Knocked the bugger off

I remember a conversation I had when I was must have been about 12 or 13.

A friend asked me what three things would be really cool to do in life.

I vividly remember my response. Write a book, host a tv show and rob a bank.

The latter wasn't in a harsh criminal way, but an Italian Job kind of way; outsmart the authorities just like Michael Caine.

Nevertheless, approximately a decade on I have ticked one of those off (well of the two that are feasible) - I have finished my first book!

In fact I have even got pre-orders up and available [see below].

It's called (like this blog) The Best Ideas are Free - 63 ideas to make you rethink the world around you.

Now to be honest, when you are my age (23) there is no downside to writing a book, even if it is a horrible failure, I can still write a book a year for the next ten years to get it right and still be ahead of other authors.

Anyway that's not what I wanted to talk about in the blog post, I wanted to discuss the process.

To give you an idea; the book was predominantly written through blog posts.

I began my blogging endeavour May 6th 2008, my aim was to do a blog post a week for 12 weeks and see how it went.

After two months I stepped up to twice a week, then a couple of months after that every business day and I haven't looked back since.

Since then I must be nearing 300 between the nzherald and the bwagy blog.

When I hit November 6th (my six month mark) I began to put the book together, so the content was already written. It was just a matter of selecting and fine tuning it.

From November till last month was back and forth with edits, changes, answering hundreds of little questions like: "how does this font impact the message?" Or "should we use a dash in 'startup' or not?"

All these tiny steps when you look at it look like a mountain, but like any mountain they can be climbed, one step at a time.

This is the approach I have taken during the whole process. The book was written bite by bite 20 - 30 minutes a day, same with the editing and now with
the sales.

You see just by staring at the top of the mountain and keep walking towards it you will get there, you just need that oblivious faith that you will.

Even when you have doubters (and believe me I've had my fair share) along the journey you find others who will give you a nudge, push you forward, or a swift kick, the important thing is you are moving step by step.

If you are climbing your own mountain at the moment, keep at it, for the view from the top is like nothing you've seen before.

* Ben Young blogs daily and is the author of the new book, The Best Ideas are Free.