The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 33 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Hoehn: Traditional publishing prevents authors from iterating on their books
“One of the reasons that I am reluctant to advocate for the traditional publishing process is, Like, your book is set in stone there. You might, if you're lucky, get a ten-year update, you know, the ten-year anniversary, but you're not going to touch that book …”
Authors Should Reject Traditional Publishing Deals Under $100,000
“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 gam…”
Why Over 95% of Authors Should Avoid Traditional Publishing Deals
“For 95 plus percent of authors I talk to, I tell them, it doesn't really make sense for you to do that.”
James Clear Lost Roughly 3x Per Copy Traditionally Publishing 'Atomic Habits'
“I remember talking to James Clear 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.”
Hoehn: Inexperienced first-time authors face higher risks self-publishing
“If it's your first go-round as an author and you don't know what you're doing, the likelihood that you'll step on a landmine that hurts your book during the self-publishing process is even higher than if you're working with a traditional publisher.”
Hoehn: Cheap Generalist Designers Always Produce Unremarkable Book Covers
“A lot of self-published authors are like, I'll go to Upwork, or 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 speci…”
Hoehn: Authors should not write prose before solidifying table of contents
“You should not write a word Until you have solidified your table of contents. And your table of contents is the thing. It is the structure, the makeup, the foundation of your book.”
Hoehn: NYT bestseller ROI comes from marketing effort, not the credential
“And I will say to people who hit the list, like congrats, it's hard to do. And 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 corre…”
Reader Retention Drops by 50% the Moment They Detect AI Writing
“And the data on this is readers will, as soon as they detect it's AI, it Their retention drops in half.”
Charlie Hoehn: The Best Books Are Written for One or Two People
“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 be…”
Charlie Hoehn: Authors Must Embody Their Subject Before Writing
“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…”
Hoehn: Authors Must Write for Readers Below Their Expertise Level
“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 a…”
Hoehn: Authors should validate their framework with three people before writing
“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 generally speaking, you ought to have coached, c…”
Hoehn: At least 80% of book purchases happen on Amazon
“I believe it's at minimum of 80% of books, book purchases are through Amazon online.”
Hoehn: The Right Cover or Thumbnail Outperforms Mediocre Designs 1,000x
“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.”
Hoehn: Virtually all books selling over 10,000 copies rely on word-of-mouth
“Virtually all books that sell more than 10,000 copies are driven by word of mouth.”
The Five-Beat Formula for Writing Engaging Nonfiction Book Chapters
“Yes, you should lean into a formulaic structure for chapters when you're writing it, and I want to differentiate, differentiate between writing and editing. Writing is getting the clay on the table. Editing is shaping it into the sculpture, right? And so when …”
Hoehn: Authors Must Front-Load Editing Time Due to Reader Retention Drop-Off
“Up front. A hundred percent. You are correct. It's the YouTube hook. It's the retention graph. It's the exact same with books.”
Hoehn: A Nonfiction Introduction's Sole Purpose Is Serving as a Sales Page
“The whole purpose of the introduction is just to sell you on reading the book. That is, it's the sales page. Convincing you this will be worth my time, which is you've got smart readers. The thing that they're going to value the most is, is this worth my time?”
Hoehn: Authors Make a Mistake Starting With History Instead of Best Material
“A lot of authors make the mistake, both self-published and traditional, They'll bury the best stuff in the back of the book, and it's like, what percentage of your readers are even getting to that? You know, they'll, they'll start with theory of like, here's h…”
Hoehn: The average book sells fewer than 1,000 lifetime copies
“The average book sells less than a thousand copies over the course of its lifetime”
Only 20 of the 500,000 Books Published Annually Sell a Million Copies
“There's 500,000 books published. Plus, published every year. 20 of them sell a million copies, and most of those are fiction.”
Authors Need 15,000 First-Week Sales to Hit The New York Times List
“You have to sell if you, if you're going, like, in an average time of year, anywhere between probably 10 to 20,000 copies. A safe, Place to bet is 15,000 copies. So you have to sell 15,000 copies right out of the gate.”
Hoehn: Pre-Launch and Launch Announcements Have Highest Book Sales Conversion Rates
“These are the two windows where sales will spike. So the announcement of the book, basically, that it's up for sale, and then the announcement that it's officially live. Those have the two highest conversion rates for sales”
Authors Should Target a 1% Review-to-Sales Ratio During Launch Week
“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.”
Hoehn: Million-copy books succeed by driving visible, shareable reader transformations
“It's like, do they provide a quick transformation that the reader wants to talk about and the people around them can't help but notice and talk about?”
Hoehn: Tell-all books about Trump crash in sales and never recover
“People who write about, like, Trump, you know, when he was in office in, like, a tell-all, sales go up, fall crashing down, and never return ever again.”
Hoehn: Creating or revitalizing a book category creates winner-take-all dynamics
“That would be like the ultimate tip and trick, and that's actually on my list, is does this create or revitalize a category? And so, if you can do that, it's like winner-take-all scenario. Tim Ferriss did this with lifestyle design.”
Hal Elrod Rewrote 'The Miracle Morning' Based on Negative Amazon Reviews
“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 which is quite good for its first year. With every negative review that he got, he wen…”
Tim Ferriss Used Google Ads to Discover 'The 4-Hour Workweek' Title
“He tested them at the time on Google Ads, and so he would just see which had the highest click through. And the four hour work week, I think had a two, two X over the second place highest.”
Hoehn: Bestselling book tables of contents are typically divided into 2-4 parts
“If you look in table of contents of bestselling books, they're typically divided into two to four parts, often three.”
Hoehn: Bundling Book Orders with Existing Services Drives Launch Volume
“If you can package Buying multiple books with services or products that you know people are already buying from you, it makes it easier for you to sell a bunch of books during those windows.”
Hoehn: Automated Email Funnel Tripled Normal Sales-to-Review Conversion
“I think 30,000 people or something went through that series. As this is excerpted from the book, I think it was like every third email, I would be like, if this was helpful, This is from Play It Away. If you wouldn't mind leaving a review, that'd be great. I h…”