About this episode
In 2011, I got a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize.
“Hello?”
“Derek. It’s Seth Godin.”
“Wow! Hi Seth!”
“I’m starting a new publishing company, so I want you to write a book. Short, like a manifesto. Will you do it?”
“Uh, sure!”
“Great. I look forward to it.”
“Thanks!”
Over the next eleven days, I wrote the lessons I’d learned from starting, growing, and selling my company. He liked it, named it “Anything You Want”, and a few weeks later it was for sale. My first book. Simple as that.
To me, it was no big deal - just telling my tale. But a lot of small business owners said my book helped them remember their purpose, and get re-excited about their business.
Penguin bought Seth’s publishing company and re-released my book on Penguin Portfolio. But I wanted to self-publish.
I want to own the rights to my books so I can do what I want with them: give them away, let people translate them, or sell them how I like. I’m thinking long-term. I’ve got many books to come, and I want them to be a matching set. So I bought back the rights from Penguin.
I improved many chapters in “Anything You Want”, and added eight new chapters that were missing — points that people kept asking about over my last ten years of talking about this book — better explanations — better stories.
Then I gave it a new cover to match all of my other books. (White, to represent its innocent naïveté.) I recorded the new audiobook, better than before.
And now, it’s finally available, in its third and final edition, directly from me.
“ANYTHING YOU WANT: 40 lessons for a new kind of entrepreneur”
Get it at sivers.com.
There are only 5000 limited-edition linen hardcovers printed, so get that version while they last. Even if you already read it, consider getting this as the permanent edition.
The first copy is $19, which is $15 for the content, and $4 for the paper itself. All future copies cost only the price of the paper: $4. Paper books include all digital formats for free. As before, I’m giving all profits to charity.
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