Guest Speaker: Erik Hanberg

Erik Hanberg talked about what is necessary to be successful in entrepreneurship.  The first thing is hard work.  He mentioned Mark Zuckerburg as an example, pointing out that in the documentary about him and Facebook, he was always hard at work whenever he appeared on camera.  But Mr. Hanberg said it also takes more than that.  It takes emotional energy, and you have to overcome the fear of trying.  He also mentioned that you have to be passionate about the idea you're starting.

Mr. Hanberg talked about writing books on the side, and showed a list of the books he has written.  His first book was titled "The Little Book of Gold" and instead of writing the book first and then trying to generate interest, he went straight to marketing it.  He paid for $200 in Google ads and his significant other made a website to promote it.  Although when people clicked to buy the book, it would say the book is currently out of print, but you can submit your email address and be contacted when it is printed again.  Once he had 15 or 20 email addresses, he went ahead and wrote the book and had it published, and he already had some customers.

From there, he went on to write three mystery novels, and then science fiction.  In 2013, he wrote "The Lead Cloak" but it didn't sell as many copies as he hoped for.  Now that the sequel is coming out in February, he redesigned the cover of "The Lead Cloak" and re-published it.  He got it into a few bundle deals on Kindle, and it includes information about pre-ordering the sequel.  Mr. Hanberg told us that because of this, the book has sold 1,800 copies in the last two months and he has some presales for the sequel coming out.  In addition to the income from book sales, Mr. Hanberg has also started making some money from helping other authors with marketing their work.

He also talked about some of the other things he has done.  He started a stage theater in 2006 called The Horatio, but wasn't financially prepared to meet city regulations that he thought had been worked out, but weren't.  Mr. Hanberg was also a partner in Exit133 with Derek Young for two years, and sold his portion back to Mr. Young when he decided to go a different direction.  Three years ago, Mr. Hanberg and his significant other started a graphic design company called Side X Side, and it is currently their biggest source of income, although it isn't as consistent.

He recommended a list of books for those who are interested in starting their own business.  

• "The $100 Startup" by Chris Guillebeau
• "The 4 Hour Workweek"
• "The E-myth Revisited" by Michael E. Gerber
• "Turning Pro" by Steven Pressfield

Mr Hanberg's advice for an aspiring author is to finish the first book.  He said practicing writing and improving is important.  For as long as he can remember, he wanted to write books, and he ended up going between genres before he found an audience.  Kindle allows for more self publishing, and he gets 70% of sales.  Traditional publishing has more middle men, who each double the price, and a $24 book nets an author 10% of the $3 the publisher received.

Mr. Hanberg said success is based on knowing your audience.  He told us about a woman named Annie Bellatt, who aspired to write science fiction and fantasy novels.  She analyzed popular novels and figured out a formula for gaining fans, such as introducing the hero on the first page, the antagonist on the second page, and each chapter has some sort of conflict, etc.  She has created a brand for herself, and her website says "Science Fiction and Fantasy for Gamers" and it really works.