A career in writing; Greenleaf & Amplify acquired; Trump’s lawsuit rejected: Newsletter 24 September 2025

Newsletter 112. Finding your “thing” — the part of your job that you can happily and profitably do for decades. Plus, big news for hybrid publishing, new AI surveys, three people to follow, and three books to read.

My thing is writing. Do you know yours?

I first got hired as a professional writer in 1982. That’s 43 years ago.

I wrote software manuals and tutorials. Strategy memos. Newsletters. Online help. CD-ROMs (!). Speeches. Research reports. Blog posts. Books. And even a few short horror stories.

From the start, there was something special about writing. It was problem solving. It entranced me in a highly fulfilling and totally absorbing state of flow. I could go fast without being sloppy. I could tangibly see the results of what I had created. I got really good at it. And I could get paid for it.

When I worked at a small software company called MathSoft, I wrote the manual. I also handled technical support calls. One day, at the end of a support call, the user asked me if I knew the person who wrote the manual. “Yes, sure,” I said. He then told me, “I curled up with that manual and read it before bed. It’s terrific. Tell the writer I said that.” “I’ll make sure I tell him,” I agreed. He couldn’t see me grinning.

Writing has qualities that made it ideal for building a career around. There was a need for it in the corporate world. It was enjoyable. I could keep learning and getting better at it. It was versatile: I could do it as a technical writer, as a manager, as a startup executive, as an analyst, as a blogger, as an author. I could get credit for my work. Each new writing task was a challenge — a chance to learn about a new topic, a new format, a new tool, a new way to fail or to succeed. I could teach it to others. It never gets old, because each new writing task is fundamentally different, even if I use the same set of tools to create it. I’m at least 10 million words into this writing adventure, and it hasn’t bored me yet.

This isn’t actually an essay about writing. It is an essay about finding your thing.

In your career, you should always be on the lookout for the type of task that will do for you what writing will did for me — enable you to be happy, productive, fairly paid, and never bored.

What is your thing?

Spreadsheets? Coding? Managing people? Managing projects? Hiring? Building teams? Optimizing marketing? Running big events? Graphic design? Accounting?

Here’s how you’ll recognize it.

It’s a task that, when you’re working on it, you feel challenged but productive. You enter a flow state.

It should be something you can always learn more about and get better at.

It should allow for growth even as the core of the task remains fundamentally the same.

It should be something that won’t be made obsolete by the advance of technology. (If you think AI is making writers obsolete, you haven’t understood what good writers do.)

It must be something you can get paid for, especially something that, the better you do it, the more you can get paid.

Ideally, it’s something that you can be proud of. I am proud to say I am a writer, and always have been, whether my title was technical writer or documentation manager or VP of production or senior analyst or chief troublemaker. When people ask what you do, what do you say?

When you’re at the start of your career, seek opportunities to do new things, even things that scare you. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say things like, “I didn’t realize how much I’d love public speaking until I was forced to do it” or “I learned to code and I’ve never looked back.”

It’s fine to have your eyes on the next step on the corporate ladder, or a passion for the next challenge.

But when you find your thing, you can build a satisfying career around it. And that’s worth more than any fleeting accomplishment, title, or paycheck.

News for writers and others who think

Breaking news as I write this: Two of the leading hybrid publishers, Greenleaf Book Group and Amplify Publishing Group, have been acquired and merged by a new private-equity backed firm called Civica Media. Amplify CEO Naren Aryal told me he will have a leadership role in the new company; Greenleaf CEO Tanya Hall will also stay on. In my view this merger combined company and its significant financial resources will catalyze big shifts in the business book market, empowering authors, threatening traditional publishers, and creating huge challenges for the too-pricey Forbes Books and smaller hybrids. If you’re currently working with either Amplify or Greenleaf, don’t expect much to change, except that both companies will now have access to more efficient production, marketing, and distribution resources. Note: I had previously described this as a merger, which is inaccurate. Greenleaf and Amplify will continue to operate separately under the umbrella of Civica Media.

Several new surveys about AI and writing have been published. Freelance AI expert Ed Gandia surveyed 157 freelance writers and found a significant minority were more productive with AI. And the Book Industry Study Group surveyed 559 publishing professionals and found that half were using AI but 31% had ethical concerns (Publishers’ Weekly, subscriber link). These results are consistent with what I’m finding in the broad survey of writers I completed for Gotham Ghostwriters, which had 1400 respondents. We’ll be releasing our results in October.

Are you ever afraid of your future — and our shared future? The intrepid Rishad Tobaccowala presents an extended analysis of our fear — where it comes from and what to do about it.

In the Washington Post, David Ignatius pays tribute to his brutally honest editor, Starling Lawrence. I can relate. (Gift link).

Samsung announced a smart refrigerator with ads on a screen on the front and extra features you need to pay to subscribe to. This is definitely a sign of the downfall of civilization.

A federal judge tossed out Donald Trump’s lawsuit for defamation against the New York Times and publisher Penguin Random House because it was so badly written. U.S. District Court Judge Steven D. Merryday, of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, complained that Mr. Trump’s lawyers for waiting until the 80th page of an 85-page complaint to lodge a formal allegation of defamation following dozens of “florid and enervating” pages of self-praise and whining. According to Merryday, “A complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective . . . Not a protected platform to rage against an adversary.”

Three people to follow

Steven Rosenbaum media observer and author of The Future of Truth

Sir John Hegarty brilliant advertising executive and expert on creativity

Adam Grant bestselling author who, let’s admit it, thinks more deeply than the rest of us about people and the world

Three books to read

Burn the Playbook: How Creators and Entrepreneurs Escape the 9 to 5 and Build Businesses That Last by Joe Pulizzi (Tilt Publishing, 2025). Why bother inhabiting the earth unless you’re prepared to make an indelible mark on it?

The Seismic Shift in You: The Seven Necessary Shifts to Create Connection and Drive Results by Michelle Johnston, Ph.D. and Marshall Goldsmith (100 Coaches Publishing, 2025). Practical tools for effective leaders.

Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life by Maggie Smith (Washington Square Press, 2025). Short essays on the ten key elements of creativity.