Niccolò Machiavelli wrote this in The Prince, published in 1532:

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things; because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.

You’ll encounter the Machiavelli Effect many times in your career.  It’s always going to be present when power accrues to one group over another.  Sometimes you’ll be the innovator.  Sometimes you’ll realize you’re on the side of the resistance, or the “lukewarm defender” role. 

You’ll be able to spot it frequently once you understand the pattern.  Then you can decide what you need to do:  persist, support, or resist. 

For years now I have told people “It’s never problem vs. no-problem.  It’s about which problems you prefer to have.”

Going forward I will end it better by saying, “which problems you prefer to have, and when.”

The “and when” was always implied but specifying it brings out clarity in discussions.  Usually it’s about short-term vs. longer-term problems.  I find in conversations that the time element forces one to think about the costs of procrastination, or the power of patience. 

My criteria for great non-fiction books:

• “2×4 whack to the forehead” insights multiple times
• Challenges my assumptions and points out inconvenient or uncomfortable truth that I must wrestle with, not instantly resolve
• Presents a coherent framework which is usable to assess new situations
• Is well-written, quotable, shareable
• Is unlikely to be outdated in only 3 years
• Is documented, or at least presents follow-up trails to investigate

Three contemporary books I read in 2022 which fit these are Strange New World, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, and Failure of Nerve.  

Proven truth:

• Your performance is built on your strengths.
• Mastery of a strength area is a life-long journey.  We are always working on our craft.
• No one is perfectly well-rounded.
• Both strengths and weaknesses can become derailers in a role, and therefore both must be managed.

It’s a mistake to be overly-dependent on your strengths.  Your weaknesses are a roadmap to interacting better with others.  

I recommend you spend 80% of your effort improving your particular strengths. We effectively manage our weaknesses with 20% of our energy in several ways:

Adopt a mature mindset. Don’t beat yourself up over your weak areas, but don’t wallow in status quo either.  Pick one weakness area and work on it for a quarter, then switch to another one. 

Intentionally draw complementary strength people around you to offset your weaknesses.  This is the power of effective teamwork.  Keep in mind, this is not only about an org chart, but who is in your network.   

Learn enough to appreciate and work better with the strengths of others.  Example: I frequently work alongside biostatistics experts.  Although stats is not a strength area for me, I can read a few articles to better understand how Bayesian models work and cooperate with their expertise. 

Multiple people have asked why I am optimistic about the future, given all the difficult news we face daily. 

I was whacked like a 2×4 to my forehead recently when one of my mentors listened to me expressing my (many!) concerns, then quietly said “He still moves stones.”  There is One who is in charge.  His words reminded me of Jesus asking his disciples “Where is your faith?” (see Luke 8:25)

Here’s my message of optimism from a secular perspective:

Consider our situation, just 20 years ago, a year after 9/11. The dot-com crash crushed many hopes for the nascent internet ecommerce world.  Governments were spending money faster than any drunken sailor could have imagined.  The new “Homeland Security” ratcheting up made people nervous, even as we were fearful of terrorism and sheepishly accepted TSA security rules.  The general economy had taken a huge hit.  Confidence in world leaders reached new lows.

And then, from a business perspective at least, a new world order emerged:  Google, Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, iPads and iPhones, commonplace broadband and wifi, Uber, GoFundMe, Wikipedia, Siri and Alexa, Tesla and SpaceX, Chunnel, and new tallest buildings.  All things we take for granted today as ‘ordinary’ parts of our world.  One of my acquaintances refers to this as ‘Axis Shift.’

Yes, new capabilities create new problems (or at least, old problems in different clothing).  My point is how quickly we resurged from a horrendous low.  We are an adaptable people.  I’m old enough to remember the difficult economics of the 1970’s, made worse by the OPEC embargo.  The struggle through recession in 1980-82.  Then, the fall of the Soviet Union a few years later.  Things we thought unbreakable, broke.  Trends we considered unstoppable, reverted. 

…

We recently celebrated Thanksgiving in the US, so it’s good to remind ourselves of the Turkey Fallacy.

Every day the farmer brings food for the turkey.  Day after day. Doesn’t change.  The turkey happily thinks “This will go on forever!” Until a certain day in November when the farmer cuts his head off.

My uncle once put it in simpler terms.  “If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.” 

…

“But Glenn, what about all this uncertainty?  So many wildcards, so many possible concerns?”

Compare walking in bright light vs. walking in darkness.

Compare walking in familiar places vs. walking in someplace unfamiliar.

The difference is your confidence level.

I can’t think of a time in my life, or in the history our species, when there was no uncertainty, and no concerning developments. I’m also mindful of Mark Twain’s insight: “I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”

Our car headlights light up about 100-150 yards in the darkness.  Even so we can make long trips through the night.  The key is to move forward.

…

“But what if we make the wrong decision?”

We will, at least sometimes.  Here’s what I’m learning more as I grow older:  The specific decision matters less than what I do after making the decision and the results. 

The decisions of others affect us, too.  I don’t have to like their decision, but I am responsible for my own actions after they make the decision whether I think it was a good decision or not.

Let’s keep learning about the difference between our sphere of influence and our sphere of control. 

…

“It’s a hurting world, Glenn!”

Optimism doesn’t mean lack of feeling and resonance with the sadness, pain, loss, and suffering in others.  Optimism doesn’t quench grief.  Optimism helps us avoid being forever trapped in these and recovering balance. Optimism is about holding up our heads and moving forward.  Optimism takes the long view.  Optimism recognizes the view out the windshield is bigger than the rear-view mirror.

…

“But everything feels like it’s changing!”

I agree that we are at edge of great changes, and much of what we’ve taken for granted for the last decades could change significantly.  All change creates some loss.  Yet we can be hopeful that some changes will be a net positive.  There are old things which can be recovered and set anew.  There are some popular but unhealthy things which can be set aside in favor of what is better. 

Optimism helps us do what we can, with what we have, where we are, right now.  And that’s all that we ever can do. 

…

“I can’t believe how stupid people are, and it’s getting worse! They’re going to get what they deserve and get it good.”

When was the last time in history that there weren’t many foolish people?  No man is an island; we’re all in this together.  Let’s make a mature choice in how we relate with other, especially fools and idiots.

Consider this 1968 (a very disturbing year in the US!) perspective by Kent Keith:

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.

Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.

Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.

Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.

Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.

Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.

Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.

Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.

Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you have anyway.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

…

Compare optimism with your other options.  Winston Churchill famously said to reporters during the worst of the London Blitz, “I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.”  Pessimism is impractical because it refuses to spend energy to solve problems.  Apathy makes progress more difficult because it won’t confront challenges and can’t see opportunities.  Cynicism is a nasty, loveless imitation of wisdom.

My grandfather used to tell me, “Don’t do things that make the Devil happy.”  Pessimism, apathy, and cynicism make the Devil happy.   

Choose optimism. 

Personal story, circa 1995:

Our team faced multiple problems, seemingly interlocking, no obvious path forward.  A bunch of us had some ideas and suggestions but none of us felt we had authority to make anything happen.  We also felt like were in a fishbowl with everyone else in the organization watching us. 

Our Director called us into a meeting on this topic.  I can remember feeling a sense of relief that he was stepping in and would tell us what we should do.  We settled in our seats, notepads and pens ready.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he started off.  “But I know what we’re NOT going to do.”  He went on listing things we were not going to do.  He included things like:

He added “And I’m not going to throw you under the bus when something doesn’t work perfectly from the start.”

He concluded by saying, “I’m confident you guys will come up with a solution and make your recommendations to me by the end of the week.”  Then he walked out of the conference room.  We still had about 100 minutes of our 2-hour scheduled meeting we could use.

We went into the meeting thinking our Director was going to tell us what to go do.  Instead, he kicked-started our conversation about what we should do.  Years later I recognized that this Director had brilliantly set this up so that we owned the projects and brought our personal responsibility energy into the implementation. 

Try this tactic when there are confusing options.  Focus your attention on what you’re NOT going to do, and it may become more apparent what you should do.

Periodically I’m asked for advice or instruction about how to be a published author.  It’s straightforward but there are still many steps to complete. Fortunately, the tools make it much easier than in decades past.  Self-publishing is more marathon than sprint.  (Yes, I know, it is possible to publish a crappy Kindle book in a day.) Some people become consumed in mechanics and miss the larger picture.  Others have clear ideas about what they’d like to happen but can’t get through the mechanics.  The guidelines below can help you and will point you to other resources you’ll find helpful.

Key parts of the process:

• Know the Target Audience and Your Purpose for the Book
• Write and Edit the Manuscript
• Publish on Amazon.com with KDP service
• Launching Your Book
• Monitoring Sales and Reviews
• Engaging with Readers Over Time

Know the Target Audience and Your Purpose for the Book

Think carefully about your target audience – what benefits them?  It’s not about you! Structure your content accordingly. 

Why are you publishing this book?  What do you hope to gain?  Your answers will shape how you write the book, but especially how you’ll launch the book and use published copies.  Common answers are some combination of these:

• I have great ideas I want to share
• A book will outlast me, and reach people I’ll never meet
• Being a published author enhances my credibility and expertise
• A book will make me more famous
• This book will be a lead-generator for new business
• This book complements my speaking and consulting business
• I want to earn royalties

Write and Edit the Manuscript

Write the book for your specific target audience.  Create personas of readers or imagine writing to an individual person in your target audience. 

I suggest you create a detailed outline – chapters and sub-parts you expect to include – before you start writing your text.  This also means you can write in any part of the book, without worrying about the sequence.  An increasing number of people are recording themselves talking, then getting a quick transcript using a service like temi.com. You still need to do cleanup and editing, but it can be easier to produce a first draft.

Don’t edit as your write. Writing and editing require different kinds of thinking. Write, write, write.  Then come back to edit. 

Create a plan to succeed. A systematic approach of producing a specific amount of text (e.g., 500-1000 words a day, or 2500 words every weekend) will help immensely.  Set target dates to have each stage completed.

Graciously accept feedback and suggestions from people who read your manuscript.  Writing is rewriting.

Ask someone else to proofread your manuscript for spelling errors and identify problems with grammar, preferably someone who is not an expert in your topic.  You’ll be amazed at how many times your brain missed an error that others spot instantly.

Consider using some “good, but didn’t quite fit” material as bonus content in your book launch work.

Publish on Amazon.com with KDP service

The KDP service (kdp.amazon.com) has made self-publishing a straightforward exercise.  [I say “straightforward,” not easy.]  Setting up the account is free.  You can publish in Kindle and/or paperback formats, and Amazon has just introduced hard-bound books.  The quality of the paperbacks is good, and print-on-demand speed is fast.  Amazon is not stockpiling your books in inventory; each order is fulfilled with a new print job.

What you need for Kindle publishing:

• A formatted manuscript in Word
• A cover image in the correct dimensions
• A description of your book which customers will see
• Information about you (and any other authors)
• Which 2 categories you want to list your book
• Pricing

Add this information for paperback publishing:

• Your choice of book dimensions and paper type
• A PDF formatted for the book interior layout
• A PDF cover image (including front, spine, and back) sized to match the interior # of pages

KDP shares all the technical details about sizing the interior and covers. 

My suggestion: Hire out the work of formatting the book interior layout and the cover art unless you’re a graphic designer.  There are hundreds of people on fiverr.com who do good work with fast turnaround (usually 48 hours) for modest fees.  They know exactly how to set up dimensions for Amazon’s requirements. They’ll take your suggestions and work with you on revisions.  I spent $106 plus tips for 2 gigs for the interior formatting and cover art for my Bold and Gentle book – the results look professional and are far better than I could have ever produced. 

Book cover art is important for sales. Fiverr gigs are cheap enough that you can consider working with 2 or even 3 people on cover art to generate more ideas.  Share different cover possibilities with people you know and get their feedback.  The one I liked most has never been the one the majority of people thought was the best. 

Amazon has an easy-to-use wizard for uploading your content and capturing all your decisions.  The wizard will reject submissions which don’t match the technical requirements.  It usually takes 24-72 hours for Amazon to review a book before it goes live on amazon.com. 

Set up your Amazon Author page.  This is a good place to share more information about yourself.

Amazon pays royalties to you as the author.  Currently a $0.99 Kindle book generates a $0.35 royalty.  Paperback royalties are calculated based on the size and type of layout.  You’ll need to sell many books to earn “I can live on this” money.  

Launching Your Book

It’s possible that a few people will see your newly published book on Amazon.com.  You’re in good company – as of September 2022 there were about 20 million Kindle books available.  One estimate I saw claimed there were at least 4 million self-published paperbacks.

Amazon has a ranking system for all books.  Highly-ranked books are shown to browsing customers much more often.  Their algorithm is secret and evolves, but clearly books with more (and better) reviews rank higher.  More sales means better ranking.  More people looking at your book probably helps ranking, too, even if they don’t buy.  It’s better to rank high in narrow categories than to rank low in broad categories.

Therefore, you need to draw people’s attention to your book.  You can take two approaches.

1. Tell your family and friends, post about it on social media, and people you know.  You’ll get a few sales this way but don’t have high expectations.  In my experience I received many “That’s great!” messages but saw very few sales.
2. Build a launch team.  This is a group of people (20 or more is best) you ask to review the manuscript ahead of a launch date.  You ask them to give an honest review on Amazon.com and share about the book on social media.  These early readers of your manuscript can give you valuable feedback and suggestions.  Generally, you’re going to give them a copy of the final book and some “insider” access to you.  The launch team approach takes some work up front but brings much more attention to your book.

You should certainly explore ways to building anticipation for your book.  Post a picture of the cover with a “coming soon” message.  Give people information about why you wrote this book.  “Behind the scenes” and personal content resonates with potential buyers.

Amazon allows authors purchase paperback copies at a discounted price, just above their production costs.  These are called “Author Copies.”  Most common uses:

• Gift to family, friends, colleagues, and people who helped you create/launch the book
• Give to prospects and customers for your business
• Use at speaking or conference events.  Often you can work out a deal with the event organizer to give every participant a copy; you get paid for providing the copies, and the author copies let you offer the organizer a discount from the retail price.  Or you can promote your book and sell them at a retail price at the event.  People often like signed copies.

It’s useful to periodically post on social media channels about your book with a link to purchase.  It’s rare for someone to see everything you’ve ever posted on a social media platform, so you’re hitting new audience members all the time. 

You might want to add a link to your book as part of your email signature. 

Something I’ve seen people do is to “re-launch” a book after a while.  There are new audiences to reach.  Sometimes people become interested later who passed on buying your book when you first published it.  You can even publish an updated version of your book with edited or new content.

Monitoring Sales and Reviews

KDP has easy, extensive reporting on your book sales.  You won’t get the names or contact information for the buyers (more on that below). 

I have reminders set in my productivity software to remind me to check reviews and sales reports at least weekly.  I check more often with brand-new books.  Amazon does not notify you about book reviews.

Frankly, it’s difficult to understand some purchasing patterns.  It would nice to know why you’re getting a sales spike but you might not always know.   One author acquaintance does a Google search on his book titles every few weeks to find reviewers and anyone referencing his books.  He makes a point of connecting with them, saying thanks, and addressing questions. 

Engaging with Readers Over Time

Amazon (understandably) isn’t going to provide the contact information for people who buy your book.  This is ideal for hermits who don’t want to interact with readers, but those people aren’t usually willing to do the work of writing and publishing a book.

An effective strategy is to set up a web site where you park bonus content (written, audio, video), tool or resource recommendations, maybe a discussion forum.  In your book itself you steer people to the web site.  I suggest you put information about the bonus content at the front and the end of the book so readers are more likely to act on it.

Here’s the trick: Get their email address in exchange for access to the content.  This lets you build an email list you can contact in the future. 

I won’t go into the mechanics of web sites, email acquisition and list management here – plenty of tools are available at modest prices today, and how-to information abounds.

Another approach to interact with readers is to publish an email contact in your book.  Set up a special email address; don’t use your everyday account.

One important reason to email readers is to thank them for reading your book – in effect, reinforcing that they made a good decision.

Some people create Facebook Groups around a book to facilitate information sharing and community engagement.  This is “free” except for your time.  Keep in mind that Facebook owns the platform.  If they change their rules, you might lose the community.  I would not build a whole business on Facebook because it’s a risky point of failure.

Responding to Amazon reviews and comments on social media is another way to interact with buyers. 

Go for it!

I encourage you to press ahead with any desire to publish a book.  The world needs your ideas and inspiration!  Make sure you consider all the aspects of publishing and get help to complement your skills and generate a professional-quality book.

Recommended Resources:

The Self-Publishing School has many good articles and resources.

My recommended writing tools are Scrivener (a learning curve, but designed for books) and Word

Temi.com for transcribing audio files

Fiverr.com for Gig work on book covers and interior formatting

How to set up your Amazon Author page

About building a book launch team

There are online communities of writers who share ideas and tactics for self-publishing.  These can be a great source of information but avoid letting them be a distraction from the hard work of writing a good book and getting into the hands (and minds and hearts) of readers.  Look for a community which is tailored to fiction or non-fiction, depending on what you publish.  

A curated list of Facebook writer’s groups

Most of us have a self-narrative that the world is imposing complexity and distractions into our lives, making us harried, hurried, and anxious.  These external factors are making it ‘impossible’ for us to focus, rest, be present in the moment, be creative, experience peace.

95% of you reading this, at least 50% of the time, have significant security, ample food and shelter, and loving relationships. 

Yet how difficult is it for us to sit quietly alone?  Given a few spare minutes – or if we get bored or frustrated doing something else — we check email or social media.  Many of us must have music or the television going.  An evening with no other obligations gets filled with web browsing or TV, or both.  Maybe it’s become our habit, but our behaviors tell us that our desire for muchness, manyness, and noise is rooted in ourselves.

I encourage you to explore a different self-narrative: “I’m the one craving complexity and distraction.  Going after these things will not help in the long run. I can choose to respond to these desires another way.”

Eggs will harden in hot water under pressure.

Potatoes will soften under the same conditions. 

Leaders are wise to understand there is an interaction between people and environmental conditions.  Some people become better and more capable under stress.  Others break down.  Some organizations use this as a selection strategy for the individuals and teams they want to retain.  

Over time I’ve tried to predict which people will handle stress in a way they come out more capable on the far side.  My success record is quite poor.   Some people who I judged as mushy potatoes rose to challenges magnificently.  Others I thought would surely win through collapsed in heaps of misery.  

The best strategy is to have high expectations — and monitor, encourage, adjust work loads where you can.   

Here are questions I’ve asked people in the past few months which tend to make them uncomfortable: 

“So what?” 

“Do you ever change your mind when presented with new information?”  (My friend Mike asks a nice variation on this: “Tell me about the last time you changed your mind about something important.”) 

“How do you define ‘white’ and ‘black’ in a multinational company?  What if I decide today to identify as a black woman?” 

“Will this matter to you in 3 or 30 years?” 

“If it doesn’t matter how much money the government prints, why bother to collect taxes?” 

“When was the last time screaming at someone persuaded them to love you more?” 

“Are the forces that drove cycles of ice ages and glacial retreats still at work today?” 

“Why do stories about sea level rise in Boston never mention sea level falls in Oslo?”  (The North American land mass is sinking; there are other areas in the world where the earth is uplifting.)  

“What is the difference between loving humanity and loving unlovely individuals?” 

“What are you willing to sacrifice in this situation? Your pride, perhaps?” 

“Where the line between community safety (or integrity) and individual liberty?” 

“What are we shocked at behaviors which are endemic in human history?” 

“Why not make the minimum wage one million dollars per year?” 

“Does this situation deserve unrestrained fear?” 

“What would be risk-free in a universe where the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is true?” 

“I’m intrigued with the idea of insisting leadership teams be representative and inclusive. Would that extend to a balance of liberals and conservatives, say, in college faculty?  Whites and Asians in the NBA?” 

“Do you care who gets the credit for this good thing?” 

“What questions are we now not allowed to ask, and why not?” 

I ask these questions not to be snarky or clever, but with a genuine intent of exploring ideas.  The point of questions like these is to challenge overly simplistic assumptions.  Questions are useful to sustain conversation. 

Notice in many of these questions I’m hoping to help people explore a limiting principle. How do you know when you’ve gone too far?  Where do you draw a line, and why?   People with agency – the ability to make decisions – need intelligent and wise frameworks to decide on limiting principles.  The Ten Commandments, for example, are a set of limiting principles.