The Exchanges

Q How does an author do that without writing the whole book, right? So, like, you can't write the book, publish it, then get feedback, and sort of like, okay, now what do I do with this?

A Um, well, you can, but I'll, I'll circle back to that. Uh, the, my, the, the method I encourage is teach it in real time first. And ideally, you're somebody who's already transformed numerous people, at least three, with the transformation that you're trying to codify into a book. So, um, generally speaking, you ought to have coached, consulted, helped At least three people achieve the transformation you're, you're trying to make into a book. You can, in theory, publish a book, and then see where people are getting stuck, see their reviews, and then adjust the book afterward. I don't recommend it. It's not as, it's not a strategy that most authors will stick to, but like Hal Elrod, who's based here in Austin, he did that with The Miracle Morning. And so in the first year, he promoted that book, sold like, 13,000 copies or something like that, uh, which is quite good for its first year. With every negative review that he got, he went back into the manuscript and made revisions so that that feedback couldn't be given again. So that review couldn't be given again. And he just kept doing that until the negative reviews stopped. And to date, it's sold millions of copies. Uh, I think in, he said in year six, it sold its millionth copy. But he, he stuck with that book, and he was like, I really believe in this. I'm gonna keep modifying this as though it is software. I'm going to relea…

AI assessment note: “the method I encourage is teach it in real time first.”

Q So where do people go wrong in self-publishing? You said, like,

A Where to begin? Uh, I think there's, there's a lot of places they go wrong. From the reader's perspective, I would say that they typically don't have a good cover, and so they immediately kind of shoot themselves in the foot. Public, traditional publishers will typically put out solid covers. When you're self-publishing and you've invested a bunch of time and money and you haven't made any money on the work, And it comes time to putting a face on the thing. A lot of self-published authors are like, I'll go to Upwork, or I'll, I'll hit up my designer friend who puts together PowerPoints, and I'll pay them 500 bucks. And it always results in something unremarkable. You have to pay an artist, a book-covered designer specialist, to create the boldest thing that you possibly can.

AI assessment note: “I would say that they typically don't have a good cover”

Q And then you can sit down, and it's really easy at that point to sort of write it out. Well, not easy, but You know what I mean?

A Right. It's easier. And so it's, I'd imagine it's pretty similar in, like, songwriting, right? If you don't know the concept of a bridge and a chorus and, like, all the, like, these beats, you have, and you're just told, write a song. You're probably going to write a terrible song. But if you have the structure that you can lean into, it will at least be more representative of what humans process. Similar with stories, right? You talked to a storytelling expert recently. Story structure is always the same, pretty much. It's once upon a time, and every day, until one day, and because of that, and because of that, and because of that, until finally, and ever since that day, right? Or it's the three-act structure, you know, climax, resolution, all that stuff. I think the best structures, quite simply, are what the reader wants. What the reader wants and needs. And so you can't get that if you're guessing. You said it yourself. You have the curse of knowledge, of expertise, and so you're so close to your topic. What is remarkable to you is confusing to who you're trying to reach, and what's boring and trite to you is fascinating to who you're trying to reach. And so if you're not having this be an interactive topic, Communal process of producing a book, you're shortchanging yourself. And so this is another, like, common assumption that people have. We all have, like, the, the idea …

AI assessment note: “Right. It's easier. And so it's, I'd imagine it's pretty similar in, like, songwriting”

Q But it doesn't guarantee you anything either, right? Like, 20,000.

A You can do as much as you possibly can, um, but yeah, I mean, you're right. Things, things go wrong, too. Not everybody's publishers, like, keen on you working with these service providers who, who do these services. It's so much, and I think it's just kind of not worth it. And so, that's one of the, one of the reasons, frankly, I like the self-published route. Is you don't have to play that game at all. Like it is a political logistical nightmare. And I will say to people who hit the list, like congrats, it's hard to do. And, uh, you're probably going to make whatever investment you made into hitting that list back, but it won't be because of the list. It will not be because of the New York, it will be correlative. In other words, all the marketing that you had to do to get it on there marketed You, in your business, and you will reap the benefits of that. There's a great video by Anna David, uh, about the, called The Truth, about hitting the New York Times bestseller list. She's hit it, and she's like, it was the brokest I ever was. You know, I, I think she wrote a, she wrote a memoir, I think, and she was basically like, look, it didn't change my life. I eat out on the title, and whenever I can, you know, and I'll, I'll say it for the rest of my life. It's a legit credential.

AI assessment note: “yeah, I mean, you're right. Things, things go wrong, too.”

Q are sort of like working through the subject that they're talking about, and that's the writing? Mark Manson, like, he cares, right? So the subtle art of not giving a fuck is sort of like him trying not to care as much. James Clear was really working on his habits when he was writing about habits, and sort of like, so you're writing the book you almost want to consume?

A Yes and no. So it's, you have to become the embodiment of the book First. So you can't really write it as though you're that person that you haven't become yet, or the person that you're becoming. You kind of have to write it from a place of, I've already become this. I've already grown into this, and I'm the embodiment of this. Naval Ravikant had a great quote where he said, in order to write a great book, you must first become the book. I work on prescriptive non-fiction Exclusively. I don't help with memoirs, I don't help with fiction, just, like, business books, self-help, personal development, that type of stuff. If you think of the author, their expertise is a ladder, right? And so they've climbed so many rungs to where they are. If they're trying to write for people on their rung or above, it will not be a good book. They need to write for the people below them And address those people. Because they can pull those people effectively up to their rung. They can't push somebody who's on their rung up further. You know what I mean? Because they're not there themselves.

AI assessment note: “you have to become the embodiment of the book First.”

Q What's your take on the pros and cons of sort of self-publishing versus publishing? What are the considerations that you look at? When does it make sense? When doesn't it make sense? How do you think about that?

A I agree with my buddy Nat Eliason's, um, take on traditional publishing. He, and it's a very Simple lens to look through. Uh, overly simplistic, I guess, but if you can get a publisher to give you a 100,000 dollar advance or more, you should probably do it. I mean, if you have millions of followers, a hundred thousand's not enough, but, like, you get the general concept. You want them to have enough skin in the game to take you seriously. You want to get as substantive of an advance as you can to actually, you know, Put some money into doing the book as well as you can and launching it as well as you can. For 95 plus percent of authors I talk to, I tell them, it doesn't really make sense for you to do that. There's a number of reasons. Most authors care about financial ROI. We can start there. Granted, the worst way to make money with a book is by selling lots of copies. Um, uh, With a, but with a traditional publisher, they're going to be taking, you know, I think it's upwards of 90% of your royalties. It may not be quite that high, but I remember talking to James Clear, uh, and, and we were talking about how much he would have made had he gone the self-publishing route with Atomic Habits, and I did the math, and it was like, ah, it's about three X more per copy.

AI assessment note: “if you can get a publisher to give you a 100,000 dollar advance”

Q released this once. It's like they read 15% of a book, maybe 16% of a book, and they get all the stats from Kindle. They know exactly where people drop off. Just like YouTube gives you, like, here's the drop-off points. Spotify does the same thing. Amazon doesn't give that to authors, but there's drop-off And so should you allocate your editing time equally across the book or up front?

A Up front. A hundred percent. You are correct. It's, it's the YouTube hook. It's, it's the retention graph. It's the exact same with books. And so with a book, if you assume that maybe 60% of readers are going to read the introduction, a hundred percent Of, of people who open the book are going to read the first page of this book. Can I get them to read past this first page and sear the message in the story, the, the best possible story that's the embodiment of what I'm trying to communicate with this book? Can I sear that into their brain so that they can recall it five years later? James Clear says, With Atomic Habits, which is a great example because sold 15 plus million copies over the last few years, been number one on Amazon overall for five years.

AI assessment note: “Up front. A hundred percent. You are correct.”

Q You're a three times, if I understand this correctly, New York Times bestselling editor. What have you learned about writing that you wish more people knew?

A The best books are written for one or two real people on the other end, and a lot of authors write as though they're speaking to a huge general audience or to their perceived fan base, the entire fan base. It's the fastest way, in my opinion, to kill a book because it's not interesting. They start speaking in terms of We need to do this. We should be like this. And it's like, you're, who are you talking to? There's one person on the other end of that book. Speak to them. Or speak about yourself. I learned this. And if you want to apply it, you can do this. So the, the most powerful, interesting books tend to be written for one real person in mind, and the paradox is they tend to reach a lot more people that way. And that person can be the author. Are you making something that you want to consume repeatedly? And if you are, it's probably pretty good. It'll find an audience eventually.

AI assessment note: “The best books are written for one or two real people on the other end”

Q What does that mean? Like, what are the nuances to cover design? I reached out to Pete, actually, because I was like, oh, for the paperback. Right. But we're, we're years away from that. But for the paperback, I was like, I want to work with you.

A I think it was Chip Kidd, the guy who did the Jurassic Park cover, uh, effectively said something like, it's, it's a haiku all in, on one page or something, but it's, it's basically the embodiment of the entire book within an image that you instantly understand what the book is trying to communicate in a way that Compels you to pick it up and read the dang thing, which, like, when I say it sounds, like, kind of mechanical, because I'm not a designer. I'm not, I don't pretend to be one, but I've talked to enough designers to realize, like, this is a real, legit specialty, and it's similar to YouTube, where the right thumbnail versus a average, mediocre thumbnail that's clearly been created In Canva by the producer of the video, the right thumbnail will outperform a thousand X. And it's, and I'm not saying like a cover will make or break a book. That's not true. Like the, the book has to stand alone as, as a good product regardless of the cover. So I don't want to sound too cosmetic.

AI assessment note: “it's basically the embodiment of the entire book within an image”

Q So, like, then title, subtitle, subtitle promise sort of walk me through titles. Like, what goes into a good title and subtitle?

A Title is the most important marketing decision the author can make for the book because, uh, it's, uh, Um, virtually all books that sell more than 10,000 copies are driven by word of mouth. The title has to do a lot of things. It is, um, when a person says it, it has to evoke curiosity, FOMO, some sort of emotional reaction, whether it's intrigue, or even, it's like, Repulsion in some cases. It has to be fun and easy to say. So like, I always struggle with that, uh, FBI book that I mentioned. I always forget the title. I cannot remember it, but it doesn't really matter because there's a story that I'm telling with it. But with the title, it's, it's kind of like a, um, it should be almost a tip of the tongue thing that comes up that gets triggered regularly In conversation. This dovetails a little bit with what you, what you've written about, or like the problem you're attempting to solve, right? So, um, uh, an example we used was, um, like, Meetings Suck by Cameron Harreld would always come up. Even if you didn't necessarily like the book, people would complain about meetings. Meetings were a constant in companies, and so this book would just kind of organically come up as like, oh, have you read You, you ought to read this, and, uh, it would just naturally be recommended. Authors also kind of need to take into consideration, like, what are the tip of the tongue conversations t…

AI assessment note: “Title is the most important marketing decision the author can make for the book”

Q a book, and it's like, I got the hint, you know, like, create products you want to consume. So, like, if you got 10 emails about my book, and like, they were dedicated emails with no other value add, Like, I wouldn't want that as a reader. Right. And so, like, how do we do this subtly? Like, who does this really well? Like, what can we learn from them?

A The launch week, the only metric I care about is reviews. Is, hit, hit a certain number of reviews based on the number of copies. So, one percent of copies you have out in the world, try and aim for that number of reviews. Um, it's a good metric. Uh, because then you lay the foundation for the book converting indefinitely. Um, They're converting well. Um, so what do you do to, to set up kind of an evergreen system? Um, you, you set it, uh, which is set up an email sequence, but have actual value from the book be delivering it. So it should be like standalone stuff from the book. So for play it away, um, I set up a 10 day series Helping people who are struggling with anxiety. And I've restructured parts of the book so that the quickest wins were first. So it was like, I know somebody who's anxious, all they want to start is give me a pill. So I'll recommend the couple supplements that actually make a difference when you're in that state. And then we're going to go on to a little bit bigger stuff. And it's going to be a 10 day journey, taking them from zero to hero. And in each email, I mentioned this is excerpted from the book.

AI assessment note: “set up an email sequence, but have actual value from the book be delivering it”

Q like, well, I'm writing, you know, summarize a podcast forward prompt, and I was like, well, one day I was like, okay, well, you need to write me a prompt on what matters that I can feed into AI somewhere, and it writes back like five or six sentences, and it's like a way better job summarizing the podcast than what I was doing. What have you learned about prompting?

A Yeah, this is, that's precisely what I do, too. I say, give me the ideal prompt that will achieve this outcome. That's, that's really, like, AI is better at communicating with itself than you are, so just prompt it to do. I think the key is, is like, people just don't tend to experiment with this stuff. I think we're probably in a small segment of society that actually is, like, a lot of people have used ChatGPT, they know about it, etc., but kind of in the same way that a lot of people know about Bitcoin. People aren't actively using it all the time. There, you might be around people who are, but The vast majority of people aren't. And so, I, I don't know, we're in such an exciting, unique time where it's like, all you have to do is play around with this stuff on a regular basis. Like, that's all you have to do. Just see if you can, like, break it or impress yourself or whatever. And, um, exciting things come from that.

AI assessment note: “I say, give me the ideal prompt that will achieve this outcome.”