Jeremiah Gardner raised $23,000 to publish his book "The Lean Brand" through crowd publishing in 28 days. He did this by creating a simple book cover, writing a chapter outline to generate interest, and promoting the book pre-order campaign to his friends, Twitter followers, and email list. Key lessons included starting with your core audience, connecting with readers by writing something valuable to them, and continually learning from experiments and audience feedback to improve the book idea.