Steve Kamb

Author & Nerd

How to Write a Bestselling Book in 10 Easy Steps (over 20 years)

Me (left) and Ostrich (right) in South Africa, 2011
This photo has nothing to do with this essay except that it makes me laugh.

In The Iliad & The Odyssey, Odysseus leaves home and goes on a 20-year… well, odyssey.

In July of 2006, I departed from my hometown of Sandwich, Massachusetts (yes, that’s actually the name of the town) to begin my post-college life.

Today, exactly 20 years later, I find myself once again in Sandwich, Massachusetts.

I recently found out that my new book, How to Try Againis now a national bestseller. It required 10 steps and 20 years of successes, failures (so many failures), and experiences.

Last weekend, I saw Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (I loved it) with my mom and sister, and as I reflected on it and my last two decades, my brain complicated things:

“Oh crap, I now have to rewrite my whole essay to tie it into The Odyssey.”

Which is why my tongue-in-cheek essay about writing a 20-year instant best seller has become a 3,000+ word, multimedia adventure chronicling my personal odyssey from construction equipment salesman to business owner and to bestselling author.

My tale might not have any wooden horses or sea monsters, but it certainly has plenty of hubris and tribulations.

Step 1: Graduate college & start my adventure

In July of 2006, my brother and I drive our crappy cars 3,000 miles from Sandwich to San Diego, the geographically farthest location in the United States from our home.

I go to work in sales for United Rentals (pictured above with my much nicer company car). I drive from job site to job site, trying to sell and rent construction equipment, getting rejected, and then sitting in my car and reading books.

I live 100 yards from the beach. It’s 75 and sunny every day. I surf frequently.

I am miserable.

Within six months, I am mentally checked out. I freak out that I’m supposed to do this for another 40+ years.

At the same time, I am learning about this thing called “nutrition.”

It turns out that when I combine nutrition with strength training. I transform myself physically. This is a lightbulb moment. After reading Tim Ferriss’s The Four Hour Workweek, I buy NerdFitness.com, a website that I have no idea what to do with.

I like the idea of helping nerds get fit and avoiding the years of mistakes I have made.

I decide something has to change.

Step 2: Quit my job, move again, get a great job

16 months after moving to San Diego, I drive from San Diego to Atlanta in my crappy car (which now has busted AC and heat).

I move in with college roommates and get a job as a marketing assistant with Sixthman, a small company that produces floating music festivals. I still have no idea what to do with NerdFitness.com, but that is put on the back burner.

I spend 3 incredible years working for Sixthman.

I help them launch a blog and a podcast. I get to interview Zac Brown Band and Brandi Carlile and Ed Roland of Collective Soul. I host flip cup tournaments with Sister Hazel. I smuggle John Mayer off a cruise ship.

It is an absurd few years, I don’t get paid much. And I am having so much damn fun.

I love my coworkers. I learn about the power of community. I discover creative writing. I finally have an idea for what to do with my little idea helping nerds get fit.

Step 3: Spend nights and weekends turning Nerd Fitness into a community.

While working for Sixthman, I spend my nights and weekends writing essays for Nerd Fitness.

(Okay, I actually spend my nights and weekends playing video games, until my computer broke and I don’t have any money to fix it, so I THEN throw myself into Nerd Fitness.)

OKAY FINE. I actually start a music blog first, and realize two weeks in that I don’t want to write about this! So I switch and focus fully on Nerd Fitness.

I spend 6 months writing bad essays to an audience of nobody.

I then inject more “Steve” and humor into my writing. I write longer essays that cover topics completely. People start to trickle in. I am inspired.

I decide Nerd Fitness needs to be more than just “One dude gives out advice” and decide to focus on the community of Nerd Fitness.

I ask readers if we should “build an empire” or “start a rebellion.” They remind me the Empire is evil in Star Wars. We must become the Rebellion.

And thus, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is born, complete with rules and a Rebel-alliance color scheme:

I spend months polishing and writing a guest post for Art of Manliness (created by Brett McKay ) which grows my audience considerably. I discover a true love for writing and see a path for my future:

I will write, and find ways for people to support my writing. Hopefully.

Step 4: Quit my job again, launch into the unknown again.

I have some money saved, a small audience, and low expenses.

I quit my fun job. Many people think I am crazy. I also think I am crazy. And yet, I cannot be more excited for my future.

I publish an essay called “Taking up the Cause Full Time.”

I spend months writing the Rebel Fitness Guide, an ebook with exercise videos, nutrition guidance, and workout routines.

I sheepishly publish it with a price of $29 and ask people to support my work.

I sell 5x more copies than I expected. I cry. I can now afford to focus fully on Nerd Fitness, and I start to see a glimmer of hope that my years of work are starting to gain traction.

In 2010, I sell all of my belongings and turn my life into a video game. I call it my “Epic Quest of Awesome,” because I am incapable of giving anything a simple name:

I then decide to up the stakes and do something a bit rash.

I book a 16-flight, 35,000 year-long odyssey for $418 and briefly take over the internet (Gizmodo, Hacker News, major publications).

This is where my life truly becomes a video game:

I spend 14 months living out of a backpack, busting my butt and building Nerd Fitness while living in hostels.

I create a viral-ish video about me exercising around the world:

I build Nerd Fitness while doing all of the customer service, writing multiple articles per week, and more.

I move to Ecuador for a month, and then fly to Atlanta to give a TEDx talk at Emory about turning life into a game:

I think there might be a future for me with writing and community building.

More and more people find out about my work.

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Step 5: Meet my (unknowing) mentor

Every hero needs a mentor on their journey.

Fortunately, I have found mine.

(By the way, the term “Mentor” comes from the Odyssey – that’s the name of Telemachus’s teacher!)

While creating Nerd Fitness, I stumble across author and travel-hacking extraordinaire Chris Guilleabeau: A guy who writes about travel, lives an unconventional life, and makes a living doing so!

I decide Chris is my Yoda.

Which is why halfway through my around the world adventure, I head to Portland, OR to attend Chris’s first conference, the World Domination Summit.

(It’s at this conference where I meet many lifelong friends, including Jodi Ettenberg whose story I will tell 15 years later in Chapter 9 of How to Try Again.)

Chris he doesn’t know me, but I explain to him he inspired me to book my around the world trip and start my website.

I explain how I turned my life into a video game and I have an idea for a book about helping others gamify their life too.

Chris says “follow me,” walks me over to his friend David and says, “This is Steve, you should help him write a book.” I learn that David is a book agent. He’s nice enough to hear my story.

I share my story, thus beginning begins a 14+ year friendship/partnership that continues to this day.

Step 6: I hear the siren song of “more”

I get crowdsurfed at Camp Nerd FItness 2016. I am smiling on the outside, freaking out on the inside

Nerd Fitness explodes in size and popularity.

The eye of Google (and search engines) decides to shine brightly upon Nerd Fitness, and the company grows.

I continue my years-long strategy of publishing two long, deeply researched essays per week. As time goes on, this helps Nerd Fitness to an audience of 1.5 million monthly visitors.

Any product or service we launch is an instant success. We create Camp Nerd Fitness and hundreds of nerds fly in from all over the world to attend.

Photo by @WillByington © 2022

Opportunities start falling onto my lap.

David helps me get a book deal, and I decide to move to New York City. I am thinking bigger! Better! More! Faster!

I spend 12-ish months writing my book, Level Up Your Life, while also running Nerd Fitness.

Side note: this book’s publisher has been acquired, and I was able to get the publishing rights back, which is why it’s not currently available! I’m hope to put out a new version in the coming year hopefully!

The first signs of burnout start to form.

In 2016, my book comes out, and I promote it to my worldwide audience almost apologetically: “By the way, I wrote a book, please consider buying it? Okay sorry for bothering you.”

I do go on a really fun self-funded book tour (essentially setting lots of money on fire), but then immediately shift my focus back to Nerd Fitness.

This fall, I am invited to a small writer retreat with writers who will become some of the best selling nonfiction authors of the past decade.

I realize how deeply they care about writing, and have structured their lives and businesses around writing.

I love writing too. I admire the heck out of these guys.

But that siren song of “you must build a big business” is still playing. The voice in my head tells me:

I have a big company now! With lots of employees! I cannot let these opportunities pass me by! Nerd Fitness is a business that needs me! The company needs me! I am very important and that is the most important thing!

Focusing on writing and doing what I’m good at will have to wait. I must instead be a bad manager.

Steve, meet hubris. Hubris, meet Steve.

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Step 7: Nerd Fitness grows, Steve gets burned out

For three more years, Nerd Fitness grows ever bigger.

Weeks before Covid-19, I have relocated from NYC to Nashville, TN (the third time I’ve lived here).

Covid happens.

Nerd Fitness is currently the #1 search term for “Online Coaching”, which everybody starts looking for when every gym shuts down. Nerd Fitness grows even bigger. More, more, more, bigger, bigger, bigger. Opportunities like this might not come along again!

Nerd Fitness is now 40+ people, and I find most of my work is now to create enough money to justify the size of the team we have.

Professionally, I am no longer doing work I am excited about or uniquely qualified to do. I am avoiding meetings. I’m a bad boss and worse manager. I develop anxiety being in charge of a team of this size.

I learn that I am an “insecure overachiever.” I finally accept I have been chasing the wrong goal with the wrong success target.

Fortunately, life teaches me this lesson repeatedly until I finally pay attention.

Once again, I decide things need to change.

Step 8: Demote myself, get back to writing, have my life fall apart.

I reach out to my book agent David about writing my next book.

He tells me he’s at NASA with one of his other authors, Andy Weir (The Martian, Project Hail Mary). I make a note to start using the joke, “Between Andy and I, we’ve sold tens of millions of copies of our books.”

Fortunately, David is excited about the idea of me writing another book. I spend months working on a book proposal, and David politely informs me my idea is not very good.

I come back to him on January 1st 2023 with a few sentences:

“What about a book for after failing at a new years resolution?

A book for the moment after life gets in the way.”

I demote myself at Nerd Fitness. I spend four months writing and rewriting the proposal. A bidding war breaks out with multiple big-5 publishers. I click really well with Pete, my editor at St. Martin’s Press. I sign a deal and immediately develop impostor syndrome I start to freak out that I now actually have to write the book.

Fortunately, I have decided to treat this book with the care it deserves.

I spend a year writing and rewriting a few drafts, and then my life doesn’t go according to plan.

I learned “just work harder” does not always solve every problem:

  • I go through an amicable but heartbreaking divorce. I reevaluate all of my carefully constructed plans for the future.
  • I have a patch of basal cell carcinoma (the good kind of skin cancer) removed from the top of my head, which is sutured shut. I am now afraid of the sun.
  • ChatGPT and Google scrape my content and give people their answers without needing to visit Nerd Fitness. Nerd Fitness’s web traffic, 1.5 million monthly visitors, starts to leak like Odysseus’s ship. We lose 80%+ of our visitors.

I inform Pete my editor that my book will not be turned in on time.

I explain I will need at least one more year to rewrite it. The book will expand in scope beyond just “what happens when you fail at a goal” and instead “what happens when life kicks your ass and hard work alone won’t fix it?”

Fortunately he says, “I don’t want a fast book, I want a great book that is going to help people. Let’s get it there.”

Step 9: Fire myself. Spend 3 years writing and rewriting

I feel like I’m stuck between two impossible choices, like Odysseus trying to navigate the sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis:

OPTION 1 (Charybdis): Half-ass my book and try to fix Nerd Fitness, knowing that search engine traffic is never going to come back. The age of “writing informative essays that people will find through google” is over. I will probably mess up both the book and NF.

OPTION 2 (Scylla): Focus on a book that I’m struggling to push across the finish line, and let Nerd Fitness be run by more capable people. But Nerd Fitness will probably have to evolve.

I choose option B. I fire myself from Nerd Fitness and devote 100% of my effort to writing my book. NF goes through a heartbreaking and ego-shattering downsizing as the company tries to adapt to a new world.

In total, I spend 3ish years writing my book full-time.

Along the way, I check my ego and ask for help. I get trusted advice from friends. I conduct interviews and boots on the ground research. I work with my editor. I write and rewrite the intro a million times. I treat the craft of writing with the respect and attention it deserves.

I stop trying to write the perfect book, and instead I write the most Steve book possible. I learn to accept myself for who I am, with my strengths and weaknesses.

I finally announce to my audience the challenges I have been facing personally and professionally. I get hundreds of supportive replies.

I find the courage to put these failures on the second page of my book.

It also now has a new title: How to Try Again:

I realize this is what we do at Nerd Fitness better than anybody:

We help busy people transform after they’ve tried everything else and can’t seem to make change stick. We teach them HOW to try again differently so they stop repeating the same mistakes.

I write 20-ish drafts of my book, making it better and better and better, more and more like “Steve your best friend is going on this journey with you.”

My publisher is in love with the book, and I tell him “I just need a few more months to make it even better.” I have his trust, and Pete agrees. I get even more help from friends, and finally sign off on my book in August of 2025.

The result is something I’m incredibly proud of.

Step 10: Spend 6 months writing and pre-recording interviews.

It is now December of 2025.

I reach out to every contact I’ve made over the previous 17 years of writing, go on dozens of podcasts, write as many guest posts as possible, and send my book out to 100+ authors and entrepreneurs.

I pre-accept any outcome and declare expectation bankruptcy.

Instead, I focus on what I can control: I put a ball in my jar every time I do a podcast or write an essay. My goal is to fill this jar over the coming years, without expectation.

I announce my book to my audience. Behind the scenes, I spend months prepping and writing newsletters, guest posts, and more.

I start to get early signals that my book is resonating with early readers and decision makers.

I get fun phone calls from my editor that my book is acquired for publication in multiple languages before it’s even published: Italy, Brazil, Poland, Slovakia, Greece, Taiwan, France, with more to come!). These publishers are judging the book solely on its content and its promise. I allow myself to get excited, but know this is just the start of a long journey.

The week before publication, I fly to Boise, Idaho for another conference Craft + Commerce, where my friend Nathan Barry has been kind enough to make sure all 450 people in attendance get a copy of my book.

At the suggestion of my friend Tim Grahl, I wear a custom shirt so that everybody can put a face with the name. It says “I WROTE THIS” with a picture of my book cover.

Here I am with Cat Mulvihill and Chenell Basilio

Exhausted and excited, I return to Nashville for launch week.

I sign hundreds of copies of my book at Parnassus Books.

I spend a week doing even more press, publicity, and interviews. with all the press I’ve done so far, with a few of my favorite or noteworthy pieces of material.

I host a book event at Parnassus, where I am interviewed by Tim (who suggested the t-shirt idea) My insecurities have me worried nobody will show up, but lots of people show up! People drove from many states away to attend!

Here is a fairly complete list of all the locations I have showed up over the past few weeks:

Newsletters, Guest Posts, & Interviews

Podcast Appearances

I hope to have hundreds of additional opportunities in the coming years to share the principles and stories of my book.

A few weeks later, while I’m working on my I get a call from my editor:

“How to Try Again made it on the USA Today Bestseller list!”

I remember thinking, “I guess I can now refer to myself as a ‘bestselling author?’” Weird. It still feels surreal that my book is actually out in the world and people are reading it!

I am proud of the fact that I went through years of hell, found my voice and my path, and treaded water long enough to put my book out into the world.

It’s the most “Steve” thing I’ve ever done.

Thousands and thousands and thousands of copies of my book are now out in the world, and more people every day are finding it.

Maybe most importantly, I am not burned out.

I am excited.

I am so proud of my book. I wrote the crap outta this thing! I am excited to continue talking about this book and the concepts for years to come. I am going to fill up that jar, because that’s all I can truly control.

It’s my job to sell 20,000+ copies of my book through grit and hard work. It’s then my book’s job, if I’ve written something of high enough quality, to sell itself through word-of-month to reach 100,000 copies and beyond.

(By the way, thank you to everybody who has already read the book and left a review or told a friend to buy a copy).

Back into the great unknown

This is that full circle moment of the Hero’s Journey when I’ve returned “home.”

I now sit in the same spot where I began my journey 20 years ago.

I drove from Nashville to Cape Code to visit family. I am 20 years older, with lots of grey hair. I have 20 years of amazing, wonderful, heartbreaking, delightful, bizarre adventures behind me.

How to Try Again is out in the world, and is already scheduled to be published in 9 different languages (with more to follow).

By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way to Ireland for my first proper vacation in 3 years. I’ll also be playing golf at some of the world’s most picturesque courses.

I’ll then return to Nashville TN where I will continue to write essays, give talks, and promote the ideas and concepts of How to Try Again for years to come.

I will tell people:

I’ll encourage people to share their failures on the Wall of Failure:

I hope to write more books, because I loved the hard work required.

While the rest of the business world tells me “go all in on AI or get left behind,” I’m going all in on humanity.

I write this newsletter to you without knowing what my future holds.

Instead of trying to plan my future more carefully, I’m instead learning to accept that I’m where I need to be right now, doing exactly what I need to be doing:

Being a mortal, fallible human on earth, and sharing my experiences with people who want to read them.

If you’re still reading, that’s you. Thank you for being here.

I hope my book continues to sell and help people, and I’m going to do my best to make sure this happens.

Part of me wonders where I will be 20 years from now. Hopefully still writing these essays. But there’s no effin’ way I could have predicted how the last 20 years would have turned out. So, most of me is perfectly content not knowing what comes next.Other than “Go to Ireland, have fun, tell people about my book,” I don’t have much planned out.

Works for me!

Steve

PS: If you enjoyed this journey, I could use your help!

  • Please check out How to Try Again, available wherever books are sold.
  • If you’ve read my book, you’d be my hero if you left a reviewon Amazon!
  • Tell a friend who could benefit from my book.
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