[SlickyBoy]

Guess we should not be too surprised he's using this platform to come across as an entrepreneur instead of a "me too!" has been.

It's his first post and every comment is a positive one - I guess on LinkedIn people are just too concerned about being professional and polite. Tucker himself is doing all he can to avoid the frat boy persona he cultivated for so many years. Wonder how long it lasts until he unravels....

Quote:

"My Start-up Made 200k In It's First Two Months...And I'm Embarrassed"

It all started with a simple question from a frustrated entrepreneur:

"I want a book, but I don't have the time to write it, and the normal publishing process is so frustrating. Is there another way to solve my problem? How can I get a book done in a professional way, but not have to deal with all of this?"

She asked me these questions because I am uniquely qualified to answer them. I'm both a writer (I've written three #1 NY Times Best Sellers) and an entrepreneur (I started and exited a publishing company that established the current model for many very successful authors, like Hugh Howey's deal with Simon & Schuster). Because of these two facts, I get some version of this question on a nearly daily basis, and I have a canned answer to quickly get out of these conversations.

I tell people that sitting down to write the book is not an optional part of the process--in fact, it's the very point of the process--and that they can't have something (a book) without doing the work necessary to create it (write it). I usually say it in a disdainful tone, sneering at the laziness of people who presume that books are something they can just "get" without having to do the hard work. I often throw in some version of the "everyone wants to be a star, but no one wants to do the work" quote that Mark Cuban made famous.

Melissa Gonzalez, the entrepreneur who asked me the question, was different. And this was not just some dinner. This was an LDV Entrepreneur Dinner (LDV is an invite-only organization run by Evan Nisselson, that brings together successful entrepreneurs with the stated intent of helping each other). Nonetheless, fully bathing in my writer's arrogance, I gave her my usual canned speech about "hard work" and "the difficult process being part of the work." When she rolled her eyes at me, I wondered what I had said that was so bad.

She stopped me and reframed her question:

Melissa "You're an entrepreneur, right?"
Tucker "Yeah, of course."
Melissa "I'm an entrepreneur too, and the most important thing I do is solve problems. Can you solve my problem, or just lecture me about hard work?"

This was a straight up call out...and she was exactly right.

I was not talking to some schmoe. This woman knew those lessons--she'd built her own successful business, in an extremely competitive field (retail). Here I was at dinner with 30+ entrepreneurs who are all more successful than me, and I was lecturing one of them about hard work, instead of thinking of a way to solve her problem.

I have seen the embarrassed amateur in the room, and he is me.

I was too flustered to brainstorm a solution in the moment, so I told her that I would think about it, and get in touch.

Because I got called out--and I was so clearly, embarrassingly wrong--I ended up obsessing over her problem for weeks. Which of course got me nowhere. Finding ways to make the publishing process easy is doable, but all I kept coming back to was the fact that there was no way to write a book without putting in the time to write it. The writing is part of the process, that's why it's called WRITING a book.

I eventually gave up on finding a solution, and a few days later--after I'd stopped thinking about it, of course--the solution hit me, like a lightning strike:

Is writing really a necessary part of creating books? What if you eliminated writing from the process, what would that look like?

I started unpacking all of this in my head with a little one-man Socratic method:

Q. What is a book?
A. A book is just a collection of thoughts that are expressed in words, and assembled in the form of a finite, defined text.

Q. What purpose do books serve? 

A. Books--especially non-fiction books--exist to take a singular, contained idea out of the head of the author, and put it into the head of readers.

Q. What part does writing play in this? 

A. Writing thoughts down in words and sentences is the process by which the ideas are put into books.

Q. Are there other ways to get ideas into books? 

A. If books exist to transfer ideas from one head to another, AND writing is the way by which people commit their ideas to words to put into books--is there another way to get those thoughts into a book, without writing? How would that happen? Of course there is--talking!!

Q. What if I eliminated writing in favor of talking?
A. If I can find a way for her to talk about her ideas, instead of write her ideas down, could I then give her a finished book? Can Melissa just talk about her ideas instead of writing them down? Of course she can!

I refined the idea in my head, and then called Melissa:

Tucker "What if I told you that I can take you from idea, to a professionally published, completely finished book for sale on Amazon and everywhere else, in about 12 hours of your time--and all you have to do is talk."
Melissa "I'd say that sounds great, and I want to do it."

The problem was that I didn't really have a precise process to do this and, quite honestly, I wasn't sure this was going to work. But like Melissa said, this is what entrepreneurship is about: solving problems that give people what they want.

So I connected Melissa with a former employee of mine, Zach Obront, and the three of us decided to collaborate on this project, to test it and see what would happen. Here's the basic step-by-step process we came up with:

Form a book outline: Zach did a few phone calls with Melissa, helped her clarify her book idea and figure out exactly what she wanted to say in her book. From these conversations, he wrote an outline for the book.
Interview her for the content: Zach then scheduled four two-hour calls with Melissa, where he "interviewed" her, using the outline as a guide. He asked her questions until he got all of what she wanted to say, in her words, onto an audio recording.
Transcribe the recordings: He used Speechpad to transcribe the recordings into a text.
"Translate" the transcription to a book manuscript: If you have ever seen a raw audio transcription, you know they are basically unreadable. So we took the transcription and had an editor "translate" it from spoken word to readable book prose. They basically took Melissa's spoken words and ideas, and made them flow as written sentences and paragraphs.
Did some content/copy edits: Melissa took some time to go over the content and make sure it reflected her thoughts and vision for the book. There was some back and forth getting the edits and voice right, since this was the first time doing this and we were still figuring out the process. And of course, we made sure it had no spelling or grammar errors.
Designed a cover: Because Melissa has an amazing aesthetic, the cover had to look great. This was not a job for 99 Designs. We worked with a world class cover designer (Erin Tyler) to get Melissa a cool cover that looked great and she was proud of.
Did the rest of the professional publishing minutiae: There are a million little things that make the difference between a professional book and a clearly self-published amateur book; internal layout, marketing, blurbs, copyright page, etc. We made sure all of this was perfect.
Published the book: Her book, Pop-Up Paradigm, is now up for sale.
Ownership: Also, we did the deal such that Melissa owns all the royalties and all the rights to her book. She paid for a service, so unlike with regular publishers, she gets all the credit and all the upside. It's her book, her credit, her money.
Start to finish, the whole process took about 5 months (that was because it was the first time we did it; now it takes about 3-4 months to go from idea to publishing date, and sometimes less).

As we were working through this process, I told a few people I know about this idea, and all of them loved the idea, said I should do this as a company, and they wanted the same service.

Yeah, yeah, everyone loves every start-up idea until it comes time to pay right?

Except two of them bought packages. Like...with real money...during the call.

A few weeks later, I went on a podcast to talk about a whole different subject. During that podcast, I talked about this idea for 20 minutes, sort of by accident. Off of that single episode, we sold four more packages, which meant six packages sold before we even confirmed to ourselves that we would offer this as a service to customers.

When you are selling a product before you even formally offer it to customers, you're onto something. That is pretty much the definition of product-market fit.

Zach and I decided to call the company "Book In A Box" and officially started offering the services to customers in August 2014. In the three months since, we have done more than 200k in revenue. I had a different publishing services company, and some other side projects I was working on, and I have shelved all of that. Now we focus on Book In A Box full time. We even asked Evan if he'd come on board the company as an advisor, and he agreed. How could we not give our first piece of equity to the guy who indirectly put all of this together through his awesome entrepreneur community?

What's really cool, at least to me, is how excited I am about this company. Not just because it's making money. Yes, money is great, but in this case the money is only the proof of what matters in a new start-up idea: that you are creating real value for real people, by solving their real problems. It appears that Book In A Box does just that--a lot of people really want a book, but they don't have the time, ability, or patience to do it the conventional way. We solve their problem.

Not only do we solve their problem, we do it in way that is easier and cheaper than anything else they can do. Take ghostwriting for example. To hire a ghostwriter, you're going to pay at least 40k (and usually much more for a good one). You have no guarantees of quality or process with them, and they don't do anything but help you write the book manuscript--no publishing, no marketing, nothing. You have to pay for that separately, from a different company. Our packages range from 15k to 25k--and we do everything necessary to create a professionally published book, with no work from the author aside from talking.

But as great as this is, you know what my overwhelming emotion is right now, even more than being excited?

I feel embarrassed.

I feel embarrassed because people have been asking the question "How do I get a book" for almost a decade, and my answer that whole time has been some version of elitist sneering at their lack of work ethic. I wasn't thinking like an entrepreneur, I was thinking like the type of person I always claim to hate--the one who says the status quo is the only way, that you have to do it "the way it's always been done."

It's really embarrassing, at least to me, that it took me this long to see what has been right in front of my face for years. The technology existed to do this from the first day I was asked that question, almost a decade ago, and I was too arrogant and fixed in my notions of what a "writer" had to be in order to see it.

But I guess that's the benefit of being around the type of women and men you meet at the LDV dinners (or any good entrepreneurial event with good people)--smart people help you see your own biases and weaknesses, so you can fix them.

And if you fix your own problem, chances are lots of other people have that same problem, and if you can fix their problem the same way you fixed yours, you provide real value to the world...and that is the best place to start a business.

[Suits]

Quote boxes exist for a reason.

[MikeCF]

Tucker Max is nothing without Ryan Holiday.

[kmhour]

Can't fault the guy for having an idea and making money with it.

But who pays 15 to 25k to save the time of... sitting down and writing a fucking book?

[Quintus Curtius]

I would have preferred not to give Mr. Max free publicity, but since the thread is here, we must adjust.

Looks like what 'ol Tuckulus is offering here is just a ghostwriting service.

Basically: You pay me a huge pile of money, and I churn out your book.

Yay.

So, it's the type of service that's going to be used by someone who has more dollars than sense, someone who is too lazy or empty to sit down and actually write a book. Someone who wants shortcuts.

Hell, if you're going to do this, why not just hire a court reporter to take your deposition, convert it to Word format, slap a cover on it, and go from there?

What makes a book a book is the grueling, arduous process of actually writing it out by the author, alone in his study. There are no shortcuts. There are no easy-outs. There is only brute labor. It is the blood of the martyr that makes a book, Tuckulus. Did you hear me? I know you're reading this, Tuckmaster Flex.

If the droplets of sweat are not running off your forehead onto the inky pages of your manuscript, your passion isn't there. If the white-hot fury of inspiration causes you to leap out of bed at 2:00 am with that perfect sentence--that perfect turn of phrase--then you have the right idea.

It is this supreme generative act--this agonizing act of giving birth--that is what makes a true work of literature from a cut-and-pasted hack job. No book worth reading was ever ghost-written.

And this is what separates the true creators from the "Cntrl V" warriors. If you're not willing to grind it out, you shouldn't bother.

All this, of course, is beside the point. 'Ol Tuckulus doesn't give a shit about literary achievement. He cares about taking a pile of cash and churning and burning.

Fine. Good for him.

Quality will always rise to the top.

[scorpion]

First of all, Tucker Max can of course go fuck himself. Second of all, why would I, as a reader, want to take my valuable time to read a book that the "author" couldn't even arse himself to actually sit down and write? I mean, shit, you can't even meet with a fucking ghostwriter and give him some notes or the roughest of rough drafts? If you're that fucking lazy and/or have so little to say why the hell do you "want a book" anyway? Oh, right, it's so you can run around promoting yourself as an "author" on Twitter and the conference circuit. Who the hell are these people? Is this sort of thing inevitable in a fame-obsessed culture with a weak economy? Are people really so desperate to increase their profile that they will take these kind of laughable shortcuts, actually expecting people to be fooled? Worse, will they actually fool people?

I suppose the answer to all of these questions is, unfortunately, "Yes". Truly, I grow weary of this age of shameless self-promotion. "Style over substance", which used to be a derogatory label, is now viewed as a sacred commandment for the upward climbers of society. This is what a dying culture looks like: everyone wants to "have a book", but nobody can be bothered to sit down and write one. No one actually wants to think or create new ideas, they just want to be viewed as a person who thinks and creates new ideas (*cough, Tucker, *cough*).

[kmhour]

Quintius - at the end of the day Tucker isn't hiring a ghostwriter to churn out more of his own fratire fare. He's capitalizing on the modern female entrepreneur demo that is, like, too busy having networking group meetings at a coffee shop to actually take the time to write a book. the type of person who posits "I want to have a book with my name on it, but I don't actually want to put in the effort to write. how can we make this happen?"

nobody is going to read the garbage output. he's basically transcribing and cleaning up the verbal meanderings of the 'author'. at the end of the day it's something for vacuous people to pat themselves on the back over. maybe a line item on a Twitter bio or Linkedin. he's providing a service for people with disposable income and a desire for something they lack the talent and dedication to produce.

[edit] Scorpion hit on exactly the same idea I was going for. shameless self promotion for the lazy 21st century credentialist world.

[Vacancier Permanent]

Quick (serious) question:
Who is Tucker Max? What has he achieved or done that could be noteworthy?
I keep hearing his name but have no idea who it is.

For some reason, every time I hear his name, I get the same kind of feeling than as I do when hearing the name RSD. That is something I do not wish to be associated with in any shape or form.

Have I been missing something/anything here guys? Please enlighten me.

Merci.

[Hades]

The only reason I could give for why somebody would pay for somebody else to have that much control over their thoughts and image is that they don't care enough about the final product to actually invest themselves in it.

I think I found the book on amazon. No reviews.

[kmhour]

Vacancier - guy who had a blog full of drunk frat guy exploit stories. ten years ago I remember they seemed hilarious but in retrospect I doubt many of them were completely true. He turned the exposure into a degree of infamy and I believe turned the stories from his blog into a more fleshed out story that became a successful book. I don't know much more than that.

alternatively, the muse of greatbooksformen's poetry.

[Badamson]

I really hate cheesy, entrepreneurial marketing posts on linkedin like this. I have a ton of connections of these kinds of "gurus." Finally I got so annoyed by all the lame SEO and cookie cutter social media marketing articles that would show up on my Linkedin feed that I started just sharing Youtube videos of Al Bundy fat jokes on there.

Ghostwriting might be okay for some kind of celebrity memoirs, where the person just may have no writing ability whatsoever. However, I have a feeling the "books" for this service Tucker is promoting are just going to be of the spammy, useless "marketing e-book" variety.

[magellan]

(11-19-2014 12:40 AM)MikeCF Wrote:  

Tucker Max is nothing without Ryan Holiday.

I can't figure out why Holiday even acknowledges that he knows this guy...

[R Smoov]

When I hear the words Tucker Max doing (anything):

[Suits]

Hey, if he can provide a service that people are willing to pay for, more power to him.

That's the free market.

If we want to discuss his dirtbag tactics and his attempts to revision the manosphere as his own achievement, there's already a thread for that.

[Snowplow]

Aaron Cleary also offers ghostwriting services.

Quote:

Ghost Writing – Though not “advice” I do ghost-write books for people. Just admit it, you’re not going to write that book. You’re just going to contemplate it for the next 20 years. You might as well pay me to do it for you. I charge an egregious fee depending on length, scope, and detail, and it is all payable UP FRONT. I do NOT “share in the profits” or “take a cut” as payment.

http://www.assholeconsulting.com/services-2

He does not really promote it, but it's there.

I'm with Quintus, if you want to write a book. Write the book yourself.

[Beyond Borders]

What is up with this thread?

You guys hate Tucker Max. We get it.

The article he wrote in the OP, however, is a good one (even if promotional) and has some great insights for self publishing, ghostwriting, and entrepreneurship. I actually thought about doing something very similar to what he's doing in the past, and I assure you the demand is there.

Not just for spammy books either - there are plenty of celebrities and highly successful people from all fields who would pay for something like this as well, and using transcripts to record would help preserve their voice. Famous people have been writing books through scribes and ghostwriters as long as books have existed.

I feel like everyone just wants to hate on the guy - it sounds like there's enough material out there for that already, so no need to drag stuff like this out and make a negative post for nothing. This is a genuinely solid and practical business idea, and it has given me some great ideas that might help me avoid sectors of the market I've wanted to test out in the past.

[Praetor Lupus]

Looks and sounds like an Internet marketing script.

It's certainly long enough.

[Suits]

(11-19-2014 07:18 AM)Praetor Lupus Wrote:  

Looks and sounds like an Internet marketing script.

It's certainly long enough.

A lot of thought went into writing that. It isn't just some one-off LinkedIn post. It is pure marketing science.

[Deluge]

The only place I have ever heard about this Tucker Max fellow is RVF. I think that says a lot about how relevant he is in 2014. Besides he's a fuckboy, who cares what he does?

[Saweeep]

People have been doing this in niche books markets for as long as I can remember.

This is nothing new??

[SteveMcMahon]

I don't know much - and care less - about Tucker Max, but his sales pitch is TL;DR and basically says "ZOMG! I've invented ghostwriting you guys!!!"

I'd cut it down dramatically to short, punchy sales messages if it was my pitch. Can't wait to see what else he "invents" though.

[Praetor Lupus]

(11-19-2014 07:37 AM)Suits Wrote:  

(11-19-2014 07:18 AM)Praetor Lupus Wrote:  

Looks and sounds like an Internet marketing script.

It's certainly long enough.

A lot of thought went into writing that. It isn't just some one-off LinkedIn post. It is pure marketing science.

Hmm. I'm not so sure about thought; it looks awfully formulaic.

'Science' is right.

[MrXY]

Vanity publishing and ghost writing- two great leaps forward of human thought that could only have emanated from the genius of Tucker Max.

[Libertas]

So did the Mating Grounds go under yet and this is his next scheme?

(11-19-2014 01:23 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

What makes a book a book is the grueling, arduous process of actually writing it out by the author, alone in his study. There are no shortcuts. There are no easy-outs. There is only brute labor. It is the blood of the martyr that makes a book, Tuckulus. Did you hear me? I know you're reading this, Tuckmaster Flex.

QFT. I'm putting the finishing touches on my own book that I've been working on for six years with much struggle, much block, much pause inbetween.

You can't expect to hire someone to do the hard work for you. Your idea is never going to get translated and the quality is going to be low.

[Hades]

Maybe with all that embarrassing cash he's stacking he can start paying his backers for his movie that tanked.