Newsletter 83: The coming backlash against Trump, deep research for 20 bucks a month, Amazon restricts downloads, plus three people to follow and three books to read. The silent resistance I’m not a politician, a political commentator, or a historian. I’m a business book writer and editor. Business books aren’t about politics, they’re about success….
I was incredibly lucky. My first book Groundswell, written for Forrester Research with my fellow analyst Charlene Li in 2008, took off like a rocket soon after it was published. I thought, “Ah, I have this book thing figured out.” Fifty-plus book projects later, I’ve learned which of the lessons I took away were actually…
The second line in my bio is this: “He has contributed to more than 50 book projects that have generated over $20 million for their authors.” A recent reader of this blog seemed skeptical of whether such a statement could possibly be true. Given all the exaggerated claims out there from people about their supposed…
If you’re writing a book about a change in the world, consider including an imagined future scenario. It will vividly bring to life your vision of the future. And it will be fun to write, too. What is a future scenario story? If you are writing a book about trends or shifts, you want us…
Thirteen years ago I made a fateful decision. I’ve been thinking about how it paid off in the rich connections with people that it led to. I was 48 years old in 2007 and determined to publish my first book by the time I was 50. I took the plunge: I made a deal with…
Social media helped us shake up rigid institutions and empower people, but gave us a new world that has proven to be brittle and destructive. The new power structures that have arisen aren’t up to the job of maintaining our civilization. When Charlene Li and I wrote Groundswell ten years ago, we had a utopian vision…
Charlene Li has added her own perspectives on the tenth anniversary of the publication of Groundswell. Read her post on LinkedIn or below: 10 years ago, my co-author Josh Bernoff and I released our first book, “Groundswell: Living in a World Transformed by Social Technologies”. On this anniversary, I wanted to reflect on what our expectations were when…
Many of us who promoted social media when it was young are now wondering if we made a mistake. For example, former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya has said “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works: no civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth.” So I decided to take a look…
Writing a book is hard enough. Adding another person makes it twice as hard. Collaboration only makes sense if it’s asymmetrical — if you have complementary skills and different jobs. I’ve written three books with coauthors, edited a few more, and am currently ghostwriting parts of books with other authors. Coauthoring sounds like it’s going…