Self-Publishing for Smart People

Q: What is an example of something really stupid that you tried?

A: When I self-published my first book, The Art of Seeing Double or Better in Business, I received over 50 defective copies. Of course, every problem is an opportunity. So I had the defective copies cut in half. I sent either the top half or the bottom half with a copy of a creative sales letter to major corporations. If corporations wanted the book, they had to buy a minimum of 10 copies.

This idea ended up making me an additional $15,000 in revenues from book sales and the seminars about creativity that I was hired for. Furthermore, I ended up getting valuable publicity in two newspapers about this truly unique marketing technique. One of the articles took up almost the entire front page of the business section in The Edmonton Sun. (A full-page advertisement would have cost $5,000 and not have been one-tenth as effective.) This free publicity later helped me sell copies of my signature book The Joy of Not Working (now over 325,000 copies sold).

Q: Apparently most traditionally published books sell fewer than 500 copies in their lifetime. What's the key to having a bestselling book?

A: Simple: Write a remarkable book — one worth making remarks about! Just to be clear, however, these are the 5 Rs of a Remarkable Book:

♥  Remarkable Title

♥  Remarkable Subtitle

♥  Remarkable Cover

♥  Remarkable Content

♥  Remarkable Promotion

If you don't have all of these, take my advice, you ain't going to make a decent living in the self-publishing business. You will do much better either growing turnips or sawing wood for a living. 

In this regard, Mark Twain advised, "Write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this circumstance with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for."

Q: Which of the 5 R's of a Remarkable Book is the most important?

A: Remarkable Content is the most important of the first 4. But Remarkable Promotion is just as important as Remarkable Content. As I said in my first book, that was about creativity: "You can have the best product in the world, but if you can't market it — you may as well have the worst product in the world." Getting back to books, I have been saying this for years: CONTENT MAY BE KING BUT PROMOTION IS THE SUPREME EMPEROR!

Q: Are you the expert on this? 

A: No, there are individuals who are much more intelligent and knowledgeable than I am. For example, check out Author Marketing Strategist Charlie Hoehn  who has helped several authors sell over 1,000,000 copies of their respective books. In 2025, I paid Charlie $1,000 for a one-hour consultation. He may have learned just as much from me as I learned from him. But the $1,000 was well spent.

Q: What did you learn from Charlie Hoehn?

A: Don't be a penny-pinching pauper. Hire him yourself for an hour of consultation. The image below is of a YouTube video in which Charlie is giving advice on how to create a bestselling book such as Atomic Habits by James Clear.

You can also check Charlie Hoehn's 12 Tests To Maximize Your Book’s Potential To Sell A Million Copies. Here is a summary of Charlie's criteria for a book to have a great chance at selling a million copies. (I give my answers for How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free. Of course, I may be extremely delusional and that may be the reason that the book has sold only 475,000 copies so far.) 

Test #1: Are You The Embodiment of Your Book? ♥ Yes

Test #2: Does Your Book Create a Category? ♥ Yes

Test #3: Is Your Book Insanely Valuable?  ♥ Yes

Test #4: Does Your Book Transform The Reader? ♥ Yes

Test #5: Is Your Book Accessible to The Masses?  ♥ Yes

Test #6: Will People Talk About Your Book?  ♥ Yes

Test #7: Is Your Book Timely and Timeless?   ♥ Yes

Test #8: Will Your Book Become Part of the Reader's Identity?  ♥ Yes

Test #9: Is Buying & Gifting Your Book a No-Brainer? ♥ Yes

Test #10: Are You and Your Book Media-Worthy?  ♥ Yes

Test #11: Will You Successfully Launch Your Book? * No, I am lazy. 

Test #12: Will Your Book Get Ongoing Massive Distribution? * No, the book only has US Bookstore distribution with Simon & Schuster

Q: What type of book promotion is the most effective? 

A: In my opinion, it's using techniques that no one else — or few people — are using. My previous success has been a result of 75 of my own unique "marketing" techniques that 95% of authors and so called "book marketing experts" — not to mention AI — are not creative or clever enough to come up with. These "marketing" techniques involve what my competitors are NOT doing — instead of what my competitors are doing. 

A few years ago book marketing guru John Kremer on Facebook said he was looking for more ideas for the new edition of his book 1,001 Ways to Market Your Books. So I sent him a few of my marketing techniques — which I didn't think he would use. Surprisingly (to me), he did a blog post about some of them titled Ernie Zelinski: Creative Book Marketing Strategies. Of course, sending John Kremer some of my marketing techniques was another marketing technique to get me publicity in the new edition of his book. As it turns out, I got publicity on his blog post too.

Alas, a lot of my unique techniques and those recommended in John Kremer's 1,001 Ways to Market Your Books  no longer work. So for markeing the 25th Anniversary Updated Edition of my flagship book How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free, I am in the process of generating a lot more, many of which I won't think of for at least a year or two. This photo shows the original edition of HTRHW&F on the left and the 25th Anniversary Updated on the right. Because things has changed so much since I brought out the original edition 25 years ago, my marketing techniques have to be much different than I originally used.

Q: If you are so good at book promotion, why is your website so ugly?

A: I am glad that you asked. This goes back to over 20 years ago. When the Internet was in its infancy, I took a course about Internet marketing at the Internet Marketing Centre in Vancouver. There the expert said that ugly websites make more money than great looking websites designed by professional web designers. Many years later, at the Author 101 Conference in Las Vegas, Tom Antion, who was earning over $500,000 a month from Internet marketing proclaimed, "I make my cheap websites intentionally ugly and my $100 or $200 websites will outsell the $1 million websites every day of the year."

Things haven't changed all that much over time. Marketing guru Seth Godin much more recently informed, "Pretty websites . . . are rarely websites that convert as well as unpretty ones." In other words, again, ugly websites generally make more money than great looking websites designed by professional website designers.

Q: I don't believe a word of what you say about ugly websites making more money. How can that be?

A: Whether you believe the truth or don't believe it — the truth still remains the truth. I created several ugly retirement websites that helped How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free to become the bestselling retirement book in the US bookstore market. Furthermore, check out the website of Kevin O'Leary (Mr. Wonderful) and that of billionaire Warren Buffett and his trillion-dollar Berkshire Hathaway Corporation. 

The point is: If Warren Buffett doesn't require a professionally designed website, neither do I. Insofar as Mr. Wonderful, his flashy, expensive website hasn't helped him sell as many of his books as I have sold of mine. Remember that he is much more famous than me and has a much larger platform.

Q: Why does your advice sound so much different than that of a lot of experts in the field of self-publishing?

A: I believe in telling the truth. Indeed, I follow the advice of this fine gentleman:

"Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you're right and you know it, speak your mind. Speak your mind even if you are a minority of one. The truth is still the truth."  — Mohandas Gandhi

Q: Why don't you share all your book promotion techniques with everyone else?

A: To put things in perspective, I defer to my favorite artist. When Pablo Picasso was in his 80s, he was sitting in a cafe in Spain, doodling on a napkin. He was relaxed, drawing whatever amused him. Some woman sitting near him was looking on in awe.

After a few moments, Picasso finished his coffee and crumpled up the napkin to throw away as he was leaving. The woman stopped him. "Wait," she asked, "Can I have that napkin? I'll pay for it" 

"Sure," Picasso replied. "That will be $20,000."

"What? It took you like 2 minutes to draw that," said the woman. "No, ma'am," Picasso said. "It took me over 60 years to draw this." He stuffed the napkin in his pocket and walked out of the cafe.

In the same vein, it took me over 35 years to come up with my unique marketing techniques. As Pablo Picasso said, "That will be $20,000."

Furthermore, as Richard Bach said in his book "Illusions: "Learn what the magician knows and it's not magic anymore." 

Here are 3 major reasons why I will not share my unique book marketing techniques for free:

1. If I share my unique marketing techniques for free, a lot of people will start using them and the techniques will become ineffective.

2. Worse, some sleezy so-called book marketing experts will claim that they came up with my techniques themselves. Trust me, there are a lot of unscrupulous people in this business.

3. Just as bad, all my techniques will eventually appear on AI in some form of Generic Slop — that the Certified Full Goose Bozos (CFGBs) of this world will greedily soak up with glee. 

Q: What's the easiest way to become a successful self-publisher?

A: Follow The EZ Rule of Life.

Q: What the heck is The EZ Rule of Life?

A: It’s a basic principle of the universe and a very powerful one indeed. The degree to which we adhere to The EZ Rule of Life will determine the satisfaction and happiness we achieve throughout your whole lives. The principle is so important that I wrote an inspirational fable about it called Look Ma, Life’s Easy, which was published in 5 foreign languages (French, Chinese, Spanish, Korean, and Russian) before it was published in English. (See photo on the left of all editions.) 

The EZ Rule of Life is represented in the diagram below:

The essence of The EZ Rule of Life is straightforward: If we do what is easy and comfortable, life ends up being difficult and uncomfortable. The vast majority of writers and self-publishers choose this because short-term comfort seems more appealing than the alternative. But one problem with a comfortable life is that it has few payoffs in satisfaction and properity.

Unfortunately, most of us gravitate toward less pain and more pleasure. Choosing the easy way, however — the one with much comfort and pleasure — ensures that we wind up in a rut. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the dimensions. In the rut we join the living-dead, and in the grave we join the dead-dead.

If we do the difficult and uncomfortable, however, life ends up being easy and comfortable. The 10 percent of individuals who take this route know they must experience short-term discomfort for long-term gains. By undertaking difficult and uncomfortable activities, they experience satisfaction and accomplishment in their lives. 

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Q: What has changed since you first self-published your first book in 1989?

A: In some ways a lot has changed and in some ways not so much has changed. It was difficult to become a successful self-publisher way back then; it's 10 to 100 times as difficult today due to a number of reasons. 

What hasn't changed much is that most people who want to become successful self-publishers think it's easy and aren't prepared to put in the work required. Also, a lot of people entering the field of self-publishing just don't have the 3C Visions required. Instead they possess 3D Vision, with consists of the three elements of Distortion, Delusion, and Denial. That's why so many writers get scammed nowadays by con artists claiming the ability to help writers succeed.

Bestselling author J.A. Konrath (whose books have sold in the millions) said it best about the various programs being sold to writers and self-publishers: "Selling hope to the hopeless is big business." In this regard, Benjamin Franklin warned:  "He that lives upon hope alone will die fasting."

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