publishing
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
The Cures for Burnout
Hi there! I’m back from Maine and ready to publish. How has the summer treated you? The hope is that it’s sunsets, pools, and loved ones having fun all around you. The truth is often that we hope the summer just staves off the inevitable burnout for a
You are more interesting than you think.
I’m guessing you’re a generalist, because most people are. But the online content-consumption machine seems to reward those who make their personalities all about one thing. I believe that’s a distracting, unhelpful remnant of the first 29-ish years of the web — minus the first five years. Why
The Most Useful Book Cover Constraint
Love plain linen hardcovers. Wisdom without hype. pic.twitter.com/nlvHCAWcMe — Derek Sivers (@sivers) September 6, 2021 I can’t tell you how many hours and how much money I’ve spent on book cover design. But, for nonfiction, nothing beats the stamped, cloth cover. It somehow adds more weight
Be everywhere. But be your best here.
The biggest trend in branding this year appears to be one of the oldest trends — signature models. From shoes to guitars, old-school brands are flooding the market with products stamped with a creator’s personal brand. A “brand” is just a “reputation.” The bigger you get as a company, the
The great personal newsletter migration
For the third week in a row, about a dozen of my favorite indie newsletters have landed in the spam folder — newsletters I’ve opened and click-through hundreds of times. What gives? I love how Apple, DuckDuckGo, Neeva, and others are making our online lives a little more private and
35 Lessons from 35 Years of Newsletter Publishing
My first newsletter was about ninjas in 1987. I was 12. Since then, I’ve been obsessed. I’ve created small newsletters for my own projects, and big newsletters for corporations. What ties them all together? Probably hundreds of things, but I’m lazy, so let’s start with 35.
Mies van der Rohe Marketing
Have you heard about the latest “trend” in online marketing? It’s not really a trend — good publishers have been doing it all along. But with the recent privacy changes [https://www.macstories.net/news/an-overview-of-the-new-privacy-controls-coming-to-apples-oses/] at Apple (and soon many others), online publishers have had to resort to some
Experiments Check-In 2
I have a few updates since my last 2021 experiments update [https://www.cjchilvers.com/experiments-check-in/]. I do these mostly for myself, but I figure they may help others on similar journeys. The Good * Readership and follows are still going up across all platforms, but especially the newsletter [https://www.
A Good Philosophy for Personal Publishing
From Om Malik [https://om.co/2021/05/31/some-changes-2/]: > “I have often lamented that the ‘why’ of blogging got overtaken by the ‘what’ and the ‘how,’ with the tools and format becoming the primary focus. Ironically I made the same mistake with my newsletter. I don’t work for