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What It's About
Sports writer takes a gamble on self-publishing and wins big.
Business Model
Coaching
Skills Required
Writing & Communication
Complexity
Low
Profit Potential
Medium
Words of Wisdom
Matt says that to come up with a book idea of your own, ask all your friends and acquaintances to join your personal email list. Then, ask them questions similar to the following; What problems have I helped friends, family and coworkers with? What are your biggest accomplishments in life? What do you pay money to learn?
Fun Fact
There are now over one million books self-published in the US every year. With so many books hitting the virtual shelves of stores like Amazon it’s hard to stand out from the crowd. Which is why most sales go to only a small percentage of the books published.
Notes from Chris
Episode 955
Matt Rudnitsky was working as a writer and editor for a sports blog when he first became interested in gambling. He began placing a few bets as a way of making his favorite sporting events more exciting. He never took it too seriously and lived by the old mantra of “never gamble more than you are willing to lose.” As a writer himself, Matt was shocked to notice there was very little useful content out there on gambling. Nothing that encouraged people to make informed decisions about how to bet. Most of the information was of low quality, and typically written to promote online gambling websites. Matt was keen to learn more, and not from someone who had a chance to win big at his expense. That meant scouring Twitter and online message boards for winning advice. After months of research, he decided to put his money to the test. He took one hundred dollars, gifted to him by his grandma for his birthday, and started to play! As he gained more knowledge and experience, he managed to turn one hundred dollars into ten thousand over the course of two years. Then, he got cocky! He forgot what he learned and became reckless. Within two months, he had lost it all and was back to zero … let this be a reminder to gamble responsibly, which for many of us means not at all. With his bankroll bruised and broken, Matt realized something else. He hadn’t been following any real system … in fact he’d actually gotten lucky. He’d been playing for table stakes without earning a seat at the table. It was a crushing blow, but, instead of giving up he decided to double down. But not on gambling, on something else entirely. He thought about his experience over the last two years, the highs and the lows. When recounting the story to friends they all found it highly entertaining. So, he decided to write a book. It would be part memoir, part education, and all fun. In it, he’d chronicle how he’d won big and lost it all, and what he learned along the way so readers wouldn’t make the same mistakes. Sort of like a self-help book dedicated to gamblers. For a couple of months he chipped away at the book and, in October 2014, Matt published his tell-all as a 114-page ebook on Amazon. Two months later, Matt received a royalty check for $1,150.06 and was absolutely shocked. He celebrated back in Prague by drinking too much Pilsner at the bar. Worth it! With that success, his life was never the same. He felt like a real, bonafide writer. Over the next year, his book earned $6,000 and, within three years he’d netted $14,000 in totally passive profits and sold thousands of copies. Totally by accident! Which, since inception in 2017 have netted him over six figures in revenue with an average of $5,000 per month. The only downside is that, like gambling itself, the results are mixed. Sometimes Matt will have big wins in the form of very profitable months, other times, huge losses in the form of no revenue at all. He’s working to solve this problem by creating an online course outlining his whole process. His hope is that it will bring more consistency to his earnings.MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Rud:LOL: Roll the dice—head on over to Matt's website to learn more about his self-publishing success and his self-publishing business, Platypus Publishing
- Smart Sports Betting: How To Shift From Diehard Fan To Winning Gambler: Head over here if you're interested in checking out Matt's book on gambling
- WordPress: Matt used WordPress to set up his site, and here you can learn how to install your own WordPress site in 5 minutes
- Paternal Twins Produce Passive Publishing Profits: When two identical twins start self-publishing ebooks, they build an $8,000/month income stream while traveling to twelve countries
- Australian Designer Starts Publishing Company, Hires Herself: A freelance designer creates a publishing company to produce and collaborate on books for female creatives
- Lawyer Moonlights as Needle-Felt Children’s Book Author: A Canadian lawyer uses the art of needle-felting to create a profitable series of children’s books
Quote of the Day
"Distill your book idea into a catchy 'hook' and test it on your audience. Find a few places your ideal audience hangs out online and post it there, too. Repeat until one of your ideas strikes an emotional chord."
—Matt Rudnitsky #SideHustleSchool
