Tuesday Letter #24 - Indie Publishing, New Project and Laughter

Hey, Happy Tuesday!

I have a couple of personal news I’d love to share.

1. I am now trying to stream more regularly, every day if time allows. I stream myself playing chess games and working on web dev projects. I stream in the morning, around 7:30am until 9am. Here is the link if you are interested -> twitch.tv/rasulkireev.

2. Now that the NY & NJ States are slowly opening up, I’d love to meet up with some of you ladies & gents :) If you live somewhere around Newark, NJ, or Manhattan, NY, let me know.

3. I’m starting a couple of new projects. If anyone is into Chess or Experimenting with Food (a.k.a fermentation), let me know, we can collaborate.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

📜 Quote of the week

“I tell you, my students, a man’s wealth is not in the coins he carries in his purse; it is the income he buildeth, the golden stream that continually floweth into his purse and keepeth it always bulging.

The Richest Man in Babylon by George Samuel Clason

This is very similar to what Naval Ravikant says about Money and Wealth. You want Wealth (i.e. Real Estate, Business, Stocks) vs Cash, cause the first is sustainable while the other will vanish at some point.

The book in general is awesome, strongly recommend you give it a read. Essentially, it is financial advice in small stories. I found it very motivating and am now saving a considerable amount of money to invest in something by the End of the Year. I recently finished the book and will publish my review tomorrow on my website.

📖 The World of Indie Publishing

👓 Just finished reading “The one where writing books is not really a good idea” by Elle Griffin where she explores the world of book publishing.

⭐ The paradox of book publishing…

Many authors hope that securing a contract with a Big Four publishing house will provide more marketing and sell more copies of the book, but the reality is that traditional publishers are looking for a sure thing. They want an author who already has an existing platform and can guarantee an audience. And if the author has that, they might be better off going it alone.

Why publishing houses even exist now? Only to make sure that the book reaches a wider market (while decreasing the author’s profit). That would only make sense if the author doesn’t care about money, but about reach/influence.

💰 When you break it down, earning with platforms like Substack and Patreon is possible and makes sense. And this one below is a great idea!

Theoretically then, an author could release a new chapter every week, charge subscribers $8 or $9 a month, and earn $100,000 a year—from only 1,000 readers

🐀 And this quote/paradox she mentioned at the beginning of the post made me laugh as I can certainly (partly) relate.

People don’t read books—and the ones that do aren’t buying them.

🐔 Tweet of the week

That one just made me laugh :D