Behind The Scenes Walkthrough of My New Book

Today, I’d like to walk you through my new book and give you a behind-the-scenes look of what’s inside. The book is called The Rideshare Guide: Everything You Need to Know about Driving for Uber, Lyft, and Other Companies. I’d like to show you what it covers, and all that good stuff since we have definitely gotten some questions from viewers and readers who are looking to see what’s in this book.

Watch my video tour of the book, then check out the transcript below.

My new book: The Rideshare Guide: Everything You Need to Know about Driving for Uber, Lyft, and Other Companies

Thank you very much for being one of my fans and supporting me. Definitely, if you guys are interested in this book, it’s going to be all the typical places, amazon.com, in stores and Barnes & Noble, Amazon bookstores, pretty much anywhere where books are sold. My publishing team has done a great job getting this book into stores and available everywhere online, so I’m really excited, and I’m ready to share what’s inside this book.

This is actually a PDF of the book but really, this is what the e-book and what the physical book is going to look like. The Rideshare Guide, Everything You Need to Know About Driving for Uber, Lyft, and Other Ridesharing Companies. We do talk about delivery companies and new options to work for, but the book does focus on Uber and Lyft, and you can obviously see that I’m the author. I didn’t use … I’m not quite important enough to have someone ghostwrite the book with me, but maybe in my next book, someone will … I can just tell them what to write, and they’ll write it all for me.

My publisher, Skyhorse Publishing, they’ve been awesome along this whole process, and like I said, this is the actual book. You guys are getting a pretty cool little behind-the-scenes tour. I’m not going to go through every single page because then, that would defeat the purpose of buying the book, right, but as you can see here, this is really the table of contents. Right off the bat, you can sort of see how I organized the book. Obviously, we’ve got the introduction, why you should drive for Uber and Lyft.

I mean, this chapter is important to me because honestly, I think that driving for Uber and Lyft is potentially suitable for anyone. There really isn’t anything as flexible, and while the money may not be as much, you could obviously be making a lot of money, but at the same time, Uber and Lyft are the only jobs that I can think of where you could go out right now, do five rides, make 10, 20 bucks, whatever you need, or 50 bucks, cash out that money instantly and have that money in your checking account, pull it out with a debit card.

That type of flexibility is pretty insane, and so I mean, I would say that’s kind of why I say maybe 40 hours a week obviously, it’s not perfect for everyone. Maybe 10 hours a week is not perfect for everyone, but there are some definite benefits that I think almost anyone could potentially take advantage of. At the end of the day, it’s so easy to get started. You can do it and try for yourself.

Chapter One: What It’s Really Like to Be a Rideshare Driver

Obviously, this is sort of what I like to think of as my kind of go-to what is in this book and what people care most about. The first thing I talk about is how much money you’ll make as a rideshare driver, and then really get into the reality. I think driving for Uber and Lyft, and really any ridesharing companies, just like any other job, there’s positives and negatives, but at the same time, for your personal situation, as long as the positives outweigh the negatives, I think it’s something that you should definitely keep doing.

If you’ve noticed in my videos, in my content, I’m never telling people what they should or shouldn’t do. I think that you guys are all adults, and I’m going to leave it up to you. I’m going to present all the facts based off my experience, based off my tens of thousands of interactions with other drivers over the years, and I’m going to present that to you, and I’m still going to leave it up though to you to say, “Hey, the money just isn’t right for me,” or, “I don’t have the right car,” or whatever it might be or this, maybe I prefer Uber or Lyft. This is really like the most essential things you might need to know if you’re really considering being a rideshare driver.

Obviously, signup bonuses are huge. If you’re just getting started with Uber and Lyft, you want to take advantage of that signup bonus, and even the requirements because while I said there aren’t a ton of barriers to entry to becoming an Uber or Lyft driver, obviously, you do have to have a car, you do have to have a smartphone, and be able to pass a background check. That’s really it, but even at the same time, I include in this section on page 13 right here all about leasing or renting rideshare vehicles because let’s say you have a phone and you can pass a background check, the car is really the biggest barrier to entry at that point. Now, there are a ton of leasing and rental options, and we’ll go over all of that.

I think one thing that I’m definitely known for is I talk a lot about the benefits of being a driver, but at the same time, like I said, there are positives and negatives to every single job, and I don’t try to sugarcoat it. If you’re out driving with a gas-guzzling SUV that gets 12 miles per gallon that you paid or maybe you bought it all brand new, and it’s depreciating like crazy, that’s probably the worst possible car for rideshare driving, and you’re probably not going to make a lot of money. That’s really sort of what I outlay in this section about the downsides about being a rideshare driver, but ultimately, like I said, I think as long as the positives outweigh the negatives, it’s definitely something to consider.

Chapter Two: My Personal Story

Chapter two really gets into sort of my personal story, and then also, how a potential driver might get started. Obviously, the choosing Uber or Lyft, I know a lot of people are confused by UberX, Uber Pool, UberXL, but majority of 90% of drivers are going to be on UberX so this really covers the initial getting started type questions. As you can see, and I’ll scroll through this a little quickly, we’re not going to go this in depth in every chapter, but chapter three, it’s what it’s like to give your first ride.

Chapter Four: How Can You Become a Five-star Driver

Really, what I tried to do is take everything that I know about driving, everything that I know about talking to drivers and doing it myself, and kind of order it chronologically, right? Okay. At the start, you’re kind of thinking about, hey, chapter one, what’s it actually like to be a driver? You might be talking to people. You might be talking to other drivers. That’s what chapter one handles.

Chapter two is like, all right, I’m thinking about doing this. What do I need to get set up? Do I meet all the requirements? Which service should I pick? Then obviously, of course, the big next step is giving that first ride. I think that that’s where we see a lot of people drop off. They never make it to that first ride point, and I kind of want to help people. My number one tip for new drivers, obviously, you’ve watched YouTube channel and you know that it’s take a ride as a passenger.

I mean, I think this makes sense in all aspects of life. If you’re going and applying for a new job or starting a new job, you should get as much experience from the other point of view. If you’re applying for a certain company, you’re obviously going to go and do your research. You’re going to test out the product whatever it might be. That’s the exact same thing with Uber, and so this really gets into the specifics of how it works as a driver and kind of how those fares are calculated. If you run into problems, what can you do?

I really like chapter four because it talks about how can you become a five-star driver, and this is the thing that I think is unique about driving for Uber and Lyft. It’s really the ultimate combination of customer service, safe driving and also just running your business in general. Ratings are a huge pain point for new drivers, yet they really shouldn’t be. The average driver has a 4.8 star rating, and you only need a 4.6 before you could potentially be deactivated. Most drivers, I feel like they worry a ton about ratings, but at the end of the day, there are some pretty basic steps that you can take especially at the start to make sure that you’re a five-star driver, and we’re going to cover all of that.

Chapter Five: How to Maximize Your Profits

Now, chapter five, this is I think what’s probably going to be one of the most popular chapters. It’s all about maximizing profits. I have a video training course called Maximum Rideshare Profits, and that’s obviously what it covers and what it gets into. This talks about everything you might need to know. For beginners, obviously, it’s sort of about thinking about when should you drive, where should you drive, but also at the same time, we start to think about some more advanced strategies, the advanced things like basically, what I call being a cutthroat driver, and what we’ve done a lot of videos.

Ignoring. Maybe there’s certain rides that you should actually ignore as a driver. Some of these strategies might be a little bit more controversial than others, talking about long rides, right, chasing the surge, all of these topics that more experienced or veteran drivers might know about. Well, we sort of start at the beginning, say, hey, when you’re first looking for rides, here’s where you go, here’s when you do it. Figure out what aligns well with your schedule, and then now, we get into some of the more medium to advanced topic.

If you’re a beginning driver, you can obviously see that this really walks you through the entire process, but even if you are a more experienced driver, you can also see that, hey, I’m having a lot of challenges right now, difficult passengers, challenging situations. That’s chapter six. Let’s say you decide, oh, it’s tax time, you need to figure out what to do about mileage deductions and all that, boom. You can flip also right to chapter eight.

Chapter Six: Your Rules,and How to Be the Captain of Your Own Ship

I really think that while the entire book overall is sort of geared more towards that new driver, someone just getting started, you can also see that it’s a valuable resource and sort of like what I would think as a guide, hence the title, The Rideshare Guide, for existing drivers, new drivers, whoever it might be. You can just see quickly in chapter six, we talk about everything from service animals and pukers to what I like to call being the captain of your own ship and really kind of taking control. When someone gets into your car, you want to be nice but at the same time, you also want to be forceful and respectful, right? People respect authority, and so it’s important to balance between being kind of that dictator that says, “No, you can’t do that,” but also at the same time, letting them know that you’re the boss, you’re in charge.

Chapter Seven: Driver Support & Resources

Chapter seven is all about driver support community and resources. If you’re watching this YouTube channel right now, you already know that there are a lot of bloggers or a lot of YouTubers, and there are a lot of people out there that are willing to help other drivers. I love that community aspect of driving but at the same time, there’s also people who don’t want to help, so you got to figure out who is a good resource for you. Surround yourself with people who are going to help you do this job better. I think that’s a big thing for me.

Chapter Eight: Taxes

We already talked about what’s in chapter eight, all the taxes. This isn’t the sexiest chapter in the book, but to be honest, I think this is where a ton of opportunity is especially for the more experienced or the more advanced drivers. If you’re new, you’re probably just figuring out how to do rides, how to deal with passengers, all of that. At the start, you should probably track your mileage and we’ve got some good … I think we have a section in here, mileage deductions, all about the apps that you can use to track your mileage and all that.

Once you become more advanced, once you start to think about all these things, there’s a ton of opportunity when it comes to really getting your rideshare taxes done right, understanding your income, your expenses, your mileage deduction, and how the difference between your net and gross income. You might report a very low taxable income to the IRS but that doesn’t mean that you’re not making any money and really understanding that is pretty important, I think. It’s a little bit more of an advanced topic.

Chapter Nine: Diversify Your Rideshare Income

Chapter nine is how you can diversify your rideshare income, kind of what I call taking your game to the next level. We kind of go into a bunch of detail right here, and also chapter 10, I think, is cool. What does the future look for … What would it look like for rideshare drivers? This sort of talks about issues about self-driving cars, other opportunities like delivering for Amazon Flex or food delivery, lots of opportunities, and then you can kind of see the standard conclusion appendix, and et cetera.

Other Interesting Features of the Book

That’s pretty much a summary of the book. I’m going to go through a little bit more in the books so you can kind of get a sense of what the book looks like. This is a quick acknowledgments. I give a little shout out to my publisher, and my wife, and a little inside joke for her. You can kind of see the format. Obviously, we already talked about the introduction, why drive for Uber, and Uber or Lyft. It’s pretty much in my writing style. I actually read off the first chapter on the podcast not too long ago, so that’s something that you can check out. I also want to make sure I show you … This is the first chapter, what it’s really like to be a rideshare driver.

The cool thing that I like is that I not only kind of talk about when you should do things and what you should do, but as you can imagine, I’m very thorough in my videos, in my articles I go through, and provide actual data. I’m telling people, okay, the average driver reports making 16 to $18 per hour. That’s based off of a survey at 1,100 drivers that I sent out, and yet, I say that I usually personally aim for 20 to $30 per hour. Then, I have sort of the numbers to back that up basically to show you that, hey, I’m not completely full of crap, right? There is a lot of variability but here’s why I’m making … I’m driving in Los Angeles. That’s a profitable market.

Now, not everyone can drive in LA, but if you’re in a good market, that helps, or sort of really help you take advantage of your city, the times and the places that work well with your schedule. Obviously, you can see Wednesday through Saturday, and as you might imagine, I made more money on Friday and Saturday when it was busy, but it’s not all about just driving Friday, Saturday nights. It’s also about finding those times when other drivers aren’t out on the road. That’s really what chapter five gets into. I talked a little bit about the expenses.

Now, I also want to highlight these. You can see this little gray box. These are sort of what I call stories, and so this story is about Jay Cradeur who got the inspiration to drive from his daughter, and it just talks a little bit about his story and gives you a little more information. If you want to learn more about Jay, you can head to therideshareguy.com/jaycradeur. It really just talks about, in this chapter, I’m talking about sort of his flexibility and how he uses rideshare driving.

Interspersed throughout a lot of the content, we’ve got stories to keep things interesting. We’ve got what I call pro tips. Hopefully, I can find a little bit of a protip right here. Here’s more information. These are actual numbers. Now, these are guaranteed earnings numbers for new Uber drivers. This will probably be obviously out of date by the time someone reads it, but it’s important to give you an idea.

Now, here’s a good pro tip, for example. We get a ton of questions from new drivers who have issues with their background check, and so we talked about, hey, here’s how you can actually reach out the Checkr. Here’s their email address. Here’s their phone number, and really give you guys those pro tips. These pro tips are sort of based off thousands, tens of thousands of interactions with drivers, one of the most common problems we see come up over and over again, and so that’s really what we try to do there.

I’m going to scroll a little bit faster since I know this video is getting a little bit long. You can see chapter two. We’ve got more stories right here. This is Rob Saunders. This was a guy who’s on the podcast, and like I said, we include more information so you can learn more. Yeah, we’ve also got some cool pictures in here. I think this is probably about trade dress, but I’ll go ahead and see if anything else stands out just to give you guys a little sense. Lots of pictures, graphics, charts, tables. It’s not all just written word, but it’s really only the essential information that you need.

I’m trying to think how many pages is this book. Well, we’ll see. We’ve got screenshots from the app. We’ll see towards … We’re about halfway through, page 63, more stories just to say … Basically, what I’m trying to show is it’s not just all straight text right throughout the entire a book. That would be kind of boring for me to write, and probably pretty boring for you guys to read, so it’s a nice combination. We’ve also got some cool stories in here from people like Uberman, Randy Shear. I like to talk about kind of, in this example, he talks about why he dislikes Uber Pool rides and some of the strategies.

We’ve got strategies. That’s the other cool thing. Not only do we have these stories from just random people that you probably never heard of, but we’ve also got little stories in here where I actually reached out to people like Uberman and got their advice. The Simple Driver is another YouTuber, Rideshare Professor, all of these top YouTubers, these top bloggers. We’ve got another pro tip here. If you get a bad attitude over the phone, then you’ll get a bad attitude when they’re in your car, so it’s kind of a funny one.

Yeah. I mean, that’s really pretty much kind of what I wanted to cover. We’ll see if there’s anything. I’m going to scroll really fast through the end right here and see if anything else stands out to me. I don’t think so. Conclusion in page 148, so 148 pages to the conclusion. Then, of course, in the appendix, we’ve got things like abbreviations, other links, and then your typical index where you can kind of … if you have a question about, say hire car, if you have a question about the IRS, you can go straight to those pages. That’s another way. I think the chapter section works out pretty well, but if that doesn’t work, you can also go to the index like your typical normal book.

Hopefully, this was a good overview for you, guys. I’m really excited. Like I said, I’m really excited about this book launch. You can obviously find the book on amazon.com or in your local bookstores. If you have any questions about the process in general, I know there are a lot of aspiring authors out there, feel free to reach out. With that being said, stay safe out there, and look to talk to you soon.