Good people hire people better than themselves. So A players hire A+ players. But others hire below their skills to make themselves look good. So B players hire C players. C players hire D players, etc.

You know in a startup, you only need three people. You need someone who can make something. You need someone who can sell it. And you need someone to collect the money. That's the only three roles in a startup. So which one are you?

A successful self-publisher must fill three roles: Author, Publisher, and Entrepreneur—or APE.

Pursue joy, not happiness. This is probably the hardest lesson of all to learn. It probably seems to you that the goal in life is to be happy. Oh, you maybe have to sacrifice and study and work hard, but, by and large, happiness should be predictable.

It's hard to build community around mediocre and mundane writing.

Money is not the sole or most powerful motivation for many people. A higher and tougher test is to look back and see how you've made the world a better place.

The self-edited author is as foolish as the self-medicated patient.