Author Success Stories
In Their Own Words
“I have the confidence and working history with Hal to know that if you are real in your endeavor to get your book done, he'll get you across the finish line … This book turned out high on the credibility scale and high on the visibility scale. One investor that has a 50 person company bought 50 copies and put them in their holiday employee gift bag along with other swag. I landed a handful of different speaking gigs from it that I was not expecting. It has helped me in converting a dozen cold calls, turning them into warm calls by giving them this gift and reference guide. I've screen-shot a few pages to give proof to a CEO that I am connected with his landlord’s bosses’ boss from the book interviews I did with them.
“Every completed book is a testament to delivering on promises I make to myself; teaches me how to think and articulate my value to the world; and is a springboard to further content creation which extends my reach and reputation again.”
— Justin Smith, author of Industrial Income and Industrial Intelligence
“Ten Year Career was well worth writing. I regularly get messages from people who have read it and applied the lessons. I had so much fun promoting it and discussing the framework on podcasts. Readers complete the scorecard and join the companion course and keep in touch across social media. For personal brand it's been significant.
Personally, the book was how I closed out my first business (and in some ways, my twenties!) ready to move onto a new business. It contains all the lessons and advice I wish someone had taught me when I first started out and I feel very at peace that it's out in the world.
I'm infinitely pleased I hired you to be my editor. I'm still proud of the book and probably always will be because I didn't skip that step. My publisher did their editing too, of course, but being able to hand them a manuscript that was almost close to perfect was pretty cool and a reflection of the high quality work I want to put out there.”
— Jodie Cook, author of Ten Year Career
“It created a new line of revenue for us to fund future products and other projects such as your YouTube channel, racing team that is coming out, gear that we now sell on our website. It also added an extra layer of credibility within my industry … Biggest result we saw was income. That income directly stems from our marketing (YouTube). It has brought on new clients too. The goal of the book was to be a resource for professional instructors in our industry. Because of that, we now have clients with federal law enforcement and military who have asked us to come out and put on instructor courses for them. The book was a funnel for that. Third, it has grown our reach on social media because people post about it and we in turn repost what they say.
“By having to organize your thoughts, and have a professional editor organize them for the book, it forced me to really look at how I was presenting information. I've always been known for running well thought out courses, but this made them even better. That aspect was noticed by other people that I trust, and surprised me a little when they mentioned it. Old friends reached out too. One little aspect of note, having your daughter say, ‘Dad, you actually wrote a book,’ is something that can not be understated. Writing a book is something that seems so far out of reach for most, but being able to set that example and show her that she can do it too is a huge deal for any parent. I'm sure you can word smith this better, but opening my daughters eyes to what she can do was a big moment for me.
“Since December 2021 we have sold 4,468 books on Amazon. Each Amazon sale is ~$10 profit. On our website we have sold almost 500 books, with a profit of ~$20 per book. Each month we sell on average 100-200 books currently depending on what kind of content we put out on YouTube and how much we reference it on social media.
“I expected the worst and suffered a lot from the "fraud" aspect. People I respect a lot gave it good reviews and spoke highly of it. I'm sure everyone goes through that because putting yourself out there for criticism is not easy. It wasn't as bad as I thought and turned out fine. I'm sure the big successful authors felt the same way, and probably still do.”
— Drew Estell, author, Process and Progress Pistol Training
“I always thought it was huge success. Once the book was published there were definitely a lot of market activity, like being on podcasts. I’m based in Japan, but I had a few gigs in the US, UK, New Zealand, Europe. I got invitations to speaking gigs at conferences and forums. One day I learned that my book also reached Africa, which I had no plan for. One thing led to another and we were having a conference call [with a Nigerian] Ministry of Sports Official. They wanted to distribute my book to some of the public schools there, lwhich was really, really beyond my imagination. I would say something like that was absolutely mind blowing because I never ever imagined that could ever happen.
“I started to teach at Temple University’s Japan campus. And I teach eSports business and I start using my book as a textbook for that course. And the students love it. I give out homework assignments based on that book, and I get so much many positive comments and responses and the students love him.
“Other university colleagues started to use my book as their own textbook as well. This is something that I never had expected, and it's really exciting. It kind of prompted me to think more seriously about my own personal gig, helped me in a way that I could go independent, which I'm doing right now. I started my own company a couple of years ago, and since about a year ago I went full-time here, and now it has grown for more than around 10 people, and we're completely focusing on eSports gaming and Metaverse that kind of a digital content business.
“I made a lot more friends through that book, and by people reading that book, they feel that they know me personally even though I never met them.”
—Baro Hyun, author of Demystifying ESports
“My primary goal as an author was to publish a legacy project to share with my family, honor some incredible people I worked with, and say I wrote a book. I had all these experiences and observations and felt passionate about getting them out of my head and into a book. It was just something I had to do. Suppose the book sold a few copies and generated some cool speaking gigs; all good. But those goals were secondary.
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I wasn't building a company, looking for clients, or branding myself. I'm interested in something other than working a lot. I like traveling, hanging out with friends and family, and having a lot of free time. Fortunately, I'm in good financial shape. And I'm also 64 years old.
Thanks to the book, I have made new friends throughout the world. Even better, I have reconnected with old-time friends I had lost contact with and people I hadn't spoken to in decades. This has been cool—something I didn't expect, but perhaps my favorite thing about publishing a book.
My numbers are modest: 2,000 books sold in the first 15 months. However, some of my sales are meaningful to me. The 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City carries my book (I wrote about the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks). The University of Manchester Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute stocks and recommends the book to all students. The Naval Postgraduate School purchases bulk copies for distribution at some of their leadership cohorts. Many universities worldwide that offer homeland security and emergency management studies carry my book in their libraries.
Regarding feedback, the best comes from young people in the disaster response industry—people traveling on their leadership journey. When I hear from them, and they say my book helped them, wow, that's special.
As a result of the book, I've traveled to speak and conduct leadership seminars in New Zealand, Taiwan, Thailand, Iowa, Atlanta, Montana, Hawai'i, Guam, and Saipan—to name a few spots. I have even more international trips scheduled in 2024. I've also done Zoom presentations to audiences in Canada, the UK, and the US.
I never anticipated receiving many offers to speak and requests to read and review books from other authors. For a while, I accepted everything—every event, every podcast, and talked for free a lot. Now, I'm being more selective and reevaluating my goals. Now, I'm focusing on Asia and the Western Pacific. Ideally, I would like to do an event or two and then take off a month.
I spent $25,000 of my own money on my book between 2020 and 2022. This includes paying for editing, publishing, marketing, and author website. I also had some out-of-pocket travel expenses. I've made $100,000 as a direct result of the book. This includes book sales, speaking fees, and workshop coaching assignments. If I were willing to work more, I could make more. But I'd rather have free time. Only some of my investments were wisely spent. I could have done better on the website and some marketing projects. But I learned a lot.
—Ed Conley, author of Promote the Dog Sitter and Other Principles of Leading During Disasters