45 Comments
One year ago, I was passing through North Dakota on a train from Chicago to Portland. The train was the Amtrak Empire Builder, and I used the occasion to plan the launch of the Empire Building Kit.
A lot can happen in a year's time.
Read More
56 Comments
In Phnom Penh, Cambodia I met Mr. Rhet, who held up a copy of my book to greet me at the arrivals area. Mr. Rhet, also known as Rhett or just Ret, is a professional tuk-tuk driver. The open-air taxis of Southeast Asia, tuk-tuks serve as an interesting introduction to life in the region, and I've had both good and bad experiences with them. In Cambodia last weekend (and plenty of other places), all was well in tuk-tuk land, and I felt safe using them as my primary means of transport. In fact, I enjoyed my time with Mr. Rhet so much that I decided to learn more about the whole tuk-tuk industry.
Read More
138 Comments
There are few things more awkward than sitting in a bookstore by yourself with a row of empty chairs in front of you. As people approach, you hope they're coming to say hi ... until they head to the Gardening section. Other people walk by with bags that look like they might contain cupcakes, and your heart lifts for a brief moment ...
Read More
62 Comments
How do you accomplish everything?
People often ask me this question. For a while, it puzzled me. Do I really accomplish more than other people? I keep in touch with a lot of active, busy people all doing fun things, so I'm not sure I'm the exception.
Read More
As mentioned once in a while, I'm really glad I wrote the AONC book. It's been a great success and the tour has been incredibly fun—I finished all 53 stops in the U.S. before Christmas, and I'm headed to every province in Canada starting next week. My second book will be on unconventional entrepreneurship—specifically, how people with no special skills can start a small business doing something they love without going into debt ...
Read More
Greetings, friends and readers. Today I'm in Anchorage, Alaska for the 43rd stop of the Unconventional Book Tour. I'll be at the University of Alaska at noon, and Metro Music and Books at 7pm tonight. (We'll be moving to a beer-and-pizza place afterwards, which I'm told is mandatory when in Alaska.) Today I have a couple of notes on commercial projects ...
Read More
53 Comments
I did a media call for a journalist on the subject of “time management” recently. When I heard the topic, I was worried: one, I don't think I'm that great at time management ... and two, I'm not even sure such a thing exists. You can't manage time; it exists independently of any choice you make. I tend to think more about managing energy and managing projects—as for time itself, that's another story altogether.
Read MoreFor everyone all over the world who isn't able to come out to the Unconventional Book Tour, this 4-minute movie gives you an idea of what it's about.
This mini-documentary was filmed and produced in Durham, North Carolina by Crystal Street at StorytellingTraveler.com. Crystal spent a lot of time on this project as a volunteer—check out some of her other great work on her site, or subscribe to her newsletter to stay connected with her.
Read More
67 Comments
I'm no consultant, but from time to time (as in, several times a day) people ask for my opinion about building some kind of online business. I'm happy to give $0.02 for whatever it's worth, and I'm sure there are times when it's not worth more than that.
How can you do something you love and make a good living from it? Much of my Unconventional Guides business is devoted to answering this question in one way or another. And as discussed before, often when we ask for advice, we don't really want advice—we want someone to say “That's great! Go for it!”
Read More
64 Comments
The question comes up a lot: "If you were starting over with this project, what would you do differently?"
In my case, I probably wouldn't put the domain on chrisguillebeau.com. If you have chrisg.com, that works—but Chris Garrett got to that one first, and for some reason, a lot of people have a hard time with Guillebeau. Oh well.
I would try to have a better understanding of my readers from the beginning, instead of waiting 6-12 months to figure it out. And I would have an agenda and a clear message of what kind of change I was trying to create.
Read More
I wrapped up the first part of the Unconventional Book Tour with ten stops in ten days. Now I'm home in Portland for a couple of days before heading back out on the longest leg of the whole trip.
If you're new to AONC, regular articles are posted on Mondays and Thursdays. I often use Sundays for a weekend update about my business, UnconventionalGuides.com. For the rest of 2010 I'm not doing much business work, so I'll use this space more often for updates from the book tour.
Read More
107 Comments
Greetings from Burlington, Vermont. After today, I have a few days home in Portland, Oregon, then I'll set out to visit the midwest and Great Lakes region starting next week. In this (very windblown) video update, I talk about social media and why if you're trying to build a platform, you should talk about yourself more than others. Stay with me, because this idea is definitely contrarian to the conventional wisdom.
Read More
52 Comments
Sometimes people ask what hustling is. This great poster by Joey Roth provides one answer:
This “hustler” image is what I try to do every day: lots of work, lots of messaging. The messaging isn't always directly related to the work at hand—sometimes I'm supporting other people with their own hustling. But on a good day, there's plenty of work and and plenty of messaging.
Read More
957 Comments
The day before leaving on my final international trip of the year, the FedEx guy showed up at my door. Unfortunately, he did not have a package with my passport from Washington, D.C., which led to my just-barely-made-it excursion to Algeria. Too bad—but it all worked out in the end, as it usually does. Instead of a passport, I received a small package from Penguin Books. I get review books all the time, so I assumed that's what this one was. But then I opened up the package and saw my name. At first I thought it was an impostor, but no impostor would choose the name Guillebeau to write a book. (He would probably choose a name like Godin or Grisham instead.)
Read More
26 Comments
Last week I headed out for the Sunday morning long run, and my legs decided not to cooperate. After four miles, it was time to pack it in. Bummer—so I tried again a few days ago. The same thing happened ... almost. At mile four I was ready to quit. Through an act of God and the new Josh Ritter album, I managed to pull it out and keep going. At mile six I was feeling great, and as I headed home, I was glad I didn't quit. Eleven miles for the win!
Read More