Books

First Get Good At Consistently Creating

Garth Beyer

So often you’ll not follow-through with a project or an idea because you know how much marketing you’re going to have to do when it’s complete.

To you, the world might not seem approving of someone writing a book and just throwing it on a digital bookshelf. No. You have to write the book, make sure it’s excellent, put it on the digital bookshelf, and then advertise it, get reviews on it, have bloggers cover it, give it out for free, set a Skype chat interview up for you to talk about it, make sure it’s translated to 20 different languages, beg the NYT reviewers to read it, and so much more.

It’s all a lie. It’s all a trick to stop you from creating. It’s fear speaking up. It’s an excuse and you and I both know it.

First get good at consistently creating. Write five books and throw them up on Amazon. Chat with friends about it, naturally, but don’t worry about heavily marketing it. Think about it in terms of time. If you create something, a book, an art piece, a business plan or a TED talk (and it takes you a month), then you spend the next seven months marketing it, getting people to see it, buy into it, subscribe to it, admire it, blog about it. You’ve just stopped yourself from creating seven more incredible works of art.

Obviously this post isn’t meant for the experts, the famous, the already envied. It’s for you, it’s for me, it’s for all the people out there who think things need to be perfect and need to have their total commitment for a year before they move on and create the next thing. It’s not necessary. The best marketing strategies come natural, the best art work doesn’t need to be pushed, the greatest connections often come from chatting about what you’ve done lately, not what you did six months ago.

And you know what? The act of consistently creating might be the greatest marketing strategy known to man.

 

Stay Positive & Interesting, Isn’t It?

 

“I Don’t Have Time To Read”

Garth Beyer

Words made famous by almost everyone.

Consider this by Michael Ferber, there were about 350,000 new titles or new editions published in the U.S in 2012, of which perhaps 75,000 were in adult fiction. The number of self-published books and print-on-demand books form extensive backlists. Britain published more than 200,000 books. Add Canada, Australia, and so on, and we can safely assume that about 1,000,000 new titles in adult fiction appeared in 2012 in English alone.

What does this mean for reading and becoming successful? It means that if you spent all of your time reading, you wouldn’t have any time to act on what you learn to become successful.

I’ve met so many people who think they need to sit in a library every day and read up on all they can. Alert! Here’s a cool chart that reflects what happens to your likelihood of success the more you read.

Reading Your Way To Success (Or Failure)

Malcolm Gladwell covers the inverted-u concept. Zig Ziglar and Seth Godin tell their audience if they want to become successful, they should read a book a week. It might work perfect for them, might even work perfect for you. It doesn’t work perfect for me. I’m a two books in a day then no books for a week kind of guy. I don’t advise this for you. What I advise is you try to find how many books a week you can read to get you at the top of the inverted-u. Success.

 

Stay Positive & I Know You Can Do It

Your Art Is Terrible

Garth Beyer

Right now, think of a movie you have seen that flat-out sucked.

Or maybe a book that was so terrible that you wrote a paragraph long review on Amazon (or just tossed the book without finishing it).

Or think of a play that made you feel terrible for the actors because the film itself was awful?

Now notice that the movie got put into production, the book was published, the play was cast and tickets sold.

Some of the worst art gets accepted by the gatekeepers of success. Why?

Because after getting 100 rejection letters, the author kept sending her book out there. The filmmaker kept pushing his film. And the director kept asking to hold the play at this and that venue.

People have bought into crud before. And those artists who had their “crud” showcased, well, they learned more and faster than the artist who quit 10 rejection letters in.

So what if your art is terrible. If terrible is the only place to start, then it’s the best place to start.

 

Stay Positive & Terrible Should Be A Motivation, Not A Setback

Garth E. Beyer

Best Of 2012 (Books)

Garth Beyer

The list of books below are all the books which I read completely through in order of when I read them in 2012. After the title and author of each book, I have rated the book out of 5, with 5 being the obvious “must read.”

  1. Little red book of selling – Jeffrey Gitomer (3.5)
  2. The tipping point – Malcolm Gladwell (4.75)
  3. 4 hour body – Tim Ferriss (2.5)
  4. Born to win – Zig Ziglar (4)
  5. The alchemist – Paulo Coelho (5)
  6. Harry Potter 3 – J.K. Rowling (5)
  7. Harry Potter 4 – J.K. Rowling (5)
  8. Wild ducks flying backward – Tom Robbins (5)
  9. The power of influence – Chris Widener (2.5)
  10. The five major pieces to the life puzzle – Jim Rohn (3)
  11. Thinking body, dancing mind – Jerry Lynch (4)
  12. Linchpin – Seth Godin (5)
  13. Harry Potter 5 – J.K. Rowling (5)
  14. Harry Potter 6 – J.K. Rowling (5)
  15. Stop stealing dreams – Seth Godin (4.75)
  16. Harry Potter 7 – J.K. Rowling (5)
  17. Think on these things – Krishnamurti (4.5)
  18. Living green – Greg Horn (3)
  19. The secret to teen power – Paul Harrington (3.5)
  20. A little history of the world – E. H Gombrich (4)
  21. My Ishmael – Daniel Quinn (4.5)
  22. The mastery of love – Don Miguel Ruiz (4.5)
  23. The war of art – Steven Pressfield (4)
  24. The seasons of life – Jim Rohn (2.5)
  25. Twelve pillars – Jim Rohn and Chris Widener (3)
  26. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley (3.5)
  27. My Antonia – Willa Cather (3)
  28. House on mango street – Sandra Cisneros (1)
  29. Push – Saphire (1)
  30. A new earth – Eckhart Tolle (3.25)
  31. Edgar Cayce on Atlantis – Edgar Evans Cayce (2.75)
  32. Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell (5)
  33. The secret – Rhonda Byrne (4.75)

Stay Positive & Read On

Garth E. Beyer