Uncover the Secret to Writing a Best Seller with Chandler Bolt

The smartest, most successful people on the planet have written and published a book. I call it a $15 mentor. For 15 bucks and a handful of hours, you can read.

Yeah.

Best information from the smartest people on the planet. And I did not like reading and I did not like writing. But when I dropped out of school, I realized, okay, I got a lot of learning I still need to do if I want to be successful in this business. And. But then I realized, well, hold up the biggest problems in my business. There's books on them. And so if I can just match a problem with a book and the best book on that problem, well, then I can just read the book and solve the problem.

Our special guest today is an investor, the CEO of Self Publishing.com a Forbes 30 Under Authority Honoree, as well as the author of seven bestselling books, including his new book published at Self Publishing.com. he's also an Inc. 5000 company the last four years in a row with over 5000 of the fastest growing private companies in the United States, including. Please help me welcome the one, the only, Chandler Bolt. Dude, how are you doing, man?

What's happening, Stephen? How are you?

Dude? I'm. I'm crazy stoked to talk to you. You know, it's funny. It's been quite the journey. I think like five or six years ago, I think it was five or six years ago, I bumped into this really nice lady while. While glamping in this treehouse in South Carolina. And she's like, hey, are you enjoying yourself? We should bring in my wife and I some s' mores and stuff. And I'm like, yeah, we're having a good old time because, well, have you had a chance to read my son's book? I'm like, no. What's inside the tree house? I'm like, yeah. I'm like, what is it? So she like, points it out. She literally walks us over the treehouse and points it out, and I pick up the book and sure enough, I sit there and read like the entire time I've been glamping up in this treehouse. Come to find out, you had this entire methodology. That's when I got first introduced into the Bolt family as well as Chandler Bolt, the publishing phenom that you guys that you've become. Dude, like, seriously, 30 under 30 in the whole deal. I'd like to. I'm in awe. I'm in awe. It took me. It took me 20 plus years to make my first eight figures in revenue. And like, you did it like, no Time flat. So I'm curious to pick your brain about why it's important to publish books. Why maybe self publishing is like the. Definitely the route to go. The things that are like super important about it. God. God knows everybody's been working with you that's thinking about writing a book. You literally are the best in the business. So first of all, how did you even get into that? Because it seemed like that story is a little bit inside of that. That first book that I read, I think it was called Busting Out.

Yeah.

Think it's called Busting Out.

Breaking out of a broken system. That's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that, that was kind of how I got into it is I wrote a book. Wrote a couple books. They did pretty well. And then people started asking, hey, how are you doing this?

Yeah.

And so kind of an unlikely author in the fact that I'm a C level English student and a college dropout with adhd.

Well, I got the ADHD with you. So.

So the worst resume, like not a great author resume, but I mean, so it started with that first book with my brother who for people don't know, plays in a Grammy nominated rock and roll band called need to Breathe. And so it was kind of like these 15 things our parents taught us growing up that we realized we thought were normal. Got up, realized this is not normal. And so we wrote a book and it was his. It was both of our perspectives on those 15 things. So his perspective is a musician, mine is a business guy. And on those same 15 things. And so that book did well. And the other book that I did right about that same time did well while I was dropping out of school. And then like I said, people started asking, hey, how are you doing this? That ultimately became self publishing school andNow self publishing dot com. And we've published about 7,000 books in the last eight years or so, so Inc. 5,000, Forbes, 3,030. Like a bunch of things have come because of that. But it all starts with books. It ends with books. That's what we love. Yeah.

No, I totally think. Well, the coolest thing I did when I was reading that first book was you actually talk about a little about the framework. I think it, I think it. And sometimes it's coming from your brother's perspective versus your perspective. He's like, yeah, Chandler's in the other room right now with a white, like a whiteboard thing with a grid pattern and he's like mapping out little like a mind map and then an outline. And then like you kind of walk through it a little bit. One of the things that I love about your process is in fact, it's a process. It's not necessarily. I got an. I got an idea, I got a pan and pad. Let's write a book. It's. I have an idea. Let's get that joker out of your head and let's break it down into bite sized increments. Right. So how did you come across that process? Did it come naturally? Is it something you picked up somewhere else?

Yeah. I'm a big fan of this concept called who, not how. You know, so anytime I have a problem in my life or in my business, I try to ask the who question, not the how question. Because if I can figure out the who, they know the how. So when my did my first book, I went to a mentor that had published a book before and I said, hey, how? How'd you do it? And he introduced me to kind of like what's become the process that we've created, which is, I call it the More Writing Method. MORE is an acronym. It stands for my map outline, Rough draft editing. And so that's really the, at the core of the More Writing method. And I know a lot of people are probably listening to this, not watching this, but there's this little. We have this little graphic that kind of shows like the whole, you know, the, the path to writing and publishing a book. There's eight milestones. The More Writing Method is the first four. And if you, if you can't see this, just go to my book published on Amazon. And if you look at, there's images on that page and on the, on the little listing page, it shows that. But like those are the first four milestones. And so that's how we try to help people get their book done faster. To write a better book faster. Yeah, dude.

No, I love it. It's interesting because I think one of the things I heard, I think it. I think you were on Ryan's show. I think it was the first time I heard you say it. But you brought up this concept that most people write a book to get their idea out, or most people write a book to kind of like just have a heart overflow or like a mind overflow. And they're not actually thinking about how that book can turn into something else. You know, it's my first book. I kind of looked at it like a seed, right? It's going to be a book. It's gonna be something, a heart of joy or produce or to produce out there. I'm gonna Hand it out, I'm gonna sell it or whatever, and I'm gonna. It's gonna. It's gonna do what it's gonna do. But I'll also tell you, in that first book, I wasn't thinking about, oh, crap, this could become a course. Oh, this. This is my lead source. This is my this, this is my that. This is my this. And one of the things I think sets you apart and your whole organization is the fact it's not just the book.

Right.

It's everything the book can lead to. Talk to me a little bit about that.

Yeah, I mean, the book is just the beginning for most people. You know, we always say it's kind of like this key that opens the door to this, to Narnia, right. This magical world that only exists for published authors. So I think that people should be really strategic about how do I use a book. We look at it kind of three facets to grow my impact, my income and my business. If you have a business. Right. And so, you know, if. Again, sorry to keep referencing things visually, but, like, over my shoulder is this big sign that says leveraged impact. And that's the core. That's, you know, we. We have two kind of fundamental beliefs that drive what we do. Number one is books change lives. They change the lives of readers and of authors. Right. But then number two is leveraged impact. The ability to do work. Once, create a book, that book goes on to impact thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even millions of people. Right. And so that's. That's really what we're. What we're all about is. Is using that book to go from one to one to one to many. So now that book's impacting a bunch of people, thousands, tens of thousands, maybe millions. But then it's generating an income in the form of royalties. But then more powerfully, it's growing your business by bringing in leads, sales, and referrals for the business. And so I think you can do it strategically while also not like the other side of that spectrum is it's just you're writing a crappy book just to use it to get business, which that's like. That's not what we're proponents of. Write a great book, but strategically use that book to grow the business.

Yeah. And I would dare say that's probably the first thing I did wrong with my first book was I did it solely as a. As a heartfelt, like, you know, this is my heart on paper. This is my story. This is my testimony, if you will. You know, that kind of thing and I didn't think about. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. But, you know, that's, that's kind of what I did. I didn't, I wasn't thinking about it. And I was very fortunate that a handful of people picked up the book and happened to be people's like, hey, you know what would you be interested in doing this on, like coming to my, my event and speaking on this, you know, subject. And again, at the very beginning, you're talking like six people in the room, right?

Yeah.

Long before the 600 or 6,000, like just, you know, a handful of people. Right. And as you're kind of going through that, you realize, man, I kind of missed an opportunity. Like, I really missed an opportunity. I think it goes back to that key concept of mentorship that you kind of mentioned. You know, the asking the who question. You know, I've always believed that really there's four types of mentors. There's the visual mentor. Right. So the, the, the person or what I call the aspirational mentor, the one you aspire to be. Like you're, you're taking some of their traits and their tendencies and their talents and molding your own stuff into it. You got the digital mentor, which is where you find the, you know, YouTube and video courses and all kinds of stuff like that. Got your peer to peer. Like, you and I will brainstorm. We brainstorm on that, on that cruise, that night on that yacht, back and forth about some cool, you know, cool things that were happening in both of our businesses. And. And then you got the, the fourth one, which is the one that you specialize in, which I refer to as the historical mentor.

Right.

That's, that's at any point in time you can go to somebody who's either live or passed on and get the greatest wisdom for any endeavor like whatsoever to do anything. You know, I'm self taught for the most part. GED kid. Right. I was. Unfortunately, I had to drop out of high school to help my family take care of the bills. But I learned through the powers of books and mentors the entire way.

Right, right.

I also learned that the books that I did the best in reading were the books that gave me a story of why it was important. But, but the strategical value of what to do with the information. I know that's something you guys are passionate about. How do you coach your authors or your aspiring authors to really break out their content in such a way that it's like completely digestible.

Yeah. I mean, I think it comes back to that more writing method. Because I. I was kind of. I was the kid who always skipped. You know, my teachers say, well, you should outline your paper before you write it. And then like, well, that sounds like a waste of time. That's 30 minutes I could be writing.

Yeah.

And. But inside, you and I would have been good friends.

I'm just saying.

Yeah. And. And I think in a full circle moment, I mean, now I'm telling our authors that. Which is, hey, if you really take time to do the first parts of that more writing method, mind map, outline, write a rough draft, you know, is. Is you'll start to see themes or groups of ideas, then sections, then you repeat that process chapter by chapter by chapter. And then you can still use that framework where it's okay, story point payoff. Story point payoff. And.

And.

But it's within an overarching structure that's digestible. That makes sense. And so I think that's how you can do it in a way where there's a lot of freedom in that structure. You know, some people are like, oh, man, that. That feels too regimented. But there's freedom in that where you can say, all right, I know I got a story here. I know I can have a. I can add my points here. Like that. That sort of thing. And that's where I try to do with my books is, you know, there's images, there's frameworks, there's stuff like that. So that it's.

Dude, that book in your hand published is a hot book. I'm just telling you right now, that is a. That is a. Literally a game book, a game plan, a playbook, if you will, on how to actually get a book not just created, but to do it in such a well enough fashion where you can help them market it.

Thanks, I appreciate that. That's the goal. Like, I want that to be the book where if anyone ever is thinking about writing a book or knows someone who is, they'd say, hey, you need.

To read this book.

And. But then coming from my experience where, you know, you know, you've heard, you know, sometimes the. The worst students make the best teachers because they know what it's like to struggle. And so I want to make it ADHD friendly. I want to make it fun and bite size and all that, whereas, you know, the person who maybe never struggled with that is. It's not, you know, they never had to do that. Yeah, they don't know what it's like to struggle. And so I think the biggest weakness became a superpower. And digestively explain how to do it.

It's crazy to me. I don't know if you had this epiphany, but I was watching you and another good friend were doing an interview and you guys made a comment about, you know, all of our thought leader friends, right? They all have books or, or have had multiple books and stuff like that, know, but most people never get the book to print. They never, in some cases, they never get the idea out of their head. And when you start getting in certain circles, it, I think it becomes a little bit, you can become a little bit numb because you're, hey, you're, when's your next launch? When's your next launch? You're like, okay, that's awesome. Come on the show. I'll, you know, we'll talk about it, that kind of thing. And then I remember the first time that I was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get a book done. And then six years went by and then I had done absolutely nothing.

Right.

How does someone go from that look in, in the sheer emotion of either fear or insecurity about getting that book? What would you tell that aspiring author that says, I got a book in my heart, I got a book in my head, Like, I need courage to get this thing done.

I mean, I'd say first and fore, like, you gotta start, it's a book. You know, for most people, it's the maybe someday list, is the maybe next year list. And people just keep kicking down the can, down the road. There's never going to be a perfect time to write a book. And you have to get started before you're ready. And it's going to take short term sacrifice, you know, financially time wise. Like, you're going to have to carve out some, you know, some time. And that might even be just in like, quote unquote, lost revenue in your business where you're like, all right, I need to just take a month or three months and get this draft done. And I'm going to take my off the ball on the business a little bit probably. But like, I'm creating an asset that will help leverage beyond myself. And so that's my biggest encouragement for folks is you gotta start. And it starts with very practically everyone listening to this. I would say, hey, as soon as you're done listening to this or tonight, before you go to bed, take 15 minutes and try to create that mind map with everything that you can think of on the topic of your book. If you just start there, then you'll start to to realize, okay, I've. You've probably got more than you think. And then that can be the backbone of the mind map. Then the outline, and you start, you know, kind of creating that rough draft. But it starts with making a decision and say, saying, hey, I'm gonna. I'm gonna stop kicking the can on the road. Cause there's just never gonna be a good time to do it.

Yeah, for sure. No, I remember, for me, I was. I come from an event, a business event, and God. God bless. And I do mean this. God bless. My first editors, I wrote an. One entire run on sentence while on an elliptical inside of my iPhone. It was scrolling after scrolling after scrolling after. No commas, no periods, no semicolons, no indentions, and no nothing. But to that point, I knew that if I didn't get it out of my head, it would never go anywhere. And going back to that historical mentor piece, my first mentor, you can't see him on camera, but he's over my right hand shoulder. Guy by the name of Steve Meyrick. My audience has heard about him probably too many times at this point. But one of the things he used to tell me is like, you need to create a legacy that's going to outlive you. And one of the easiest ways I know to do that is to put yourself in print.

Right?

Because I haven't seen a book created that didn't help at least one person, you know, and for me, when I was trying to make that shift of. Of idea and should I do it, should I not do it? People been telling me, you should write a book about your life. You've lived all these different journeys, all this kind of stuff. I didn't switch until I realized that the book was not about me. It was about the person reading the book and how that. How that information could shift them, transform them, you know, cause them a moment of surrender to get them to shift, you know, I'm curious to know what was the motivating factor behind you literally going out and getting that first book done? I mean, you were already in the entrepreneurial mindset. You had already test a bunch of business things. You've been running little micro businesses all the way through school and everything else. Like, what was. What was the thing said, all right, the book is.

The next thing.

You know, it was. There was a conversation with my brother where we said, hey, can you believe this? Like, we thought all these things that mom and dad taught us were just normal.

Yeah.

And. And no one, none of our friends had gotten taught that. So it was that because I wrote my first two books about the same time, and they were kind of in tandem. And so that was the big starting point for one of the first ones. And then the other one was just, all right, I feel like I have. I have something to say that's going to help people. And it evolved from. It didn't start as, let's make this master plan in this book that we're going to publish, but it evolved into it, to publishing into something that we felt like, hey, let's put this out on Amazon. Let's see how it does that sort of thing. So it was just think a core desire to help people and to crystallize something to where we could point to that and say, hey, yeah, this will help you with this thing. Right. And so then it just kind of evolved from there. And then use some principles that I learned from my first couple of businesses. Kind of like, you alluded to some sales and marketing principles to get behind the book. And so that was kind of the. The jump start.

Yeah. No, I see. I always love the stories about how things get started because I think people underestimate the power of. Of the start. Right. You just alluded to it a minute ago. It's like, you know, you've got this thing that's been. And it could be a book, it could be a business, it could be a relationship, it could be any number of things. It's like God's put it in your heart to, like, talk about it, to get going on it, and you're sitting still. Right. And always. I'm always. I'm always interested to know how the start occurs, because the start turns into something powerful. I would dare say, after watching your work and seeing how many people you've helped bring amazing books to market, I'm curious to know. It seems like now it's become almost like a passionate calling more than a business. Right. So tell me, first of all, am I right about that? Is it. Is it. Has it become such a passion that it's almost like a calling at this point?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, the business does very well. I don't have to. I don't have to work or I don't have to be involved if I don't want to. I want to. Yeah, I really enjoy it. It's, you know. You know, we help people who help people, so there's just. There's leverage in what we're doing. Right. If we help one person with a book, well, that's a minimum. We look at it Kind of like a minimum of 1200 people, 200 of their friends and family that see them do that and say, hold up, you know, Stephen did that. What can I do?

Yeah.

And then a thousand readers, let's call it just for simple math. And so we look at the math on that. We're like, all right, well, every customer that we work with, we can change the lives of at least 1200 people in addition to that one person. And so that's. That has become a calling and something that, you know, there's been multiple times where I'm like, ah, maybe go to the next business or the next thing or whatever else. It's like, well, I think there's a lot more here. Yeah, I think it's something that. And I'm really enjoying this. I get to work with great people doing a great thing. And so, yeah, I think it really has, has been and is a calling. And, you know, we're on a mission to publish a hundred thousand books by 2035. So, like, that's kind of the big goal that we're working towards. About. About 7,000 published so far. So a lot of progress, long way to go. I think we can get the company to 100 million a year. We're marching towards that and having a lot of fun doing it.

Yeah, that's exciting stuff, man. Well, look, what, what. So what is your core strategy? Like? All right, so 2035s out there. Let's talk about game planning a little bit. I know your brain works in breaking things down here, micro steps, etc. How do you kind of see that playing out for your industry?

Yeah, I mean, well, it's. We. There's kind of like our flywheel of growth and I'm not going to be able to recite the whole thing offhand, but it's like, you know, it starts with getting better or getting great results for our authors, which leads into creating raving fans, which leads into creating what we would call a blue chip author, which is someone who has great success, whether they've sold 10,000 copies of their book or generated a hundred thousand dollars in business from their book. And so then that. That attracts partners, whether they're authors with us or someone else like you or like other authors who say, hold up, I. People keep asking me all the time how I wrote my book. I should just send them to chandler and sell publishing.com. so that helps attract partners and future authors and that sort of thing. That then helps us lower our cost to acquire a customer. So, you know, if we could, the cheaper it is to acquire a customer, the more customers that we can acquire for faster. And then that helps us, you know, invest in increasing innovation, which then feeds the flywheel to get our authors better results. So I said, I'm not going to recite the whole flywheel, but I think.

You did pretty dang good, to be honest with you.

And so we. And so then, you know, that's the, the what's his name? Good to great Jim Collins kind of flywheel concept, where a flywheel, it starts slowly, but if it's truly a flywheel, it should, it should pick up speed. And so we're investing in all different parts of that flywheel. So we got it so that we can acquire customers faster, help more authors have more success with their books. And that's kind of how we accelerate the flywheel to go from, you know, we'll publish two to five books a day now to we, we really need to get kind of in that 15 to 20 books a day at about the seven year from now mark or so. And then that's, you know, kind of just back of the napkin math what it'll take. So it's very doable.

Yeah. No, I dig it. No, it's cool. It was also. It's also been really cool this entire time. I don't know if you realize this or not. And this, I think this goes to show the power of the written word in a book. A lot of some of your greatest points of inflection or pivoting or growth or inspirations have, like you just said, good to great flywheel. Here's our flywheel. Like, like good to great or here's this, like this. Here's this, like this. So clearly you're an avid reader yourself. Like you, you clearly consume content that obviously is going to help you propel your business forward. I think that's a really cool, like, almost like a 360 kind of like. Yeah. Yeah. Not only are we saying books change lives, books have helped me change my life or help me, you know, empower my life, I guess, for a better start. Right.

Oh, 100. And that's, you know, I call it the college dropouts approach to learning. I dropped out of school, but I, I act like I was still in it, Right.

Yeah.

And I always say, you know, it's like the smartest, most successful people on the planet have written and published a book.

Yeah.

I call it a $15 mentor. And so for 15 bucks in a handful of hours, you can read.

Yeah.

Best information from the smartest people on the planet.

Yeah.

And so that's what I did. And so, you know, since I did not like reading and I did not like writing, but when I dropped out of school, I realized, okay, I got a lot of learning I still need to do if I want to be successful in this business. And. But then I realized, well, hold up the biggest problems in my business. There's books on them.

Yeah.

And so if I can just match a problem with a book and the best book on that problem, well, then I can just read the book and solve the problem. And so that's kind of been, I mean, just rinse and repeat. I'll read about a book a week and I'll say, all right, what's the biggest problem in my life or in my business right now? Okay, what's the best book on that? Let me read the book, implement it, and then find the next book. And sometimes I'll go down veins of like, all right, let me read five books on this topic back to back because I really want to learn that or five books from this author back to back or whatever else. And so that's just really kind of a self serve, self serve solution to all the biggest problems in my life.

I'm digging. I'm glad you broke that down because again, I deal with this particular show and with everything that I do, I want to make sure everything's practical and digestible. I want to make sure that the thought leaders are coming on, are not only teaching, but also saying, hey, here's step one, here's step two, here's step three, step four. And there's always an intangible that comes out. And in this particular episode, the intangible is I'm not, it's like, what is it, the old hair club thing? Like, I'm not just a, I'm not just the, the doctor, I'm, I'm the client or I forgot what the heck it is, but you know what I mean? Yeah. And I kind of like that about this. You know, one of the other questions that people often, I know I've dealt with this early on that come up with is do I self publish? Do I hire? Do I go with a publishing house? Yeah. And you know, there, I think there's pros and cons, or at least there historically has been pros and cons to both. But for me, what you guys offer@self publishing.com is almost like a mixture of both in some cases. Like, it's like the, the marketing, the momentum arm to help you get your book out there. Aligned with the self publishing mechanism, right?

Yeah.

So talk to me a little about the, the pros and the cons of each and kind of how you guys have solved that niche.

It's a, it's, it's what we've tried to create is the best of both worlds for authors. Right. And we've got an episode on my podcast, this Help Publishing School podcast, that goes way in depth on like self published publishing versus traditional publishing, all that stuff. But kind of like the long, the long and short of it is for 99.9% of people, it makes more sense to self publish because, you know, distribution used to be the reason you traditionally publish is the only way you sold books was to get into bookstores. Well, now 70% of all books sold or sold on Amazon and other online retailers, right? So you can get better royalty rates, you can keep your ip. We, you know, your intellectual property. We want to put the power back in the hands of authors. So we exist to kind of say, hey, how can we give you a traditional publishing kind of quality book, but you keep all the rights and royalties and we do a bunch of the final mile of publishing for you. And so that's really kind of where we sit and all that and how we help people. You know, our goal is to save people, you know, hundreds of hours of time in the process, thousands of dollars in the process, and help you publish a better book that you're proud of. So that's kind of the goal as we go through the process, and that's how we work, work with people to achieve that goal.

No, I love it. In fact, with the IP part of it, I think this is really super important.

I've been in the conversations with some fairly large publishers for my next book. I dare say we're. I could or could not accept a, you know, book deal in the near future. And one of the things that I realized very quickly as we've been going back and forth between what I want to write and what they think I should write is in some cases very different. And I'm like, well, if I write your book, I'm not being true to myself.

Mm.

You know what I'm saying? And they're, and they're coming from. Well, you know, we, we do this for a living. We've all these New York Times bestsellers and.

But I'm at the end of the day, I'm like, it's the book that I'm trying to bring. Like, it's, it's me. Like, it's me in print. Right, yeah.

So the self publisher, you're gonna sell the book. I mean, you know the book, you know the book better than they do, you know the audience better than they do. And so yes, they have the historical context, but they're not selling the book. It's called a book publisher for a reason. Right. Because they publish books, they don't market books. It's not a book. That's a big, that's a big misconception. They think, oh, I'm going to get this, this publisher they're going to market, they're going to open all these stores, they're not going to do that. And most of the people at these publishing companies, no offense, they're well intentioned, hard working people, but they just don't know what they're doing. They're not, you know, they haven't done in most cases what they are doing or what, you know, what they're recommending. And so I just think, yeah, I think there's a much better path.

No, I think you and I both, in fact. Now one of our mutual friends, Rory Vaden, has this, he has his own methodology behind strategic book launches. And one of the things that he brought to my attention, he's like, most people get the book written without thinking about how they're going to deliver the book to marketplace. So when they get the book written, they have a great book but no mechanism behind it to get the book to distribution, get the book to marketing, get the book out there. So it actually gets to the hands that need it. And when it comes down to it, I think a lot of authors, I was probably this, with my second book specifically, I was like, I want to get New York Times, New York Times, New York Times. And Rory's like, dude, we, we work together to help Ed Mylett do his book launch for the Power of One More about this time last year, matter of fact, And Ed sold 36,000 books at our event. Like because we hosted him at my live event center. 36,000 books he sold. And what, like, I don't know, five hours or something like that still didn't hit the New York Times list. But he crushed every other bestseller list. Right, so talk to me a little about the people that are really going after the best sellers. So it's almost like they're trying to write the book so they can become a quote, bestseller versus someone who's trying to bring a book to market. Like just kind of get that little bit of a breakdown.

Yeah, it's an aspiration for a lot of people. And, and so, I mean, to understand that there's three main lists that people care about. New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal Bestseller list. Right now, it's kind of the spectrum from editorial to merit based. USA Today is the. Is actually the most merit based. That's my favorite. It doesn't have, like, kind of the cachet of New York Times, but I mean, that is. How many units did you move? And so that's probably why I add my lab. I mean, he probably did very well in the USA Today bestseller list. And, and then probably also Wall Street Journal, because Wall Street Journal.

Yeah, he cr. He crushed every last one of them with the exception of New York Times. Yeah.

And so that. So, so Wall Street Journal is mostly merit based, a little bit less so than USA Today. And then New York Times is editorial. So it's. It's directionally correct, but they are making editorial decisions based on who gets on the list, who doesn't. So you typically need to sell about 10 to 12,000 books in a week to land somewhere in the top 10 on the new York Times, depending on the category that you're in, all that stuff. So obviously Ed tripled that up, and so he definitely should have. And, and I, you know, I don't know for sure. I haven't seen the bookscan data or anything like that for that week, but almost definitely sold more, you know, more books than anyone else on the list. But the New York Times made an editorial decision to keep them. So that's why for most authors, it's just. It's a vanity pursuit and not worthwhile because it's like playing a game where you can do all the right things and then.

And then you don't get rewarded.

Well, yeah, exactly, because the editor, you know, maybe had a bad day. Maybe their significant other just dumped them. Maybe it's raining outside. Maybe they're like, you know, Stephen, I don't like it.

Yeah, he's short. I don't like that bald guy. That's crazy.

He's. He's Southern.

He's a. He's a good boy. My dad go.

And I don't like that. So I'm gonna leave him off. Right. Or maybe with Ed, maybe it's like, hey, he's personal development. He's whatever else, macho guy. Like, we're not here for that. So let's just leave him off the list.

Yeah.

So that's the breakdown and why it's not really a great pursuit.

Well, one of the things. And maybe it's a fib. Maybe it's not a fib that I was told a long time ago is that if you self publish, you can't hit bestseller list. But I know people that have self published and hit multiple bestseller lists.

So talk to me specifically on New York Times. Yeah, it's. And it's not impossible, just really hard. And, and, but the other list, yeah, you definitely hit them because again, they're mayor face. You sell books, you get on the.

List, do this and you get to do that.

I, I'm, you know, I like to. Everything I participate in, I prefer it to be. And everything that we try to create at our company is to meritocracy. You get opportunities based on merit, not based on tenure, time, ethnicity. Like that's what I think entrepreneurship is the great meritocracy.

Yeah.

Because it's can you create a great product that solves a problem for the right person, so much so that they're willing to pay for it and if you can do that, well, they don't care who you are.

Yeah.

And, and it's so it's, it truly is merit based. And so that's, that's what like those are the kind of pursuits that I like to, to pursue.

Dude, I absolutely love it. Talk to me about self publishing dot com. So I'm a, I'm a, let's say I'm a brand new author. Absolutely love Chandler Bolt. Want to work with him and his team. What are my next steps?

Yeah, well, you don't have to like me. My team's way better.

I can be a likable guy.

But yeah, so next steps would be book a call with the team, go to self publishing.com forward/apply. That's kind of the starting point. So we sit down with people and we say, hey, what are your goals for your book? What are your challenges with your book? Like, let's start to put together a plan and then see if we can help with that plan. And then based on, and then from there, if people are fit to work with us, we assign them with a coach that works with them one on one. We have curriculum that guides them through the process. And then when they're getting ready to publish, we do a lot of the final mile logistics. Like we've got a bunch of just a ton of resources to save people time, help people have more success with their book. And so that's kind of what the process looks like and how to get engaged.

Dude, I love it. And they could go pick up published just putting it out there and they should pick up published.

Yeah. And actually I'll, I'll plug that real quick. Stephen, is, is we created a link for your folks to just make this easy. So it's, it's published book.com forward/unstoppable. Okay. And if you go there, published book, like I published a book. So published book.com forward/unstoppable, you're going to get a free audio book and a free ebook. So my book published, the audio and the ebook, you'll get it for free. So obviously, I mean, if you want to get it on Amazon, you can, but that's just a simple way as a way to say thank you for having me on and thank you guys for listening. So hopefully you love, man, that's such.

An awesome gift, man. The audience is going to love that, man.

No worries.

Thank you for that. Seriously.

You got it. No problem.

I got one final question for you. And you do a lot of interviews. You've obviously become very successful. You got a lot of folks pulling on your, your heartstrings and your headstrings to kind of have time with you and learn more about you and kind of what you're doing and how you operate and what you, all the things you got your hands into. From your perspective, though, what is the one question that has never been asked, that should be asked in regards to this initiative?

Man, the one question that's never been asked. I get asked a lot of questions.

I know.

Oh my goodness.

What does it really take?

Okay, all right. I mean, what does it really take?

Well, I think as a. In regards to business and in regards to authorship is because people are always looking for the quick. Like, hey, how the quick, like the quick win. And I mean, I think what it really takes is a, is a long term commitment to excellence and, and anything that I've done that's been worthwhile, it's been in the part where everybody else quits.

Yeah.

That things really popped off. And so whether it's with my books or with my business, that's the kind of the, the what, what does it really take? That I think.

Yeah, that's such a good. That was my, that was my Stump Chandler question and you knocked it out.

Yeah, yeah, man, this is a hard one.

No, but that is good. I was just thinking it actually. It's funny, I just had this mental, like, movie reel pop through my head. You said, what does it take of all the stuff that I have had to do and all the times I wanted to give up, that I didn't give up even Though I really, really, really, really wanted to, like, we're talking, like, somehow God, maybe put my next leg in front of my next foot. That kind of keep me going. And at the end of every last one of those was. The thing was actually a bigger blessing than what I thought I was going to get out of the whole deal. Right. And I think your work is speaking for itself. I love the fact that you genuinely care about your authors. I love the fact that you generally care about their content. I love the fact that you generally want to help them bring their. Their books and. And the resources to Marketplace to actually do some good in the world. Dude, I can't applaud you enough for everything. Your mom was absolutely right. She said I would love you when we finally got a chance to like, sit down and chat for a little bit. She's an awesome lady, by the way, so please give her my best.

Regina Volt is a legend who meets. My mom loves her.

I mean, she is a legend, right? It's funny. I wouldn't be surprised if she's. If she's been like a ninja style, like making big impacts you and your brother's businesses kind of thing, so.

Oh, y. No doubt, dude.

Man, I've enjoyed having you on any final way that people should stay connected.

With, you know, the two best ways. Book a call with the team. Grab a copy of Publish. We'd love to chat with you and help you with your book. Steven, this has been awesome, man. Congrats on everything with your brother. Thanks.

Thanks, buddy.

Peace.

I hope you liked that video. And if you did, make sure you check out this next video right here. Failure, the great purifier that stems from failure. Rule number one, which is failure purifies. It's the idea that Phoenix must burn to emerge. I think what I learned through a lot of these failures was they were kind of necessary crucibles of reinvention.