I just finished Day 1 trying to market my book, You’re Going to Shit Yourself.

It didn’t go very well.

Not that I had a plan.

My plan was to go around the park and give a couple copies out. Instead, I just walked around the park a bunch. Not bad for a morning routine! But not a very promising marketing strategy.

Last year, I wrote a book (wrote? collected stories for…)

I wrote a book with my friends called You’re Going to Shit Yourself. It’s a bunch of stories about people pooping their pants. As an adult if you have a story, but that totally embarrassing and terrible day in 3rd grade if you have one of those.

Collecting the stories was so fun and hilarious. And when I was first setting out on that project, I told myself I would market the book in some way. Yeahhh I was going to do my own thing: I’d self-publish it rather than trying to query it (could you imagine… “Dear Penguin House…). But at least I would do some DIY marketing.

And then I finished the book and realized I was totally terrified of telling anyone about this book. Or marketing it. In any way.

Hence this challenge! Step into the fire, brother. That’s the energy.

I’ll say it: I sort of got the whole idea of this thing from the book Living with a Seal. Great book! I sort of flew threw it. It was interesting! Fascinating! Easy to read! I read it in like two days, which never happens. Usually, I get halfway through in like a month and then pick a new book. Anyway.

Jesse Itzler first wrote Living with a Seal as a blog, and then it became a book! But in the blog / book, he was also doing a couple of things: 1) marketing himself (which ppl sort of roast him for (a little bit!) on reddit)
2) marketing his products (some… conconut water drink that Coke was gonna buy)
3) doing something really hard and new
4) getting out of his comfort zone

And yeah! At least the last 3 are things that I want to try here. I’ve always loved DIY projects and just trying to see if I can do something on my own. And usually… I fail! Completely! When I was a kid, I thought I was supposed to be an engineer (I had this whole idea that I was going to make a plane and fly it). So anyway - pre plane building - I decided I would take apart my dad’s old toy train. I remember the weight of it felt so good. It was real! This was the stuff! Metal! But all I did was take it apart, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to put it back together again.

So, really? I just broke it. Which is a theme for me (breaking things).

All to say, it will be nice to have some accountability in this blog.

Main goals?
1) blog every day as a status update: how’s the marketing process going
2) post on instagram and tiktok to try to get some people to find the book there
3) sell 1000 copies

This feels so cringe, and I hate it, but this is what I’m doing.

And just fyi - Day 1 did not go well. I recorded the most B-reel footage of me in the park (so that I could post it…) and I went around the park just… looking for someone to give the book out to. I bought 50 copies of this book, and they’re all in my room beside me. My plan was to give them away ⭐ for marketing ⭐ but it’s been like three months, and I’m wondering if I should have started with like… 10 books.

It cost like $200.

This is how Amazon makes money… hustling wanna be authors into thinking they could sell a book and them having them pay $200 so that said book would sit in their room.

One day I saw someone selling, like, a novel at a farmers market, and I don’t know why, but it made me so sad.

Anyway. I walked for like 40 minutes, and it sucked. Couldn’t bring myself to give this book to anybody, so I ended up sitting on a park bench to read it, hoping someone would come by and say, “hey man what’s that sick ass book you’re reading.”

(I’m realizing that maybe this blog is going to expose me as having just… insane expectations for what might happen.)

No one came up to me, so I went home.

And then I went to work.

And that was - not going to lie - really depressing.

But, on the bright side, this is supposed to be a journey, and how boring of a journey would it be if things just worked out from the start. It’s actually good that day 1 was terrible. Now we’ve got somewhere to go.

At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

One thing I can do is just that classic thing of doing something better every day. Today was TERRIBLE so that shouldn’t be so hard!

Tomorrow? It’s rollarblades.

If I were on rollarblades, this whole day would have turned out way way way better.

Tomorrow, I’m just gonna rollarblade up to somebody, not say a single word, and hand them this freaking, stupid ass book. It’s gonna be awesome. Maybe I’ll play some jams for good vibes.

The only thing that’s not going good here is the fact that I wasn’t on rollarblades. Also I didn’t post on instagram or tiktok and I meant to do that every day as well, so … we should do that.

But before I do that, I need a disguise.