Fastlane Opportunities for Writers

[MTF]

I've ranked several sites at the top of Google using their approaches. Mostly it's about creating good content in longer formats and then waiting forever (like 6 months) for that content to pick up and take off and then leveraging non-Google display ads + other products to create income systems.

Thank you for sharing your experience, Lex.

I actually created a website in the last couple of days (I mean identifying the niche, keywords, potential monetization, setting up the domain, hosting, site, etc. - no content yet) and then learned it would take at least 6 months to get any traffic using their methods.

I assume that after 6 months you merely BEGIN to get traffic, right? So it may take a year or more to get any visible traction and all this time you're writing tons of articles?

I understand that the 24 in their name is 24 months to have a website that can replace one's salary. If so, that's awfully slow, at least for a guy like me (and I assume you as well).

 

[MTF]

Some websites can get traffic faster if the niche is right, but generally, they're saying stick with it for 2 years. I think the timeframe can be reduced quite a lot if your YT channel starts to take off which is why they started pushing that method more heavily.

That's extremely depressing.

In their community, there are people who have pretty good results after 24 months. I forget how good those results were, but some were reaching 5-figures+ per month mostly from ads.

I watched one of their videos in which they mentioned this website (viewer submitted) and said that it's making $18k/month. I find it incredible as it looks basic and cheap and the topic seems super niche.

Also, you should grow faster if you leverage paid ads to drive traffic, but then you're not really using their approach the way they describe it anymore.

Yeah, then it wouldn't make sense to write tons of content as you could simply create a product, write a few good articles and then focus 100% on ads and you'd start making sales way faster than within 2 years.

 

[StrikingViper69]

I watched one of their videos in which they mentioned this website (viewer submitted) and said that it's making $18k/month. I find it incredible as it looks basic and cheap and the topic seems super niche.

That site has people posting articles at least every day, sometimes 3x a day... they must be ranking for a ton of keywords.

I've been wondering over the last 2 days what to do with a blog I have that gets just over 3k visitors a month... the last few posts on this thread have given me some ideas, thanks guys!

 

[DWX]

So far I wrote four long tail keyword focused articles with it. It's been working great.

The articles start ranking between position 10-25 within a day. I imagine that within a few weeks they should be in top5.

Damn, that's impressive. I assume your domain isn't aged?

AI is shaking things up.

 

[Kid]

And ugh.. Harry Potter and 50 Shades...

 

[Flint]

I sort of feel like I'm the victim of the sunk cost fallacy here but at the same time I can't help but feel that if I'm already so deeply embedded into this industry it's foolish to try something else.

Looks like this is your underlying question/problem statement.

Deep down you know the answer. It's always great to have many opportunities and other skills to leverage. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Good luck!

 

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[MTF]

Based on your other comments, that fact that you know your list isn’t super loyal means your attention should be spent on figuring out why. Then fixing it.

I know why. I have way too many readers from poor countries who can't afford books. So maybe they are loyal but only if I can give them something for free.

One more thing from my many meals with Sy Sperling. He felt that his most important skill was marketing. In your case you said “lead generation”. Even if you have the best book that’s ever been written, you must have a way to let the world know.

True. Marketing is my big weakness.

@MTF - It seems the natural approach for writers is to diversify into coaching, seminars, and other courses.

Aren't you paying for a course from David Farland? I never heard of the man as an author, but I'm guessing he makes more $$ as a trainer/coach, than an author.

As far as I know he made at least $2 million from his fiction, mostly published in the late 90s and early 00s. I'm not sure if he makes more as a coach.

 

[sanzen]

Well we have different definitions. What you're saying is just Internet marketing, self-publishing is IMO publishing on retailer sites (and that's mostly what you'll find if you google the term). Not saying you aren't right as for selling elsewhere, just pointing out that my definition is different.

You can define it that way if you like, but successful entrepreneurs don't.


Unless her business somehow exploded in the last two years (as far as I know it hasn't) here are her numbers from 2019:

Author Earnings: My 2019 Breakdown Of Book Sales By Format, Genre, Vendor And Country | The Creative Penn

It's the time of year when I report on my book sales and reflect on what I could do better! I hope you find this article useful for your own author business, whatever stage you're at.

www.thecreativepenn.com

Nope. First, this is strictly *book* sales; second, it describes the sales ratios, not the dollar amounts. She even lays out her journey to multi-six figures here (April 2016 onward): My Author Timeline. From First Book To Author Entrepreneur | The Creative Penn

But I get the feeling Penn is a straw man here for you. Personally, I don't think of her as exceptional in the field, just successful.

True but that's what it is for most self-published authors, and particularly fiction writers.

You're still conflating 'author' and 'writer' with 'self publishing entrepreneur'. I get that; it's a view many hold. But it misses the entire point of self publishing, which is not 'put ebooks on Amazon'. You're confusing 'books' with 'self publishing' and the business of leveraging publishing to develop multiple streams of income. You're still in the narrow world view of 'romance novels on Amazon'.

I won't try and convince you of how it really works out there; all I can tell you is that you're missing 90% of the big picture with these beliefs.

 

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[MTF]

Picking the “right industry” at right time makes a big difference.

Definitely. Sometimes you can identify the right industry yourself but sometimes you get lucky and the niche explodes in popularity as you grow.

 

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[Andy Black]

No, but very close And he's definitely in the group of authors I'm talking about.

It'll probably come out at some point, so I'll just tell you guys who I work for now: it's Mark Manson.

I had to laugh at the part in TGRRE about all the books with "f*ck" in the title trying to grab attention because The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck has been such a huge success.

You're absolutely right though, it's overdone now and it's lost its edge as a marketing gimmick.



It's not necessarily that you gave something away for free, but yeah, if your target audience doesn't have much disposable income, that makes it more difficult.

And yes, Sanderson is a great example here. He uses a lot of channels to engage his audience now that he's more established, but I would pick just one, maybe two when starting out (more on this below).

As for resources on building an engaged list, nothing really stands out in my mind at the moment. Effective tactics come and go as the market changes, and as I'm sure you're aware, it changes fast.

The one thing I'll say that has worked for us across all channels is consistency. Regular posting, regular emails, regular engagement with your readers. Nothing fancy, just grinding while delivering the highest quality content you can muster.



Get your work in front of as many people as possible, gauge the reaction, adjust and repeat. The method you pursue to do this depends a little on your niche, I suppose, but you have to start testing channels and see what works and what doesn't.

Take a narrow subtopic of what you write on and create content for that, then put it on as many channels as you can. Pitch publications in your niche, make a YouTube video, post it to Medium, share it on social platforms—just test everything. Hell, start even simpler and just send it to your friends. Ask them for honest feedback and if they know anyone who might find it useful too.

In every case, have a lead magnet that you push people to and get their email.

Pay close attention to the reaction you get, then adjust, rinse, and repeat. It's a numbers game to some extent. You'll have a lot of flops, but eventually you'll stumble on something that works for you.

One example that comes to mind: Jordan Peterson spent a lot of time answering questions on Quora. Most of them got a few upvotes and likes, but nothing spectacular. Then he answered a question about "rules for life" and it got thousands of upvotes, likes, comments, etc. This later became the basis for his best-selling book, 12 Rules for Life.

At the same time, he was publishing his class lectures on YouTube, and one of those ended up breaking through too.

In short, start grinding and testing different distribution channels and double down on the one or two that gets you the most reach and engagement. These are your early adopters upon which you'll build your audience.

This is what Nicolas Cole explained in his book. Put content out there and see what resonates. Then expand on what resonates.

My take is to help folks and see where you repeat yourself, and then create content to answer people asking it in future.

Like others in this thread, I don’t particularly want to grow a personal brand so haven’t taken that further.

 

[Andy Black]

but then your job is marketing, not writing

I’m curious what your definition of marketing is @MTF?


My definition of marketing is:

1. Find out what people want to buy.
2. Find out how to sell it to them.
3. Find out if you can do it profitably.
4. Do it.

 

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[Andy Black]

Curious what you guys think of The Hustle being bought by Hubspot for $10m or so.

They write a newsletter and built an engaged list that Hubspot wanted access to.

Similar to Unilever buying Dollar Shave Club to get access to their large list of buyers.

Our asset isn’t just an engaged list, but it’s also the content and strategy/method that got people onto our list.

Thinking of the book “Built To Sell” … what assets have you or can you build MTF that someone would buy from you?

 

[LifeDeathTime]

Do you think it can work for fiction as well or for now just for non-fiction? Do you recommend any resources to better understand this

Both.

I've only used it personally for nonfiction but I have seen applications in fiction that seem to work just as well.

According to GPT-3 Wikipedia:

• GPT-3 has been used by Andrew Mayne for AI Writer, which allows people to correspond with historical figures via email.

I haven't tried it but I'm guessing it's pretty good.

All of the stuff we currently have access to is the consumer-available, limited API. I don't see why if you train these networks on great American authors, it couldn't easily reproduce amazing fiction stories.

It's all about patterns.

The "hero's journey" is easily the most reproduced pattern in fiction and I bet if you train the model on it, it would produce amazing stories.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

@Lex DeVille I think you need to re-explore the tools now dude.

GPT-3 came out ~12 months ago. It's nothing like I've ever seen before.

I was of the exact same mindset as you and nothing until that is even close to being any good.

I didn't say nothing was good. I said it doesn't matter. If it did, I wouldn't be working on a six-figure copywriting deal right now. It matters even less for creatives.

There isn't a single person on this forum that believes in the possibilities of AI, exponential growth, and immortality more than me. It doesn't change the fact that AI won't replace creatives even when it outperforms them in every measurable way.

 

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[MTF]

2020 Writing Income | Jim C. Hines

www.jimchines.com

This is super depressing. The guy has been publishing these income reports since 2007, has a nice catalog, and has been working with major New York publishers, and yet made only $31k in 2020, $14k in 2019, and $39k in 2018. His BEST year ever (2016) was $77k.

He makes some money from his self-published titles but it was less than 7% of his 2020 income. I wonder how much he would earn if all of his books were self-published instead of traditionally-published.

Which is why, though I am currently writing (to satisfy a personal need to write), I don't expect to ever go fastlane with a writing based effort. I just feel like I can get a higher ROI of my time by doing other things.

For me, writing helps with other aspects of life so its overall ROI, not just monetary, is substantial. It's sort of a meditative experience, it helps you clarify your thoughts (in non-fiction) or maybe deal with some emotions (in fiction). It improves your vocabulary, makes you curious about new things (if you need to do research), and sometimes even helps you become an expert in a topic that may one day generate a higher monetary ROI.

I'm learning how to write fiction now hoping it'll make some money. Considering all the depressing earnings of average fiction writers, I'm not sure how likely it is that it'll ever be anything more than a tiny bit of side income. But maybe the storytelling skills I'll hopefully learn will help me become a better person and also somehow translate into business.

 

[MTF]

All I know is that there is, for sure, a way to make it work. Who is making it work now? What are they doing? When was the last time you went for a brainstorm to come up with new ideas on the business front, not the writing front?

I'm just looking at it in terms of odds. If in one business an average person makes $100k and in another the average is $10k, which business, all other things being equal, gives you higher chances of making it work? Why would you try to figure out how to make that $10k business work if the other one gives you 10x better odds?

It's the same reason why I'd never write poetry (apart from the fact that I hate it lol). If there are any living professional poets (who can make a living writing poetry alone), I doubt the most successful ones make more than a minimum wage.

If you want this to be Fastlane, you need solutions for the parts that aren't working for yourself and others. Not focus on how depressing it is that their business isn't working.

You're making a good point here. I have a tendency to seek real-world examples and maybe sometimes it sounds as if I'm looking for proof that something can't work. But I find it more valuable to learn from average guys than from outliers who are, for the most part, impossible to imitate.

When was the last time you went for a brainstorm to come up with new ideas on the business front, not the writing front?

All the time. I don't really spend that much time writing compared to thinking, researching, and brainstorming new business directions.

If it's not about the money, then who cares what anybody is doing? Just write.

I don't need to make more money but I have very little interest in doing things for free or even for a low financial return. It's probably not healthy to look at the world this way but that's how I'm wired.

This, by the way, is a reality check most people thinking about their life post financial independence don't consider. You tell yourself that once you have financial security you'll start writing books or playing music but then when you can actually do it, deep down you think it's a waste of time because you're not earning enough money to justify the time and effort expense. Or maybe that's just me being weird.

Either way, thanks as always for your response, @Lex DeVille. I always appreciate your thoughts even if we may have opposite views on certain things.

 

[notinuse1245]

After reading through the thread, here are my 10 cents.
You mentioned that you have a email list, but most people on it seem to be from poorer countries and want stuff for free.
You can see this, like already mentioned, as wrong target group for your product, or you turn that around and see it as wrong product for the right group.
Instead of building a new email list, why not try catering to the one you already have? If they can't affored your books, turn them into free content. A blog is the obvious, and that doesn't have to be a personal brand. You could also use the blog to test ideas that you might want to turn into books further down the line.
Chris Anderson wrote an article for Wired about the internet allowing people to make a living from tiny niches, the article went viral and he wanted to turn the thesis into a book, but knew that it would take him 1-2 years. He made a blog about the topic (The long tail) and started to talk about his research, test ideas, crowdsource information, etc. Then two years later he released the book with a crowd that wanted to buy it.
You can monetize the blog in more way than you can a book, and earn money from the people who want free stuff.
On the other hand you could go further and turn it into a podcast.

On the topic of fiction, I think it highly depends on the niche. Pure fantasy is probably so saturated that you won't have an easy start. But there are some niche, like LitRPG, that's rather new, lives on mostly self-published authors, and word of mouth. That also means that there is a lot of garbage in that genre, but you don't need much skill to get out of the piles of terrible books.
Graham Stephan had an interview with a LitRPG writer (I'll see if I can find it later) who started out writing and making almost 6-figures a month on his first books by only being active in a couple facebook groups, his books were decent and word of mouth did the rest.
There are some niches in fiction with a fanbase that is starving for content, if you can find one and write a decent book you can probably go fastlane with it.

The other thing that might get your fiction writing to fastlane would be selling complementory items. If you have a couple super fans who buy every book in your series, why not push other items too. Patrick Rothfuss is one example of a fantasy writer who also sells merch. His store for reference. A book takes a long time to make, but selling signed copies for a couple bucks more doesn't cost you a lot of time. T-Shirts, Mugs, Jewlery, Playing Cards, Plushies, Art prints, Maps, Stickers, Figurines, heck I even saw some brands selling pajamas of their fantasy world. There are literally no limits.

Then you can also play with new media, there are short story magazines who turn the submissions into "audio books", instead of writing a whole book, why not write a series of short stories and turn it into an audio series, as well as publishing it for free online, and selling a printed copy of the collection?

I think the main problem with authors not going fastlane is that they might have multiple streams of income, but they all have the same, experiment with new media, try to create new streams of income that aren't common in the industry.

 

[MTF]

Not saying do this (even though it is possible to create right now), but I don't think tomorrow's publishing successes are going to look like what they look like today. The stories don't have to change that much, but how they are delivered and consumed probably will.

Good point, and I'm probably too much of a donkey to change my mind and try these creative solutions. Maybe I should write a book on how NOT to end up like me.

Instead of building a new email list, why not try catering to the one you already have? If they can't affored your books, turn them into free content. A blog is the obvious, and that doesn't have to be a personal brand. You could also use the blog to test ideas that you might want to turn into books further down the line.

Working with an Indian audience is... well, a peculiar experience. I get emails that are so confusing and often so out of my cultural understanding that I don't think I can serve this audience.

Chris Anderson wrote an article for Wired about the internet allowing people to make a living from tiny niches, the article went viral and he wanted to turn the thesis into a book, but knew that it would take him 1-2 years. He made a blog about the topic (The long tail) and started to talk about his research, test ideas, crowdsource information, etc. Then two years later he released the book with a crowd that wanted to buy it.

That's a nice example that got me thinking, thanks!

The other thing that might get your fiction writing to fastlane would be selling complementory items. If you have a couple super fans who buy every book in your series, why not push other items too. Patrick Rothfuss is one example of a fantasy writer who also sells merch. His store for reference. A book takes a long time to make, but selling signed copies for a couple bucks more doesn't cost you a lot of time. T-Shirts, Mugs, Jewlery, Playing Cards, Plushies, Art prints, Maps, Stickers, Figurines, heck I even saw some brands selling pajamas of their fantasy world. There are literally no limits.

I wonder how much money he makes off this merch compared to his book sales...

Then you can also play with new media, there are short story magazines who turn the submissions into "audio books", instead of writing a whole book, why not write a series of short stories and turn it into an audio series, as well as publishing it for free online, and selling a printed copy of the collection?

Thank you for all your ideas. I appreciate it. I considered creating a web serial instead of a regular book. I also know of some stories that are sold/distributed as podcasts, chapter by chapter. Just not sure how much scale there is in something so out there. I'd imagine that most readers still prefer an "old" reading experience (also considering how many still prefer print books). But I may be wrong.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

This is super depressing. The guy has been publishing these income reports since 2007, has a nice catalog, and has been working with major New York publishers, and yet made only $31k in 2020, $14k in 2019, and $39k in 2018. His BEST year ever (2016) was $77k.

Damn. Makes me question if I even want to bother writing fiction. Not that I need the money, but I know that I tend to take a LONG TIME to write stuff that I'd like to publish. I would hate to spend 2 years writing something and only have 20 people read and enjoy it, seems like a terrible waste of time. But then again, I guess that's part of the art -- writing for a purpose VS writing for a market.

 

[BizyDad]

This is super depressing. The guy has been publishing these income reports since 2007, has a nice catalog, and has been working with major New York publishers, and yet made only $31k in 2020, $14k in 2019, and $39k in 2018. His BEST year ever (2016) was $77k.

Damn. Makes me question if I even want to bother writing fiction. Not that I need the money, but I know that I tend to take a LONG TIME to write stuff that I'd like to publish. I would hate to spend 2 years writing something and only have 20 people read and enjoy it, seems like a terrible waste of time. But then again, I guess that's part of the art -- writing for a purpose VS writing for a market.

I know it is obviously dated, but in 2016, instead of publishing his usual yearly synopsis, he took a survey of 381 authors. See here - 2016 Novelist Income Survey Final Results and Data | Jim C. Hines

A couple take-aways:

• Average Income: $114,124
• Median Income: $17,000

Most people obviously don't make a living wage at it. The top 20% made at least $119k, the top 10% made at least $296k, the top 1% made at least $1.4 million.

And looking at the expenses (especially for the self published) it looks like most don't even spend $300/mo promoting themselves. Maybe that's the nature of the industry, and maybe that is why agented authors tend to make more than non. But I see that as opportunity.

The write up is chock full of interesting tidbits/stats about the industry (at least to a lay person like myself). And if you want to find hope, there's hope to be found in those numbers.

20% make a solid living, and 10% are demonstrably well off. That's actually better odds than most businesses.

Get to work @MTF. Certainly you can be a top ten percenter!

 

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[MTF]

Damn. Makes me question if I even want to bother writing fiction. Not that I need the money, but I know that I tend to take a LONG TIME to write stuff that I'd like to publish. I would hate to spend 2 years writing something and only have 20 people read and enjoy it, seems like a terrible waste of time. But then again, I guess that's part of the art -- writing for a purpose VS writing for a market.

I can 100% relate to that because I'm in a similar position.

If you want to launch it under a pen name without using your current audience it'll be very hard.

As far as I remember, you wanted to write a mystery or a thriller. Both of these are extremely competitive. Also, right now, Amazon is promoting Dean Koontz so heavily (he's published by Amazon Publishing) that he dominates many of the bestselling lists in these genres.

At the same time, if you don't try, you won't know, though it would most certainly suck to spend a few years writing a book only to sell 20 copies regardless if you're doing it for the money or not. Just feels wasteful and from my perspective, it would be more valuable for the world to write another non-fiction book guaranteed to be enjoyed by thousands.

I'd say there are roughly four "types" of fiction writing:

• big niches where most people write for money and competition is incredibly tough - romance, erotica, thrillers, suspense, mysteries. Of course, if your book becomes a success, it'll be a huge financial success because of the sheer scale.
• medium, less lucrative niches where some people write as a passion and some as a business - sci-fi, fantasy, horror. The problem here is that many of these niches require writing long series to succeed because standalone books don't work well. Market is relatively small compared to these big niches (hence also the need for series). Lastly, extensive world-building (for fantasy and sci-fi) and research (primarily for sci-fi) can take a LOT of time.
• obscure underground niches, some of which can turn into trendy niches - these are subgenres of the above genres that appeal to few people. For example, stuff like Christian post-apocalyptic stories, steampunk, alternative history. litRPG used to be something for total nerds, now it's a super hot niche. Anything that's a weird mix of other genres belongs here (including books with LGBTQ+ main characters).
• writing purely for the art of it - literary fiction, poetry, anything else that's way too difficult to read for an average reader to ever become a commercial success.

As a side note, I once worked with a client who spent years writing their novel. It was clear they were very emotionally-invested in it.

I considered their novel way too weird to ever reach the goals they set for themselves (as far as I remember, they "only" wanted to sell 10,000 copies). I told them I can't promise any success. They still decided to work with me. I did my best but I think in the end we didn't even sell more than 500 copies. The book got 15 reviews, some very positive, and my client was still happy. The book is maybe selling a copy a month now. I myself would consider it a gigantic waste of time.

Sort of like my last non-fiction book, published under a new pen name, which was by far the most researched and most well-edited book I've ever written. It sold maybe 1000 copies. I lost about $10,000 producing and marketing it.

It was my "passion" project which I hoped would take off because of how much time and effort I invested into it (and in a niche that should appeal to a lot of people). But in the end, my super crappy books written several years ago (I consider them crappy from hindsight, not at the time I was writing them), edited by a cheap editor from Fiverr, made six figures.

The book publishing industry is very unpredictable and rarely matches your expectations (which some huge bestsellers rejected by 50+ editors also prove).

 

[MTF]

I think there have been a few replies that are good but because they don’t fit in with what you want you won’t consider them. I think you might have to sacrifice your desire for privacy if you want to go fastlane, in America, with writing.

Do you mean even for fiction?

I did think of an alternative, though, but the Entry is quite difficult because it means you’d have to learn a different language. There are plenty of countries that Amazon has not reached, places where sales are not streamlined, SEO is unheard of. Anyhoo.. I hesitated to post because I know how resistant to change ppl can be.. but I’m right.

I speak three languages and can write comfortably in two.

Anyway, the book publishing market in countries where Amazon doesn't exist is usually owned by traditional publishers, sort of like pre-KDP in the US. There are probably some opportunities, though at the same time with a smaller market your scale is limited, particularly if you want to write in a smaller genre.

And MTF? Poetry is like water, if you’ve been raised on coffee and orange juice it doesn’t seem good at all.. not until you start sampling all the different kinds. Some poets are like bad tap water.. but still they deliver emotions refined and giving life.

Sorry, I'm just a primitive brute. Reading poetry is as much of a torture for me as watching stage plays.

I can acknowledge that certain people love poetry. To me, it's as absurd as abstract paintings sold for millions.

 

[MTF]

a really good book can overcome the Entry barrier.

I'd say the barrier of entry is marketing. Everyone can publish a book but very few people can sell enough copies to get noticed. Consider that:

According to the best estimates, the average non-fiction book is now selling less than 250 copies per year and less than 2,000 copies over its lifetime.

source: Should You Write a Book? Why You Shouldn't Even If You Can

That's for non-fiction but I imagine it's way worse for fiction because few people look specifically for fiction (they buy because of a recommendation or because a book is a bestseller) while many people are interested in random things and do search for books about little-known topics.

So if you're a great marketer, you can stand out because most writers hate marketing with a passion.

To me there's always a Need for good books. For good books.

Playing devil's advocate but...

Is there a need for another good romance? Another epic fantasy? Another thriller? You can choose from THOUSANDS of excellent books already written. And since books satisfy a similar need that a movie or a TV show can satisfy, you're not only competing with good books but also other types of good stories in different formats.

As for non-fiction, it's similar but instead of movies/TV shows you compete with blogs, courses, YouTube videos, coaching, etc.

It depends. I can only talk from my experience, but I wouldn't say that I love writing. I love good stories and thinking about writing a good story, sure. But the actual act of writing 60000 or 80000 words? And don't forget planning (if you do) and editing. I enjoy those things on some days, especially when it comes easily, but don't really when things are coming rather hard or not at all. And to be honest, most of those days don't feel like writing comes easily.

I doubt there's a writer who really loves writing according to this definition. Writing is a kind of a bipolar activity which is probably why many novelists are depressed or unhappy or otherwise not completely well, particularly in fiction.

No I didn’t mean for fiction. I meant for coaching and writing courses.

Ah okay. In that case it doesn't matter because I have no intention of coaching and/or creating writing courses.

Your replies all sound so.. unhopeful. Maybe you’re just burnt out and need a rest?

Sorry for being a downer, I've been definitely more cynical recently.

 

[MTF]

You're not being a downer. Not at all. There are introverts and extroverts and both are important. There are grumpy pessimists who face reality fast but need others to see the beautiful and there are cheerful optimists who see the goodness immediately but need others more when things are rough.

I wish I could sit for a while and drink some coffee with you and let you talk. I know there’s a way through to wherever you want to go.. I don’t know how right now but I’m certain of it.

Thank you. You seem to be a very warm person.

 

[MTF]

Thank you for the pep talk, @BizyDad. I don't want to respond to much of your post because deep down I know that you're right.

I honestly don't know how Brandon Sanderson is doing it. He doesn't seem to be a healthy guy at all yet he seems to have more energy than I've ever had in my life.

As for trying new things, I had a call with a person who taught me a little on how to use Jarvis.ai. I plan to play with it and possibly write my first AI-assisted non-fiction book with it.

 

[BizyDad]

Thank you for the pep talk, @BizyDad. I don't want to respond to much of your post because deep down I know that you're right.

I honestly don't know how Brandon Sanderson is doing it. He doesn't seem to be a healthy guy at all yet he seems to have more energy than I've ever had in my life.

As for trying new things, I had a call with a person who taught me a little on how to use Jarvis.ai. I plan to play with it and possibly write my first AI-assisted non-fiction book with it.

Congrats on taking your next step MTF. I look forward to reading the results someday.

 

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[Raja]

Ana Huang on Instagram: "Including during a meeting with the king #forbiddenromance #royalromance #bodyguardromance #newadultromance #naromance #steamyromance #steamyreads #steamyread #spicyromance #spicybooks #romancebooks #romancebookstagram #rom

6,552 likes, 73 comments - authoranahuangJuly 23, 2021 on : "Including during a meeting with the king #forbiddenromance #royalromance #bodyguardromance #newadultromance #naromance #steamyroman..."

www.instagram.com

After seeing this I thought of you @MTF , the kind promotional power internet gives.

From your posts I assume you hate social media but ryan denial moran suggestions could work that is instead of building your social media /audience its better to partner up with the people who already have your audience.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

my mind is completely, utterly BLOWN.

So what did you provide to start?

Just this?

Jeff and Samantha are dead broke. They hate their jobs and want to start a business but have no idea how to do it. To make matters worse, Samantha is pregnant and they have no idea how they're going to pay the bills.

 

[MTF]

Another example of how Jarvis can help authors. I told him this:

Title: 50 Ideas for Bestselling Non-Fiction Books

Brief: Write an article featuring 50 ideas for non-fiction books that have the potential to become bestsellers.

Here's what it generated (the first 5 ideas). This is completely unedited, copied straight from the article, to show that it's not always super clean and can give some silly content but IMO it's still valuable:

1. Book about using books as props for business - Books are very useful business props. A book can help you to become more credible when speaking or writing. An example of an idea: books about how to use books in your business (any type of books).

2. Book about small space design - Small spaces have become a trend, especially for young people with less money and more desire to be in the center of cities. Small spaces are not only a trend, they also have their own books. A small space design book can offer ideas for books on creative uses of small space living (such as using bookshelves as central pieces in a room). The best books related to bookshelves are books about books. From books on how to design bookshelves to books on bookshelves that move, books about bookshelves have a lot of potential.

3. Book related to the business side of publishing - Publishing has become an important part of the book market since print books began to be sold online and books have become more about bookshelves and less about books. This doesn't mean that books related to books are declining in popularity, but it does mean that books related to books require special attention (and will have higher potential). Examples of books related to books: books on how to write a book or books on selling books.

4. Book about books in the future - Books are changing rapidly and books related to books reflect this change. Books have more options than ever before, such as books on tape and books on CD. Booksellers do more than ever before, which means that books related to books will continue to gain in importance. Good books on books: books for children, books on books or books about books.

5. Book related to books and war - Books have accompanied men in war throughout history, from books of magic and books of spells to books of rules for soldiers. Soldiers often bring important books with them into battle so that they don't feel left behind when their enemies are using books as weapons against them. Books related to books: books about books in the future, books on books, books related to books and war.

 

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[Primeperiwinkle]

“Most fiction is formulaic. James Patterson's stuff is a great example. It doesn't prevent people from buying his books. If it makes no difference if he wrote his book using Word instead of in longhand, or if he used an online thesaurus to find synonyms faster than if he relied on his brain alone, then it shouldn't make much of a difference if he used an AI tool to write faster, too.”

This is really interesting. Where is the moral line? Is there one? I mean using AI to write an entire book would be wrong or no?

Are you hoping to start pumping out AI books by the dozens? I hope you chronicle this.

FYI: I think as I type, it’s late where I am and I’ve had a ton of espresso.. I’m in the mood for tangents. Lol