Help me pick the title and cover for my new book on being different

 I’m working on a short new book about being different. Will you help me pick the title and cover?

Please vote in the comments section at the bottom of this post. Thanks!

The premise of the book is a compilation of essay’s, blogs and other writings of mine on how to think differently about life and business. The advice is pretty practical and while it’s mostly about business and career success,  I think there is a fair bit that’s applicable to life in general.

The two title options are: Zero Point Five Percent or Polar

And the cover options are:

The concept behind Polar is fairly self explanatory: Become a polar opposite from conformity.

The concept for Zero Point Five Percent is: You are over 99.5% identical to every human on the planet. What are you going to do with the last 0.5%? If you like this design and name, but don’t like the baby feet, I could easily put a number of different icons in their place.

Want an advance copy?

If you’re interested in providing a quote for my marketing, please email me at justin@justinblaney.com and I’ll get you an advance copy of the ebook.

Thanks! And don’t forget to vote now!

Here’s the introduction to the book

This book is for people who want to be different.

Not different in the middle-school-pick-a-group-of-misfits-to-belong-to sense. Not different in the wear-rolled-up-baggy-jeans-when-everyone-else-is-wearing-skinny sense. And certainly not different in the keeping-your-myspace-because-it’s-not-mainstream-anymore sense.

But really, truly, honestly, different.

This begs the question: Can we really, truly, honestly be different?

Did you know over 99.5% of the human genome is identical? That means that you and I are over 99.5% identical to every human who has ever lived. More specifically, you share 199 genes with your worstest nemesis for every 1 gene that makes you unique. But hey, it’s that one gene that makes them such a horrible excuse for a human being anyway so what does it matter?

I’ll tell you why. Because there really is nothing new under the moon. Reading young adult fiction taught me that.

So if we’re all the same, should we even bother being different?

You bet. Unless you’re one of those sick people who only eats vanilla ice-cream.

Because even if we’re all the same, we can, with desire, hard work, creativity, an open mind and a bit of luck become less the same than everyone else. And being less the same sure beats the heck—in the humble opinion of this writer—than being more the same.

So back to the point of this book: If you want to be less the same, I hope there are a few insights on the following pages for you. These are blogs, essays, and other writings on various topics that all have at least one thing in common: Each describes a way of looking at some aspect of life or business differently than what I’ve witnessed to be mainstream practice.

This book is better read as a parable. The subjects and topics vary greatly, but inside each chapter is a lesson for how to look at the world differently. I’m going to leave it up to you to connect the dots on how that might apply in your life because, let’s face it, we don’t know each other all that well and I just don’t feel comfortable getting that personal given the newness of our relationship.

Of course, this is the point in the introduction where a modest author, or at least an author who is pretending to be modest, points out that most of what is in this book is probably rubbish and that it all should be taken with a shake of sodium. While that’s true, and while you may find yourself feeling that a lot of the rubbish herein is just recycled common sense, it’s been my observation that following common sense might just make you the most differentest person of all.

Here’s to less of the same,

Justin Blaney