How I Accidentally Wrote an Amazon Best-Seller

Something crazy happened. I just hit #1 on the Amazon Best-Seller list in the Healthy Living category (and a few others).

For a book that didn't even exist as an idea a month ago.

And no, it wasn't a ChatGPT dump.

Let's rewind.

About 4 weeks ago, I was at a tech conference when a friend asked me how I manage fatigue and productivity during Ramadan. Ramadan, if you don't know, is the Islamic holy month of fasting (and arguably the world's largest 30-day challenge).

That night, I had a fleeting thought in my idea palace (aka the shower) that I should look up all the best evidence-based strategies around healthy fasting from a lifestyle medicine perspective. Then I thought, maybe I'll compile them into a PDF for others to benefit. I grabbed my waterproof notepad—yes, I keep one in the shower for moments exactly like this—and jotted it down.

Back at my computer, I did a quick search. There was nothing authoritative on the topic. Yet, more and more observers of the month in the West seemed to be looking for healthier tips.

Although I was just solving my own problem, I was accidentally identifying a gap in the market. That's usually what the best opportunities look like.

I dug deeper, researching surveys of the most common challenges people face during Ramadan: avoiding thirst, maintaining energy, keeping up exercise routines, managing medications while fasting, and so on.

A few team members and I researched each topic (with some AI assistance) to find evidence-based tips. What started as a 2-3 page idea quickly ballooned into a massive 60-page document. It was disorganized, bulky, and had all the personality of a medical textbook. A string of facts and citations.

Over the next few days, we edited, refined, and injected our opinions and philosophies. We sprinkled in stories of patients we'd helped through similar struggles.

We kept using ourselves as benchmarks as to whether or not it was something we would read. And, more importantly, if we would feel compelled to share it organically.

Twelve days after that shower thought, we had a final product: a decent-looking 40-page guide with tips ranging from the obvious to the obscure.

We decided to give it away completely free. I uploaded the PDF to our website and shared it with my family then with a small WhatsApp group of 20 neighborhood dads. Their enthusiasm was immediate. They asked if they could share it with others.

Encouraged, I shared it with slightly larger WhatsApp groups of tech founders and fellow doctors. Then a few of us on the Mederva team posted it to our Instagram stories.

A friend shared it with an influencer, who shared it with more influencers. Audiences from 10K to 120K were suddenly seeing our little guide.

Then something really wild happened. The owner of EarthPix and HistoryPhotographed, accounts with a combined 33 million followers, messaged me asking if he could share it.

He's doesn't observe Ramadan. He just thought it offered genuinely helpful information worth spreading.

We tracked thousands of downloads within days. But then it spread beyond our reach. Friends told me their relatives, coworkers, and even strangers in different states were forwarding it. A VC at dinner said his mom just sent it to him that morning. It had gone viral.

The craziest part is that none of this activity was connected to the Kindle version. Those thousands of downloads were coming from the PDF on our site.

When I finally published on Kindle, the book quickly climbed the rankings. This despite thousands of our ideal ‘customers’ already having it, and despite us using up all our planned marketing channels.

This weekend, it hit #1.

The Lessons I Learned From Accidentally Writing a Best-Seller

I didn’t share this as a celebration of hitting an unexpected milestone. I shared it after reflecting on the lessons we could take away from what worked.

• Claim your agency: Nobody gives you permission to succeed. I didn't wait for someone to tell me I could write a book. I just started. Agency is both a belief and a decision that you can make things happen.

• Be independent minded. Pursue what’s interesting to you: Books are declining in popularity and everyone's obsessing over AI and video, not Ramadan guides during a period of heightened Islamophobia. I followed my interests rather than what was trending, so it was original.

• Act immediately on good ideas: That shower thought could have easily evaporated. Instead, I wrote it down and started working on it that same day. Time kills momentum.

• Solve problems that matter to you: I didn’t create the guide for fame or profit, but to find tips I needed and thought others would benefit from. When you're scratching your own itch, you intuitively understand the pain points.

• Create with high velocity: We went from idea to finished product in less than two weeks. Perfect is the enemy of done, and done is what gets results. Those who know me, know I’m always creating new things in the lab out of personal curiosity.

• Be a scientist, not a perfectionist: Each project is an experiment. It’s okay if it falls flat. Some experiments work, some don't. But they all teach you something valuable. Those learnings compound over time.

This book's success came partly from accumulated learnings from past failures and successes:
Previous apps I built taught me about virality, this newsletter improved my writing, and other projects showed me how to quickly assemble the right team. And everything I’ve done has given me the confidence that my team could pull together something we would be proud of in just 12 days.

• Teamwork makes the dream work: It was a team effort that several key members rallied behind with excitement. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

• Start small, then expand: We began by sharing with a tiny group of trusted friends before gradually widening the circle. This allowed us to gain confidence and refine our approach.

Hope this was entertaining and had some insights.

You can check out the graphical version at RamadanHealth.com and the kindle version here.

What interesting idea can you act on today? Reply and let me know!