as well as giving you a consistent pipeline of people looking for the exact type of skill and experience you offer. For example, you can also use a book to get clients or paid speaking gigs, promote your company, raise money for a fund, or launch a brand. There are dozens of examples of ways to use a book to make money here. UNREALISTIC EXPECTATION #2: “MY BOOK WILL BE A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!” The New York Times Best Seller List is the most prestigious list (though for dubious reasons). Generally speaking, you need to sell about 10,000 books the first week to be certain you will hit the list. The thing most people don’t understand is that the bestseller list is, plainly put, a racket. The only way to get on it is to have a tradition- ally published book, then either have a large pre-existing audience to sell to (in order to organically sell that many copies), or do what most authors do and “cheat” by buying their own books through bookstores to make it look like their book is more popular than it is. This is not impossible. It can and does happen. We’ve even had some authors we worked with do it. However, hitting the New York Times Best Seller List is expensive, time-consuming, and an immense amount of hard work. Here’s the worst part of hitting a bestseller list: it does not get you much. Just like having the line “These pretzels are making me thirsty” in a small indie movie isn’t going to make you famous, having a book that spends a week on the New York Times Best Seller List does not mean you’re famous. It barely gets you any attention at all. Here’s a fun game that shows this: 366 · ThE SCriBE METhOD