Book Theft for Prostate Cancer

One of my biggest fears when I set out to start a business was the the thought of someone stealing from me.

Stealing my ideas.

Stealing my intellectual property.

Copying my content.

Or pirating and re-selling illegally.

Much to my surprise – most all of the above has occurred. It only took me around 3 years!

And, believe it or not, I’m pretty happy that all of it has come to pass.

(Don’t get me wrong – I’m not pleased people have attempted to illegally profit off of my work or otherwise steal from me, and I will always act to defend myself – but there’s definitely a silver lining to this I never realized before starting out.)

Unless you’re a fairly confident small business owner, that won’t make sense to you. So, indulge me for a few minutes, and I’ll tell you the story about why this brings me happiness.

Book Theft

Last week, I got an email from a customer near and dear to my heart – Emrah.

He wrote:

“I would like to inform you of a situation. I came across an online bookstore, I saw your book ‘Quit Aspiring‘ on this website and its price was $13. Then I decided to write them to find out if it was a legal sale. You can take a look at the screenshot of the chat below.

As soon as I told them I’d as YOU about the sale of your book, they removed the book from the website. If they had said that the sale was legal I would have asked you – no matter what – because I already googled the bookstore and lots of people complain about it.”

When you see something like this, I feel like you have two ways to respond.

Freak out and get really upset, start googling cease & desist notices and other nonsense
Be thankful to your customers, inform them, and humblebrag

The first option seems like the appropriate and sensible response at first glance, right?

You’d think so – until you realize that we’re talking about data on the internet versus a small business owner. As much as I’d love to mount an incredible legal battle against a craptastic internet “bookstore” that I’m never going to name publicly – there’s probably not much that I can do.

If they’re outright stealing my property, the likelihood of getting appropriate legal recourse outside of sending a cease & desist (which I’d have to pay for the privilege of getting written) is very small.

But – even better – my customer in this case essentially acted as my personal cease & desist letter on my behalf.

(By the way, I’m always happy to reward customers for things like this.)

Therefore, we move to option 2.

Plus, it’s not often that I humblebrag and sometimes – especially when it’s about you all – I really enjoy it.

Be Unique, Be Helpful

I rattle on to you all the time about the importance of standing out and finding something unique about what you do for a living. It’s not just important for helping you find a job – it’s important for almost everything you do.

I stand out by teaching and being… a little blunt at times. I provide you written content weekly, books, courses, answer email questions, and if you get to Seattle I’m always happy to buy you lunch.

For you, my dear friend, I’m usually willing to bend over backward. I want – desperately – to see you succeed. It’s often more fulfilling for me than finding my own success. I’ve done much of the cool things I wanted to do, and I enjoy spreading the joy around.

Surprisingly to me – that’s built a chunk of loyalty from both you and others in the industry.

I’m now blessed to have had –

Friends intentionally put me in touch with others just to connect good people together
Friends reach out to others in their networks to help me get work
Friends spreading word of mouth about my projects and products
Friends purchasing my work to both support me and learn

This is largely all from my small attempts to be a little special and a lot of help. It causes people to come to my aid. If you do the same in your own way, I promise they will come to yours as well.

The Silver Lining

And, what the book thieves don’t know is this – they helped me.

I now know how deep my customer loyalty is. My customers literally go to bat for me. It’s crazy, and I’m incredibly appreciative.

Plus, if the “bookstore” happened to sell any copies of my book – they made $13 and I got free advertising. My website is named in the book, and it’s not hard to find my content on the internet (the only legal sources of my content are this website and Amazon, if you’re curious). If it costs me to net a new customer, then I at least have a customer who may not have found me before.

Also, I now get to brag about how I’m somehow special enough that I got pirated and stolen from. I assume the “bookstore” netted a copy of the book from Amazon (which is an older edition, humorously) – but I’m happy to keep myself entertained with the belief that I must somehow be special/interesting/famous enough to have been stolen from.

It’s hilarious, so I’m going to keep thinking of it that way.

So – even when these people want to hurt me (or at least net their own profit lazily) – they can’t. I’ll always win in the end.

And the people who just didn’t want to pay full price for the book? I wouldn’t have gotten them as customers anyway.

Well… except for this month.

Book Theft for Prostate Cancer

This month, I’m going to give you the opportunity to personally profit and fight back the tyranny of the evil book thieves.

How?

Well, if the book thieves are going to steal and put my books on sale – I can do it better.

If you were on my email list this time last year, you were a part of my first ever fundraising effort for ZERO: The End of Prostate Cancer. In one week, you helped me raise around $2,000 for prostate cancer research. It completely blew my mind.

Well, we’re doing it again this year.

In honor of my late father – who you’ll undoubtedly be hearing more about later this month – and to give a giant “eff you” to book thieves everywhere, I’ll be putting some of my products on sale during the week of November 24th.

That’s right. I’m an absolute lunatic and I’m going to be running a sale the entire week of Thanksgiving here in the US, where 100% of the proceeds will go to prostate cancer research.

Yes – I’ll see $0 of your money, you’ll get a sweet discount, and you’ll be saving men’s lives and their families from heartbreak.

I literally can’t think of a better way to celebrate Thanksgiving and honor my father.

I’m excited to see what kind of a difference we make together this year.