Chandler Bolt [00:00:08] Hey, Chandler here and welcome to a special bonus episode of the Self-publishing School Podcast. This podcast is all about making a huge announcement. So today is about making a huge announcement. Maybe you saw it or heard it in the interview last week between me and Matthew Emmorey, where I got interviewed about all the biggest lessons I learned from scaling self-publishing school of the last eight years. And we we teased that announcement. We made that announcement. But in this episode, I want to break it down in a lot more detail. All right. So we’re going to talk about the future of publishing and the biggest announcement in self-publishing school history. Now, if you’re listen on the podcast, that’s awesome. If you prefer a more visual route, this is also available on the YouTube channel. And there’s some slide. There’s visuals that’ll hopefully make this announcement more impactful. So let’s dive in. Why are we here? Why are we doing this episode? Well, obviously because we’ve got a huge announcement, but also why we exist at self-publishing school. So we exist for two fundamental reasons. You’ve probably heard me talk about this. Maybe you’ve read about it in my new book published. But there’s two kind of core principles that drive why we do what we do. So, number one, we believe that books change lives. Right? If you’re listening to or watching this, you’ve probably had your life changed by reading a book. If you have it, you need to read more. I think so. Book sees the lives of readers, but they also changed the lives of authors. We always say it’s not about the book, it’s about who you become in the process of writing and publishing that book. So books change lives. That’s first and foremost. But then we also believe in leverage impact. All right. So Leverage Impact says, Hey, when I create this book, this book is going to go on to impact thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even millions of people. Right. And so a book brings leverage to the impact that you’re trying to make on this earth. All right. Whether this is a legacy thing for you, whether this is a thing that you want to grow your business helps you go from one to 1 to 1 to many. And long after you’re off, this earth is still going to be here. Right? So we believe, you know, at a minimum, we kind of say, hey, one book is going to impact a minimum of 100 lives. Now, there’s kind of three buckets there. There’s one bucket, which is about 1000 readers. All right. That’s the minimum threshold that we aim for. Now, you may or may not know this, but the average self-published book sells less than 100 copies. That sucks, right? So we want to help people sell a whole lot more copies of that so you can make a lot more copies than that. So you can make a much bigger impact with your book right now. What about the other buckets, though? So there’s the second bucket, which is that’s about 200 people in your life who are so inspired by seeing you take on this big goal. Right? They see you take on this goal of writing and publishing a book that they say, Hey, what could I do right? Maybe I want to lose weight. Maybe I want to quit smoking or drinking. Maybe I want to take on some big goal that I have. And now I’m inspired by you. I’m a friend or family member or just in your kind of orbit as a human right. But I see you do that and I say, Hey, I’m inspire. All right. So that’s how we get to that threshold. And then a third bucket is one person’s life who’s forever changed by you taking on this challenge of writing and publishing a book. So that’s why we exist. Now we’ve got a big, crazy goal of publishing 100,000 books by 2035 and putting putting it out there publicly. And so we published about 7000 books in the last eight years. I’ll talk about the second self-publishing school. But this is a crazy goal. But we’re working towards it, and we’ve got a long way to go. But we’ve made a lot of progress, Right? So how are we doing? All right, so how are we doing? So I kind of recap some stats in, but I’ll first share kind of how I got into this to begin with, because I was just like, you are just like a lot of you listening to or watching this is I discovered firsthand the power of books, right? I published a book, my first book at age 19 on lessons that I learned the hard way. But I thought, you know, I what I want to I want to help other people through this book. Right. I had no master plan to to, you know, published books or anything like that. I’m a sea level English student and a college dropout with ADHD. So you’re kind of the last person you would ever think would write books. But maybe like you, I thought, hey, there’s something that I think will be of help and service to others. So I got to do all right. I got to get over my fears and insecurities around writing, and this can be helpful. And so I did it and it did really well. All right. This book, this first book called Productive Person, it unlocked all these opportunities, right? I always say, you know, writing a book is kind of like it’s it’s kind of like, you know, there’s this if you’ve ever heard of or watched the movie The Chronicles of Narnia. Right. You’ve seen the movies you watch, you’ve read the books, you’ve seen the movies, you know that they discover this key that opens this door to Narnia. Right. And it was this magical world that they didn’t know existed previously. Now, this book is just like that, right? It’s a key that opens the door to opportunities that only exist for published authors. Right. And so I’ve seen this firsthand. We’ve seen this with a lot of our authors. You know, maybe you’ve heard the word of authority as author. You can’t spell the word authority without the word author. But also a book just opens up opportunity. Right? So this is what sparks my passion to start self-publishing is going to be to begin with, right? Because of my first book, I started getting interviewed for Top podcast. I got featured on the Huffington Post and other sites. I got offered a seven figure digital publishing deal, built an email list of thousands of people just from readers of that book. Right. And started a business ultimately. Right. And then so as I was kind of at a crossroads and maybe you’ve heard this me tell this story, this is also the story I tell this in my new book published. But there was kind of just a crazy accident that happened in my life where a friend of mine passed away right in front of me. And it was this this seminal moment where. I mean, it was it was the craziest thing that’s ever happened in my life. And it just shook me and it forced me to reexamine what I was doing in my life. And I was kind of at this crossroads. Do I want to keep helping people with this book thing? Do I want to do a different business, do something else? And this just showed me because, you know, my friend Kendall, he he had actually attended a random training that I had done before He passed away and wrote most of a draft for the book, for a book. And we were able to publish his book after he passed away. And it was just like this crystallizing moment where I realized, Hey, I’m chasing a lot of things that don’t matter, you know? And this is one of the only things in my life that I’m doing that’s actually making the world a better place. And so that that is really what kind of inspired me to double down on self-publishing school and launch self-publishing school is we had another kind of small business where we’d help 40 something authors, but it wasn’t called self-publishing school. So this spurred me to launch self-publishing school. And you can see this bracelet on the screen or you can see me wearing it here is to make him proud. Like I realized, Hey, I’m living for two. I’m living to achieve Kendall’s goals that he told me the night before he passed away, his five year goals and all these things he wanted to do, but then also my goals, right? And so now I’m living for two. I want to make him proud. And so that’s what I’ve attempted to do. And and I think I think that I’ve done and we’ve done with self-publishing school in the first eight years. It’s just make make him proud and make a big difference. So this is kind of crazy. We’re not even technically at our eight year mark, but in the first eight years we’ve published over 7000 books that we can track. So these are people who thought out of form and said, Hey, I finished the process, which we know that it’s probably a lot more than this, but that’s what we can track. We’ve also hosted a yearly author Vintage live conference with thousands of attendees. This is one of the most life changing things I think, that we do with our authors that sold millions of copies of their books and over a million authors have been impacted as part of our work at self-publishing school. And so through our blog posts or videos or podcasts, all those things, we’ve been in ink 5000 company for five years. So one of the fastest growing private companies in the US. This also helped me land on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. We’ve done over $43 million in revenue. But all this like, okay, cool, that’s it. Like kind of like a stat sheet and a list of accomplishments. But I think the most important thing and why this matters for you and why this matters connected to this huge announcement that I’m about to make is that I believe that we have put the power back in the hands of authors. All right. Self-publishing has really it’s made this transition over the last decade. And I think we’re kind of on the front lines of that transition where it’s not only the it’s not you know, it used to be the backup plan, right? It was the thing that you only did if you couldn’t get a publishing deal. And but now it’s the preferred option for most authors. All right. And so I believe that we’ve really changed the publishing industry and changed the self-publishing industry for the better over the last eight years. All right, Now, where are we going now? This brings me to a massive announcement and something that I think you’re going to be really excited about, at least if you have a book that you’re working on or you’re thinking about working on, this can be really, really helpful for you. So there’s two big announcements that I want to make today. All right. Drum roll, please. All right. The first big announcement is that we’re saying goodbye to self-publishing school. And hello to self-publishing. Become the future of publishing. We’ve officially launched self-publishing school. If you’re hearing this, if you’re seeing this, this is just happen. All right. And I believe it’s the future not only of self-publishing. Obviously, in the future, if you’re self-publishing a book, you’re going to do it was up publishing dot com, right? We are the leading authority in the best of the best. But also, I believe that we’re changing the publishing industry as a whole. All right. And so we’re launching self-publishing dot com. Now with that, we’re launching a bunch of products and services with better pricing, better services, everything that they’re going to help you take your book to the next level. All right. So whether you’re an aspiring author this early in the process, whether you know, you’re an author that wants to sell more copies of the book that you’ve already published is going to be extremely helpful for you. We’ve been in the lab over the last year kind of developing all of these products and services. Again, that will just take your book to the next level, whether it’s cover design, formatting, publishing, expanded distribution, marketing, getting you on podcast, all of these things. They’re going to be really, really helpful. All right. Now, we’ve been kind of tweaking and perfecting and improving and and a lot of it is what I call kind of the final mile of publishing is these things that you’re going to have to do anyway. You’re going to have to pay someone to do this. If you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s going to cost thousands, maybe even over $10,000 to get this done. But now we can just do it for you as we work with you and help you with your book. All right. Now, we’ve also launched, you know, just different products that are going to help you and better pricing and all kinds of stuff that I think is going to change the publishing industry forever and help us hit that goal of 100,000 books published. I hope that your book will be next. All right. Now with this announcement, there’s a couple of ways that you can get involved. All right. If you’re seeing this, like right away after it was published in the month of January. All right, then you have a chance to enter to win a writer’s retreat or a couples retreat. All right. This is at the legendary Boat Farm Treehouses. This is my brother and sister in law created this. Maybe you’ve seen it on Netflix is world’s most amazing vacation rentals show. It’s I mean, it’s breathtaking. They’ve got treehouses, domes, mirror cabins. And we’re giving away one lucky winner is going to win a writer’s retreat. All right. All you have to do is go to self-publishing dot com forward slash giveaway and enter to win the giveaway at that page. All right. So self-publishing dotcom Ford slams giveaway enter to win there. Everyone’s going to win something. You’ll win a free digital copy or audiobook copy of my book published. And then one lucky winner is going to win a huge retreat. All right. And now the second way that you can get involved is to work with us. All right. Book a call with my team. You can see the full announcement and you can book a call with the team at self-publishing dot com for Slash the Future. All right. Self-publishing dot com for Inside the Future. I’ll talk more about this in just one second. All right. So I have to do like I said is go to self-publishing dot com forward slash the future you can find the full announcement. If you’re watching the video on the YouTube channel you can scan that QR code and it’ll take you directly to the page. All right. Now this is really cool. So as part of this launch to celebrate, we want to give back. All right. And so we’re donating for every two people that sign up for self-publishing school or self-publishing dot com in the month of January, we’re building or we’re funding sorry, we’re funding a library and donating 1000 books to that library. All right. So we’ve partnered with an incredible organization. All right. So it’s an incredible organization that serves communities and schools in Africa. Okay. So in a lot of areas of Africa, there’s you know, the schools have one hour per day of required reading. Right. But in a lot of these schools, they have no books to read. So, you know, there’s the required reading time, no books to read. And so the kids just sit there. And so what we want to do is, you know, we believe that books change lives of readers and of authors. And so we want to support the next generation of readers and authors by helping fund some of these libraries and get books in these schools. All right. So all you have to do is book a couple and sign up for self-publishing dot com in the month of January. We’ve got a crazy goal of 75 libraries funded by the end of the month. We’re going to kind of be keeping track and sharing the progress and all that stuff as we go. But again, for every author that signs up will donate 500 books. Every two authors that sign up in the month of January, that’s a full. Library, funded in a thousand books sent to outfit that library. All right. So pretty exciting. We’d love for you to join us in the future of publishing and work with us. All right. So all you have to do is go to self-publishing dot com for slash the future. The full announcement is there. And then those two options that I told you are both there. Right. So, number one, you can enter to win the writer’s retreat to book from treehouses. All you have to do is a couple of things like share this on social and share the announcement and that sort of thing. Subscribe to the podcast, couple things like that. Secondly, on that page as well, you can book a call with my team to sign up in self publish income in January to see how we can help with your book and take those next steps. All right. If you’re serious about your book and you’re saying, hey, I just want to, you know, cut straight to it, let’s talk about let’s talk about my book. Let’s talk about my goals for my book, my challenges, my next steps. And let’s start to put together a plan that you can go to directly to book a call With my team. All you have to do is go to self-publishing dot com for slash apply. All right. I’m going to make a bold promise and say when you book a call with my team at this link is going to be the best 45 minutes you ever spend on your book. All right. If you feel like some of the things on this podcast have been helpful, if you feel like the lessons, anything that you’ve interacted with that has been helpful, this call is going to be even more helpful because there’s nothing like getting one on one feedback and accountability specific to you, your book and where you’re at with that book, right? So book it, call it self-publishing dot com forward slash apply. And we’re excited to chat with you about your book and how we can help. All right. Thank you so much for listening to or watching this announcement. We’re so excited. I hope that you are, too. We’re creating the future of publishing together. All right. We’re putting the power back in the hands of authors. You write, and we’re helping people live out their legacy, right? Publish a book that’s going to impact hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of people. Right. So I hope that your book will be that next book tours that 100,000 books published. Go. And I hope that you help us find one of these libraries if you wanna work with us, book a call self-publishing dot com for XYZ supply or if you know you’re not able to work with us, then just share about the launch. That’s the best way to do your part and you’ll enter to win the writers giveaway. All right. So head on over to self-publishing dot com forward slash apply today book a call with the team. We can’t wait to work with you and chat with you about your book. Let’s go create the Future of publishing.