Transcription
Yeah, I'm Ryan Holiday. I'm the author of "Ego Is the Enemy," which is my fourth book.
First is the structure of the book, right? You have to decide how this thing is going to be organized and laid out. For "Ego Is the Enemy," I decided it would be in three parts. You know, I believe already they're aspiring to do something, where they're succeeding, or we're failing, and the ego is the worst element in any of those phases. So now I have to come up with examples and stories that illustrate those three things. So I had a three-part book, ten chapters per section, so 30 chapters. So I had to go find basically 30 great stories, plus, you know, extra material.
And so what I do is I read really widely and I mark things that I like. I'm reading research papers and books and watching documentaries and listening to talks, and I'm just writing all this information down on four-by-six note cards. This is the intro and the conclusion, this is part one, this is part two, this is part three, and then this is miscellaneous. So this is like several thousand note cards. So like this is the first set of note cards I wrote. So these are like titles that I'm kicking around. This is when I figured out the structure of the book. So part 1, part 2, part 3. This is I'm sort of realizing we're aspiring, then we succeed or we fail, and then we start over again. So you're just writing notes to yourself. So this is, this is the whole, this is a book, right? And all of this is done, but more or less before I start writing. So I'm never sitting at a blank screen and I don't know what to share or say because I have the material.
Once the research is more or less done, that's when the writing begins. That's the hardest. You know, I usually like to set a date for myself. I'm writing, I started this book on January 2nd, 2015. Yeah, that day I started with the intro. The intro took two or three days, right, of writing the draft, and I had just my stack of note cards that I was writing that I knew would be used for the intro. And then the next day I started the opening to Part 1, and I worked on chapter 2 for Part 1 and chapter 3 for Part 1. And by breaking it up in these smaller pieces, not only is there less material to cart around with you, you feel like you're making progress because you're moving along this process instead of just, I don't know what I'm going to be done, I'm just heading along this road.
So what I like to do is I write each individual chapter in Google Docs, and then once that, once I've gotten all the way through, then I'm combining it all into one document. So to me, the transition from Google Docs to Microsoft Word, it's like a big day. That means like I'm maybe halfway through. Then, then that whole thing has to be printed out. If you're writing a book that people are going to read, they're going to hold in their hands, and you're only interacting with it on a computer, you're not creating the experience. So it's printing it out, and you're going through dozens and dozens of drafts. So I'm editing these, you can see they're just writing notes. I'm interacting with it outside the confines of the computer. I've already edited it dozens of times on the computer, but now I'm printing it out, you're putting in edits, you're refining, and eventually it goes off to the publisher at some point.
And the publisher says, "We hate it," or "We like it," or "Hey, it's close, but, you know, we need you to work on it." Which is really hard because you hand them what you think is your best work, and then they basically say, "It's good, but we know it could be better." And you have to ask yourself that. It challenges your own ego because they're, they're telling you that you're capable of something more than you think is possible. So you have to go back and look at your own work and fix it, basically. So it's, it's dozens of these.
And then at a certain point, the book goes and it's designed. So this is what it's starting to look like, designed. And you're, you're putting it all the same, all the same notes, even though I've gone through this countless times, you're still finding things to cut or change. So these are cover options. Sending them, I hated all these. The cover is such like a gut feel. You just don't, you don't know. It's like, you know it when you see it. That you have the right cover.
Then the books go into galleys. That's where they go out to the public for the first time, like influencers, journalists, you know, people whose opinion you really respect. So you're going to get another round of feedback there. But then, then one day this arrives, like copies of your own book arrives. And you remember when this was just an idea, or not even an idea, or you thought about quitting. And then it exists. And of course, you still find errors. Like there's this like link in the back of the book and it's got a typo in it. And so that drives you insane. But then it's there, and then people can read it, and it's crazy. And so it's one of the coolest feelings ever. And then you start the next one.