This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, hey, what's up friends, listeners, community. I hope you're doing okay over there. Wherever you are in the world, I hope you are doing something for yourself. I hope you are setting goals, working toward those goals, overcoming whatever obstacles you encounter, you might encounter, I should say, although I'm pretty sure you're gonna encounter some obstacles in life. Now I got a great question today from a listener.
They were actually asking about me, which I appreciate. I mean, I wanna focus mostly on you and other stories that I tell, but this listener checked in to ask how my recent pandemic timing book launch went. And so I was like, what could I share about this that might have some lesson for our community, so it's not just about me. Well, short version is it was challenging. I experienced some variables that were totally unfamiliar to me, just like most of the world has been experiencing variables that are unfamiliar.
And at the same time, I'm often talking about finding the opportunity in the midst of uncertainty. So of course, I have to be able to apply that encouragement to myself. So what did I learn from the launch of the Money Tree? What's next? How am I continuing to share the story and such?
What can I take away from it? And how might this be applicable to something that you are going through, especially if you're trying to share a message with the world, or if you're trying to build up a brand, a message, an intention, something to put out there, a product or a service, whatever it is. How do you capture someone's attention when everyone's attention is on a single other topic? That's what we'll talk about in this episode after this shout out to our sponsor. [Music]
Michael, what's up?
Thank you so much for listening in Sacramento. And thank you for asking as well. It's been an interesting experience for sure. It has been unlike any other book launch I've done. This is my seventh book.
And I'm not totally sure what I wish I had done differently. Like I wish COVID-19 hadn't arrived when it did. I wish it wasn't as widespread and as devastating. Of course, I wish that for lots of other reasons, but just to stay on topic with the question, 99% of the media was focused, has been focused entirely on one subject, right? And much of my audience, my community was locked down in different parts of North America and beyond.
And of course, I'm still able to speak to people virtually digitally, such as I'm doing here and in other forms, but not being able to go on tour was discouraging. I tried to reframe it a little bit and say, well, you know, if I had the choice, I would have done, you know, I had this really big tour. I was planning to do like 40 cities in North America to start, you know, and if I had a choice, I would have done that. But since I couldn't, I decided to say, okay, I'm going to show up in whatever form, however I can, you know, I'll do as many interviews as I can. I will do as many live streams.
I will speak to groups, you know, all over the world on Zoom and other platforms. So, you know, pretty much every day for the past, I don't know, eight weeks or so, I forget exactly how long it's been. I've done at least two interviews, you know, often several for groups all over the world. And these have been in a variety of formats and sometimes we've had, you know, a couple of thousand people on the calls, which is cool. And other times it's also cool to have like 50 or 100 people because you can actually have a little bit more, you know, community and such there.
So that's been, you know, good and bad in all the things. I've also had some other challenges with like Amazon availability the first two weeks that the book was out, which is a really critical time. Amazon was saying like, it's not going to ship for 30 days or whatever because they're prioritizing essential supplies. Now I totally understand, you know, prioritizing essential supplies. What they were doing though is they were actually shipping out pretty soon afterwards.
But I think my suspicion is people don't buy stuff. Like if it says it's not going to go out for 30 days, people are like, I'll check back later, essentially. So I think that was definitely an issue, international distribution, et cetera. What I'm finding overall, like my number one takeaway in talking with my editor about it and some other folks, I really believe this is a book more than some of my others that will spread and reach more people if real readers talk about it. Like if real people engage with it, like I'm seeing it actually has a much deeper emotional connection with readers than some of my other books.
So it's just a question of like, how can we get that out to more readers? Like how can we have more readers have that experience? Because ultimately, even though it's a story, the money tree, I used a fictional parable format, but in the end, it's about helping people with financial security, helping them understand that there is something you can do for yourself, et cetera. So I mean, I guess that's the bottom line. I'm still going with it.
I'm still talking about it wherever I can. I hope that it's something that will serve a lot of people in the long run. So if you like it, Michael or anybody else, tell your friends. Again, the book is called "The Money Tree." If you haven't had a chance to check it out yet because you've been busy, I understand, do so. And I really do want to reach a lot of people with it.
I believe it's relevant for anybody who's trying to figure stuff out in this new economy. So we will see how it continues to go, but that is the short answer, the trial and error, the ups and downs, success and failure in response to Michael's question. All right, if you have a question of your own, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We'll be featuring them throughout the year, along with updates from other listeners as they launch and grow their projects as they navigate tough times and hopefully come out ahead, albeit with some adjustments along the way. Thank you so much for listening.
Be sure you're subscribed. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
