The 56 steps to getting a book out into the world

My new book The Energy Game arrived in bookstores yesterday.

Here's what the last 18 months actually looked like.

1. You come up with an idea for your next book. It’s 3am. You think it’s the best idea you’ve ever had until you wake up several hours later and realise your brain wasn’t working correctly at 3am.

2. You have several hundred other ideas and you discount them all.

3. You finally realise that the problem you have been trying to solve (complete and utter exhaustion / burnout) is something other people are also trying to solve.

4. You spend the Xmas holidays writing a book proposal (i.e. a 50-page business plan for a book).

5. You send it off to your publishers at Penguin Random House.

6. You wait impatiently for several weeks.

7. You hassle your manager to “please follow up” and see if they are any closer to a decision.

8. You start to doubt your book proposal, and how dare you be so arrogant to think anyone would want to publish this.

9. You get a call from your manager saying Penguin has made an offer.

10. You celebrate (briefly).

11. You get given a deadline of six months to write the book.

12. You ask to extend it to eight months.

13. You land on seven months.

14. You then realise: shit, I have to now write 60-70,000 words. On top of being the CEO of a business whose growth is going through the roof.

15. You write 1000 words every day for 60 days (while also running a business), taking not a single day off from the book writing process.

16. You have a shitty first draft.

17. You then spend three months in the pit of despair second guessing everything you have written and trying to solve big structural problems with the manuscript.

18. You send your editor several Loom videos expressing your sheer and utter confusion about decisions you need to make in order to make progress on said manuscript.

19. You complain to every other writer friend you have about how hard book writing is and how could you have been such an idiot to forget how bloody hard this is.

20. You make a solemn promise to yourself: I will never write another book.

21. You continue to mope around in the pit of despair.

22. You continue to keep complaining to anyone who will listen about being in the pit of despair.

23. You make it out of the pit of despair.

24. You share a draft of the book with some close friends who are as exhausted as you were.

25. They give you a tonne of constructive feedback and you begin second guessing every decision you made and every word you wrote.

26. You get over yourself and apply the feedback. It leads to a much better, tighter book.

27. You submit the manuscript one week early. You expect to receive a gold plaque from your publisher acknowledging that no one ever submits a manuscript early. The plaque never arrives.

28. You get back on with your (work)life and forget about the book entirely.

29. Several weeks later, you get a Word document back with ten thousand comments and corrections for you to go through.

30. You freak out at all the changes that need to be made but are also thankful that you get to work with such awesome editors who care a LOT about the details.

31. You submit the revised draft.

32. You think to yourself: I really need to get onto that marketing plan.

33. Work is insanely busy so you do nothing about the marketing plan.

34. Your editors send your draft back to you with a hundred more questions to answer about the several hundred health claims made in the book that ALL have to be verified.

35. You re-read many journal articles and answer their questions.

36. You think to yourself: I really need to get onto that marketing plan.

37. You create a short list of 20 people who you will reach out to for endorsement quotes for the book. You inwardly cringe with every email you send and convince yourself that no one wants to help you, and even if they do, they will think your book sucks.

38. You get sent the first round of cover designs from your publisher. None of them are quite right but you don’t want to sound like an ungrateful author so you find the positives.

39. You get a second round and one has potential. You have anally specific feedback and hope that the designer doesn’t think you are a micromanaging, annoying author (even though you suspect you probably are).

40. You think to yourself: I really need to get onto that marketing plan.

41. You start to get some quotes back from your heroes who you have reached out to for book endorsements. Every single one builds a little bit more confidence that what you have written might actually be useful.

42. You receive a revised version of the cover design and celebrate - the designer has nailed it and you are totally and utterly in love with it.

43. You get back the proofs of your book. Your editor reminds you that most authors only take a cursory glance at this stage, as the main edits are done. You instead go through it with a fine tooth comb and come back with 200+ comments.

44. You finally get onto that marketing plan. Only took 54 reminders. You also meet with your publicist and marketing team at Penguin and stop putting so much pressure on yourself to do everything.

45. You starting reaching out to some clients and your Substack community and your social media followers to start a seemingly endless stream of talking about your book and encouraging them to buy it (even though it won’t be released for another two months).

46. You write more posts and messages to your peeps asking them to pre-order the book.

47. And more posts and messages.

48. And more.

49. You start to wonder whether people are getting sick of you talking about your book (and it hasn’t even hit bookshelves yet).

50. You write more posts and messages anyway.

51. An early release copy of the book arrives in your letterbox. You get to hold the last 18 months’ worth of work in your hands. It feels surreal. It’s one of your favourite parts about the book writing process.

52. You start to double down on LinkedIn and Instagram posting, which you hate, but feel like you should be doing because: book promotion.

53. Launch week finally arrives and you get on a plane to Sydney to do several days of publicity, TV, radio, podcasts and your first book launch event.

54. It finally starts to sink in that people will soon be reading your book.

55. You see your book in a bookstore for the first time and you can’t stop smiling.

56. You have an idea for your next book. Every cell in your body remembers the pain of the last 18 months. You open a blank document anyway.