As 2020 reminded us, life can abruptly become a grind full of quiet suffering, missed opportunities, and unfulfilled dreams. As if life before the pandemic and economy-destroying lockdowns wasn’t already difficult enough.
However, the space between what you want and what your life actually looks like is largely guarded by monsters and obstacles of your own creation. If you overcome these inner demons, the path toward self-realization lies bare in front of you.
Kary Oberbrunner, a self-made entrepreneur, author, and coach, has more credibility than most to tackle the problem we all face in life — how to break out of the daily prison of work drudgery and poor financial prospects.
Life dealt Kary a harsh set of cards from the beginning. From early childhood into young adulthood, he struggled with a paralyzing speech disorder, which even led to an addiction to self-injury. Eventually, through willpower and self-discipline, Kary broke out of this vicious debilitating cycle and became an inspiring beacon of hope for millions of people.
For the past two decades, his impact on the world will outlive him multifold. By helping others leverage their life experiences, Kary guides them through the peaks and valleys of public recognition and monetization.
In his book, How to Turn Your Book Into 18 Streams of Income, Kary crafted a successful income blueprint from his rich experience in launching the careers of others.
The Book Medium as a Credibility Generator
Even before the revolutionary printing press emerged in 1440, books represented vessels for maintaining civilization. In turn, book authors enjoyed high social status. Many of them achieved spiritual immortality through their authorship legacy. By creating value for people, authors left their mortal coil, knowing their insights and life stories would live on in perpetuity.
Kary Oberbrunner understands that nothing has changed significantly since then. After all, while his speech disorder made it more difficult for him to engage with other people, it made it that much easier for him to immerse his mind in the world of books. With this came Kary’s life-defining clarity — books change lives.
In the digital era, books have the capacity to change lives more than ever. Digital technology, both hardware, and software, made it possible for anyone to effectively monetize their unique expertise and life experiences.
Just like in ancient times, a book as a medium elevates one’s credibility immediately. However, Kary teaches you that you can’t use it as a business card, as many are foolheartedly eager to do.
Were you to use such an approach, where you leverage your book as a business card, you will soon find out that it will receive the same treatment as an unsolicited business card in a social gathering — the garbage bin treatment.
Instead, books should always prioritize value over a cold intent of a business transaction. If you give people a morsel of useful knowledge or skill, they will hunger for more. With this in mind, Kary outlines an 18-part ecosystem emerging from a book’s value. Each part feeds into another, creating a multi-income stream that has great potential to reach a massive audience. And the greater the number of people you reach, the bigger the top funnel you gain. In turn, this increases your bottom income funnel.
The following is just one example of how Kary employed this strategy to better the lives of millions.
How Kary Helped Amy Schmittauer to Become a Vlogging Queen
As video blogging — vlogging — was just starting out as a trend, Amy Schmittauer fully embraced it. Honing her vlogging craft and speaking skills, Amy garnered a multi-million audience on YouTube.
Unfortunately, she soon found out that a key ingredient was missing to properly monetize such a wide public reach. You guessed it — a lack of a book.
Amy noticed that even keynote speaking opportunities slipped from her grasp. She soon realized that if an event organizer has a choice between:
- A keynote speaker with a book under their belt.
- A keynote speaker without a book.
…they will almost always opt for the speaker who authored a book. This is where Kary came in and transformed Amy’s vlogging venture.
Helping her with her book, titled “Vlog Like a Boss: How to Kill It Online with Video Blogging”, Amy now manages a thriving vlogging training business, teaching others how to succeed in this sector. Moreover, thanks to Kary’s publishing prowess, she retained all of her royalty profits and intellectual property.
Speaking of publishing, it is important to note that traditional publishing takes most of the profit for itself. Before the Internet, an author would be lucky to get away with 15% of royalty income from the sale of each book. To upend this outdated model, Kary’s 18-income-stream model emphasizes a multi-faceted approach — going from paper books and hardcover books to e-books and audiobooks.
The latter alone present the fastest growing publishing platform. As audiobooks provide a low-mental-load engagement, they allow people to engage in other activities instead of forever procrastinating to dedicate precious time to read walls of text.
For example, in the United States alone, which is laid out in sprawling suburban zones, the average person commutes enough in one year, that in three years, they would listen to enough content worth of a PhD-level education.
Likewise, e-books are an excellent way to sell books. Their digital-only format means that the authors can retain 70% of the profit. Kary advises that the end of each e-book should lead the reader to more content. Accordingly, you should view books as tethering tools for more profit-bearing content — self-study courses.
Kary implemented a dozen of income generating streams into Amy’s vlogging venture. In Kary’s personalized copy of her book, she thanked him with the following note:
“Thank you for bringing my book to life.”
Don’t Let the Pandemic Stifle Your Ambition
Just as he overcame his early-life obstacles, Kary Oberbrunner has helped others to position their lives on the path to financial freedom. According to the New York Times, 81% of people believe their unique experience would pose a good material for a book.
However, only 1% of people try to materialize that belief. To make things worse, of those who become authors, most end up selling just about 250 copies per year, if lucky. Digital technology may have made everything much easier and more accessible, but it also drastically increased the competitive pool. So keep on thriving till you reach your goal.