Ray Brehm - The Author Startup: A Radical Approach To Rapidly Writing and Self-Publishing Your Book On Amazon

Copyright 2017 by Ray Brehm

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover by Ida Fia Sveningsson

To Mom and Dad

Thanks for giving me every tool

and opportunity I needed,

including your support,

to allow me to be creative

I was sitting on the couch at home thinking. What if I had to write a book as soon as possible? What if I had a friend who needed to do that? What would I tell him or her?

The truth was, I had enough going on. I was creating my Free Author Mini Course, to help aspiring writers. I was also recording the audiobook version of my recent bestseller, Author Your Success. Then there was the sequel to Author Your Success, called Launch Your Success: The Ultimate Guide to Building Launch Teams, Organizing Promos and Scheduling a Best-Seller Book Launch.

That was plenty.

As an avid reader, I had also slowly begun evolving to the point where I stopped buying Kindle books that were too long (like more than 40 pages), and I knew other readers were doing that as well.

So there I was, deciding to chase that next shiny object and write a short Kindle book. It would be a book that gave no choices, told you exactly what to do to get your book done and published on Amazon and that is all.

Here is the thing. Focusing on being published first is what you should do too. I have taken many courses and seen many students get bogged down in the details. Others look at the list of things you should do and never start.

Here are things that will slow you down:

• What software should I use to write
• What software should I use to publish to Kindle
• I need to set up my website
• I need to have a freebie inside
• I need to get my social media together
• I need to get my brand and color scheme together
• I need to get my CRM in order
• I need everything to be perfect
• And many more things.

I have been through it, and I will tell you this:

The only thing you need to do is become a published author on Amazon.

The rest can and will fall into place later.

As a matter of fact, I have talked to many authors who have specifically launched a bestselling book. You know what they all say? It was super stressful. They are all glad they accomplished it, but the next book becomes less of a priority to be a bestseller. Just writing becomes the priority.

We all get caught up in trying to learn. We can become course collectors. We just need to take one more course; then we will get started. Sound familiar? If not, maybe I am the only one, but I speak from lots of experience.

You can be a bestseller on the next book.

I am happy to show you how later. For right now, take it from me and many other Bestsellers I have spoken with:

Your first book does not need to be a bestseller. Your first book needs to get done.

By the way, if you already have one book published, it is a lot easier to launch the second one as a bestseller (or even go back re-launch the first one if you want to say your first book was a bestseller).

So, what is next? The rest of this book will tell you exactly what you need to do to publish that first book. Nothing more. I want it to be short and sweet. I also want you to model your book after this one. I am using the plan I am going to describe in this book to create this book, nothing extra. I will tell you the costs along the way (they arent much), and if you are on a tight budget, I will give you alternatives. There are only a couple of items to spend money on, all of them can utilize free alternatives.

The first thing to do is clear your head and get in the right mindset. You are going to write and publish a book, nothing else. You are going to do it quickly. The rest we will learn later. We are going to use what I call the Boogie Board Approach. It is a simple but powerful concept that I use for just about everything now. Once you read about it, you will understand what I am talking about and exactly what our goal is. Dont stop; you are going to finish reading this book in 48 hours tops.

As an avid Kindle reader and author, one thing I hate is disruption of my reading flow. It also bothers me when I find out my books have something in them that disrupts the flow.

Here are some ways to disrupt the reading flow:

• Footnotes
• Links taking you somewhere outside the book
• Action items that you feel the need to do right away
• The feeling that you need to be highlighting everything important (maybe you have a system, but I dont)

Here is how I handle those items in this book:

• No footnotes - I credit each person right there in the text
• I will have links to items outside the book. Do not click on them your first pass through the book. They are references, but I will also list them all and what they are for in the appendix under ACTION PLAN (and links).
• At the end of each chapter, I may list some Action Items. My preference is you realize there is something there and take action later while going through that section called ACTION PLAN (and Links) in the appendix. You can use that as sort of a checklist.
• In the ACTION PLAN (and Links) section of this book, I give you access to a downloadable version of all the Action Items and Links found in each chapter, so you dont have to go to your Kindle later to do them.

This may be overkill, because this book is short and to the point. I would love to hear your opinion on it.

But for now, that is what I have done. I have formatted this book the way I would want to read it. I hope you like it.

That being said, here is how I would proceed:

1. Click on the link in the front or back of this book for Action Plan download. There is only one and it will download everything (one click does it all). It is all free. But do not open them yet.
2. Read the entire book one time. Do not highlight or click any links out.
3. Check out the Action material and take action.
4. Then if you are compelled, read it again and highlight.

It is nice to get the big picture of everything first, and then come back and take action. I would also hate for you to click on links early. If you are taken out of your flow, only to realize it is easier after you download the material, you may get mad at me.