Last week, I submitted my final draft for my new book, A Revolution A Day. This project started at the beginning of 2019, although I admittedly dragged my feet on it for over half the year.
By time July came around, I knew I had wasted too much time and I developed a working plan to get the writing back on track. I detailed much of that in this article.
Amazon (KDP), being the monster that it is, had the book ready for print and purchase within 24 hours of my submission. I ordered a rather large batch to send out as tokens of gratitude to many of the guests who were kind enough to give me permission to use their words in the book.
For those who don’t know, I took quotes from nearly every episode of my podcast Revolutionary You and compiled them into a project of 366 days a la daily meditation. I wanted this to be focused on the individual looking to improve their health.
Beyond these quotes, I provided some of my own context and thoughts as well as action questions to get readers to think deeper about the choices they make for their health.
Because they are recurring themes on the show, you’ll find a lot of information about better sleep, smarter strength training, effective dieting strategies and mindset tips to help you rethink and reshape the way you approach those factors in your life.
I am immensely proud of the final product. Not because it’s mine but because it was a challenge to make this a collaborative effort. Most of my guests trusted my judgment with the quotes I utilized. Some asked to see their quotes ahead of time.
I pulled far more quotes than I needed initially and kept adding and removing quotes as I went along. Ultimately, I wanted to craft something that was fairly easy for anyone to read and understand but also to enhance the wisdom of my guests.
It is my hope that not only will the book inspire individuals on their journey but also lead them back to the podcast to listen to certain episodes in their entirety, learn more about my guests and purchase their work and services.
I say it in the introduction of the book and I will say it again here: I aimed to be the least important figure in the book. It was my desire to be nothing but a tour guide: someone to offer advice and then open the door for the reader to determine the path they wanted to follow.
As with so many things, this book was not my sole creation. Yes, I ventured back through hundreds of hours of the podcast, extracted quotes that made me pause, rewind, type, pause, rewind, etc. and add my own flavor to each page.
I also had the help of a dear friend and client, Jeanne, who took time out of her schedule to proofread the book. I fixed all that she asked me to fix (and there were a lot of things to fix) but I also went back and added and removed more after the fact. Wouldn’t you know, I still found a few typos but that’s not on Jeanne, that’s on me. While I don’t believe it will detract from the final product, it was one of those things where I kind of kicked myself and should have done another more careful read-through.
In addition to Jeanne, I had to ask the help of another friend and client, Amanda, who is far more tech-savvy than me. She helped with transitions of documents to pdf files, resizing of graphics, the addition of page numbers where needed and some other formatting hiccups.
My design guy, Nate Mannan, also returned to the helm to do all of my cover work for me. Nate did all of the design for my first book and has provided the art for both of my podcasts as well as a couple of shirt designs for our clients at RevFit. Nate is so incredibly talented. I love his simplicity and the fact that he rarely has to show me something twice. The first draft is nearly always perfect. The man has a gift.
I’ve had several of my guests (and friends) already start to blow up social media sharing some of their respective quotes where applicable and sending their audience to Amazon to purchase their copies.
As of this writing, I need to shout out: Chris Cooper, Sarah Moorman, Stuart Aitken (and the entire Lift The Bar community), Meghan Ramos, Dr. Jose Greenspon, Leslie Benedetto, Sumi Singh, Meghan Callaway, Susan Niebergall, Nikki Naab-Levy, Melody Schoenfeld, Ken Klika, Becki Siconolfi and Heather Robertson (and the Half Size Me community). Thank you for sharing the news with your audience and your friends. I do hope “we” inspire positive change in them.
A very special shout out goes to Joshua Shea who was on my show once before and will be again. He is a fellow author with quite a backstory and a very unorthodox guest for me to bring on the show. Joshua took to his own blog to write a review well beyond my imagination to promote not only my book but his new one as well. I can’t imagine stealing the thunder from this one but if you’d like to read Joshua’s take on the book, you can read that one HERE.
Writing a book of this magnitude (433 pages to be exact) was even more time consuming and stressful than I ever gave it credit for. I tried my damnedest to work on every single portion of it while I was at work but towards the end, I had to “bring my work home with me” and keep whittling away at home as well.
However, the final product I am tremendously pleased with. It took the work of hundreds of people (literally) to pull this thing together: guests, listeners and clients. This was truly a collaboration.
I was hellbent on releasing the book in December because, if you’re anything like me, you’d start it on January 1. I realize that is somewhat short-sighted though. Your transformation, or rather, your revolution can start on any day, in any month, of any year. You just have to start.
I believe A Revolution A Day can be a good companion on that journey.
(Yes, I am biased).
So, whether you purchase a copy for yourself, for a loved one or are just looking for a good stocking stuffer, I hope you’ll consider looking into it.
As always, thank you for reading, thank you for supporting and thank you for your feedback because, I, like you, am trying to get better every day as well.
The paperback version of the book can be purchased HERE
The kindle version of the book can be purchased HERE
Happy Holidays, Jason
