Writing and Promoting ‘Secrets of Self Made Millionaires’

Today, I began the first of a series of bookshop talks for my latest book, ‘Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires’ at Kinokuniya and Takashimaya. It is never easy to do a talk at a bookshop as most of the time you begin by speaking to yourself (everyone else is just wandering and browsing around).

Finally, after a couple of minutes of putting your self-esteem to the test, a group of curious onlookers finally stop to hear what you have to say. Although it is still not the easiest thing to do, it is definitely a lot easier than  when I first gave book talks 8 years ago when I launched my first book, ‘ I Am Gifted, So Are You!’ At that time, I was a nobody and ha such a young face that people thought I was nuts to stand in the middle of a bookstore and promote my book.

Today, it really helps than half of the people who come have seen or heard about me from the press, TV or from their friends. It feels great when people come up to you like old friends and congratulate you and ask for autographs. It feels really great to know that all my hard work really paid off now that ‘Secrets of Self Made Millionaires’ is officially the highest selling non-fiction book in Singapore (Ranked #1Straits Times Life! Best-seller list). It topped the list just after 2 weeks of its launched. In the next couple of weeks, I will be doing rounds of talks and author signings at MPH, Borders, Popular, Harris, Times and so on…

While I had a lot of faith that I had written a truly good book that would interest and benefit everyone, I could never be sure that it would become a best-seller until the public believed in it enough to buy it. What I also a learnt over the years is that writing a good book is only half the job in creating a National Best-Seller. You must also put in a lot of work in selling your book to the bookstores who will decide on the shelf space, in store posters, book talks and other kinds of promotions.

One of the main reasons why I wrote this book is because over the last 15 years I have been motivating students to score straights As in school and working professionals to become highly motivated performers at their work place. However, I truly recognize that even with all the great academic credentials and hard work, people can never become rich unless they learn then 7 essential money skills like investing, controlling expenses, building multiple income streams and so on…

I wrote this book because I truly wanted to give people the ultimate handbook/bible on wealth creation. So they will know exactly how I did it and how they can do the same. As I read the hundreds of money-making books over the years, I discovered that many of them inspired people to get rich and told them what to do. Unfortunately, there was not enough practical information that gave people the steps of HOW to do it. For example, many of these books teach people to invest in stocks & mutual funds to get high returns. The trouble is that sometimes too little information can sometime be more dangerous that having no information at all.

So many poor people who lack the appropriate training in company valuations and stock pickings listen to this advice and find themselves losing money in a stock market which they do not understand anything enough about. The reason I know this is because I was one of those people. It took me many years of mistakes and losses before I finally figured on how to invest at high returns while keeping my risks extremely low (I hate to take risks). While there are great books out there that reach investors and entrepreneurs the exact techniques of investing and business  building, these books tend to be too technical and academic in nature. Much of what they teach is hard to apply, especially to the layman.

This is what inspired me to write my latest book. Secrets of Self Made Millionaires was meant to teach people exactly WHAT they need to do create wealth, exactly HOW to do it in a easy to understand and practical way and also, WHY they should  achieve financial independence. I find that many people never find the sustainable motivation to achieve their financial goals because they lack a compelling reason to do so. They lack the WHYS of success. I always say that when you have a very strong WHY to succeed, you will find the HOW.  Buy even if you knew all the HOWs of making money, you will never be motivated to do so without a strong WHY. Â