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- [DIGEST] Pure, unadulterated joy
[DIGEST] Pure, unadulterated joy
Your weekly stackable roundup
Hi friends,
People asked me the best part of The Future of Publishing Mastermind, and easily it was the moments of pure joy that came over everyone around 11 am on the first day.
I was inside the camera lens and literally saw the tension break and everyone started having these joyous outbursts everywhere.
It happened near the second round of our first breakthrough sessions and it was literally like magic filled the room.
That was the moment I knew we had something special and I’m so excited to announce that we’re doing it again, bigger and better than before. You can’t really scale a mastermind too big without breaking the magic of it, but we’ve done something so many of you asked about and added a lower-priced, but still powerful, full conference onto the end of it.
In 2025, we’ll have a 2-day mastermind, a vendor day, and then a full 3-day conference for people who prefer the traditional conference experience. We’re calling it Writer MBA, and it’s going to be epic.
Not only are we focused on authors and books, but we’re expanding the conference to include newsletters, RPGs, copywriting, magazines, and just about any writer who publishes anything. We believe every piece of the industry has a different bit of brilliance inside them, and our goal is to get them all under the same roof to help break through your biggest blocks.
Entering new areas of the publishing industry has always unlocked new growth for me, and we believe it will do the same for you, too. Right now our early bird pricing starts at $499, with 10-pay options as low at $50/mo with no interest. If you’re ready to break through the biggest blocks holding your business back, then this is an absolutely, must-attend event.
Find out more and register below.
If you want to share how you are doing this week, then there are two ways to interact with this post.
1 - If you don’t want to say anything, or bristle at identifying yourself, then you can reply with this nifty poll.
2 - If you’re feeling very brave, then reply below and tell us how you are doing right now on a scale from 1-5.
I’m on new meds that are actually helping a lot. I have more energy than I’ve had in years. I’m a 3.5 this week, which is wild to me.
WHAT WE WROTE ON SUBSTACK: This week, I showed you all my best strategies for getting over your sales phobia.
Plus, muses on what they would tell their younger self and explains how to empower vulnerability with your audience.
I also worked with on a cool study about how to rank in different Substack categories. I moved between 10 categories to see how I would rank and found some really interesting bits, including ranking between 8 and 253 depending on the category. I even ended up in a new main category.
My bit is behind the paywall, but Claire has very gratiously offered a 14-day trial so you can read it if you so choose.
The Firestarter led me through the woods south of Seattle. We were deep in the thicket with only the sounds of nature for company, and she wasn’t much of a talker. She insisted on walking, even though I could have portaled us anywhere on Earth in a matter of seconds. I hated hiking, especially when I didn’t know where I was going, but I went along with it because it was easier than finding another Firestarter. She was pushing it, though.
“It’s just up here,” she said after a long silence.
I reached the top of a hill and looked down into a chasm below us, full of black char and adorned with a pentagram in its center.
“This isn’t ominous at all,” I said, following the Firestarter to the bottom of the hill.
“Stand over there,” she said, pointing to the other side of the pentagram. It was made of rock and bone. “And hold out your hand.”
She reached behind a rock and pulled out a long, serrated black knife, runed up the hilt in a language spoken by demons and written in unholy texts.
“I know I said I wanted to go to Hell, but I don’t want to be sacrificed to do it.”
“What?” she said and then half-laughed in spite of herself. “Oh, don’t be stupid. I’m not going to sacrifice you. I’m just going to draw a little blood. You do bleed, don’t you?”
“I can,” I said. “I don’t like to.”
All chapters of The Godsverse Chronicles are now free for all subscribers. You can read the whole series from the beginning right here.
You still only get access to a bunch of free books and stories from my back catalog by becoming a paid member. You can start your membership with a 7-day free trial.
UPCOMING ARTICLE: Next week, I will hopefully help you short-circuit the burnout cycle.
It seems like the Substack backlash is growing every day. @Jane Friedman has an excellent take about the good and the bad of Substack that’s worth reading.
This isn’t the first, last, or even latest, but it does speak to something I’ve seen on Substack a lot; the burnout cycle.
It seems like writers have a six-month burn rate where they come in excited, start to build, grind, and burn out. I’ve watched this cycle happen 2x now since I’ve been studying it hardcore for over a year, and IDK how to prevent that burnout, b/c those people then get bitter and it amplifies.
Even if people bounce back once, they burn out again, and harder, until they are consumed in bitterness fueled by exhaustion, and break the wheel. Every cycle gets more vicious as more and more people pile on, even if they are in the minority.
The main thing Jane’s article reminded me of is that newsletters have rarely ever been self-monetizing. They have historically been things we built to monetize other things; books, courses, etc.
Knowing this, we would go into launch mode when something was coming out, but otherwise, our lives weren’t filled with constant thoughts of how to make sure our paid subscriber count kept going up.
We could even say “I just had a launch, and now I’m going to disappear for a couple of weeks” without worrying the universe would implode while we were gone.
I’ll admit, recently I’ve been pulling my punches, a bit scared that somebody will cancel their membership, and I never felt that way before, even when the same amount of money was on the line. I don’t like it. I feel like I’m on stage at all times and that people feel they should have constant access to me, even though nobody has ever said as much and y’all are lovely and supportive in every way.
ROUNDUP: Here are some of my favorite articles of the week. I’m adding an experimental new category this week called Substack-esque, because the publishing-like category has gotten really beefy, and at least 20% of the articles I share there are about Substack, so I’m going to try it and see how it feels.
If you like it (or gods forbid hate it) let me know. I’m also trying to find a way to break up the Culture-ish section by maybe breaking off lifestyle. I haven’t figured that bit out, but if you have any ideas LMK.
Business-y:
borrows lessons from Rupaul to build their brand, charts’s copy.ai’s growth from 0 to 10 million users in four years, and ponders the past and looks to the future.
and stop caring about the “shoulds”, finds several undersaturated platforms that are absolute goldmines for content promotion, and finds ambition and fulfilling work.
and watch podcast audiences start to plateau, anoints seeds as the new streetwear, and seems to be the only one upset enough about the war on hyperlinks.
learns a lot from legendary investor Reid Hoffman, starts renting DVDs again, and sinks their teeth into two juicy headline hacks that make them a better writer.
makes public speaking less scary than death, won’t care if you build it and neither with NIMBYs, and gets an enthusiastic yes.
shows how survivorship bias can hold your business back, deletes their Facebook page with half a million followers, and praises praise.
explains making a good explainer video, unpacks the real Tiktok problem, and decries the “magic” of in-person meetings.
has their third mental breakdown as a high-achieving founder, thinks net promoter score is the Ozempic of metrics, and releases the ultimate guide to homepages.
Publishing-like:
fails at being a full-time creative, stays creative in the midst of chronic illness, and stops selling themselves so cheaply.
breaks down a comic book page, gives a hand for notebooks having no rules, and
finds the Right Mentor + Critique Partner & Writer Friend Matchup and digs into why foreign editions of books have different covers, praises Zenescope’s VIP conference for hardcore fans and creators, and is tired of being called unhinged and angry for emphatically using swear words.
is probably going to be annoyed by you (or another author) at some point and that’s normal, reviews Amazon’s pirated AI revision of her book Maid as a biography, and wonders if maybe they have more than one book on their hands.
gets out of their own (character’s) head, exalts in hybrid publishing going mainstream, and express Taylor Swift as books for growth and profit.
talks through publishing’s terrible Tiktok moment and digs into how Author’s Equity will work, doesn’t know how to be normal, and speaks at their first book event.
puts writing in the age of AI into perspective, spends six week on The Artist’s Way, and finds way to unhinder their creative life.
and detail what it takes to be a literary magazine editor, and turns their book launch way up.
cowrites a book with AI, builds a DIY writer’s retreat, and delivers notes on writing character relationships.
Substack-esque:
shames the commenter who shamed them, only takes 9 months to write a 500-word humor piece, grows their publication through advertising, tries really hard not to sell out.
ends their paid-only content experiment, celebrates 2 magical years on Substack with an extensive Q and A, proves beyond any doubt that I am a basic Substacker
writes headlines to get more clicks, doesn’t fool around with their April Fools playbook, and counts every reader.
explores new Substack layout features, is tired of the snark directed at Instagram from Substack users.
Culture-ish:
finds the tension of becoming at the end of the world, shines a light on Sybil Vane, and puts some of the blame for who we are on epigenetics.
goes imperial in a world set on metric, changes a life, and survives survival of the prettiest.
goes from Lolita to Dakota Johnson’s book club to look at beauty’s relationship to literature, pays taxes to give back to their community, and lights the path to having more successful therapy.
loses any semblance of bravery when facing a cockroach with wings, sees the future of coffee, notices blocks before they stop their progress.
unravels the royal fairy tale, doesn’t need AI’s help to fart around, and looks better in other people’s sweatshirts.
breaks a spell, pens a letter to all the keychains they’ve loved before, and has a 9-year-old best friend.
awakens new connections, doesn’t need self help, they need support, and shares the three foundations of home school.
is a Poor Thing, is just tickled at Ryan Gosling’s theater kid Oscar performance, and fights back against the epidemic of loneliness.
isn’t seeing anyone after their spouse’s death and would prefer people stopped asking about it, admires the flamboyance of a common roadside flower, and revels in being a teenage 20-something.
Find anything you loved enough to swoon over or hated enough to make your blood boil? Let me know.
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