I was recently giving an interview where I started to talk about the importance of teamwork… I felt the content was so great it was worth a post on my blog. So here we go:

Q: How do you feel about the launch of your first book? What obstacles have you faced during the whole process?

Yeah, I did a book launch at the start of December to promote eMillions hoping to create buzz and hit the best-seller lists. What people don’t realize is that it actually takes tons of hard work for a book launch. It wasn’t just as simple as going, “Let’s do a product launch next week.” It took me around 5 months of preparation for this launch as there were so many moving parts involved (obviously, it would take a lot less than 5 months that I’ve gone through the process).

And the other thing is teamwork. Yes – teamwork. Business is a team sport. It wasn’t just this one 16-year-old kid doing everything – and you can’t possibly do everything – it took a team of around 50 people to execute this launch successfully. The majority of those were joint venture partners promoting the book on their websites and to their followers. There was also my team over at my publisher who handled the technical side of getting the book published and into bookstores. I also had to outsource many of the things which I weren’t as good as or didn’t have time to do (and I would have outsourced even more if I could start all over again), such as graphics and ad copy. Do what you’re best and delegate the rest.

And of course, I got myself a mentor. I wasn’t an expert in the area of book marketing so I got somebody who I could ask for guidance. This is something vitally important to anybody planning to get into business – get a mentor. Pretty much all the successful entrepreneurs in the world had mentors, e.g. Warren Buffett’s mentor was Benjamin Graham. Overall, it definitely wasn’t easy trying to orchestrate and keep touch with so many people all at the same time. And of course, all of these came with a hefty investment.

It was very exhausting and I was under extreme time-constraints, especially during the last two weeks leading up to the book launch. I had very little sleep during this period and it was difficult trying to stay awake in school – especially during Chinese lessons. I tend to find myself able to get more things done efficiently under tight schedules and thrive under pressure. That’s where all the fun and excitement is. So it paid off in the end. The book was very successful and went to #1 on the Amazon best-seller list in four different categories: Small Business, Web Marketing, E-Commerce and Home-Based Business. It’s pretty cool considering that the business category is the most competitive one out of all the others. I guess that now makes me a #1 best-selling author 🙂