Bestselling author Tucker Max has changed his image over the years. He's most well-known for writing about getting drunk and hooking up with random girls, but he's since turned his knowledge about book publishing into a massively successful business.
While he doesn't think everyone has a book in them, he believes those that do might never get it published. Whether you hate writing, your intimidated by the traditional publishing process, or you simply don't have the time to do it, his newest company (Book in a Box) solves all of these problems for you.
In about 12 hours of your time, you can go from an idea to a finished book that your target audience will rave about.
Listen to our conversation as we touch on a variety of topics. He explains the transition period between law school and becoming an author, he talks about how the Book in a Box business idea came about, and we also discuss how you can get paid for doing something you love. Enjoy!
I hope you enjoy this episode and be sure to subscribe to the podcast here!
I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell (book)
I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell (movie)
Book In A Box
Alex Dooley
Andrew Warner / Mixergy interview with Tucker
Zach Obront
Lewis Howes / School of Greatness interview with Tucker
Melissa Gonzalez
The Pop Up Paradigm: How Brands Build Human Connections in a Digital Age
Gary Vaynerchuk
Vayner Media
Jack Dorsey
Daily Burn
Dr. David Kashmer
The Hidden Curriculum: What They Don't Teach You At Medical School
Thrive Market
Deep Eddy Vodka
The Book In A Box Method: The New Way to Quickly and Easily Write Your Book (Even If You're Not a Writer)
Company Website: bookinabox.com
Personal Website: tuckermax.me
Facebook: facebook.com/tuckermax
Twitter: @tuckermax
Instagram: @realtuckermax
Email: tucker@bookinabox.com
The things that are exciting in your 20s aren't usually very exciting in your 30s.
If you're in the entertainment business, you've got to be able to tell a great story.
That was fine for awhile. I made pretty good money, it was fun, it was interesting, but I had no desire to be a marketing guru.
It's hard for me to think of a writer that I've ever met who's a real entrepreneur. It's a totally different mindset.
Everyone wants to be a star, no one wants to put in the work.
I became obsessed with this idea because she called me out on it.
Socrates didn't write a word down. Plato wrote everything down. Jesus never wrote any of his words down. Buddha never wrote any of his words down. None of these people wrote their words down, a scribe did. So why can't I create a modern process for scribes?
I felt so stupid, I felt so dumb. Because there was nothing stopping me from doing this idea like 6 years ago.
I could have had this years ago if I didn't have such limited thinking.
Very few people have big ideas in them.
Most people know something that's valuable to a small group of people.
If you're a professional and you get paid to do something, you're probably getting paid for the knowledge and wisdom in your head. So it's not "How can I sell copies of my book?", the question is, "How can I put my knowledge and wisdom in my book and use the book as an all-purpose marketing tool for me or my company or my career?"
Once you look at a book not as an end goal but as a marketing tool, then it totally changes everything.
The ideas that most people hold in their head about publishing are ideas that publishing companies think are important, not ideas that people think are important.
We're in the business of producing the absolute best books possible for the author.
I would say, at best, 20% of people have genuinely either new or original ideas.
What do you have to say that's interesting and valuable to an audience?
I wish I was one of those people who from an early age was always hustling and selling and creating value.
At Book in a Box, I just fired myself. We just hired a CEO to take over for me.
There's no bigger waste of time than trying to learn how to do something you're bad at. You're way better off hiring someone to do that for you so you can do the things you're really good at.
All the critical mistakes we've made in our business have either come down to being too arrogant about our knowledge & not questioning enough, and hiring the wrong people.
That's the cool thing about business though, it's like baseball. It's even better than baseball. In baseball, if you hit .300, you're a Hall of Famer. In business, you can hit .100 and be a massive success.
If you're going to fail, that's fine. But you need to understand why. If you're taking 9 different ideas and failing 9 different times, I think the problem might be you.
There's so many people trying to teach the wrong things.
Some people want lifestyle businesses and there's nothing wrong with that.
If you want to be a baller entrepreneur and you want to build a massive baller company, you don't want to be selling your time. You don't want to be in the business, you want to be in the business of creating leverage for other people.
There's a limit to how big you can scale an agency. There's no limit to how big you can scale a software-based process.
If you have problems turning what you love into a business, it's probably some psychological issue you have, it's not the process. The process is very simple. It's not easy to do, but it's very simple to understand.
Something you love doing, something people will pay you for, and something that you're good at. Where those three areas intersect, that's where you can build a business.
Most people, when they say "how do I turn my passion into a business," what they are really asking is "how can I get paid to do nothing." That's bullshit. No way to do that.
If you want to start a business, the easiest thing to do is find a problem that is really painful to people. Then create a solution that they will pay for.
Starting a business is really easy if all you do is think about it in terms of other people's problems.
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