Writing a book changed my life

I am so excited that we are about to start our fourth cohort of Open Book, our everything you need to know about publishing and wind up with YOUR BOOK  in YOUR HANDS masterpiece of a course. 

And for this cohort we lowered the price from $950 to $600. 

I struggle to do that because I hate discounting people’s hard work and a lot of people have put months of work into this course. 

But we did because for writing courses $600 appears to be our sweet spot in getting you from maybe to definitely. 

And I want more of you in the definitely camp for this course because WRITING A BOOK IS A LIFE CHANGING EXPERIENCE everyone should have. 

It’s been financially life-changing and career-changing for me. Writing a book allowed me to buy my house in San Francisco which has given me financial security as a founder and a single mom. It also led to more than half a million dollars in speaking gigs, and accelerated my career path dramatically. (And allowed me to co-buy a second house later on.)

Without the brand elevation of my books, it’s unlikely I could have beaten the odds to raise more than $10 million in venture capital as a woman with absolutely no technical skills. 

But it’s not just that. I struggle to compare it to anything else I’ve experienced aside from building a company or having children. 

Whenever folks ask me if they should write a book, I tell them it’s the mental equivalent to running a marathon. Anyone physically can do it if you train, if you get the right help and coaching and advice. You can write 75,000 continuous words, likely even great ones. 

The question is your stamina and how badly you want it. 

Will you be able to take feedback from others and make it better?

Will you keep going when you hit a wall?

Will you be able to push past the criticism, the rejection, the challenges? 

A book is a thing that takes up residence in your head as you write it. It’s like another being living inside you. When I was writing my first book, I used to go to a lot of loud action movies during the day and sit right up in the first row. I needed something big and loud to drown out the voices and give me a break sometimes. 

It’s like those scenes in Ghost where Patrick Swayze goes into Whoopi Goldberg’s body. Once he’s gone and she’s like “phew!” and flops over. That’s how I felt when the book was finally done. Thank you, I’m finally the only one in here again. (Similarly to when I got my children out of my body. Personal space again at last!)

It is an outpouring of YOU on a page, put bravely into the world for people to pass judgment on. Much more so than building a company, which is typically its own thing and a collaboration of efforts, and more so than introducing someone to your kids because people are generally polite enough not to give them one star and criticize them right in front of you. 

It’s as bold, confident, radical an act of self-love and taking up space as I can fathom. Especially as a woman. That sh*t will be in the Library of Congress. Your future generations will get a time capsule gift of you. 

I won’t have to rely on hand-me-down stories of crazy great great grandma Sarah. B*tch, I get to control that legacy. Imma make sure you KNEW who I took down as a reporter, what I stood for, and what it cost me. I don’t care how dead I am, you are gonna hear it in my own words.

And I’ve done it THREE TIMES. How fierce is that!?

These courses always start with your WHY. My “why” of my last book was simple: While it was RAW I needed to record the chaos of my life at the moment I was raising young kids and how those kids saved me. They won’t realize it because they are too young and it will all seem unreal and fuzzy when they are old enough to grasp it. I need the time capsule. 

It doesn’t have to be a memoir to feel so personal. I felt like this with my first two books which weren’t about me per se. But were also intrinsically of me. 

I want this experience for you. I want a massive bookcase of all our Open Bookauthors one day. (We already have our first ones in progress and coming soon and we started this course less than a year ago!)

If you are at all interested, sign up. It’s $600. I bet you’d spend at least that if you were training for, outfitting yourself for, and traveling to do an actual marathon. How much have you spent on your kids’ dreams this summer? If you give it your best and don’t get anything out of it, I’ll give you full credit for a future course. And don’t worry if you are only at the beginning of your journey: You have lifetime access to the content. 

Are you ready to write your own time capsule?