205: Why Paul Millerd Turned Down a $200K Two-Book Traditional Publishing Deal

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What I tell people is just open a word doc and start writing for two months and then see how you feel right? And then figure out what game you want to play with traditional publishers. They demand a overview of your book. You need to actually make a proposal. You need to spend six months on that. If you're two months into writing and you decide, oh, I'm actually just really excited to keep going on the writing. Don't go do a book proposal, just keep writing the book. But it's really just figuring out what game do you actually want to play.

This is your time. How can we earn twice as much in half the time with joy and ease while serving the highest good? That is our guiding question here at the Freetime Cafe, your home for heart based business. I'm your host Jenny Blake. Join me for conversations with authors, friends and fellow business owners as we explore ways to free your mind, time and team to do your best work. Now onto today's show.

Welcome back Free Timers. Jenny Blake here. I am so excited to have today's guest here on the podcast. Paul Millard is an independent writer, freelancer, coach and digital creator. He's the author of the Pathless Imagining A New Story for Work and Life where he's exploring the invisible scripts that constrain our lives. He also hosts the fantastic Pathless Path podcast, say that five Times Fast where he talks with the most interesting people on unconventional paths. We were in the BFF community and I was breaking down all my numbers since Pivot came out. So after eight years, how much had I earned? How much were my royalties? How long till I earn out? And al dia One of our BFFs said you've got to read this post from Paul Millard. We also have K he who's a mutual friend. Paul had done a tweet Storm in April of 2023 on why he turned down a $200,000 two book traditional publishing deal with portfolio and I thought we have got to get him on free time because that is not an easy thing to do. To say no to the siren song of prestige of traditional publishing. So with that, Paul, welcome to the show.

I am so excited to chat with you today, Jenny. Been a big fan of your work, excited to dig into it more, and appreciated you being so open, sharing your book journey as well. It's really hard to find people that are openly sharing their numbers, especially from a traditionally publishing standpoint.

Well, that's actually where I wanted to start this conversation that before we even talk about why you turned down the book deal and looking at the numbers, I was so fascinated by the very first part of your tweetstorm where you say you immediately felt weird and you weren't sure why, and it was when you realized that it activated the old Paul side of you. And part of the reason I didn't share my process for so long is that I wanted to be good, Jenny. I wanted to be a good publishing client, I wanted to be a good author on their roster. I never wanted to rock the boat. I. I never wanted to make them mad at me. I never wanted to overshare. And then eventually, once I went indie on my own, I felt like this is really a disservice to everybody else. So I would love if you could share just a little bit about this old Paul side of you that you felt rise up just at the start of even having these conversations.

So a bit about my background. I spent 10 years on what I call the default path. This is sort of the do what you're told, do what society tells you means you'll be a successful adult, get good grades, get a good job, try to climb the ladder, keep going, do what people say. And I liked my path early on. I liked getting into consulting. I liked the challenge of it. I liked learning about the business world. But over time on that path, it became about pleasing adults, playing political games, doing all these things. And I never felt good in that mode. I always felt like I was compromising what I really cared about. Like I was just performing work and doing things for a paycheck, for a pay raise for the next job. There's so many things you need to do and say to just keep going on a high prestige career. So when I got this offer, sort of a reach out from one of the editors at Penguin, and they said, hey, we noticed your book. This was a year after I self published it. The reason they noticed is it had a big jump in sales in one month. It had about four times the sales from a bunch of shares people had made. And it was selling steadily over the first year. They noticed it and said, hey, would you be interested in a book deal now. This immediately triggered this old side of me, this person that needed to please others, that needed to fit into a box, that needed to follow rules. My wife was actually the first one to notice it. After I got off the first call, she's like, what is wrong? You're totally off. And I think over the next week or two, I talked to them a couple more times and I realized it was activating this old side of me. Oh, what do I say to please them? What do I say to like fit in and make them want me? And I really hadn't had to do that for five or six years on this path. I've really tried to build a path where I can do things on my own terms and that's where I've been able to thrive. So that was really what it triggered. In those moments.

Was there part of you that was excited, like, here's a traditional publisher, it's this old school gatekeeper, they're reaching out to you. Oh my gosh, I've made it. Was that part of the narrative that came up that kind of had you going into those old patterns, as you call it, the corporate world of games and codes and performative speech and norms. I would imagine there was part of you thinking like, wow, this is the dream. So many authors would dream of this. Or self published authors.

At this point in my path and my life, I'm so against trying to get chosen. I think I got a lot of prestige early in my career and I sort of realized it was overpriced. And what I mean by overpriced is that you're often giving up a lot to be someone that's chosen. And you are right to a degree. There is a sense of, oh, wow, they're noticing me, right? My book actually might be good. I think there's a weird thing when you write a book. Like you probably know this at the end of writing your book. You've written this stuff so much time, it's like looking at a foreign language. You're like, don't even know what you're looking at. You're like, good. And people might be buying it, but it's like, is it really that good? And then a publisher reaches out and it's like that actually gave me confidence, even more confidence to say no to them. Because it's like if they think it's good, I should probably just bet on myself and be bolder with sharing it. And I had been in that experience of being chosen before being chosen to go to grad school, being chosen to get accepted into top companies. I sort of knew what it felt like. And that was from my past life. So I don't think at any point in the process I was like really desperate to be part of them. It was more like curiosity. It's like, okay, I'll explore this if there is a giant crazy offer. I mean, I'm not going to turn down a million dollars for my book. Although maybe I would, but at least there's a conversation then. But the numbers they ended up offering me were just totally not even close to something that would be reasonable to consider.

I told you before you hit record, I was offended for you when I saw what they were offering. You are so generous in sharing the actual emails. He has the receipts, folks. And I'll link to the tweet thread in the show notes of the offer. And for the pathless path, what you had already written, they were offering an advance of 70k where each of four payouts which happen over two years would be $17,500. And by the way, you have to pay taxes off the top of that. And sometimes an agent, although you were trying to go without an agent. And then the second book deal, that was some unknown concept in the future had an advance of 130,000. So it's at least a little better. The reason I was offended for you is your book was already working and it's almost offensive. I think I personally to tell a self employed business savvy author, I'm gonna pay you $17,000 every six months, like that's a joke. And then the royalty structure is so pathetic of what the author actually gets paid. It's less than a dollar a book sometimes for a book you had already proven in the market. But that's like the crazy thing here. So at what point in the calls did the numbers come up? And I'm also wondering what do you think it was that had you hanging up from those calls, feeling so drained that Angie actually noticed even before you?

I think for them they actually made the offer pretty quick with very little information. I talked to a junior editor and they said, hey, we'd be interested in buying this book and another book. Would you be willing to put together a little information for us? And, and I actually put together like a two page document about okay, here's what the second book might look like. I was just tossing around ideas. I had ideas in the back of my head. It was not that impressive. It was two page word doc. It took me less than an hour to pull together. And based on that, they just emailed me an offer.

And I was sort of shocked at how little effort they put into it. What I realized is, oh, I have something valuable. And I also realized that Portfolio, this specific imprint, was doing this broader strategy, I think, of just scooping up a lot of Internet first writers. They've signed people like Shane Parrish, Ryan Holiday, Nat Eliason, a lot of these people who are writing on Twitter and building audiences. And I sense I was part of a broader strategy of just trying to sign as many of these people as possible. Because what they count on is the network effects of the authors supporting each other. Right. They're not actually doing anything. They're depending on the authors supporting each other. Right. They have people like Cal Newport, and when you publish through them, they sort of wink and nod at you is like, hey, we'd love to share your book with important people. It's like, that's who they're going to send the book to, and you're hoping that that person will support and share your book with their audience, and that's really what you're opting into. And I think that sort of transactional nature that was behind what they were doing and just how quickly they offered it and didn't really talk to me at all about what is the vision for the book. What did they think they wanted to do? What creative things would they want to do in terms of sharing the book? And they really had no ideas. And I think that was what made. Made me feel so empty after the calls is like I poured my heart and soul into this book, and they just weren't that excited about it. They just wanted to offer me money to give up 80 to 90% of my royalties and own the book in perpetuity. Seemed like a really bad, bad deal. I had sold 10,000 books, made about $55,000 in the first year, and the sales were increasing over the past few months. So my calculation was that I would earn out their advance on my own without giving up any control over the next year.

As you say, one of the only things that the publisher does offer is prestige. And I certainly felt that with my first book and with Pivot, which I did do with Portfolio, where I felt like, I can wave this flag. I can have this big brand, this lifelong dream. When I was a kid, I used to read books that had the little penguin icon on the spine. And yet you say you've bought enough prestige in your life to know that it is usually overpriced. When you were Having these calls and sending the emails, you had this empty feeling. Was there any part of you that felt like the prestige alone of one of the big publishing houses in the world was worth the financial trade offs?

No, I never considered trying to get traditionally published. My whole path has been about trying to figure everything out on my own terms. And what I'm really trying to do in my current path is optimize for creative freedom and time freedom. And that time freedom has been amazing, especially this year. I just had a daughter in March and she's about 16 weeks old. And I've spent bountiful time with her over the last three, four months. It's been the best moments of my life. And that's really like what I was building for in owning my book. Like I can make more money on my own than selling, giving the royalties to a publisher. I think it's a hard comparison too, which is that traditional publishing versus self publishing is not actually an equal choice. They're completely different games. And reading and listening to your stuff really helped me make this clear. When you're going with a traditional publisher, you have a much longer launch timeline and you're putting a lot of energy around a launch. When you're self publishing, you can do it many different ways. I didn't even do a launch. I realized that the ideas in my book were things I wanted to talk about in perpetuity and I wanted to keep writing about it. So it'd be very natural for me to just keep talking about it over the long term. And I also wrote my book launch not to hit a specific moment in time or resonate with the current thing in the culture, but something that I thought would be useful for people 10, 20 years from now too.

I love how your book is this slow unfolding too. Like, I just so enjoyed reading Pathless Path in preparation for this conversation, but also personally, it came at a great time and I don't know, there was just something about it. It's like you really took your time with it and it follows your own way, your pathless path of not only how you're living, but how you wrote the book. And there is something so organic about it. And I think what I appreciate about the book was you really take us in the moment of so many of these decisions throughout your life, so many forks in the road, and you say it is not this one big flash of insight. Oftentimes you're working your way there or you're learning the hard way over and over and over again.

We'll be right back just after this.

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You and I were talking partly before we record too about how sometimes it's not easy because it's still Even though there's a handful of us talking about this still self doubt can creep in. I'm wondering if you had anyone in your life who who told you you're crazy not to take a two book deal from the most prestigious publisher in the world. I probably would have had an inner voice, but I know for sure I would have encountered a few outer world voices too. That said that was there any of that around this process?

Yeah, I think the sheer number of it sounds impressive, but when you actually break it down and you were doing this before and laying it out, it's not as impressive as as it seems. So I spelled this out in a blog post like 130,000 for a book. What does that actually mean, a second book? 1 I haven't written the topic yet. 2 I need to actually get the topic approved by them. I'm going to either need to write a proposal or give them a first draft. I would then need to get the book approved. I would then need to get a publish date which might be up to a year later. And the payments are pretty spread out. So theoretically if I started in May 2023, I'd get $32,000. Once they accept my manuscript, which they may not, I'd get another $32,000. If I published it nine months to a year later, I'd get another 32,000 and then the final payment would be a year after publishing. So I might not make another 32,000 until 2026 right it's so wild when.

You think about it.

Yeah, it's not actually 130,000. And so when I break it down and think about it and the benefit I have is I have taken an absurdly slow and deliberate unfolding path. I think I took it really slow because on my previous path, I never took time to get to know myself. And that was really what I was optimizing for in this current path is figuring out who I am. So laying this out. Okay, These payments are 32,000 a year. Thinking about it, it's like part of that. I'm going to be working with a team, and I will not have control over what I'm doing. I. I may get frustrated. That frustration may undermine my own energy. If I just maintain my energy, can I figure out another way to make 32,000? And I had just spent a year like, my book sold, but it didn't sell crazy well, and I sold 10,000 copies of my book and made $50,000. So $32,000 a year is not actually that much.

Right, right. And you said you're making about $5 a book the way you printed it.

Yeah, it's about five, five and a half. I mean, the royalties vary. Amazon paperbacks, I'm making about $7.70 a book. Kindle, I make about $4.50 a book on average. I'm looking at my numbers now, and I love that you share yours as well. And then there's all these different sources. You can sell your book. My book, I'm self publishing my book in an Indian publisher called Pothi. I'm making about 2 cents a book there because I talked to enough people in India and they're like, well, they just plagiarize your book and print it everywhere anyway. So just give it away for free through this. And it was like, oh, great, I can sell it at cost. Let's do that. And then audiobooks are about $4 a book. Ingramspark, you can do paperbacks and hardcovers. I'm making between, like, four to six dollars a book. And Google and Apple, you can publish digital books. I'm making about six to seven dollars a book on those. So it varies all over the place. But yeah, on average, it's been about $5 a book.

And just a technical question on the printed hardcover or paperback, are these print on demand, and if so, which service are you using?

Yeah, I'm doing print on demand on Amazon and print on demand on ingramspark. One thing you can do when you self publish is buy your own ISBNs. And if you buy your own ISBNs, nobody will demand you to be exclusive to them. So if you use Amazon's ISBN, which is just a book identification number, they will demand that you can only put it on Kindle. Right. You can't sell it on things like Gumroad or Google Books or Apple Ibooks. Since I had my own ISBNs, I can create a different one for each of those services.

Yeah, you heard me rant in my episodes. I'm sure I got so mad at Amazon because they give you like half the royalty if you don't make it exclusive to Audible, let's say, for the audiobook. It's so frustrating.

It's like, ugh, the audiobooks are definitely annoying. There's not enough competition there. I know Findaway and Spotify are working together, but it's still so early. And thinking strategically, I think this is another advantage. I did work in the business world. I know how business works. I am betting that the landscape for self publishing will radically improve. I was looking back and Seth Godin was one of the first people to talk about self publishing. In early 2000 and tens, he stopped publishing with a publisher and started doing this. I think part of it is he wanted to inspire people. But 10 years ago, the infrastructure for this was not great. It has radically improved. Amazon is actually pretty good at how it does print on demand. It just added print on demand hardcover, which is new. These things are just going to get better. And I think there'll be more competition, there'll be more global players and more opportunities for distribution in the future. So for me, it's. I want to bet on that innovation. I don't want to put all my bets on the traditional publishers. It's not that they're not innovative people. It's that they don't actually have the incentives to transform their business. They're making money on books they printed 20 years ago. So why change the model?

Yeah, that's something that I noticed too. It's interesting when you look at the book itself and the message of the book and what does this book want to be? It's its own entity in a way. A book like the Pathless Path cannot be for a publisher, cannot be for a traditional publisher. It's like goes against the ethos of the whole book and everything that you stand for. Because also traditional publishers have a very established contract process, protocol. It is a slog. And like Pivot was better for it. I was so lucky that I had a absolutely brilliant acquiring editor and she pushed it and she made it better for sure. And there was also so many moments of friction along the way. Sometimes that friction is good and it makes the product better. And a lot of times it can be maddening not to have creative control over something that is going to be for me, the cornerstone of my business. But same thing with free time. It's like it just doesn't jet, you know, like just the energy of the book. It's not a fit for that structure, for any of it, any aspect of it. And I try not to throw shade because like, there are sometimes there are reasons that one would want a traditional book deal. And I think if you really need the prestige and you haven't done the prestige game yet and it would be helpful at a certain point in your career, great. Or if they give you so much money in the advance that it doesn't matter if you ever see another dollar again, that's something too. But I love how you're kind of advocating around self publishing and you say in the tweet, storm the articles you've written, then I'll link to your substack as well. In the show notes, you say you really hope more people will self publish and that you can help pave the way there.

Well, I feel like a lot of people go through this false choice of should I traditionally publish or should I self publish? I think this is a case of Steven Pressfield's resistance. It's basically people deciding not to make a decision. I want more books. I don't care if they're traditionally published or self published. What I tell people is just open a word doc and start writing for two months and then see how you feel. Right. And then figure out what game you want to play. With traditional publishers, they demand a overview of your book. You need to actually make a proposal. You need to spend six months on that. If you're two months into writing and you decide, oh, I'm actually just really excited to keep going on the writing, don't go do a book proposal, just keep writing the book. And if it is so good and you can still pitch that to a traditional publisher, but it's really just figuring out what game do you actually want to play?

Most authors, whether they're traditional or self or hybrid, don't sell anywhere near 10,000 copies. So I am curious, what have you been finding is working best and especially at gaining momentum? If you didn't do a formal launch as we typically think of it, what are some of the experiments that you've.

Tried that have been working yeah, so it's really funny. I was listening to your podcast of your experience at the TED Conference, and you were talking about one of your favorite things you like to do is leave books around. And you left books south by Southwest, and you were kneeling in the corner and watching people pick them up.

Not creepy at all, right? You know, oh my gosh.

I live in Austin, and I actually was doing that at south by Southwest this year, and I did not know you had done that. So I printed out these cards that are square cards, and it says, this book is a gift from the author. You can read more about how he thinks about generosity on page 174. It's like my picture and it says social shout outs or Amazon reviews appreciated. And I sign them and leave them everywhere. And I've left them around Austin, places I've visited, foreign countries. And I just love the idea of pushing, like, leaving these things as little gifts into the universe. And gifting has been my number one quote, unquote marketing channel. I've gifted about a thousand books. And anyone listening, I will gift you a book. I think you're taking a very similar approach, and it's been pretty cool and I love it. I've done that. I've mostly casually tried to go on podcasts over time. I didn't do a big launch. In fact, my first month is one of my lowest book sales months of the entire 16 or 17 months or whatever it is now. And yeah, I'm really just trying to play a long game of continuing to share this. Continuing to write about these ideas, podcasting about these stories on my podcast. And it's very in the flow of my life. So I think it's very unique in that sense. And.

I also think there's luck with timing. Like, a lot of people like this book. It feels like a permission slip from the universe to keep going. And rooting for them and they want to share it with other people is like, hey, here's a conversation I want to have about work. Here's the book we can use as an excuse to have that conversation.

Yeah, I love that. And I love the idea of a permission slip from the universe and just how you're not putting any fixed or even false timing about how many need to sell by when you're not trying to make anybody else happy with the sales numbers with the traditional publishing. I was always trying to be a good author. Just going back to that feeling, like, to this day, it irks me that I haven't earned out the advance because it's like getting a lesser grade on a report card or something. You know, like, I was given a goal and I haven't hit it, even though Pivot has sold almost 60,000 copies over the course of its time. Anyway, I digress. I want to come back to this gift thing because sometimes I hear authors, they're hesitant to give the book for free, and you should be so lucky to give away a thousand books. And I'm thinking about, with free time, I've probably sold half of the print run of 10,000 copies, so probably 5,000 are out in the world. And I'm thinking to myself, I'll be lucky to give away the next 5,000, honestly, of the first print run, because you need it in order to generate the word of mouth and the viral coefficient of how many readers tell how many friends at a certain point. Like, I don't know. I just think you gotta give it away and keep giving it away and keep giving it away until enough people tell their friends, if it's that kind of book, if it's good enough, that somebody puts it down and they do want to tell a friend.

Yeah, I think it's really about your relationship with creativity and thinking of this as art. Right. When you've created something that matters to you, the act of creation is reward itself. And this is how I felt at the end of my book. I had already won when I finished the book and hit publish. One sale was success, but so was zero sales. Right. And my idea going into the first year was I will gift as many books as profit I make. And I actually had a hard time doing that because the books keep selling and I can't actually gift books fast enough. But, yeah, I totally agree. It's such a joy to share these things. I'm not attached to outcomes. That's been the whole point of my path, is not to aim at an outcome. I don't actually have that superpower. A lot of people can get really fired up around goals. I can't get that excited about goals. The idea of publishing with a traditional publisher and them being like, you have to hammer the launch. You have to go hard. You have to do all these press appearances. That just stresses me out. So I'm not wired for that anyway. Right. I can't win that game, but I can win the long game. I can be generous. I can do all these things. I can talk about these ideas. Because this kind of conversation is. I'm going to be so pumped for the rest of the day and thinking about these ideas. It's very Easy for me.

Well, I so appreciate you saying that. Just again, me hearing you say it, that you're not motivated by goals. It's such a permission slip for me because neither am I. I'm not wired that way. It doesn't work for me. No matter what goals I ever set. All it does is create this gap of disappointment. I don't know. There's just something that I can be motivated to create the thing. Which is why I love what you said, that the act of creation is the win itself. And then I feel there is a certain surrender of letting this be what it wants to be in the world and taking the cues and clues along that path. And so I just love hearing you talk about it in this way. I know that a lot of people, since you've been so open with sharing your process, I see them write to you in the comments and say, oh, I have a book in me, but I'm just still not sure how to publish it. So if you could give one piece of advice, I know you said just start writing. That's one.

Yeah.

Let's say they've written the book or they have the draft and they're still on the fence and they still. There is something luring them toward traditional. What would you want to say?

Well, for me, I couldn't even have gotten a traditional publishing deal when I started. When I started writing my book, I had like 2,500 email subscribers and maybe a couple thousand Twitter followers. I probably wouldn't have gotten a deal more than $20,000. And at that point it's not worth it to traditionally publish. So if you're like me, just self publish. Take it into your own hands. I think the thing is, self publishing is way easier now than it was even five years ago. And I've written a post. If you just search blog to book Paul Millard, my post will come up. I wrote 10,000 words alone just on every single step I took in the process. It's not that far.

And it's also knowing which game you can win. Going back to your previous point, the way I break this down is launch energy versus long game energy.

Traditional publishing is launch energy. I don't have launch energy. That's around goals, maximizing gains, putting a lot of grind energy into one specific week of launch and then hoping that has some lasting value. I didn't write a book to pop. I wrote a book that hopefully would be shared over the long term. And I have long game energy. Long game energy is knowing you're not going to quit Knowing you're going to be curious about what you're writing about one or two years from now. And I mean, this is more specific to nonfiction. I think fiction is a completely different game and I just don't know in that world. But yeah, if you can be curious and continue to talk and share ideas about what you want to write about, bet on yourself. It's a better time than ever to do that. And I think what you did with hybrid publishing is such a cool thing as well. You decided that the game you wanted to play is do something really creative, high quality, spend a lot of money on the production. And what you created was beautiful. Your book is a beautiful experience. Mine is more text, mine is more about the ideas. Right. And I'm already thinking about ideas from looking at yours and thinking, ooh, could I do like a special edition hardcover? That could be really fun. And I love that gift those or create like a collectible edition. I don't know what it looks like, but I own the copyright and I don't need to get permission to do that. So if you get excited about what Jenny's done with her book or what I am talking about here, you're probably better suited for self publishing.

I love that you're thinking about playing around with that. And the way I think about it is people throw so much money at online ads where you barely know if they work or again, I'm not so motivated by like cost per acquisition stats, but basically printing my book cost 10.50 per book, and then however much mailing it out. And then I went bonkers on schwag. So I sent out little pins and pens and I branded everything because I was waiting for the supply chain to resolve itself. Long story short, how much money are people throwing at ads that are like, meaningless and quote, acquiring a customer at $20 a person, $30 a person. And so if I can spend 10, 50 and create a beautiful artifact that makes people feel delighted when they hold it, that's in lieu of my ad money, my ad spend.

I received your book yesterday. You custom printed these mailers, and it's the coolest thing I ever saw. It's a moment of delight. I'm going to be talking about this for years. As an example, you've created a special moment, and it tells people, I care. And caring in a world that tries to convince you not to care is one of the most valuable things in the world. And I think that matters. I think more people should think about these things and the possibilities of doing these things on Your own terms are easier than ever and more possible than ever.

Yes. And I'll put these in the show notes, but those bubble mailers are from.

Sticker mule.com I'm going to do these for sure.

They're so fun. So for those listening, it is a bubble mailer and it says free time inside. And the bubbles? Helium balloon. Gold balloons from the podcast. They're not expensive, like buying whatever materials you need at the post office would cost as much. And then Sticker Mule also offers tape, so I have my custom icons on tape. So if I send it in a box from Uline is the company where you get a white literature mailer box and then I put shred in there, you can have a lot of fun with it.

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I love what you're saying, Paul, and it means so much to hear your reaction because to me, it's helping create a feeling that I want people to have when they're running their business in general, you know, so it's like the text itself. Just as you said, and just as your book does, the text itself creates a feeling. Like when I read yours, I mean, maybe this isn't the intention, I'm not sure, but I felt like it was like a cozy blanket. It came at just the right time.

I've learned that from other people.

You have?

Yeah.

That's so cool. Yeah. And it gives you a feeling. And so then if the packaging around it also gives the feeling, it's just kind of fun. Now you're having Fun with how do I deliver the feeling? And I guess Tony Hsieh wrote delivering happiness, but it's like delivering blank. What is the value behind your book or your message or how you want people to feel? And for me, how I wanted people to feel also informed. Even the COVID design. Why does a book about business have confetti on it? Because could business be fun for once? Does it have to be all about the money? You know? So I just appreciate you having this conversation and being able to tease these topics out with a real time, real life example that you just went through. And it's only because you were so open and sharing that we're even here today. And because of Al and Kay, of course.

Yeah. And we. One of the things about self publishing is some of these things are way easier. If you self publish and you notice mistake in your book, you can just upload a new file the next day. I've done this and fixed a few typos. The other thing you can do, you can change your cover, you can add different sections, you can change the size of your book, you can change the colors. You can do this any day of the week. Right. You don't need permission. And if that excites you, you should keep that option open to you. Another thing is, it's very small, but I think it's very important, especially for people like me and you, is like, my book is Print on Demand on Amazon. All I need to do to send somebody 100 books is click get author copies. They cost 349 per paperback and put in their address and send it. It usually comes out to about $4.50 per book in the US and five or six dollars across the world, which is pretty amazing. In traditional publishing contracts, they make you buy the books from them. And it's not perfectly clear, but I think they're taking a profit on the books you buy.

Yes, because you buy them at 50% off the list price. So yes, they are.

Which is pretty crazy. Like they're making a profit on you wanting to buy your own book to gift it to other people. That alone would just crush me. And it's just so easy. I just keep ordering books and sending them to myself and I leave them around and I can keep the gifting energy flowing.

I just love the gifting energy, the long game energy. And by the way, we should say one of the crucial benefits of Print on Demand is that you don't have to have a lot of cash to print the books. So it's such an advantage that Paul if you suddenly get a speaking gig for 500 books, you just print them on demand and you print them as needed. You don't have to figure out that cash flow crunch that I'm in that we see so many pitches on Shark Tank where the whole reason that they're in the tank is that they don't have the cash flow to fulfill a purchase order from like a big brand retailer. And it's just this constant cycle of cash flow crises and trying to guess how much inventory you're going to need and by when. And now there's a shipping delay. Anyway, long story short, print on demand. It's so much easier on the balance sheet and the budget to be able to print as needed and in the moment. And that is something that I agree. I think they're getting better and better at even the quality of the output of that where you can't even tell.

Another thing that's interesting to talk about. So when I was talking with portfolio, I was never seriously considering them. But by them reaching out, I started to ask, are there things worth exploring? And I discovered that selling foreign rights is pretty challenging when you're self publishing and something you actually can hire an exclusive agent for. So I actually recently hired a foreign rights agent and all he's doing is exploring, selling translations. This is not something I can easily do and not something I can access foreign publishers very easily or at least takes an enormous amount of effort. And they only take 20% of what the advances will be, which are usually pretty small. And you get to keep 80% and get to form these strategic relationships. So that's pretty cool. I'll probably have more updates on that as that progresses. And the other thing to mention, I can send you the post with all the details of my sales and stuff. My book has taken off in the second year and more people are reaching out. I'm approaching 30,000 books in the next couple of months. And once you sell more books, people start reaching out with more offers. I listened to a story of Hal Elrod. He wrote. I think it was Millionaire Mornings or Miracle Mornings. Miracle Mornings, not Millionaire.

That was the original. That was the og. There's many spinoffs now.

Yeah, he got offers from traditional publishers. Like several times they offered him like a hundred grand, then 200 grand, then 300 grand. I think eventually somebody offered him a million. He never sold because at each point it was always worth more to him to build a brand around that, do interesting and creative things, do entrepreneurial things.

So self publishing is not a permanent decision. Traditional publishing is a permanent decision. Right. And I'm seeing more and more people like you that traditionally published, realize they want to write books for creative reasons or have more fun with it and are slowly going back in the other direction.

Yes. And I love you. Brought in Hal Elrod. Fun side note, I was at this author event. He was there. Somebody asked the question, hal, how do you stay fresh when you're on all these podcasts? He said he had done, like 400 podcasts, and this was already seven years ago. And he said, well, do you get sick of one of your children? No, you don't. He's like, you just show up. And it was the funniest answer. And I've thought about that all the time. Like, I'll sometimes get tired of talking. And then I realized, oh, well, do you get sick of one of your children? Keep going. Hal Elrod can do it. Was there any tiny voice that felt like, ooh, if you talk about this publicly and you actually post the emails, you're really going to burn the bridge. Was there any part of you that was hesitant to do that?

I'm so glad we've met, because I feel like you experience a lot of things very similar to me. That, yes, I definitely had that voice. And it's the same feeling that came up when I initially talked to them. It's like, am I doing it wrong? How do I get approval? How do I fit into their ecosystem? Yeah. And when I posted it, I checked with my wife. I'm like, should I be posting this? Like, I feel bad. Like, maybe they'll turn on me. Maybe they'll tell people not to support my book. And I was like, you know what? I've never stood for that energy. If people are like that, so be it. I don't care if there's some vendetta against my book. It would probably create enough media attention that people would support it more.

I mean, the only reason I can ask that question is I have that thought now. I'm like, it's the bad author voice. And it's going, ooh, Jenny, I don't know if you should publish this. Ooh, yeah.

Cause you still have a book with a traditional publisher, right?

When it's out of sight, out of mind for them. I'm pretty sure I no longer exist for all intents and purposes.

I do feel bad because I have friends that are with this imprint who have published books with them. And it's like, are they going to think I am dunking on them? They might not want to talk to me anymore. They may not want to support my book. Right. And at the end of the day, I'm not serving a publisher or institutions or people that are already successful. I want to help people behind me. I want to help people share the ideas that matter to them. I want to help people and give them the full and honest truth about what I'm experiencing going through and what it's like. And I actually got a nice note from Ramit Sethi sharing my portfolio thread. He reached out and sent me a message on Twitter. He said, hey, it's really cool what you're doing. I love that you're betting on yourself. He's with a traditional publisher and I love people like that because they're playing one game and also see that like it's still worth it for people to play other games.

Yes. And they probably behind the scenes they know exactly what the trade offs are. But if you are at the top of the chain with the prestige game, you don't have as much incentive to be honest about it. There's like more at stake. And I love Ramit too and I love that he reached out to you.

You're like the only one online that shares the real data from traditionally publishing. I can't find any other examples. You may have them, but it's like, is Jenny the only person that wants to actually share what's going on?

It's really crazy. I can't think why not. And I appreciate you saying that. And hey, if there's more people out there doing it, let's collect that data. I know Jane Friedman shares a lot, but I got to a point where I was far enough out and I felt like this is what everybody wants to know. It's what everybody asks about. What do I have to lose if I just take my ego out of it of what these numbers mean? I'll just put them out for your consideration. I'm not saying they're good, bad or otherwise. It's just here's what they are. You know, like information is power. And I think the traditional publishers going through that process, they make you feel like everything is so secretive and there's contracts and legal issues and it just can be intimidating when you're right in it and trying to be good. Like I said, that's just the only way I can put it. But I really appreciate you, Paul, and I really appreciate being on the pathless publishing path together. And my last question, if you could leave listeners with your own yet another permission slip to do something differently, let's even say around publishing or drop something altogether, what would it be?

You have permission to self publish your book. I'd be happy to support it. I'm happy to help people with questions they have. Just feel free to send me a message or DM on Twitter or email. We live in one of the most amazing times to be alive. The tools for creating and sharing ideas have really been democratized, but we grew up in a culture that tells us we need permission to share. I'm giving you permission to share. People want to hear from you, what you think matters and bet on yourself. Dream big.

I love that. Permission to self publish and permission to share your process while it is even in process. Thank you so much Paul. What a delight. Thank you for being you, being who you are, writing what you have. And I can't wait to keep following you on all the places I'll put them in the show Notes. Is there anywhere in particular you want to send people?

If you Google the Pathless Path, you'll probably find me. I write weekly on Substack about these ideas and share podcasts most weeks all around that just search my name. I'm pretty easy to find. I'm the only Paul Millard with a web presence.

Amazing. Get your copy of the Pathless Path if you don't already have it, and definitely subscribe to his podcast wherever you're listening to this one. Because it's conversations just like this which I find so reassuring. Like no matter how many years in I am, no matter where I am on the journey, sometimes you just want to hear another person talking about it and not trying to have all the answers. Thank you again Paul. You rock. And congrats as well on your baby girl being born earlier this year.

Thank you Jenny.

If you've listened this far, you get a gold star.

Thank you.

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