YouSaid · the spoken record

Charlie Hoehn

lines on the record: 116
first: 2024-12-10
most recent: 2024-12-10
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“They don't do it well. And so traditional publishers are right to stick up their nose at self-publishing, but it's like, to your point, if it's your first go-round as an author and you don't know what you're doing, the likelihood that you'll step on a landmine that hurts your book during the self-publishing process is even higher than if you're working with the traditional publisher.”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Contractually. Yeah. And that's like two entrepreneurial people I find that that is very difficult oftentimes. And like obviously you and I are friends with people who thrive in that and like have done extraordinarily well. Ryan Holliday mentioned Tim Ferris, James Clear, these guys have and continue to do well. I'm not taking anything away from that, but I have seen the other side as well where entrepreneurs are dumbfounded by decisions made by their publishers or like creative control. Being taken in a way that they're like, this actively hurts us because both sides have pros and cons and both sides can be done wrong. I do want to say like most people screw up self-publishing.”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What you said is a common thing, is just wanting to raise visibility and create opportunities or bring more opportunities in. So it tends to be like raise visibility, bring in opportunities, grow the business, leave a legacy. Tends to be with non-fiction. I'm curious with your cover in the title. What was the process with how did you end up there where you're publishing a cover and a title that you're not crazy about?”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. Exactly. Would he have sold as many? It's a great question. We'll never know the distribution is much higher with a traditional publisher, right? You're getting into retail stores. That's not an easy game as a self-published author. But my argument is over 90%. I believe it's at minimum of 80% of books purchases are through Amazon online. So if you're applying the eighty twenty to book sales, self publishing typically makes sense. You should invest in making the best possible product. Other things to consider with traditional publishing, a pro is like they'll assemble your team, your production team, so they'll help with editing. They'll prevent you from getting into legal issues and their editing process. They will help you design the cover, the con is I've seen their processes. It's not that very.”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Most authors care about financial ROI. We can start there. Granted, the worst way to make money with a book is by selling lots of copies. But with a traditional publisher, they're going to be taking, I think it's upwards of 90% of your royalties. It may not be quite that high, but I remember talking to James Clear, and we were talking about how much you would have made had he gone to self-publishing route with atomic habits. And I did the math. And it was like, it's about 3x more per copy. But what?”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I agree with my buddy Nat Eliasin's take on traditional publishing. And it's a very simple lens to look through, overly simplistic, I guess. But if you can get a publisher to give you a $100,000 advance or more. You should probably do it. I mean, if you have millions of followers, a hundred thousand is not enough, but like you get the general concept. You want them to have enough skin in the game to take you seriously. You want to get as substantive as of an advance as you can to actually put some money into doing the book as well as you can and launching it as well as you can. For 95 plus percent of authors I talk to, I tell them it doesn't really make sense for you to do that. There's a number of reasons”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“thirteen thousand copies or something like that, which is quite good for its first year with every negative review that he got, he went back into the manuscript and made revisions so that that feedback couldn't be given again. So that review couldn't be given again. And he just kept doing that until the negative review stopped. And to date, it sold millions of copies. I think he said in year six it sold its millionth copy. But he stuck with that book and he was like, I really believe in this. I'm going to keep modifying this as though it is software. I'm going to release V1, V2, V3, V4, etc. Most authors don't do that. One of the reasons that I am reluctant to advocate for the traditional publishing process is like your book has set in stone there. If you're lucky, get it.”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you can, but I'll circle back to that. The method I encourage is teach it in real time first. And ideally, you're somebody who's already transformed numerous people, at least three, with the transformation that you're trying to codify into a book. So generally speaking, you ought to have coached, consulted, helped at least three people achieve the transformation you're trying to make into a book. You can, in theory, publish a book and then see where people are getting stuck, see their reviews, and then adjust the book afterward. I don't recommend it. It's not a strategy that most authors will stick to, but like Halrod, who's based here in Austin, he did that with the Miracle Morning. And so in the first year, he promoted that book, sold like.”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, but when you go to write the book, you're not actually witnessing what they're going through. It's similar for software development. You think you have a good app that you've developed and you're like, this is awesome. Cool. Go put it in front of somebody and watch them use it. And watch how quickly they get stuck or they're confused or they're bored. It's the same with books. And so I think it's You know, personal feedback that you can see here's where this person is struggling, here's where they're succeeding. How”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, there's a variety of ways. One, you can be talking to them in real life, right? So a lot of authors who've written good books are like, yeah, been coaching clients or consulting with these companies for years. I have this stuff down cold. I know the questions they ask. I know their common emotional challenges, the technical obstacles they face. Those that is a great way to write a book is like you know that person very intimately or that avatar and um Other ways are you can do it kind of online now. You still need that real feedback though from actually helping a person transform just to clarify on that, like you could in theory be writing for an online audience and helping them with a particular topic and seeing, oh, they left a comment here about this. They had a question about this.”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Good book. They need to write for the people below them and address those people because they can pull those people effectively up to their rung. They can't push somebody who's on their wrong up further. You know what I mean? Because they're not there themselves.”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes and no, so it's you have to become the embodiment of the book first. So you can't really write it as though you're that person that you haven't become yet or the person that you're becoming. You kind of have to write it from a place of I've already become this. I've already grown into this and I'm the embodiment of this Naval Ravicant had a great quote where he said, in order to write a great book, you must first become the book. I work on prescriptive nonfiction exclusively. I don't help with memoirs. I don't help with fiction. Just business books, self-help, personal development, that type of stuff. If you think of the author, their expertise is a ladder, right? And so they've climbed so many wrongs to where they are. If they're trying to write for people on their rung or above, it will not be a good idea.”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“something that you want to consider repeatedly. And if you are, it's probably pretty good. It'll find an audience eventually.”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The best books are written for one or two real people on the other end. And a lot of authors write as though they're speaking to a huge general audience or to their perceived fan base, the entire fan base. It's the fastest way, in my opinion, to kill a book because it's not interesting. They start speaking in terms of we need to do this. We should be like this. And it's like who are you talking to? There's one person on the other end of that book. Speak to them or speak about yourself. I learned this. And if you want to apply it, you can do this. So the most powerful, interesting books tend to be written for one real person in mind in the paradox is they tend to reach a lot more people that way. And that person can be the author.”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I help authors go from idea to successful book. It takes a variety of shapes. You know, sometimes I'm helping them with the actual production of the book. Sometimes just editing. Other times focusing mostly on the lunch. I'm an author myself. I've done 20 years in video productions, but mostly I'm just helping out. There's what their books.”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The title is the most important marketing decision the author can make for the book because virtually all books that sell more than 10,000 copies are driven by word of mouth. The title has to do a lot of things. When a person says it, it has to evoke curiosity, FOMO, some sort of emotional reaction, whether it's intrigue or even repulsion in some cases. It should be almost a tip of the tongue thing that gets triggered regularly in conversation. An example we used was a meeting suck by Cameron Harold. Even if he didn't necessarily like the book, people would complain about meetings. Meetings were a constant in companies. And so this book would just kind of organically come up as like, you ought to read this and it would just naturally. Be recommended.”
2024-12-10 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Charlie Hoehn: Write Something People Want to Read · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT