Pressure-tested ideas; AI detectors revealed; book distribution fallacies: Newsletter 10 June 2026
Newsletter 155. Why it pays to beat up an idea until it reveals its true self. Plus, publishers’ AI paranoia, Wikipedia editors threaten to strike, three people to follow, and three books to read.
Hard on ideas
I am a professionally compensated pain in the ass.
People hire me to help develop their ideas. What follows is my all-out attempt to challenge, weaken, break down, undermine, and destroy their ideas.
If you unconditionally love your idea, you’d best not bring it to me. Because your idea is going to suffer.
I will raise questions about how you’ve defined your audience and whether the problem you’re trying to solve is real.
I will question your originality. I will bring up similar ideas and ask you why you’re idea isn’t just a retread of what came before.
I will pick apart your logic. I will challenge your reasoning and show that you’ve failed to prove what you imagine you’re making the case for.
I will impugn your evidence. I will show that your sample size is inadequate, your perspective is biased, your information is obsolete, and your review of the literature has cherry-picked the findings most favorable to your point of view. I will bring up inconvenient facts that contradict your cherished perspective.
I will ask, repeatedly, for examples of your idea in action. If you have none, clearly your solution is imaginary. If you have just a few, why aren’t there more? If you have many, doesn’t that mean that your idea is old and commonplace? I’ll also ask if it’s possible to interpret your case studies as opposing, rather than supporting, your ideas.
I will show how your idea logically implies impossibilities. Reductio ad absurdum. If the consequences of your idea are implausible, then your idea is, too.
If you continue to cling emotionally to your idea, I’ll show how emotion has biased your thinking.
On the other hand, if you are ready to give up on your idea, I will question your commitment.
Why would someone voluntarily put themselves through this?
Because if you love your idea, you must do whatever you can to help it survive the barren, hostile, inhospitable marketplace. Right now, nobody loves your idea but you. Unless you do the necessary work, no one else will ever love it.
You must see how it fails in private, so you can fix it and strengthen it before you bring it out in public. The alternative is to be unprepared when you reveal it, and to be humiliated because of your lack of preparation.
An interesting alchemical reaction happens when I challenge ideas. Those who create the ideas don’t just strengthen them. They transform them. The ideas morph into something more inspiring, more fascinating, more relevant. They go from ordinary to “Wow!” Their inventors develop far better ways of describing them, explaining them, evangelizing them.
I try not to be hard on people. Attacking people just generates negative emotions. But I am ruthless and merciless with ideas.
Because an untested idea is a missed opportunity for greatness.
News for writers and others who think
Publishers all claim to be able to distribute your book. What that really means is complex and nuanced. In this article on Jane Friedman‘s blog, Greenleaf Book Group CEO Tanya Hall provides an illuminating explanation of what book distribution really means.
Edward Nawotka of Publisher’s Weekly writes about a publishers’ AI panel at the US Book Show (subscriber link). According to Authors Equity CEO Madeline McIntosh, “I feel like every publisher is five minutes away from having an AI controversy.” Publishers must move beyond AI paranoia, but treading the narrow path between efficiency and risk is a constant challenge.
Christopher Penn demystifies how AI detectors actually work and why they’re far from infallible. Reading his clear explanation on this controversial topic will make you smarter.
Many of Wikipedia’s best (volunteer) editors are threatening to strike because of cutbacks at the online encyclopedia.
Alexandra Samuel, Ph.D. writes in the Wall Street Journal about how to use AI itself as a fact checker for AI-generated hallucinations (gift link).
Mark Williams frames the paradox of AI in publishing as an economic issue. “Publishers have constructed, with meticulous care, a moral circle around creative labour. Inside the circle: authors, illustrators, narrators, translators – the human artists whose displacement by AI is framed as an existential crisis, a theft, an assault on imagination itself. Outside the circle: engineers, warehouse operatives, phone operators, metadata specialists, marketing copywriters, junior editorial assistants – the human workers whose displacement by the same AI is framed as efficiency, innovation, or simply not mentioned at all.”
Three people to follow
Frank Scavo, independent industry analyst and enterprise tech blogger
Jeffrey Trachtenberg, incisive reporter who just left the Wall Street Journal — what will he do next?
Adam Alter , NYU professor writing on attention, behavior, and what makes ideas stick
Three books to read
The One and the Ninety-Nine: Forging Identity in the Age of Social Contagion by Luke Burgis (St. Martin’s, 2026). Social media drags you along — how can you fight the tide as a true original?
What If You Could by Jacinda Ardern with Ruby Shamir (Philomel, 2026). An inspiring book for young readers by Australia’s former prime minister.
The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars by Isaac Butler (Bloomsbury, 2026). When left vs. right turned nasty: the original sin of American Politics.