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How to Stay Creative Forever

How do writers stay in shape? They usually don’t. But writers (and all creators) do have to keep their minds in shape over the decades if they hope to maintain that career or hobby. The mind gym It’s now been 36 years since I started publishing and I

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The Future of AI, Newsletters, and Your Garden

Let’s start off 2023 with some fun, get into some data, and play with ideas for how to ship more in the year to come. 1 What would it look like if creation was joyful and sane? From my swipe file of dream workspaces, this just series of tiny,

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4 big questions for email marketing in 2023

I posted last week about the predictions from Litmus (based in part on research from earlier in the year). It just re-affirmed what we’ve know for over a year about the future of email as a publishing and marketing platform. It’s a great future for readers and customers,

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Is AI going to take creators’ jobs?

Yes. Over enough time, there’s isn’t anything we do as creators that AI (as it's defined now by tools like GPT from Microsoft) won’t be able to do. AI has all the time and energy in the world to learn and improve. We don’t. That’s

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Just a Series of Garden Offices

Creator Cabins seem to be a growing business – thanks in part to the increase in remote work. Who doesn’t aspire to have a place of their own for uninterrupted creative work? Within that genre resides the more-within-the-grasp-of-an-actual-human cabins for backyards and “gardens.” This seems to be bigger in the

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The Stupidest Experiment

Me since 2001: Don’t revisit your Van Halen book for a third edition. It’s an endless pit of work that never makes money and invites trolls by the dozens. Me in 2022: Let’s do this thing. As always, I’ll report back with my findings on Substack,

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Just putting it out there

Publish your weird ideas in public. You never know who’s listening. Back in May 2021, I posted this idea about a guitar design to Twitter, tagging EVH guitars: I asked EVH for a Nuno-style version of the guitar (which is a natural-finish ash or swamp ash guitar body with

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Surviving the Ad-pocalypse…Again

Experience is a brutal teacher. One lesson, that is almost never passed along, is that creators should avoid advertising as a business model for as long as possible. Sure, most of time, it seems like the easiest, fastest way to put food on the table, especially to a younger generation

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Return of the Lazy Billionaire

I love a good lazy billionaire — or at least a person who acts like one. I’ve written about them in the past as trusted, imaginary advisors for creativity and marketing. Strategy? Funnels? Pfft. Make it. Sell it. Move on. Lazy billionaires protect their time, energy, and reputation — all of

Return of the Lazy Billionaire
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Having trouble starting your next thing?

Make a list of writers, podcasters, and YouTubers who are consistently pushing out great stuff – in the ugliest ways. Refer to it often. I love slap-dash creators! I won’t name names here, but they’re not hard to find. From the CEO who records videos on his morning walks

Having trouble starting your next thing?