Your book may be the most important thing you ever put your name on (with the possible exception of your children). People are going to see that and say, “Ah, that’s who that person is.” So . . . Why would you settle for anything less than the most awesome title? Why would you allow…
I recently saw a picture of the publishing industry that blew my mind. Here, in a graphic from Al Mossawi, are the imprints of the Big 5 publisher Penguin Random House. Your editor’s world All the other big publishers look like this. Consider your editor’s job. They’re probably one of four or five acquisitions and…
I love books. I hate Amazon. And I want brilliant authors to receive the visibility for their ideas that they deserve. So I started a bookshop. More specifically, I used the tools at Bookshop.org, on online bookshop, to assemble my own personally curated bookshop of powerful, entertaining, significant, or underappreciated books. If you’re want to…
Tis the season for every online retailer on the planet pinging you endlessly to buy, buy, buy and save, save, save. For marketers who products are digital, it’s particularly challenging to stand out. Nobody wants bits in their stocking, even though more and more of the things we value are virtual. So I was impressed…
Newsletter week 22: Stop slagging other authors, will Spotify crash audiobooks?, AI copyright posturing, three people to follow, three books to read, and some very lame ad copy. The myth of personal market share A shocking and tragic story rattled the publishing world this week. Cait Corrain, a fantasy novelist who had secured a two-book…
I’ll share the methodical and efficient process I use to construct a nonfiction book chapter, whether for a book I’m writing for myself or one I’m ghostwriting for others. By the way, if you think eight drafts per chapter is a lot, you’re either a brilliantly intuitive writer — or you’ve never experienced what it’s…
Let’s take a moment to understand how it looks when an article uses data effectively — and what you can learn from that. There are so many abuses in media citations of statistics — from poorly conducted studies, to sloppy citations, to lack of transparency in sources — that I take notice when journalists do…
There are two basic ways to approach the content that goes into a book. You are creating topical content that’s relevant based on current trends and events. Or you are creating evergreen content that will have value for many years to come. If I can shamelessly steal terminology from Scott Monty’s estimable podcast and Substack,…
If you think writing happens when you’re at the keyboard, you’re not thinking big enough. Writing is problem-solving. A nonfiction writer has to solve problems like these: Only the last two items work best at a keyboard. The rest of these problems are potentially solved best when you’re doing something else — walking, cooking, socializing,…