Jeff is the the best-selling author of five books including the The Art of Work and Real Artists Don’t Starve. On his blog, he shares his thoughts on writing, life, and creative work.
Jeff started Goins Writer in 2011. By the end of 2012, he had:
- reached over 1.9 million page views
- Self published You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One.) hit the #1 spot in its category and the #3 book on Amazon.
- His first traditional book, Wrecked, was published. His publisher called two days after the launch to say they were going to begin a second printing. A week later, he was offered a second book contract.
Jeff quit his job to launch out on his own as a full-time writer in 2013.
His success hasn’t been without its downsides. In The Dark Side of Success and What I’m Changing in the New Year, Jeff explored how reaching your goals doesn’t matter if you haven’t properly thought about the why. He wrote The Truth About Going Viral: What I Did After 1 Million People Stopped By My Blog to explore how success alone isn’t enough for most creatives; they have to continue to show up and create.
You can learn more about his journey at Everything I’ve Learned from 6 Years of Writing for a Living.
Book Launch Lessons
Jeffs personal brand is based on his career as a writer. This has meant that each release has been accompanied by case studies.
He also ghostwrote The Successful Speaker.
You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One)
Goins first book is about what it takes to be a writer in the 21st Century. In it, you will learn everything from how to get started with a writing career to ultimately getting your work published, and all the wonderful work in between.
Jeff released You Are A Writer as an ebook in 2012. He experimented with giving his eBook away for free and Grew My Audience By More Than 24,000 Readers in Three Days
Two years later, he released a paperback version of the book. He shared lessons from the experience at Yes, You Can and Should Self-publish (Here’s Everything You Need to Know)
Wrecked
In 2010, Jeff wrote a manifesto for ChangeThis, a website that Seth Godin helped start. It was called Wrecked for the Ordinary: A Manifesto for Misfits. At that time he was the founder of Wrecked.org, an online magazine and community for “spiritual misfts.”
Jeff had been running Goins Writer for less then a year when Moody Publishers contacted him about turning that manifesto into a book. He shares more about the story at Why I’m Bribing You to Buy My New Book.
He promoted the book by recruiting a book launch team and doing an online book tour.
The Art of Work
In 2015, he launched The Art Of Work. He set the public goal of hitting the New York Times best-seller list.
He failed, despite getting around 15’000 preorders and hitting other best-seller lists. He wrote more about this experience at What I Learned from Not Hitting the New York Times Best Sellers List and in a post at BookLaunch.com. He still sold 50’000 books in the first year.
He shared more about the launch in the following posts:
- What I Learned from Launching My First Best Seller
- The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly of Launching a Best-selling Book
- Here’s How I Really Launched a Bestseller (and How You Can Do the Same)
- Why I’m Practically Giving My Book Away
- Three Things Most People Don’t Know About Book Cover Design
Real Artists Don’t Starve
The original draft of Real Artists Don’t Starve was quite different. It was a combination of two ideas: creativity and how to not be a starving artist. Fortunately, Jeff had hired Ryan Holiday to help with the launch. In addition to refining the book concept, Ryan helped Jeff come up with the book title.
He shared more about the process of writing the book at:
He also shared how his approach to marketing had changed:
The In-Between
In The In-Between, Jeff Goins calls us to accept the importance waiting plays in our lives and to embrace the lessons it has to offer.
As part of the release, he filmed a companion work that people can access using the Snippet app.
Projects
Tribe Conference
In August, 2015, Jeff held the first-ever Tribe Conference. 150 attendees and over a dozen speakers attended the event. He shared his experiences in the podcast Lessons from Creating a Conference from Scratch in Three Months
He set higher goals for the 2016 conference. He discussed them in the podcast An Embarrassing Confession About This Year’s Tribe Conference. You can see the line up at Why I Created a Conference in a World of Too Many Conferences.
You can get a taste for the content at 3 Lessons on Becoming a Professional Writer from Tribe Conference Speakers.
In 2019, he held the final Tribe Conference. He shared the reasons behind his decision at When You Know It’s Time to Quit Something (And Why I Decided to Kill My Conference)
He shared what he learned as a conference host at Three Life Lessons from Running Tribe Conference for Four Years and The Counterintuitive Way to Create Something that Changes Lives: 4 Lessons from Tribe Conference
WordPress Theme
In 2014, he announcrf the Tribe Theme for WordPress. He shared more about the story at 17: Why You Should Solve Your Own Problems: The Story of Designing My Own Blog Theme [Podcast].
Tribe Writers Online Course
His first launch of Tribe writers had over 700 students sign up.
You can learn more about the process at How Jeff Goins Turned His Book Into A Course.
Advice:
Writing Your Book
- The 5-Draft Method To Writing A Best-Selling Book
- What Nobody Tells You About Being a Best-selling Author
Creativity
- Four Lessons on Money I Learned After Making $1 Million
- Why I’ve Stopped Accepting Compliments About My “Hustle” Entrepreneurs are still enamored with “hustling,” says one writer. Too bad it’s not how great work gets done.
- 17 New Year’s Resolutions for Writers
Blogging
- Finding Your Blog’s Unique Voice
- Why Finding Your Niche Is Just Plain Bad Advice
- How to Write Viral and Quality Content, Fast
- 7 Lessons I Learned by Starting Over with Blogging
- 3 Secret Weapons I Used to Launch My Fulltime Blogging Career
- 20 Writing Lessons from 200 Blog Posts
Growing Your Business
- Why Quitting Your Job to Chase Your Dream Is a Terrible Idea
- Nobody’s Heard of You (and That’s a Good Thing): The Advantages of Anonymity
- One Surefire Way to Know You’re Going in the Right Direction
- I Once Talked To Seth Godin On The Phone: Here’s How It Changed My Life and Business
- 5 Investments That Made the Difference in My Writing Career
Relationships
8 Lessons That Surprised Me After 8 Years of Marriage
Interviews
Real Artists Don’t Starve with Jeff Goins (Interviewed by Jenny Blake)