Jed Byrne - Self-Publishing Your First Book

Business development director and Raleigh commercial real estate enthusiast Jed Byrne joined me on Ditching Hourly to walk through the entire process of self-publishing his first book, Start Small Selling, from idea validation to Kickstarter funding to final production.

We cover testing your book idea with real money, writing a first draft in 35 days, running a Kickstarter campaign to fund professional editing, finding and working with developmental editors, designing a book cover on a budget, and publishing through KDP and Lulu.

Chapters

• (00:00) - Who Is Jed Byrne?
• (03:19) - The Hyper-Local Newsletter
• (07:59) - Why Write a Book?
• (11:41) - Testing the Idea
• (14:05) - The Writing Process
• (21:56) - The Kickstarter
• (31:04) - Building the Editing Team
• (36:23) - The Timeline
• (45:49) - Working with a Developmental Editor
• (52:40) - Designing the Cover
• (57:26) - Publishing with KDP and Lulu
• (01:00:00) - Start Small, Start Now

Guest Bio

Jed Byrne is a business development director at Barnhill Building Group, a North Carolina-based general contracting firm. Outside his day job, he runs Oak City CRE, a platform focused on Raleigh commercial real estate that includes a weekly Substack newsletter, a podcast, consulting, and his first book, Start Small Selling. You can reach Jed at [email protected].

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

People

• Jed Byrne
• Jed Byrne on LinkedIn
• Jonathan Stark
• Tim Ferriss
• Seth Godin
• Noah Kagan
• Rob Fitzpatrick
• Tucker Max
• Pat Flynn
• Chandler Bolt
• Tim Grahl
• Rochelle Moulton
• Corey Quinn
• Mike Michalowicz
• Derek Sivers
• Daniel Pink

Jed / Raleigh / AEC

• Oak City CRE
• The Top Five by Oak City CRE
• Dirt NC podcast
• Barnhill Building Group
• Start Small Selling Kickstarter
• Start Small Selling on Amazon
• Urban Land Institute
• ULI Triangle
• Jed’s book email from the episode - [email protected]

Books / Book-Building Resources

• Million Dollar Weekend by Noah Kagan
• The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
• Write Useful Books by Rob Fitzpatrick
• Help This Book
• The Workshop Survival Guide
• The Scribe Method
• SelfPublishing.com / Self-Publishing School
• Reedsy
• Editorial Freelancers Association
• Chicago Manual of Style
• ISBNs / Bowker
• Atticus

Publishing / Production / Selling Platforms

• Kickstarter
• Amazon KDP
• Lulu
• Blurb
• Shopify
• Upwork
• Fiverr
• Otterpine
• Microsoft Word
• Canva
• Inkscape
• USPS Media Mail

Podcast / Episode References

• Mike Michalowicz on The Business of Authority

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