The $100 Startup – Yeah, I Can Do THAT!
So one of the blogging circles I cyber-stalk is composed of the following LONG list of interesting people:
Well, never mind. I just spent a half-hour working on this super long list but it was so fucking boring that I deleted it. My hubz is going to be pretty ticked that I wasted that much time with nothing to show for it. This is my JOB, people. If I don’t write, the boss gets upset, and then he doesn’t bring me any more Cokes, a full-out tragedy.
But listen, if you read my posts regularly, you likely don’t give a shit about a bunch of boring do-gooders. I don’t do boring. The bloggers in question are all great though. Trust.
It’s funny to me how many times their names (all those ones I just erased) crop up on each others blogs. And when one of them writes a book (which happened a lot in the last year), I get to read all about the launch at least 500-billion-trillion times, because they don’t merely reference each other as great all-around advice-giving writers — they also support and push each others projects.
By the time I’ve gone full-circle through my blog-reading nerdiness, I know without a doubt that if I don’t go run out and purchase this item (and by “run”, of course, I mean MEANDER, and by “out”, of course, I mean AMAZON VIA MY LAPTOP IN THE NEXT ROOM), I will forever be left out of their cool clique, and be forced to sit at the lunch table reserved for nerds, dorks, geeks, and misfits. Not that I stood a chance of being invited to sit with them in the first place. But that’s okay because they’re boring anyway. JERKS!
Anyway, most of the people on this now-deleted list have just recently published a book (Shit, I think I already said that, so just pretend I’m not repeating myself here, okay?), and a few of them have even gotten together to form some kind of independent publishing company, whose forum looks pretty sweet, called Asymetrical.
Here’s a list of some of the books so you can get an idea of what’s being passed around in this secret society:
Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, by Michael Hyatt
The Fire Starter Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide to Creating Success on Your Own Terms, by Danielle LaPorte
Iceland India Interstate, by Colin Wright
Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life, by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus
Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance, by Jonathan Fields
One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, by Tsh Oxenreider
Living in the Land of Enough, by Courtney Carver
The Flinch, by Julien Smith
They talk about everything from personal finances, to minimalism, to entrepreneurial junk… see? BORING! This crap is all good on a one-to-one level… like if you are interested in specific names you can contact me and I won’t think any less of you, because obviously I read them too. I just don’t like writing about it, and clearly you don’t want to read that here, either.
Plus, I learned in April that apparently this here bloggy-blog, The World 4 Realz, is NOT a self-help or personal growth blog. This blog is more of a “That Shit Happened…” blog.
“That Shit Happened… and it was so funny!”
“That Shit Happened… and it seriously pissed me off!”
“That Shit Happened… and I was all like, NO FUCKING WAY?!”
“That Shit Happened… and I got away with it.”
“That Shit Happened… and it was in the closet the whole time!”
“That Shit Happened… and then I hid under my afghan and it went away.”
So I’ve reached somewhat of an impasse, my homies. I really want to do a book review. But I don’t want to be boring. And if the book is really good, which I suspect to be the case, then I will have a hard time finding a funny way to say, “That shit had some seriously GREAT material!” without sounding a bit repetitive or even lie-ish.
You must think I’m all over the page here, but I promise this comes together. Follow me, you short-attention-spanned freak.
That whole list of people I deleted? And all those books they wrote, which I didn’t delete but which in hindsight are kind of boring too, in a “lists make me yawn” sort of way? One of the NEWEST of them, and thus currently the most talked-about and promoted is:
The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future,
by Chris Guillebeau
And yeah, okay, I admit I bought it.
I did it for YOU.
Nah, that’s a straight-up lie.
I did it because I am awesome. I can TOTALLY find a way to market my awesomeness for less than $100. Jenny Lawson AKA The Bloggess did it. Well, I mean to say, I have no clue if she spent more than $100 or not, but she did indeed find a way to market her awesomeness. And I bet she didn’t even READ this book (which makes her WAY more awesome than I, since she did it without the help of Chris, but nobody likes a gloater, Jenny). So I am going to read the shit out of this book, and I am going to find a way to review it in a non-boring fashion, and I am going to make it funny, and on top of all that, I am going to turn myself into a superstar.
Or at least, I am going to be a speaker at my local B&N. That could be cool, too, in a “big fish, small pond” sort of way. We can’t ALL be Jenny. Someone has to stay home and just be the local, small-town celebrity. I throw down my flag here and now — this land shall be mine!