109: The Anatomy of a Bestselling Book — Tucker Max

Tucker Max received his BA from the University of Chicago in 1998, and his JD from Duke Law School in 2001. He even attended Duke Law School on an academic scholarship, where he neglected to buy any of his textbooks for his final two years and spent part of one semester–while still enrolled in classes–living in Cancun.

His first book, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, is a #1 New York Times Best Seller, spent five years on the list, and has over 2 million copies in print. His second book, Assholes Finish First, and his third book, Hilarity Ensues, are also NY Times Best Sellers. He co-wrote and produced the movie based on his life/book, also titled “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell.” He has also been credited with being the originator and leader of a new literary genre, “fratire,” is only the third writer (after Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis) to ever have three books on the NY Times Nonfiction Best Seller List at one time, and was nominated to the Time Magazine 100 Most Influential List in 2009. He currently lives in Austin, Texas.

Tucker and business partner, Zach Obront, took his knowledge of publishing and created Book in A Box. The company has the formula for book creation, and is the result of a challenge to Tucker to help a woman produce her book — $4 million in sales later, Book in a Box is growing rapidly and created over 200 books.

In This Episode:

• What to do when getting fired from multiple jobs.
• Turning your life experiences into a blog, and into a book.
• Directing writing to the audience, not yourself.
• Focus on invalidating business ideas to validate them.
• How to figure out if your business idea can scale.
• Figuring out the purpose of your book.
• The questions to ask yourself when writing a book.
• What having a book does for you.
• The biggest lesson in entrepreneurship.

Tucker’s Favorite Quote:
“If I make the decision about me, I lose. If I make it about us, I win.”

Tucker’s Favorite Books:
Malcom X's Autobiography

Links From Today’s Show:
www.tuckermax.com
www.bookinabox.com/create
www.jeremyryanslate.com/strategy

Today’s Sponsor:
www.iboommedia.com