Why I’m Serializing My Latest Book

It's not for the money

I spent the lockdown writing a memoir about becoming a Dad unexpectedly when I was 24. I’m a few weeks shy of 40 today and now have three kids, for those keeping score.

Now, I normally write business books and also books about the craft of writing and the creative process. I also cover the creator economy on my personal site.

But I wanted to do something different with this book… and I knew it’d be a tough sell for an audience of writers.

I fired up my Facebook Ads account and set up some ads to build a list of readers for launching,.. and I felt sick.

I dislike Facebook for many reasons and have always preferred organic content marketing over running ads… even for books.

So that left me with the problem of how to sell a memoir about parenting.

When I explained this problem to a friend with a similar online business, he said, “You could always let go of the outcome.”

Usually, for me, an outcome for a book is sales… and revenue. But I just wanted people to read this book. There’s no back-end, course or related products.

There are only 60,000 words about all the things I wish I’d known when I became a father for the first time some fifteen years ago. It’s the kind of advice I wish someone had set down and quietly offered over a pint.

“Anyone can become a father, becoming a Dad is much harder.”

Then, I asked myself, What would this look like if it were easy?”

The answer?

Give the book away for free…. and serialise it right here. If more people read the book, these articles and listen to the audiobook, that’s a win for me and hopefully for expectant and new dads.

I’ll hope you’ll follow along.