March 20, 2013; Berlin, Germany; 2045 hours

Our appetizers arrive. Meatballs. I take one, put it on my plate, and stare at it ever-so-briefly. I’m with a group of great friends who all know what I’m doing, but maybe don’t quite understand all the turmoil that went into this decision. Here goes nothing. I proceed to take my first bite of animal flesh in 5 years. It’s not initially pleasant, but I keep chewing and don’t hate it. By the time our meal is over I’ve eaten 6 meatballs (I had ordered them as my main) and only have a slight tinge of a stomach ache. So far, this experiment was going better than expected.

###

I had decided to do what we can call a 30 day “be like everyone else and eat meat” challenge a few months prior. It was a personal challenge so I didn’t tell friends or family unless it was necessary. Originally it was to be for all of April, but I decided to start it on March 20 for simple convenience. I’d be doing some traveling (Germany, Holland, Norway) with a handful of friends for the few weeks thereafter and thought it would be a good opportunity to know how it felt to travel and not think about food.

In general it’s pretty easy to travel as a vegan – and even easier as a vegetarian – but it’s obviously easiest to not have to give scrounging for food a second thought and eat whatever is readily available. I did a lot of that. I ate everything in sight. Candy bars. Curry wursts. Pizza. Deep fried doughnut balls.

In the past when someone would find out I was vegan they’d often ask, “Don’t you miss anything?” The answer was no then and it’s no now. There was nothing I craved. I didn’t eat my first burger until a couple weeks into the challenge. I didn’t eat a steak until we got to Amsterdam on April 4. (The burger was good, steak was gross.)

It always saddens me when someone says something like, “oh, I could never live without eating X.” Really? You’re that weak-willed? But it’s not entirely your fault. The pleasure we get from eating fatty foods like cheese is quite possibly on par with addiction to drugs like cocaine.¹

The Pain, Oh, The Pain

Let’s back track a bit. It all begins with abdominal pains. Sharp, stabbing, knife-like pains.

I’ve written before about how I cured stomach pains. Quick summary: Growing up I’d often have a burning in my stomach. When I was 20 I quit drinking soda (which I used to drink in heavy doses) and those pains went away forever. It was amazing.

But not long after, sometime in my early 20s, I started getting sharp stabbing pains in my abdomen, below my stomach. At first it only happened every once in a while, but by the time I was 26 it was daily and prolonged. These are the type of pains that make you double over and want to scream cry.

Eventually the pains were accompanied by shitting blood. Which isn’t particularly pleasant. In actuality it’s quite scary. I went to a gastroenterologist and he said I needed a colonoscopy, but a colonoscopy could only tell me bad things. Either it was cancer or something less severe and still unpleasant which I would “have” to take drugs for.

I have an issue with death. I don’t want to see it coming. Less-so now than in the past. In the past I don’t think I could’ve dealt with a cancer diagnosis whereas now I’d be able to deal with it better.

I also have an issue with long term use of prescription (or over-the-counter) medicine. I don’t want my pains numbed. How will I know if something’s wrong with my body?

All that to say I didn’t get a colonoscopy. I almost did, going so far as to getting all the information and getting my pre-procedure prescription and instructions (laxative), but I didn’t go through with it.

Not long after that visit to the doctor I started eating vegetarian and then vegan, for animal rights reasons as opposed to health, and my abdominal pains went away. This was unexpected.

I began reading more about the health benefits of veganism and learned about the positive effects proper nutrition has on our bodies. For years after I felt better than ever. No more shitting blood. No more excruciating intestinal knife stab pains.

I didn’t get a cold for a good 2 years and I used to get three or four 1-2 week colds per year. I didn’t even get “traveler’s tummy” in the 9 weeks I was in India, which is absurd considering it’s almost a rite-of-passage for travelers to India.

The Downward Spiral, The Emergency Room

Things took a downward turn when, in 2011, I started the Insanity workout program. I love hated it so much I decided to immediately do it again. I felt great. But 30 days into the second go-round I went to DirectLabs for a comprehensive blood test and found out I was anemic (with hemoglobin at 9.0g/dL). This scared me and resulted in my visit to 2 emergency rooms in 1 day due to anxiety attacks that I thought were surely death. (Had never had an anxiety attack before and didn’t know how they manifested.)

Anyway, something was wrong. Shortly afterwards, while I was in Panama and Costa Rica, I began getting the knife stab abdominal pains again along with occasional bleeding. The pain was so bad I called a doctor to my hotel the night before my flight out of Costa Rica thinking I wouldn’t be able to fly. He said it was probably colitis and gave me some regular old ibuprofen to temporarily ease the pain. (He also unexpectedly said a proper vegan diet was great for health.)

I attributed the pains to my return to semi-junkfood veganism. I was eating far too many processed foods like bread and cereal. I got back on track with eating more veggies/fruits/beans, but the problems didn’t go away like they had before.

“Why am I having trouble swallowing?!”

To top it off, I began having troubles with my esophagus. Sometimes food would get stuck and it would feel like I was choking, even though I could breathe. If you’ve ever eaten food too fast, and without chewing well, you might know this feeling.

In an attempt to figure out what was wrong I got an endoscopy, a long tube and camera down my throat and into my upper intestinal tract. It was, without a doubt, the most unpleasant experience I’ve ever had.

If you’ve had an endoscopy you probably had a better experience because they probably used something to numb your throat. At least that’s what I’ve heard. But I felt it all the way and it wasn’t a good time.

I wouldn’t be surprised if endoscopies are used as torture devices. Just 10 seconds into it I would confess to a bevy of heinous crimes. “Yes Officer, I did kill that man with a lawn mower. That brick of black tar heroin is definitely mine. That old lady? I punched her in the face and stole her purse. Please, make it stop.”

But the endoscopy came up empty. Nothing wrong. Though, of course, the doctor did prescribe a proton-pump inhibitor, which I took for 2 months. This didn’t help. Was I going crazy? Is all of this in my head? Nothing made sense.

The problems didn’t go away so I always made sure to have water at the ready for every meal or snack in case food got stuck, which was often. (I still do this.)

One Day In The Hospital = Every Test Known To Man

A few months later I decided it was time to go for the full shebang. There’s a private hospital here in Wrocław that does something called “tests after 30.” A full round of blood tests. Allergy tests. Colonoscopy. Endoscopy (at least I’d be asleep for this one!). Lung tests. Heart tests. And much more, for a total cost of ~1,100USD. It was basically a hellish day in the hospital, but it was just one day.

So on August 18, 2012 I woke up at 6am, took a taxi to the hospital, and spent a day hopefully finding out anything and everything that was wrong with me.

My heart and lungs were solid, of course. The allergy test wasn’t eye-opening (I have seasonal allergies that are easily controlled with a neti pot), though it was interesting to see it performed. The endoscopy came up empty again. The colonoscopy confirmed it was some form of colitis. Though the doctor said it was fairly mild (not ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s), and said I should get another colonoscopy in 10 years. (I don’t want to know severe if mine is mild.)

This isn’t great, of course, but it explains a lot of my issues. I’ve never been able to gain weight and I had that brief spell of anemia. In other words, I’ve got nutrient absorption issues and sometimes internal bleeding. And, of course, it also explains the knife stab pains.

Why Exactly I Decided To Eat Meat For 30 Days

Which brings me back to eating meat. I have moral issues with consuming factory farmed animals. (Nearly 100% of the animals meant for human consumption.) Factory farming is atrocious.

Besides the terrible conditions of the animals (which most people don’t seem to care about) it’s also ruining the earth (which many people pretend to care about). Though I don’t litter and I do recycle environmentalism doesn’t particularly matter to me since I care about your children’s children’s children about as much as you. I’m an accidental environmentalist based on my life choices. You’re welcome.

That said, the silver lining is the earth’s going to be fine even though we probably won’t be living on it.

I decided to eat meat, that atrocious factory farmed flesh, for a few reasons.

1. Mostly, I wanted to see if I’d feel physically better. I love animals, but I love myself more, so I was able to mentally deal with 30 days of eating meat. I particularly wanted to know if the food swallowing issues would subside. (I haven’t had the knife stab pains since last year so those aren’t an issue anymore.)
2. I thought it might help me be less judgmental of those who eat meat and don’t do the hunting/killing themselves. Because I’m kind of a judgmental prick. I don’t know if this got any better. It still saddens me when people don’t think about and question their choices, whether I agree with those choices or not. I also think it’s weird when someone thinks it’s OK for an animal to be raped/tortured and then killed, but they won’t put a bullet in a head and prepare their own wild game because it’s “gross.” (In other words, I’m not against hunting … if it’s not a canned hunt.)
3. I wanted to know what it felt like to be “normal.” Not a good reason, but maybe I was missing something by not being like everybody else.

Results of the 30 Day Meat Eating Challenge

I didn’t feel physically better eating meat, but for the most of the trial I didn’t feel worse. It’s true I wasn’t often eating “healthy” meats since I was eating a normal diet. I knowingly ate organic meat once during the 30 day trial (it’s not easy to find in Europe) and I ate less vegetables than normal (obviously).

I don’t know why, but my food swallowing issues got a lot worse towards the end of the 30 days. It began happening every meal during the last few days of the challenge.

And, of course, I felt mentally worse because I don’t lie to myself about where the flesh on the grocery store shelves comes from.

All in all, by the time the challenge was over I felt worse.

Throughout the 30 days I ate maybe 10 fast food meals and, though very convenient, I sometimes had to psyche myself up to go through with it. “Complete the challenge Karol! Eat a fucking Whopper like the rest of the sheeple!” (I ate 5 fastfood cheeseburgers, 3 Whoppers, 1 chicken sandwich, and 1 Big Mac during the challenge. I also ate 1 fastfood vegan burger with a deep fried patty.)

Feeding your children McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, et al. should be considered child abuse. You’re an insane, horrible person if you’re a parent and feed your children fast food.

I’m not saying a lot of the food I ate wasn’t tasty. The reindeer I ate at the restaurant in Holmenkollen, Oslo, Norway? Quite good. The schnitzel at the restaurant in Berlin? Also very yummy. The dried fish I got at the Oslo airport? Interesting and unique. The Dutch pancakes with vanilla ice cream and peaches in Amsterdam? I could eat that anytime.

So maybe a lot of the food I ate tasted good, but it was generally garbage. I think a lot of people mistake good-tasting for good-for-you. Just because you went to a restaurant and spent $100 doesn’t mean it was healthy. And just because it’s got chicken in it doesn’t mean it’s healthy either, you dolt. (I hear/read that one too often.)

Truth is, eating meat became a chore and I didn’t eat any meat during a handful of days when I couldn’t psyche myself up. By the end of the 30 days I had to really just brute force myself to buy flesh. (You’ll read about my gross last meal in a minute.)

What I Learned Eating Meat

1. I loathe being like everyone else. I don’t particularly care for specific labels, and maybe I’ll eat flesh again at some point in the future (if I have issues absorbing iron, for example; I currently have a hemoglobin level at nearly 16g/dL so I’m all good), but for now I’ll go back to my old “weird” ways. I’m happier being a loner.
2. Eating the way most people in the Western world eat is terrible. Not exactly breaking news.
3. I don’t think going meatless is necessarily the healthiest diet. I also don’t think there’s anything healthier … for me. I can already hear the retort. “You didn’t try Paleo!” No, I didn’t. And while the faddy name is terribly silly (and misguided) I do appreciate that it focuses on lots of veggies and unprocessed foods. It also focuses on “clean” meats (grass-fed, no hormones), which are considerably difficult to find in many places. If you live on a farm, you’re good. If you’ve got a Whole Foods down the street, cool. Most people don’t. Paleo seems to me like a plant-based diet with 10-20% meat (and mostly no fruit?). I just cut out the meat.
4. When I first learned about it I didn’t like it, thought it was a cop out, but now I’m more on board with the Weekday Vegetarian idea. For the majority of the public I think this is doable even if it’s not for me.
5. I’m happy I’m able to make the conscious decisions about what I put in my body. I’m also happy I’m smart enough not to choose places like McDonald’s, Burger King, and KFC.

###

A 30 Day Challenge Of Your Own

I was originally going to make this article a plea for you to try to go vegan for 30 days, but I don’t think the assholery above is the right way to persuade anyone to do anything.

My friend Nicky said I should make it about challenging beliefs. That’s a good idea. I did something that went against everything I believed for 30 days. Something I didn’t think I would or could ever do.

Could you do the same?

A handful of ideas:

• If you’re religious, actively and vocally stop being religious. Instead of the Bible, Quran, or other holy book read something like The End of Faith by Sam Harris, a book which would end up saving thousands upon thousands of lives in an ideal world. Pretend you agree with it. (My notes here.) Don’t worry, you won’t go to hell for this.
• If you eat meat, go vegan. It’s not as difficult as you probably think and you’ll come away from it with an appreciation for new foods.
• If you drink, quit drinking. Continue going out to bars/clubs and having fun. (Mike did it.)
• If you smoke, quit smoking. Because, if nothing else, you smell and your perfume/cologne doesn’t cover it up.
• If you hate clubs and similar social events, go out dancing every Friday and Saturday. Nobody cares if you don’t know how to dance.

If there is any label that you strongly identify with (“I am X”) challenge that label by being the opposite for 30 days.

If any of the above ideas (particularly the first two) made you do an immediate gut-check and think, “no way, I’ll never do that,” then you’re probably doing yourself a disservice by not seeing the other side.

Let me know how it goes.

###

For those who might ask, the grossest thing I ate was a Polish tatar. Raw beef with raw egg, onions, pickles, and seasonings. This is commonly found at PRL-style clubs around Wrocław for 8zł (~2€). I figured if I’m going to eat flesh I should feel it at its base and the closest thing to a live animal is an uncooked dead animal. It was the last meat I ate during the challenge, at about 23:00 on April 18. Honestly, it didn’t taste bad even if it was gross.

###

To make the title to this essay work I should mention some rock ‘n’ roll, huh? OK, while we were in Rotterdam for Motel Mozaïque we saw Jaga Jazzist perform with the Rotterdam symphony and it was great.

Thanks for being here. Today, a short announcement of my new app called One Thing. (Demo video above.)

One Thing is for entrepreneurs, authors, bloggers, and anybody else who wants to get stuff done (and track it).

It’s a simple, beautiful, app.

This is how it works:

1. Every morning set a One Thing. (Your goal for the day.) You can either do this manually or the app can prompt you with a notification if you’d like.
2. Every evening mark if you accomplished your One Thing or not. Again, you can do this manually or the app can remind you.

You can get a general overview of how you’re doing on the Calendar or the Stats pages.

The goal is to get in the habit of doing your One Thing every day. One Thing App keeps track of your streaks to help you stay motivated.

In the few months I’ve been using the various versions of the app my record so far is 11 days. (Though I’ve deleted all my data and am starting over today. Had to buy the app from the App Store instead of using my adhoc version, of course!)

One Thing does not include tweeting, facebook sharing, or any extraneous garbage. One Thing productivity was created to help you with getting things done, not for wasting time bragging.

I’m really proud of this app. The development was a long process (had to fire the first development team) and it’s something I’ve wanted myself for some time.

Buy it here for just $0.99. Please leave a review. It helps us indie developers immensely.

For more about One Thing Productivity read this post I wrote last year.

For a long time I ragged on Amazon’s KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) Select program for self-published authors. (Case in point.)

If you’re unaware, KDP Select is a program that allows self-published authors a few unique promotion opportunities in exchange for being exclusive to Amazon. That means if you enroll a book in KDP Select you can’t sell it anywhere else, including your own website.

The main benefits are your book is added to the Kindle Lending Library where you get ~$2 each time your book is borrowed. And you also get 5 free promo days for every 90 days your book is enrolled in KDP Select. That means you can make your book free on Amazon and hopefully earn a bunch of new readers. (Luxury of Less is free right now, for example.)

Late last November I decided to give KDP Select a shot. I didn’t feel I could keep talking trash about it without knowing personally how it worked and what it did.

The following are my results. After which I’ll share insights from five other self-published authors.

First KDP Select Free Promo: 3 Days (December 17, 18, 19)

From December 1 – December 16 Luxury of Less had 46 sales, 1 refund, and 7 borrows. Each sale is worth $2 and each borrow is worth about $2. 52 sales/borrows x $2 = $104.

This isn’t very good. And one of the reasons I decided to give KDP Select a shot. Throughout the year sales started dwindling. A few hundred sales/month turned into barely 100 sales/month. Increasing sales of this book isn’t anywhere near a priority for me, but if I could do it with minimum effort I’d do what I could.

I didn’t do any research into optimal free promo day strategy so I decided to initially go with 3 days free, beginning on December 17. Those 3 days were phenomenal.

11,577 people downloaded Luxury of Less for free and it shot up to #16 on the Top 100 Amazon.com Free List.

The month ended up like this.

237 sales, 11 refunds, 235 borrows.

All told, $871.75 profit from Amazon US for December 2012. (Plus another ~$50 from all the other Amazon stores combined.) Granted ~$900 isn’t a King’s ransom, but it was the best month Luxury of Less had ever had on Amazon. The only month that topped this was when I launched Luxury of Less on October 4, 2010 and generated $45k (revenue, not profit), but that story’s been told (and they were direct non-Amazon sales).

The free promotion bounce-back (meaning, increased sales) I’d heard others mention was legit. I was on track to barely pull in $200 from the book in December, but pulled in nearly $900 instead due to the extra visibility of the free promo days.

Second KDP Select Promotion: 2 days (January 17, 18)

By now I was nearly convinced that KDP Select legitimately helped authors build a readership and sell books.

From January 1-16 I had 95 sales, 3 refunds, and 30 borrows so things began sliding back to normal again. There was still a little bit of the bounce-back effect, but I was looking at finishing the month with less than 200 sales and about 50 borrows.

Would a second free promo bring with it a second solid showing of sales?

Here’s what happened.

In 2 days I gave away 2,750 copies for free. Not bad, but no rushing up the Top 100 charts this time.

The month ended with 165 sales, 4 refunds, and 37 borrows. No sales bounce-back after the free promo. In actuality, it seems sales regressed even more.

Total profit for January 2013 was $390.32. To compare year-over-year, in January 2012 the book made $523.14 on Amazon and I wasn’t enrolled in KDP Select at the time. Meaning, I could also sell it from any other book seller I wanted.

What I was particularly interested in was Month 3, February, when I wouldn’t have any free promo days left to use. I failed to be clear earlier, but KDP Select is a 90 day program and you can either quit or re-enroll after 90 days. With where sales were headed I didn’t think I’d re-enroll and February would be a good indicator of the long-term effects of KDP Select.

February 2013 looked like this: 70 sales, 1 refund, 7 borrows. In other words: horrible. Total profit: $149.85.

Conclusion

My 3 month average profit during KDP Select enrollment: $470.64. This is less than Luxury of Less was making in an average month for most of 2011 and 2012.

March 2013 is even worse. So far (March 1-17) I’ve got 20 sales, 1 refund, and 5 borrows. The worst month I’ve ever had on Amazon. But even if KDP Select’s boost is only temporary, it was quite a boost the first time. Enough of a boost that I decided to enroll in KDP Select for one more 90 day period to see if I could repeat the same success

Which is why Luxury of Less is free again right now. Go download it. I’m using up all 5 free promo days all at once. I’ll report how it goes at some point in the future.

5 Self-Published Authors Weigh In On KDP Select

Hearing from me is one thing, but my results and opinions on KDP Select are just that, mine. So I reached out to some friends to see what they had to say.

• Colin Wright is the co-founder of Asymmetrical Press and author of Iceland India Interstate.
• Joshua Fields Millburn blogs at TheMinimalists.com and is the author of As A Decade Fades.
• Johnny B. Truant blogs at JohnnyBTruant.com and is the author of the Fat Vampire series.
• Sean Platt can be found at SeanMPlatt.com and is the co-author of the serialized fiction series Yesterday’s Gone.
• Betsy Talbot blogs at Married With Luggage and is the co-author of Dream Save Do.

Let’s do this round-table interview-style. (Not as cool as Gangnam Style, I’m sorry to say.)

1) Why did you decide to use KDP Select, thereby making your book exclusive to Amazon and unsellable everywhere else?

Colin: I thought I would give it a try. I only have one book tied up in negotiations from outside parties, and 3 months isn’t a terribly long time. The benefits also seemed interesting — being able to promo books for free through the Kindle ecosystem, especially.

Joshua: I like to test things out—to grow by learning, by doing, by failing from time to time. Fortunately, this little experiment wasn’t a failure for me.

Johnny: I think KDP Select is unparalleled as the start to a marketing funnel for books, meaning that it is, IMO, of limited use to people who only have one book and no backend off of that book. But for a series, KDP allows me to make one book free to drive sales of the others, which it reliably does. It gets people off of their asses to check me out who wouldn’t have otherwise.

Also, KDP Select plus an email list is the fucking magic formula. Take my book Fat Vampire 3. I made it free and it sold some on its own, but then I told my list and 505 people clicked through in the first few hours to get it. Those downloads drove it right up the chart and will continue to do so. It’ll peak tomorrow in all likelihood, then possibly back down as the promo ends. Right now, it’s ranked 515 overall and #15 in the horror charts. Once it’s visible like that (horror is a big, popular category), the “WTF” factor and a good cover/title will cause people who wouldn’t otherwise have seen it to download it, causing it to rise higher. The current #1 horror book is ranked #62 overall. I’m not saying I’ll got that high, but if I did, top 100 is a BFD in terms of maximizing the funnel stuff and the sales bump that happens when a book comes off of free.

The other stores don’t let you play this little game. You have to get “discovered” there, whereas free promos on Amazon allow you to send yourself up the charts, driving sales on all of your books.

Sean: We have specific funnels for all of our titles, with several episodes leading into a season. Because of this, using KDP Select to make an episode free drives purchases towards sales of that first season. While building our publishing business last year, and trying to move as many different series to market as possible, it made most sense to focus our efforts on production, and keep our titles in one place. No one besides Amazon had the reach, and coupled with the ability to flip a switch and turn our titles free and work our funnels, it was an easy decision. When we were on Nook and iPad, they accounted for roughly 5% of our sales.

Betsy: Another author friend recommended the program to us as a way to climb in the rankings using the 5 “free” days. We had 2 books out at the time, and the majority of our sales were already coming from Amazon (more than 90%), so we didn’t see it as a big risk.

2) What have been your results? # of free downloads? # of sales (and lending library borrows)? Or more generally, did you see an increase in sales after joining KDP Select or after a free promo?

Colin: For the free promos, I’ve had about 5-10k for nonfiction, and 1-3k for fiction (though these numbers may be skew, since I’m very new to fiction). I’ve had little traction on the lending library — a few dozen reads, tops.

Joshua: I made my last book free for five days and received just over 21,000 downloads. I’ve had other books get 5,000–13,000 downloads in a five-day period. Part of the success (i.e., the reason for these numbers) has to do, partly, with the my already-established audience. That said, I’ve been able to attract a ton of new readers by offering my work for free for a short period, which has led to increased sales after the promotional periods, as well as on my other books.

Johnny: I don’t see any benefit of being in Select other than during promos except for borrows, but there aren’t many of those. Typically 10ish a month for a decently popular title, maybe. But during the promos, I’ll often see 750 downloads or so in the first day. That’s what I can get on my own if I’m lucky. But what you really want is to get picked up by pixelofink.com. It’s kind of a crapshoot (except that they pick up popular books with a lot of reviews more often than others), but if they DO pick you up, a 2-3 day promo can drive 20K plus downloads. I haven’t seen this yet, but Sean and Dave have.

Promos benefit sales in two ways:

1. Sales of the book that was on promo after the promo ends. There are always a handful of these. It’s a nice bump and always exceeds what you’d normally get in the same time by maybe 2-3x… if you’d have gotten ANY sales without the promo. This effect used to be huge, but Amazon changed their algorithms, so now this is an “icing on the cake” thing that ends up being minor.
2. Sales of other related books. THIS is why you do promos. For instance, downloads of Fat Vampire 3 are already driving sales of FV 1 and 2, because people what to read those first. Last month, a promo on FV 2 did the same for immediate sales on FV 1. Conversely, when I do a promo on 1, I see sales of 2 (and next time, surely 3 as well), but those sales take longer to trickle in.

This effect is cumulative, and you’ll get more out of it each time. It’s like having regular sales to boost your business and is pretty damn reliable if you have several related titles.

Sean: Yes, 100% of the time we have seen a spike in sales after a KDP Select promotion. However, I must clarify that this is primarily due to us having funnels in place, built to capitalize on one free title leading into other paid titles. Most authors do not do this and are then disappointed when they don’t see results, post promotion.

Betsy: We had over 5000 free downloads of our first KDP Select book, Getting Rid of It: Eliminate the Clutter in Your Life. This pushed the book up in the Amazon algorithm, meaning more shoppers saw it as a recommended book, and we saw our sales increase 20% long-term because of it. In fact, it is still our best-selling book. What helped even further was having a sneak peek of our other book, Dream Save Do: An Action Plan for Dreamers, at the end, which also boosted its sales over time. But we were lucky to get our book in during the early days of KDP Select, because later the algorithm changed to make free downloads count for much less than actual purchases. We didn’t know this, of course, because Amazon doesn’t publish this info. So when we launched our third book, Strip Off Your Fear: Slip Into Something More Confident, the thousand downloads on launch day didn’t do a thing for our ranking or long-term sales. In hindsight, it was a mistake to launch as a free day and to count on the bump in the algorithm from it.

3) Did you previously sell any of your books on other platforms? If so, how did they do?

Colin: I used Smashwords for a while, but the books that seem to do best there are romance and mysteries — things where people get favorite pulp writers and stick with them. I’ve also used iBooks, but the extra hoops you have to jump through to publish wasn’t worth it (I may try them again soon, however, as the process has changed since I last used it, and it does seem to be the best option for image-heavy published materials at the moment). I tried Nook and only had a few sales, so despite it being crazy-easy to publish to, it wasn’t worth spreading myself that thin. Interested to see how Kobo does, but I think for the moment it’s Amazon’s game and we’re all just playing it.

Joshua: Yes, I’ve tried all of them: Nook, Smashwords, taped to the side of bathroom stalls, etc. But now, all seven of my books are available only in print (high-quality trade paperback via Create Space) and on Kindle, five of which books are available in audiobook format (via ACX.com which distributes to Audible, Amazon, and iTunes), all of which formats (i.e., paperback, Kindle, audiobook) are linked to my Amazon Author Central page.

Johnny: I put my book “The Bialy Pimps” on Nook and Apple. I don’t believe it sells at all. It’s an effort vs. reward thing. I could do it and get sales, but it’s not enough to be worth my time, IMO, when I could spend that time writing more instead.

However, The Bialy Pimps wouldn’t be a good KDP Select candidate anyway, because it’s only one book.

Sean: Yes, we originally had Yesterday’s Gone on all other platforms. It did abysmally. We do believe it will do better the second time around, once we have the additional titles to back up the first. We are now starting the process of migrating our entire library, starting with Yesterday’s Gone Season One. All other titles will follow, on all platforms.

Betsy: We previously sold both Getting Rid of It and Dream Save Do as PDFs on our website and through E-Junkie. They did okay, but you really need a bigger platform. Your audience will either buy it or not, and after that you need new visitors. A site like Amazon is perfect for aligning your books with buyer needs.

4) Will you continue to renew your KDP Select membership every 90 days? Are you open to testing other platforms or are you convinced Amazon is the way?

Colin: I will for my fiction, for the time being. I think it really has the potential to be a great program, but at the moment there’s little draw for folks who aren’t already heavy-sellers. If Amazon provided more promo — did some digging for hidden gems — I think they’d draw a lot more authors to the dinner table and expand their library greatly.

I’m absolutely open to testing other platforms. Amazon has the best ecosystem right now, but I’m hoping someone else steps up and becomes the Pepsi to Amazon’s Coca-Cola. We need that kind of competition, as much as I generally like how Amazon does things.

Joshua: I’ve renewed several times already. I will continue to do so as long as I continue to find value.

Johnny: As above, I just don’t see the need right now [to test other platforms]. It’s not that I’m convinced Amazon is the way, but applying the 80/20 rule, it’s where I want to put my time. I do continue to renew.

Sean: Yes, I believe for us 100% of our titles for the time being will start their life as Amazon Select titles for the first 90 days so we can take full advantage of the free promotion, then they will “graduate” away from Select and onto other platforms.

Betsy: We decided not to renew after our last couple of free days didn’t give us good long-term results. Nothing ever beat our first experience, which was back when free downloads were counted the same as purchases. How I wish it were still true! Now we have our books in print and ebook through all the major retailers.

###

Thanks to Colin, Joshua, Johnny, Sean, and Betsy for their insights.

Bonus: Sean and Johnny (along with Dave Wright) have a great podcast for self publishers called The Self Publishing Podcast.

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Luxury of Less is free from March 18 until end of day March 22.

In an effort to be the idiot I’m going to stop thinking that. It’s really been an unfounded judgement on my part. In actuality, I often appreciate companies that let me try their products before spending money.

Today I’m releasing versions of my Gratitude Journal (free download) and my Pushups Bootcamp (free download) iOS apps using the freemium model.

What does that mean?

1. The apps are completely free to download and use, with full functionality.
2. The apps have interstitial ads that show up after certain actions.
3. Users can remove the ads by making a one-time In-App Purchase on the Settings page of each app. This will remove the ads forever. (If you get a new device just tap “restore” on the Settings page and the In-App Purchase is magically reissued on your new device.)

Which ad company am I using?

Chartboost and Revmob. I’ve got a little split testing script in each app and over time I’ll be able to determine which company’s ads work best for my particular apps.

The reason I chose Chartboost and Revmob over the dozens of other options is I’ve heard the most good things about these companies, as far as income is concerned. Both of their models are essentially to serve ads for free games/apps. Every time one of those free apps is downloaded via an ad the publisher (me) gets $0.50 – $4 per installation. This is different than other ad services that pay a few cents per click or for a certain number of ad views.

Basically, App Publisher A buys ad space on App Publisher B’s apps, but instead of paying for views or clicks they pay for app installs. (Well, OK, Chartboost has both pay per click and pay per installation.)

I think that’s fair. If my apps aren’t giving the advertisers any value I don’t feel like I should make money from the ads. But if my apps are sending advertisers new users then I should get paid well. As far as I’m concerned, upwards of $4 for a free app download is solid.

Download Gratitude Journal Free and Pushups Bootcamp Free

New App Next Week!

Next Thursday I’m releasing a new app based on One Thing productivity mixed with a bit of Jerry Seinfeld’s “don’t break the chain” philosophy. If you’re an entrepreneur, author, blogger, or person who likes to get stuff done I think you’ll like this one.

###

Upcoming travels: I’ll be in Berlin March 20-25. Then again April 1-4. Then the Netherlands April 4-7 and Norway April 7-12. Let me know if you want to hang.

Everybody in sales knows ABC or Always Be Closing. ABS isn’t as cute, but my phrase for life right now is “always be shipping.”

It’s a reminder to consistently create stuff and put it out into the world. Currently, for me that predominantly means apps. Mostly mobile, but web apps as well. Ideally, I should work on something that moves an app forward every day. That includes less tangible things like brainstorming as much as anything, but brainstorming without shipping is bullshit.

A lot of people get too caught up in, “I have so many ideas and I don’t know what to do!” or ”I don’t have any ideas and don’t know what to do!”

Both are terrible excuses.

When I hear or read them it generally makes me want to purge this morning’s oatmeal and bananas and force you to lick it up as punishment. (Have you seen oatmeal and bananas? It already looks like vomit as is.)

But let’s be clear, while launching something for the sake of launching something can be useful it doesn’t put you in a good position for success. The truth is, it’s mostly a recipe for what what we’ll call unsuccess. (It’s not quite failure if the goal is to ship and learn.)

Unsuccess is OK though. I subscribe to the notion that launching and learning from something is better than not launching and not learning from anything.

In the process of shipping even an absolute piece of trash you will come away with some new knowledge. You’ll also learn more about what you need to learn more about. Mastery won’t come overnight, of course, but knowing what to work on will considerably help your cause. You can then use what you’ve learned to launch your next thing, hopefully not as big of a piece of trash.

If your issue is “I don’t have any ideas” then here’s the cure: write. them. down!

It doesn’t matter if you use an app or pen & paper, write it down.

Here’s a challenge: Write down 5 ideas in the next 90 seconds.

[Pause break. Do it.]

Not so difficult, right?

That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re good ideas, of course.

Which is why it’s usually a good idea to validate your ideas in some form or another. Meaning, find out if there are people who want what you have. That’s often easy enough, but scary. You might think you have the best idea since the internal combustion engine, but the market will tell you pretty quickly if that’s true.

Three ways to validate: Sell your idea in its simplest form (best validation), ask people if they want what you’ve got (okay, but can lead you astray since people lie) or find a similar idea that already has users/customers/clients (okay, but not great). (If something already has users and you’re building something similar it’s a good sign, but it’s definitely no guarantee of success.)

I know I’m generalizing and skirting over important steps in the process of shipping. On the other hand, it doesn’t have to be as difficult as you might think it is.

I get e-mails fairly regularly telling me essentially, “I haven’t done anything because [insert lame excuse], but I’ve read your whole site and you are an inspiration.” While I appreciate the sentiment, these people are missing the point.

I don’t want you reading this site if it means all you’re doing is reading this site.

I want to read e-mails like, “I don’t even read your site because you’re an idiot, but look at what I shipped.”

Now go do something. Well, wait, first …

Introducing my latest shipment: ListyListy.com

A few months ago (December 3, 2012 to be precise) I posted a Free Idea about an Amazon Wish List Price Drop Notifier.

ListyListy is that idea realized. It’s very bare bones Version 0.1 and it currently only works for the Amazon.com store, so sorry to my international friends.

I don’t ship these things for my health (well, in a roundabout way I do), so the big question is will ListyListy make money? I think so. It’s a useful free service with a clear path to profit, but Amazon can shut this thing down in one fell swoop by implementing it themselves.

Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think.

Then go make something and show it to the world.

I have a big ego and it can be detrimental to my personal and professional growth.

Because sometimes I make the mistake of thinking I know something I don’t know based on a piece of misinformation I accepted as truth. It’s not that I make this mistake often, but when I do it considerably hinders progress. Learning from your mistakes is an OK way to learn, but a quicker way to learn is from somebody else’s mistakes instead of our own. You can skip a whole lot of frustration by learning from someone who’s done it instead of struggling alone.

This might seem in contrast to what I wrote about learning the boring, but it’s not at all. You still need to learn the fundamentals, but it’s possible to skip mistakes along the way to speed your learning.

I have a few varied examples.

1) The Spring: I saw a video on YouTube of a magician doing The Spring playing card flourish and I immediately wanted to know how to do it. So I found some YouTube tutorials and commenced to spending about 3 hours learning the flourish. (These 3 hours were spread over a few days. I needed to build hand strength.) Want to bet if I found someone to show me in person that I’d have done it in less than half the time? When I finally figured out how to do The Spring my thought was, “If someone had shown me my pinky position was just a few millimeters off I’d have been able to do this a long time ago.” In this instance I didn’t know anybody who could personally show me The Spring so online tutorials were my only option, but the idea still holds.

2) Drawing: I wanted to learn how to draw. I bought some paper and a pencil (I’m not the kind of guy who has those types of things lying around) and found a few tutorials online. I was often bored out of my mind with the way things were presented and I couldn’t get focused. Or, more often, the tutorials would skip a few major (to me) steps that would stunt my progress. Then I took an art class. And although I’ve since quit this art class I learned much more quickly by dropping my ego and getting live instruction. I still can’t draw well, but now I have a few fundamentals that will help me should I choose to continue practicing. After ~30 hours of in person education I’ll have a better grasp of tutorials without them going over my head.

3) iOS 6 / iPhone 5 App Store screen shots: I updated 2 of my apps for the 4″ Retina display. In doing so I needed to add new screenshots to the App Store. I misread something and thought it said to only add a single 4″ screenshot. So that’s what I did.

It said I must add at least one 4″ screenshot, not only one 4″ screenshot. Whoops!

When my apps went live I couldn’t figure out why the five 3.5″ screenshots I also uploaded weren’t showing in the App Store. My apps looked incomplete with only a single 4″ screenshot showing and I know lack of screenshots hinders sales. About this time Apple also changed the way developers can update screenshots (they made it a PITA).

I spent hours searching, trying to figure out why my apps weren’t showing the 3.5″ screenshots. I e-mailed Apple support as well, who you can guess was absolutely no help. (Stock e-mail messages instead of actual support.)

Finally, I e-mailed a developer I met via Twitter and asked if he knew what’s up. “You know you can add five 4inch screenshots, right?” I felt like such an idiot. I had misread something and then just assumed that was fact when it wasn’t at all. This was worse than a newbie mistake. It was a near unacceptable mistake and I made it anyway because of my ego. And now I have to wait for the app store review process (lately 7+ days) before my new screenshots are added to the store.

4) Free work: Recently, I sent an app developer I respect (and one whom I already had a relationship with) an e-mail offering to help him for free. I explained what I bring to the table for him, but also that I expect it’ll be a fast track app education for me. In other words, it would be mutually beneficial. If I could go back to my late teens and early 20s I would have done this sort of thing often. The entrepreneur gets a smart “employee” for free and the “employee” gets an education that’s difficult to get outside of a unique entrepreneurial environment. I didn’t do this in the past because I thought I should learn everything on my own and my ego wouldn’t let me “work for someone else.”

5) This essay: I wrote most of this two weeks ago, but it didn’t feel complete enough to post. I kept coming back to it and changing some things, but it never felt right. In its current form maybe it’s only good instead of great. Or maybe it’s worse than that. But I couldn’t let my ego stop me from posting it any longer.

I’ve been attempting to put pride aside and kill my ego. I don’t know anything. I can ask questions that I would usually think were silly to ask if I can’t figure out the answers myself. In the past I’d struggle through things longer than necessary. Now, the inner monologue is no longer, “Karol, you should already know this stuff! It’s easy.” Instead, it’s, “Karol, try to figure it out – honestly try to figure it out – but if you can’t don’t worry about asking for help.”

Which is to say the first step is not to ask for help. No, that’s for losers. The worst thing you can do is ask for help without attempting to figure something out yourself. Nobody is going to respect that and you won’t build relationships worth having by showing how good you are at not taking initiative.

I don’t think we should pretend we know something until we know it – “fake it til you make it” is generally terrible advice – and the best way to do that is to “be the idiot” and improve from there.

What’s an example of ego getting in your way? And better than that, what’s an example of you dropping your ego and progressing on something quicker than normal?

As you know I’ve been focusing a lot on iOS development (and started doing a selected bit of consulting to help people/companies get their apps created by amazing developers via Elance), but I’ve been focusing more on utilities over games.

Carter does games, period. And he does it well. But his system, which he calls App Skinning (or app cloning) is something I hadn’t seen before. Buy an app codebase, hire a designer to skin it into a new niche/design, put ads on it, upload it, and repeat. Carter has upwards of 40 games in the app store in just his first year of app development and is generating upwards of $10k/month in revenue. (One app did $20k in 2 weeks in December.)

I’m not sure if I’ll get into game apps, but interviewing Carter definitely got my neurons firing.

UPDATE: Carter just sold his portfolio of apps for $200k.

Sites mentioned in the interview:

BlueCloudSolutions.com (auto play warning; turn speakers off at work) – Carter’s site

AppCod.es – Keyword research

GREE – Android/iOS games

AppTopia.com - Buy/Sell mobile apps

Elance.com – Hire developers/designers

Odesk.com - Hire developers/designers

### Interview Transcript ###

Karol Gajda (0:00:01) Hey guys it’s Karol here. I am here with Carter Thomas from bluecloudsolutions.com and Carter, I just discovered his website like a month ago and he builds iPhone apps and he releases them at an incredible pace. I don’t know how he does it. I just released my first three and it seems he’s releasing like three a day. And he’s had some recent crazy success with a Gangnam Style app. We’ll talk a little bit about that. Yeah so let’s get into it. Thanks Carter. Thanks for joining me here.

Carter Thomas (0:00:36) Yeah right on it’s my pleasure. This is great.

Karol (0:00:39) Cool so tell us a little bit about how you got started. What did you do before you got into apps? Why did you get into apps? That type of good stuff.

Carter (0:00:50) Sure yeah. So I was working at a start up company doing marketing for them. I was living in Maine. If no one knows it’s in the north east in the United States. It’s kind of an isolated spot and the start up was kind of going no where. It wasn’t really taking off the way I wanted it to so I started an internet marketing company. And I was doing websites for law firms mostly.

Karol (0:01:13) Okay

Carter (0:01:14) And basically I was going in and buying website templates, redesigning them and then selling them to law firms and you know kind of flipping the models that way.

Karol (0:01:24) Oh no way!

Carter (0:01:25) Yeah and it started to work out pretty well. Lawyers are a pretty interesting breed and so I was being able to talk to them and to sell it to them and so that was going along and then I started doing all of the search engine optimization and ad words and I was doing that for about a year and a half and you know it was cool and you know it was definitely making pretty good money but I was just… you could imagine a creative person doing that. You’re kind of like “What am I doing?”

Karol (0:01:51) Yeah. Yeah.

Carter (0:01:52) I met my buddy who was a contractor when I was working the start up and him and I would just like every once in a while go to a local coffee shop, drink a ton of espresso, and try to come up with these app ideas cause he was a total programmer. And he was like “Dude, this thing is gonna be huge!” And we actually still have this pitch deck when we went in on our lunch break to this big start up company and we were like “You guys got to get into apps. There’s already 25,000 apps in the store. Like this is going to be huge.” And these guys had just been like “You guys are out of your mind.”

Karol (0:02:23) Oh so this was like years ago. This was kind of in the early days of the app store, yeah? With I mean 25,000 apps was… had to be like kind of the first few months.

Carter (0:02:32) Exactly. It was like and we were looking back on that the other day. Oh my God. If only we knew. So him and I were making like… he would program it and I would do some design and the content and the publishing. Just kind of for fun nothing serious and then last October, yeah like 14 months ago, I was just like “Okay like screw this.” Actually like last August I guess I started hiring my own freelancers, getting code, figuring out what was going on. Then last October I was like if I’m going to do this I need to do this. I went and I launched my first app and you know as of probably a month ago I’ve gone completely into the iPhone world. That is now my full time job.

Karol (0:03:28) Oh killer okay. So let’s kind of step back a bit. October of last 2011 you launch your first app. How did that go about? How much did it cost? How did you find your developer? I’m assuming, you said you did some design. Did you do the design on your app or did you hire the designer as well? How did you go about that process of launching your first app?

Carter (0:03:53) So the first app… I knew that there was no way that I was going to be able to build an app from scratch. I also knew that the risk involved of building an app from was huge just from working with my buddy. So what I was doing is I was going around and I was trying to find essentially what I was doing with websites where I was trying to find templates or Gangnam games or developers that would sell me templates and that was like kind of what I was trying to do. Cause I tried cloning a few apps on Elance. I tried to have some companies do that. And it’s kind of a pain in the butt.

Karol (0:04:25) Yeah.

Carter (0:04:26) So I called this guy who had an app that had you know a couple of million downloads. It was like an arcade game and I started talking to him. You know back then there was like no market place for source codes. There was no AppTopias. There was no nothing. And so this was like I totally randomly found this guy like in a forum or a chat room or something and he licensed me a source code and it cost me about $11,000 U.S.

Karol (0:04:55) Okay.

Carter (0:04:56) And that was essentially me maxing out three of my credit cards and being like “This is it. Like here we go.”

Karol (0:05:04) Whoa.

Carter (0:05:05) I hired two designers. I hired one guy in Argentina and one guy in Russia. The guy in Argentina….so the game is called Alpha Combat and it’s like a fighter jet arcade game and it’s still in the app store. I hired the guy in Argentina to do all the graphics for the planes. Because he was a really good 3-D guy even though his…then I hired the guy in Russia to do like the icon and the screen shots and the splash screen like a little bit more of the marketing assets.

Karol (0:05:31) Okay.
Carter (0:05:33) So all in it was like $13,000 and then I spent it must have been 300 hours of my own time. Just like obsessed with that thing. You know trying to do all that.

Karol (0:05:40) Yeah

Carter (0:05:41) Yeah and so it was ready to launch and it went up on October 19th and this guy had had huge success with his app. Yeah he had made hundreds of thousands of dollars. I was like this is a great design, great theme, awesome engine, you know I’m gonna kill it. I’m gonna make my money back in a month. Oh I can’t wait. It went up on October 19th last year. And I remember checking my stats the next day and it was like 90 bucks. Man.

Karol (0:06:17) Well even so 90 bucks for even for a first day that’s pretty killer. To be honest.

Carter (0:06:21) In retrospect you know that’s not bad at all. But I was just like you know like looking at the prize and all I could think about was retirement and then the next day it was like 20 bucks and the day after that it was like ten bucks. And I remember just being like frantically searching on the internet for marketing advice or marketing information or anything. Anyone talking about their experience and trying to help and nobody was talking about this and there was nothing out there. And the people that were talking about that were the guys who were like ìI just made $50,000 a month like look at me this is amazing I’m in Tahiti now.î So that was the beginning of it all. I was still doing the internet marketing stuff this app thing on the side and everyone was like “You’re crazy. This is such a….like you’re nuts for doing this? Why focus on lucrative internet marketing thing?”

Karol (0:07:19) So how long was it before you started making a profit? You spent… you were in like you said $13,000. You started off with 90 bucks the first day and then it started going down. So what was kind of the turning point? When did it start making money?

Carter (0:07:36) Yeah so the turning point was in January. So this whole time I integrated OpenFeint which is a social gaming like community. Which is now called GREE, G-R-E-E, a Japanese company. In this process I became good friends with the account manager there. Just being like “What am I doing? How do I figure this out?” and he was like “You’re doing everything right but it just needs to get some leverage.” And I was sharing all my data with him and he was like “Okay how about this? Why don’t you make it free? And we’ll comp you a free app of the day promotion.”

Karol (0:08:13) Oh okay.

Carter (0:08:15) It was like an upwards of a $20,000 value. They were just like ìLook if you share all your information we’ll just give you this for free and you flipped it to free and rely on your in-app purchases and we’ll see what happens.î And I was like ìOkay. Sweet!î So January I believe of this year I did that. And it went to like you know 25, 30, 40 thousand downloads a day for about you know for 4 or 5 days and my revenue started coming in like $150 to $200 a day.

Karol (0:08:44.6) Cool. And so was that off in-app purchases or was that off advertising?

Carter (0:08:50) It was all in-app purchases and that’s the crazy thing too looking into that it’s like back then there was really no solution for ads I mean it was like you know you could do iAds which was a really difficult integration and you could do like ad-mob which didn’t pay at all but there was very limited advertising options back then. I was using PlayHeaven as a more games button but even then like the advertisers weren’t big enough to pay big money like the money just wasn’t that great.

Karol (0:09:17) This is so funny cause you are talking about literally just 11 months ago and how much things have changed. That’s crazy.

Carter (0:09:27) Yeah so like that promotion kinda put that game onto a new trajectory and after that it sort of established a user bank. It held it’s rankings a little bit better and from then on I was getting 400 to 500 downloads a day. The money coming in was between you know 50 and 75 dollars a day.

Karol (0:09:47) Cool.

Carter (0:09:48) That’s the whole freemium model. That’s when the light started switching for me. I think it started switching for a lot of people saying like “This new model. There’s a lot to this.”

Karol (0:09:59) So you basically, that’s what you focus on now. The free with in-app purchases or ads, yeah?

Carter (0:10:04) Yeah mostly. Typically my games will come… when I develop them they’ll come with two export targets. What that means is when you publish to Apple you export the app as a certain way. Which there’s a paid version and free version. Which basically is you can remove the ads and maybe unlock a couple of new levels.

Karol (0:10:28) Right.

Carter (0:10:29) And then (inaudible) so what I’ll do is launch a paid version and a free version. The free version typically makes you know fine or tax money. I tend to just do it just to get volume out there.

Karol (0:10:41) Okay cool. Man that’s killer. So how did you? So where do you find your kind of your ideas now. You say you still kind of do the flipping model. Where you buy a code base and you tweak it right?

Carter (0:10:58) Yeah exactly. So I gave a presentation on this two weeks ago at this big conference. This guy Chad Mureta, All About Apps, and it was all about this flipping idea so I’m gonna put that on my website for like the full breakdown. But the overview is I get the code. I kind of analyze it and make sure it’s got potential and then I’ll re-skin it for a specific theme and kind of rejigger it a little bit and then publish it. I once I find one that’s ROI positive I just kind of as you’ve seen you just make like 15 copies, versions of it with themes that you’ll think will work.

Karol (0:11:42) Right. So how does that process? Do you have a specific team you work with or do you just go back to Elance or Odesk or whatever? How much does that cost to start to buy a code base and get started again. Is it still like $10,000 for a code base?

Carter (0:12:00) No, no, no. Definitely not. I mean codes now are like well under 500 bucks. I mean I’ve gotten really nice codes for a hundred bucks to three hundred bucks. Finding the right guys. Well the obvious question for a lot of people that I get is “Well how you find these codes? Where do you go?” And there’s a lot of different ways. You know the first is a website called AppTopia and that came up about three or four months ago I think and it’s a marketplace where people sell apps. And it’s a step beyond codes because you can actually buy the entire app outright including the name and intellectual property and the icon. You essentially buy that listing.

Karol (0:12:40) Okay. Do you buy the iTunes connect account as well with that because if you buy an app from somebody they basically….you can’t move an app from one account to the other without losing all that kind of history right?

Carter (0:12:56) That’s right yeah. I mean essentially you can sometimes like negotiate like an entire account and just take it over. But if you are buying an individual app and I’ve sold like 15 or 20 apps like I sell it I upload all the assets tell them everything I’m doing and they’ll publish an identical version of it.

Karol (0:13:14) Okay.

Carter (0:13:15) And actually you know besides the user base the download volume is typically very similar after they uploaded it if not better.

Karol (0:13:26) Oh interesting.

Carter (0:13:28) I can understand the apprehension for a lot of people with that but in my experience it’s actually been very comparable.

Karol (0:13:37) Yeah.

Carter (0:13:38) And so to answer your question a little bit more AppTopia is good resource. The number one way I find them is I’ll…err well not really anymore but what I used to do was I would post listings on Odesk and Elance and I’d say like “I’m looking to develop a cool racing iPad game and keep it super generic and I would get like 50 or 100 developers responding to my requests. They’d get right back with okay “here’s my portfolio…blah…blah…blah…blah” and I would say “Okay which of these are you willing to sell me? Which of these source codes can we just use for a job and I’ll hire you right now to re-skin it or rejigger it or whatever.” But you know that’s how I would start the conversation and I would say 70% of them were like even six months ago were like “Wow I never even thought of doing that.”

Karol (0:14:31) Right. So how much did that cost you to…so the code base is around 500 or less. How much does it cost to get re-skinned?

Carter (0:14:40) Yeah so a situation like that I would say the code base would be around $200 and then the re-skinning depending on the complexity of it would be anywhere from $300 to $1000.

Karol (0:14:51) Oh wow so that’s not much at all.

Carter (0:14:54) No, no it’s not at all and a lot of that is because when your doing this kind of flipping model your using pretty basic games. I mean the Gangnam game and when you look at some of the apps I built a lot of them are built on that kind of racing source code engine. And that engine itself is you know I’ve gotten quotes between 600 and 900 and typically like I do it all from the same company and it’s usually about 7 or 800 bucks per app to re-skin that.

Karol (0:15:22) Okay.

Carter (0:15:23) And so if you wanna re-skin like a really complicated game it can be like a couple of thousand dollars. But if you just want to slap some graphics on the existing framework the designers will look at that and they’ll know all the assets they need to do already and right there is knocking 30% of their time off so.

Karol (0:15:37) Yeah. That’s Killer. So you said that you work with the same company now a days. And you found them on Elance or Odesk?

Carter (0:15:49) Oh I found them actually through a connection that I made on Elance. Someone was like “Hey you should talk to this guy. You know I think he’s got a lot of really good skills for you cause he can design and develop and he can speak English very well.” Which is a huge bonus.

Karol (0:16:07) Yeah definitely.

Carter (0:16:08) But you know I’ve developed dozens of relationships on Elance and Odesk of guys that I still work with, designers and publishers and other people. I use one company now as kind of my core company but there’s a Rolodex of people that I’ll call for specific stuff.

Karol (0:16:28) Nice. Fantastic. So okay you get the re-skinned game. You launch it. What do you do now to get downloads and make money?

Carter (0:16:40) Yeah okay cool. So this is kind of the fun part. The flipping model. When you kind of look at the 10,000 foot view of the business model it is built on essencially a 30 day analysis I guess is the word. All I really care about is the first 30 days. And after the 30 days is up it just goes into my portfolio and it spits out ten or 20 bucks a day. Which is great but the first 30 days is where I justify those upfront costs. So what I’ll do is I’ll skin it in the specifics. However I want to do it. And then I will upload it. I’ll make the title as keyword friendly as possible. I’ll add all the keywords into the iTunes connect screen shots. All that stuff. Then I will typically launch it on a Thursday afternoon. The reason I do that is because it’s going to hit the rankings on Friday morning when the database resents. And most of my games are in the racing category and the racing category has really good volume. It’s really good to…well racing you can tend to get up rankings really quick and then you get dropped really quick. Weekends the download volumes on the iTunes store is like 40% higher than it is during the week.

Karol (0:18:06) Oh wow.

Carter (0:18:07) Especially for games and on the same point advertisers will spend two to three times as much on the networks so all the installs that I’m making my ad nets those become like three times more profitable on the weekend than they do during the week.

Karol (0:18:24) Nice.

Carter (0:18:25) So when you launch a game. The way I launch my games which is just they are just kind of fun you know kids games that people use once and they make great icons. It’ll spike like over the weekend. So from Friday through Monday morning it’ll peak up you know the top 50 racing like iPad category or whatever. And I’ll get this huge influx of downloads and consequently money and typically within that first weekend it’s going to get in the big user base that’s gonna be the big spike and then that’s going to trickle down and by 30 days that will be done but because of that initial spike and the initial amount of money that comes in from that launch part that’s gonna thats ROI positive on the…let’s say I spent $700 on that design. I’ll probably make like $1100 on that 30 day launch and that’s no marketing dollars, no advertising dollars and so that’s a $400 increase which that’s not retirement money but my business is built on the volume, that flipping those small victories. And then that next month I roll that $1100 you know into one and a half projects. That’s why I can produce so many is because I have this kind of 30 day rolling window where the month. You know so pay offs are two months at a time. I’ll take the money from two months ago and reinvest it in this month’s…if it works on the same kind of logic I used the money that’s going to be there will be higher than it was today.

Karol (0:20:02) Man this is fascinating because I think most people when they start something like this whether it’s apps or some other business they’re kind of looking for kind of the huge wins and it’s awesome to hear kind of you going after the small wins as kind of the business model and it working so well.

Carter (0:20:19) Yeah absolutely. It’s I think it’s something is definitely the future of apps and I’ve talked to a lot of people I’ve actually had coffee with mathematicians and statisticians and we’ve crunched the numbers and the bottom line is you look at the standard deviations and the derivatives of everything that is happening with the bell curve of a market this size and it’s really pretty difficult to get like 40 or 50 thousand downloads but it’s really easy to get like 5000 downloads.

Karol (0:20:56) Okay

Carter (0:20:57) That’s because like competition of it all and you can aggregate you know hundreds of apps that are all getting like $5000 a year for a median like every three months or whatever. That’s going to add up. The ability to get that is to have one app that breaks through that bell curve kind of philosophy.

Karol (0:21:19) Yeah.

Carter (0:21:20) And that’s the crux of it all is like saying “Well it’s a hard market if you have a pretty good app it’s going to get enough to justify your ROI.” but if you’re trying to build one app and make a 3000% ROI in six months that’s a really really difficult nut to crack.

Karol (0:21:40) Yeah, yeah cool. So before we get into…cause I really wanna talk about the Gangnam style thing. But before we get into that I wanted to ask you what kind of research tools do you use? Like you said you kind of you buy the code base and you kind of find a small market to re-skin it and write so what do you do to find that as far as your keywords and all that other stuff?

Carter (0:22:01) Yeah so this the going into the interesting part of my presentation. The research I do…so the tools that I use, you know I use app codes I don’t know if you’ve ever checked that out.

Karol (0:22:13) Yeah actually I met the developer here in Poland in Wroclaw a few months ago so yeah I’m a member of appcodes.

Carter (0:22:20) That’s a really good research for the keywords and the tracking and that stuff. I’ll use…you know a lot of it is just watching the daily rankings just to see what’s hot, what’s going on. But more than anything what I research is actually the advertisers. I research who’s spending the most money on the advertising networks that I am publishing on. And it’s typically the top grossing games are the biggest advertisers more or less. My games I built those all because I talked to this guy Gee. I don’t know if you know (inaudible) the CEO of (inaudible) and that’s a big advertising network that I use.

Karol (0:23:03) Right.

Carter (0:23:04) It’s like 70% of our buys, this was eight months ago when I launched, it’s like 70% of our buys comes from Pocket Gems and TinyCo which were doing like Tiny Zoo.

Karol (0:23:14) Okay.

Carter (0:23:14) So I was like well if I make games that are like baby tiger games I bet my traffic is going to be worth way more money to like Pocket Gems than like…

Karol (0:23:27) Oh, that’s genius.

Carter (0:23:29) And that’s what happened like the eCPMs or the earning per thousand impression I would get were like through the roof when I was advertising to these animal type games. Typically back then they were like the big buyers. So they would pay three or four dollars per install that I could deliver where as other games would only pay a dollar. So that’s the kind of research I’m still doing is like building games with the idea that I can go to advertisers and say “You know I’ve got a game that’s going to convert really well for yours. Let’s set up a partnership and lets…I wanna create a relationship based on the fact that my game is going to sell you qualified traffic up front.”

Karol (0:24:13) That is killer. I love that. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So okay let’s…what’s big your big surprise? I’m going to guess it’s the Gangnam style thing but I’ll let you answer it. What’s been your biggest surprise as far as an app that did really really well and maybe an app that didn’t do as well?

Carter (0:24:32) Yeah well, so yeah besides the Gangnam style we’ll talk about that uhm Table Tennis apps like Ping Pong apps.

Karol (0:24:41) Okay.

Carter (0:24:42) I bought the source code for like a hundred bucks. And I released an original version and that original one just simply on keyword, I mean it’s a terrible, terrible game. Just simply on keyword volume made like $4000 an ad so for the course of about three months.

Karol (0:25:00) Nice.

Carter (0:25:01) I re-skinned it a few times and those re-skins you know one of them went to top 15 sports games in the U.S. and you know that made about $8000 and the other one made like $3000 so that was a huge surprise cause I was just like this is not you know the best source code in the world but there’s something about that key word that did really well. I had a skiball one that was doing really well and I upped it with the key words using AppCodes and it went from like 3 or 4 hundred downloads a day to like 8000 downloads a day.

Karol (0:25:32) Wow.

Carter (0:25:33) And then I sold that to somebody on AppTopia just because as it was kind of skyrocketing I knew that it would be very appealing to somebody see. But yeah the Gangnam Style game so that was really surprising cause I was seeing some people putting these Gangnam Style games out and I actually met the guy who owns a few of these Gangnam Style games and he’s an awesome dude but he was kind of like “You know I’m the first guy to do this like this is just crazy.” and so I bought one over Thanksgiving I was just like sitting at my computer and talking to him and said “Let’s just do one.” and he was like “Yeah it took me three days it’ll be kind of a joke whatever.” And yeah it took off I mean the blog posts I wrote the other day it lays out the success of it but it made over $20,000 in you know what’s been two weeks and it taught me a lot about kind of what happens when you make a lot when you have a lot more volume.

Karol (0:26:35) That’s fascinating. So what-what happens? Like what’s the biggest take away you took from that?

Carter (0:26:39) The take away is that you can’t be as aggressive on the advertising side of that because people get really upset when you’re at the top of the charts and you’re blatantly trying to make money at the top of the charts.

Karol (0:26:50) Yeah okay.

Carter (0:26:51) So if it’s just kind of a regular app they found and you put a lot of ads in people are like “Well that’s just how it is…this is some guy who’s just kind of trying to make some money.” So as the apps get more volume you just have to be very careful about the modifications and you can still be aggressive about but you know make it so that it’s part of the game play and not just a big banner like in the middle right in their face. So that was kind of like a huge realization for me to say like “You know wow. There are people behind these devices like playing my game this isn’t just like a computer game where it’s just data these are actually people playing it.”

Karol (0:27:40) Right, right. Actually do you know Derek Sivers he wrote an article. He doesn’t do apps. He did CD baby and he sold CD Baby a few years ago but he had an article about you know there’s people on the other side so kind of keep that in mind for whatever it is as far as just as being a human being yourself you know just keep in mind that whatever you’re doing there’s other people behind it like if you’re leaving a review for somebody or if your sending somebody an e-mail. Remember it’s not a computer your talking to but an actual person.

Carter (0:28:09) Exactly and that’s a really good way to put it.

Karol (0:28:14) Cool so let’s kind of…let’s kind of just wrap this up. This has been like mind blowing to me. Fascinating. I’m amazed that it’s possible to just take a code base and for a few hundred bucks flip it and just start and basically just killing it over time with small wins. I love all the stuff you shared here. What’s something you would say to kind of close it out. Or even somebody who’s not getting started somebody who’s been doing this for a while what would you tell them to kind of I guess help them either make more money or get more downloads anything which are kind of one and the same as far as this app game is concerned.

Carter (0:29:01) Sure, yeah. I’ll answer that in two parts. The first part like if your someone who’s looking to just get started and you’re just kind of wondering there’s alot of unknowns like how to go from having an idea to publishing an app. And I would…you know I’m not trying to promote myself but if you go to my website there’s an eBook there. I don’t make any money off this at all so it’s totally free. But if you read that it’s like a 35 page PDF I wrote a couple of months ago and it’s for a lot of people if you just want to walk through like “here’s how you work with a developer, here’s how you hire a developer, here’s how you market your app, here’s what promotions do….like blah, blah, blah.” It’s really helpful for anyone who’s just looking to have a 20 minute read about what’s going on. The other answer to that question is that I think that there’s a big shift in the business model of apps. And this is kind of a bigger question I’m going to write a lot about in the future and talk to some people about but I think it’s really important to start thinking about the business model that you want to get into. And some people don’t have that conversation with themselves before they get in. They go in and they say “I’m gonna build and app or I’m gonna build a game and it’s going to make money and it’s going to be great.” That’s the end of their kind of thinking and they are thinking about how does this app produce more money. What I will say is that that is a developer style thought processes. The other end of the spectrum is like “Okay, I’m going to go build a behemoth game that I can go drive massive traffic to and it’ll convert enough traffic that will make money. And that’s the other of the spectrum where people try to get on that top grossing list.

Karol (0:30:47) Right

Carter (0:30:48) What I will say is that the next big opportunity in the app market in my opinion is to be on the publishing end of it. Then what I mean by that is whether you flip apps or build apps or whatever you do you create apps in order to sell your traffic to someone who’s willing to pay enormous amount of money. And these big companies will pay five to ten dollars for every install that you deliver of their game. So if you…has their game and their app and a user clicks through and then installs the game they will pay you like six bucks for it.

Karol (0:31:17) Nice.

Carter (0:31:19) It’s amazing to try to wrap your head around that that they can make that much money. But it’s also almost impossible for an indie developer to be able to make that much money themselves. You know?

Karol (0:31:31) Yeah.

Carter (0:31:32) I want to give some advice and this is what I’m doing. Is to go into the app market as a publisher and say I’m going to build games or build apps with the complete intention of developing a relationship with these bigger companies and selling them really good traffic and making that my business model. Making that my revenue source. And a good example of this is the Tom series. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those where it’s a small animal and you talk through it and says exactly what you say right back to you.

Karol (0:32:10) No, I haven’t seen that.

Carter (0:32:13) Yeah like there…they have probably like 80 or 90 games and it’s like all 3-D, like really simple graphics and kids just love it. Like these guys have millions of downloads and they make all their money on publishing ads. Because they do direct deals with these big advertisers and they make four or five hundred thousand dollars a month.

Karol (0:32:32) Wow.

Carter (0:32:33) And before they started doing that they were making like $30,000 a month trying to get in-app purchases and cross platform games and now they just go and say “Look we got a huge user base that love our apps.” They do these really great integrations of saying like “Oh like check out this awesome you know tiger app for a talking tiger type of app.” and they have kind of cracked this nut. And I think as someone getting started that publishing model is definitely a really good way to make a lot of money, to have a lot of fun and it could work out really really well.

Karol (0:32:33) Cool. Well dude thank you so much. Where can people find your twitter, your website, etc…

Carter (0:33:18) Yeah I would say all my content and blog is at bluecloudsolutions.com and then I’m pretty active on facebook and twitter. You can get the facebook from the website with a link on the side there like a button. And then twitter is a twitter.com/bluecloudonline and yeah I do my best to respond to everyone uh I get a lot of e-mails but I definitely try to get back to everyone so if they want just shoot me a note on twitter is probably the best way or you know post something on facebook and I’ll read it.

Karol (0:33:55) Fantastic. Alright thank you so much Carter.

Carter (0:33:57) Man it’s my pleasure. This has been great.

###

Check out Carter via Twitter and BlueCloudSolutions (auto video play warning; turn down/off your speakers if you’re at work).

Years ago I did a lot of pay per click affiliate sales using Google Adwords.

For reference, the most I ever spent in one day on ads was nearly $10,000 (something like $9,800; Jan/Feb 2008 Adwords screenshot for just 2 campaigns during this time) and I always had a daily positive return on investment. If you weren’t profitable day-to-day then you weren’t doing it right.

I wasn’t the best – most of the game was simply testing a lot of offers and related ad, keyword, and landing page combinations – but I was pretty good.

Getting to that level (“pretty good”) was straightforward. It was all based on a few years I spent learning boring stuff. How to edit an image in Photoshop. How to create a landing page. How to make a website do this or that. How to do keyword research. How to do market research. How to write a good autoresponder e-mail sequence.

In those days I got lots of e-mails from people asking how to do what I did.

• “Can you teach me?”
• “What do I do?”
• “If you had to start from scratch, where would you start?”

I was always happy to answer these e-mails, because the beginning was to learn the fundamentals, learn the boring, and I was well-versed in that. This was the stuff most people wouldn’t learn because they expected to jump right into huge ad spends and profits like it was some kind of magic.

The way to learn the boring for this particular business was to go through Google’s own free Adwords training. It was long and thorough and it gave newbies a perfect framework to build off of if they were willing to take the time to learn.

This was the great filter. (I love filters. This whole website is a filter.) I could legitimately help everybody who asked (“Learn this and e-mail me for Step 2 when you’re done.”) while simultaneously not waste my time helping people who didn’t want to help themselves. The magic bullet golden ticket types.

This Adwords training – which could quite literally change a person’s whole economic future – could be completed in a focused weekend, with a little time left over for watching cartoons and slacking off on facebook.

I recommended this training to dozens of people. I can’t even imagine how many because I didn’t keep track. I knew I’d never hear from most of them again.

Do you want to guess how many people went through and learned the boring?

It took me a good hard think to come up with just two people. Maybe there were more, but I remember two who e-mailed me. One of whom went on to generate $XXX,XXX/year using Adwords. (The other did well, but not quite in 6 figures.)

If you want to excel at anything one of your first steps is to learn the boring.

I’m all for the whole “do what you love find your passion travel the world sip margaritas” idea. But the truth is it’s never quite like how others sell it to you. Anybody who you respect is working their ass off. What you don’t see is what goes into it. You only see what they want to show you. You don’t see them working nights. Working weekends. Hustling. That’s the the stuff that makes them successful.

It’s tempting to skip this stage. It’s even very easy. Especially if you have some disposable income to spend on Elance. For many people that’s not a great option. Which means your options are either getting nothing done or doing it yourself. And we both know getting nothing done is for losers.

More than anything, learning the boring is about not being helpless. If there’s anything that proves you’re an adult it’s being self-reliant and learning the boring is about becoming self-reliant. There’s an unparalleled sense of pride that comes from cooking a nice dinner from scratch for the first time, or building a website, or even from writing your very first “Hello World!” script. These are all signs of self-reliance and all come from learning the boring.

Interestingly, happily, when you begin learning the boring you might not find it boring at all.

“You want me to do what?” said the handsome protagonist. (Fine, it was me.)

“Go sit down between them and start talking,” replied Jesse.

“That’s crazy. Isn’t that invading their personal space a bit?”

“Try it, you’ll be surprised.”

With a bit of trepidation I responded, “OK!”

If you’ve read this essay you know about the rest of this story and others like it already.

Those of us who grew up in a modern, developed, society were likely socially stunted because from a very young age we have been protected from rejection. We’ve become a bunch of grown babies.

It started with our Parents, who meant well, but “let me do that for you” didn’t do anybody any favors.

Then it was our Teachers, who maybe also meant well, but “this is how it is and there is no other way” didn’t do us any favors either.

Eventually, we’d become so indoctrinated into a system of approval and following the herd we didn’t even notice what happened and how weak-minded we’d become.

How do you fix that? Get rejected. This has nothing to do with romance (except when it does), so if you’re married or in a relationship don’t worry, this is for you too.

During the Simple Pickup bootcamp, and afterwards when I began playing what I called Rejection Theatre, I was probably rejected 500 times in 30 days. Eventually, I was so desensitized to rejection that it almost stopped affecting me, positively or negatively. It was the healthiest social exercise I’ve ever completed.

But for you?

We’ll start small.

1) Say hello to a stranger.

Ramit wrote a whole post about this here.

It’s weird that saying hello to a stranger brings about such a gut-check for so many people. “Hey, how are you, what’s that [book, music, magazine, doohicky]? Any good?”

No need to worry about getting into a conversation. Just “hi” and a question. You will probably almost never be rejected doing this, which is why we need to move on.

Note: if you say “hi” to somebody while they’re walking and they don’t hear you because you talk like a baby that is not a rejection. Speak up. Show some respect for yourself.

2) Say hello to a stranger who has headphones on, is talking on their phone, or is running/riding a bike.

A year ago doing stuff like this seemed absurd and socially unacceptable. Until I started doing it.

It takes a bit more work to get somebody’s attention when they’ve got headphones on, but not much. A little hand wave so they realize you’re speaking to them. “What are you listening to? It looks like you’re really enjoying it.”

If somebody’s on a bike (yes, I’ve done this) you need to do a bit more to get their attention. (Do not get in their path and get run over!) If they’re running it’s often a double whammy since most people run with headphones on. Running with headphones on while talking on the phone? You get a gold star. Two gold stars if you get rejected.

3) Ask a stranger for a phone number.

OK, you’ve progressed to speaking a little bit to strangers, now ask for a phone number. It doesn’t matter if it’s a guy or a girl you’re speaking to. If you’ve had a bit of a conversation and think, “hey, this person is cool” then ask for a phone number.

If it’s non-romantic it helps if you were talking about something specific. Let’s say you were talking about fitness or sports: “My friends and I play basketball every Wednesday, you want to join? What’s your number?” You’ll need to adapt this to your own situations.

Feels scary. Remember, the goal here is to get rejected. You mostly will.

If it’s a potential romantic encounter: “You are brilliant/cute/funny/etc, what’s your phone number? I want to call you and take you out.”

Notice you don’t ask weakly, “Uhh, mmm, hmm, do you, uhh, maybe, uhh, want to go out some time?” If you do it this way it’s a great way to practice rejection because you’ll probably be rejected often (but definitely not every time). The other way sets you up for more success, though you’ll still get rejected a lot. And again, rejection is the goal. Get the most “No” responses and you win this round.

4) Ask for a little more.

Enough with the random strangers bit.

Back when I was on the RollerCoaster tour eating well was difficult. As far as restaurants and fast food go Chipotle is the nearest thing the US has to something that could be considered somewhat healthy. (Veggie bowl!) Every time I’d stop into a Chipotle I’d ask for 3 things, in increasing order of difficulty. (Gets a person into the “yes” habit.)

1. “Can I have an extra scoop of black beans please?” This is an easy one and had a 100% acceptance rate. Woo! I love black beans.
2. “More fajita veggies please?” This was also often accepted, but sometimes the person would say it’d be extra if I wanted extra.
3. “Extra scoop of guac?” This one was hit and miss. If I was bantering well with the server during Steps 1 & 2 they would often say something like, “well, I’m not supposed to, but ok.” Sometimes they would say something like, “yeah, but just a little.” Sometimes they would flat out say no. Sometimes they would say, “let me ask” which was also a no. And sometimes they would say, “well, it’s going to be extra.” My acceptance rate here was probably around 25% for free extra guac.

If you try this at Chipotle, even if you get a no on 1, ask again on 2, and then again on 3. Three rapid fire rejections means you win the Chipotle rejection game. Nice work.

Next time you’re somewhere it’s possible to ask for a little more, ask. (Say you get soy milk in your coffee and it’s usually extra, see if you can get it free.) It’s an awesome feeling when it’s accepted and it doesn’t hurt when you’re denied. With either outcome you’ll get a bit of a high. But if you get a yes ask for even more next time. Find the “no” point and get rejected.

5) Negotiate.

To take “ask for a little more” to another level you need to negotiate something.

For example, if you’re in credit card debt, call up your credit card company and negotiate your APR. It really is great what happens when you just call and ask. If you’re buying new shoes ask if you can get 10% off. Actually, if you’re buying anything ask for 10% off.

There is always room to negotiate, even when you’re in a place where most people do not haggle.

I bought a guitar here in Poland a week after I arrived. Since I thought I’d only be here for a few months I bought the cheapest guitar I could find. I know that on the low end it’s hard to negotiate since there already isn’t much profit margin. (Or maybe I’m just telling myself that.) But I always ask. First I tried to get them to lower the price. When that didn’t work I asked for a set of new strings and a pick. That worked. It’s not a huge win, but it doesn’t have to be. I’d be buying those strings and that pick anyway, why not try to get them free? In this case my negotiation fall back was to “ask for a little more.”

Part of the reason this works is anchoring. You ask for a lot or something that’s not normally asked for and that’s where the anchor is set. When you don’t get that and you ask for a little less it feels much easier for the person you’re negotiating with to give it up. You probably did this with your Parent(s) a lot as a child.

Since you are trying to get rejected it’s probably better to start the negotiation higher. Anchor it at 20% off. (Also, check out this comment about discounts sales associates are able to give.)

Rejection Therapy

To take this to a different level check out Rejection Therapy, a 30-day game that you play on your own. I bought the download for $10 last year and the suggestions are great. (I don’t get paid for this and don’t know the people behind it.)

I particularly like the five objectives of Rejection Therapy:

1. To be more aware of how irrational social fears control and restrict our lives
2. Smash the tyranny of fear and reap the treasures (treasures include wealth, relationships and self-confidence)
3. Learn from, and even enjoy rejection
4. To not be attached to outcomes, especially when it involves the free agency of other people
5. Permit yourself to fail

For more inspiration check out the 100 day rejection challenge. <– seriously, this is great

Bonus: One of the little know benefits of Extreme Pushup Bootcamp is the social challenge, which helps build your “rejection muscle.” The command to “Drop and give me 20!” can go off at any time. You might be walking down the street, relaxing at a cafe, dancing at a club, or grocery shopping. It’s scary to drop down and do pushups in front of a bunch of strangers. Everybody in your vicinity will watch. I know most people ignore the notification, but not you because you are not a fucking crybaby.

The Sad Truth

Less than 1 out of 100 people who read this will complete more than 1 of these exercises. Now you know why so few people ever see any semblance of the success they say they’d like to see. It’s easier to be a crybaby. You just lie there, shit your didies, and suck on a teet. Wait, that doesn’t sound all bad …

Sometimes I feel like I’m moments from becoming destitute. In reality the last time I’ve been remotely close was when I was about 21 and I had somewhere in the vicinity of $200 left to my name.

It was stressful, but not entirely.

Since I was living with my Parents at the time I didn’t have to worry about much, but I still had these odd day-dreams of negative bank balances and eating trash. Those thoughts spurred me to learn more, to hustle, and to take focused action. In that way thoughts of dumpster diving and freeganism (eating trash) were useful.

Since that time I’ve never struggled to put food in my gullet or a roof over my head. Yet I sometimes still have this nagging voice in my head that won’t let up. A voice I could argue keeps the hustle alive, but can also let a loser mentality bubble to the surface.

I think this is common amongst entrepreneurial types. It’s easy to get caught up in mind games when you’re consistently challenging yourself. When this month looks worse than last month or next month looks great, but you’re not there yet. Or when you spend a lot of time on a project and it goes belly up.

Most people aren’t cut out for this lifestyle. They see the end results, not everything else that goes into it. It’s that “everything else” that separates the winners from the losers. The linchpins from the whiners and crybabies.

A bit of a tangent: These mind games might be why you’ll find many entrepreneurs and high-level executives take drugs like Adderall and its ilk. Most won’t talk about it, but it’s more common than you think. Which is why I respect guys like Tim Ferriss, Dave Asprey, and Dan Andrews who aren’t afraid to discuss stuff that might be taboo to some.

This is more of a warning post than anything. If you find yourself in a lot of the 53 things listed below your life isn’t what it could be. It probably sucks. (It doesn’t have to.)

Note: The links below are not there to look pretty. Click on them. You’ll learn more.

Let’s get to it, how to be a loser:

1. Don’t work on your craft every day. (Includes weekends and holidays.)
2. Expect handouts and instant success. Feel entitled.
3. Forget about the 10,000 hour rule, don’t even put in 1,000 hours.
4. Don’t learned the fundamentals. (more on this next week; subscribe)
5. Complain.
6. Use your job/spouse/dog/anything as an excuse.
7. Consume information, create nothing.
8. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
9. Watch TV more than you read.
10. Don’t hold yourself accountable.
11. Don’t reach out to people.
12. Don’t help people get what they want.
13. Don’t test.
14. Don’t make mistakes.
15. Buy $5 lattes, but don’t spend $100 on web hosting because wordpress.com is free.
16. Don’t seek help from mentors.
17. Don’t seek help from peers.
18. Ask for help before you make a real attempt at figuring it out yourself.
19. Tell yourself your past matters.
20. Criticize often.
21. Tell yourself your age/sex/location matters.
22. Stop learning.
23. Treat your body poorly.
24. Look for an instant fix for everything.
25. Think short term.
26. Don’t write.
27. Don’t speak your mind.
28. Don’t take breaks.
29. Don’t show gratitude.
30. Don’t tip.
31. Watch the news.
32. Believe the world is scary.
33. Start arguments.
34. Go too easy on yourself.
35. Go too hard on yourself.
36. Don’t question your beliefs.
37. Think, “I’m above this.”
38. Hit a woman.
39. Don’t get good.
40. Live in fear.
41. Care too much what people think.
42. Don’t care enough about your craft.
43. Don’t learn from your mistakes.
44. Spend more than you earn; go into debt.
45. Don’t travel or experience new places and people.
46. Don’t ship.
47. Talk more than you listen.
48. Gossip.
49. Don’t take chances.
50. Be cynical.
51. “It’s too difficult.”
52. Don’t take responsibility.
53. Give up.

Giving up before it’s time to give up is the sure sign of a loser. Read The Dip for more about when to give up and when to forge ahead. It’s my favorite book by Seth Godin.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not stating that if you fall into some of the above categories once in a while you’re a loser. What I’m stating is you’re letting the loser mentality creep up on you. Let that happen at your own peril.

Hopefully I did my job and this lit a small fire under your ass. It did? Cool. Share it on facebook or twitter (right now, before you forget):