thinking to yourself, “But Steve, I didn’t get rich. How can I possibly write a book telling other people how to do it?” You can’t—not unless you buy my book, How to Get Rich by Writing Books Telling Other People How to Get Rich.
In this book, you’ll learn things like:
- How to make an important-looking bullet list of key points;
- The seven important reasons to come up with a specific number of things people ought to know;
- The all-critical Coming Up With Acronyms (C.U.W.A.) principle;
- The difference between saying clever things vaguely and vaguely saying clever things; and
- Eight places you can move that do not have extradition agreements with the U.S.
Those secrets alone are worth a fortune, but wait, that’s not all! You’ll also learn:
- The importance of saying, ‘But wait, that’s not all!”;
- How to restate your main thesis in different ways so it looks like you have more to say;
- Saying things over and over in different ways; and
- Tips for stretching out your material into book length by re-wording your main ideas.
Act now and you will also receive these bonus strategies:
- How to draw people in by making them think they’re getting bonus strategies;
- How to strategically excerpt quotes so it looks like people endorsed your book;
- A list of cromulent nonsensical words that make you seem knowledgeable;
- How to make your own portmanteaus by combining two other words; and
- How to craft memorable but meaningless motivational sayings.
There is a pile of money to be made out there by telling people how to make a pile of money. You can either keep driving down the road to failure or you can buy my book and drive right into the ditch of success!
How to Get Rich by Writing Books Telling Other People How to Get Rich is not available wherever books are sold.
Clever, Stephen, and funny. Unfortunately, also largely true. They say the person who made the most money from the gold rush was Levi Strauss, who sold the canvas pants and other gear that the miners bought.
There’s gold in them thar pants!
Hey, how did you know about the CUWA principle? That’s *my* next book!
LOL. 🙂
Great post, Stephen. I liked this so much, I’ve shared in on FB so everyone else can learn and then earn 🙂
BTW, what will you do when your fans demands you actually write this book?
What will I do if they demand I write the book? I’m thinking they can advance order a copy. LOL.
Utter genius. But that is what we expect.
As my daddy used to say, you can expect in one hand and expectorate in the other and see which fills up first.
Cromulent. Hmmmm.
I think I’l write one on ‘how to create acromyms’ for those who need them for their ‘how to get rich quick’ books. I think I see a real need there.
LOL. TYVM. TTYL. 🙂
Hilarious…but not really! LOL I hear a little sadness, frustration in those words. Why can’t we do an anthology on how to get rich? Or maybe just the CUWA book would do it. There are days I actually just talk in acronyms…that’s all. Do yu tink that’s why I’m misunderstood? Hmmmmm………..
I’m not sure I know what you mean about being misunderstood. 😉
Thanks, EM – now I’ve got a time-travelling vampire elf in my WIP crying his eyes out here. Have you no consideration for the feelings of others???!!!
I have a tremendous amount of consideration for others. It’s just that my consideration is significantly outweighed by my disdain. 😉
Very funny!! (Because it’s true!)
There is always an element of truth in the best humor.
CUWA sounds suspiciously close to CYA to me. 😉 Brilliant, EM!
Thanks, Lynne. 🙂
I want to get rich by writing a book about how to write a book about how to get rich by writing books telling other people how to get rich.
And I want to write the epic biography of your exploits in doing that.
A good sequel would be how to make 28 more cents.
I’ll bet you 28 cents I can tell what McNally’s post tomorrow will be about. 😉
Damn I really sad this is not available, really wanted to find out the 8 places I would not get extradited from. *Goes off to consult Wikipedia as that is always right*
LOL.
Haha. I want to write one of those books.
Sorry, everyone who comes after me now will look like a pale imitation! 😉
Brilliant, EM.
I am writing a book entitled, “The New Prejudice: Vampires Speak Out.” Available in your local parallel universe. 🙂
That sounds like a winner. 🙂
Stephen, you made my day. I’m just now catching up my mail and this was worth it 🙂
Thanks Virginia. 🙂