<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:googleplay="http://www.google.com/schemas/play-podcasts/1.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Category Publishers]]></title><description><![CDATA[Claim your category with a book. For category designers, and the experts who are looking to create a category of one.]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com</link><image><url>https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_Jms!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9f265850-e1b8-4623-a5db-ac3075409251_1280x1280.png</url><title>Category Publishers</title><link>https://categorypublishers.com</link></image><generator>Substack</generator><lastBuildDate>Sun, 20 Sep 2026 13:49:26 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://categorypublishers.com/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><copyright><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></copyright><language><![CDATA[en]]></language><webMaster><![CDATA[minibookmodel@substack.com]]></webMaster><itunes:owner><itunes:email><![CDATA[minibookmodel@substack.com]]></itunes:email><itunes:name><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></itunes:name></itunes:owner><itunes:author><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></itunes:author><googleplay:owner><![CDATA[minibookmodel@substack.com]]></googleplay:owner><googleplay:email><![CDATA[minibookmodel@substack.com]]></googleplay:email><googleplay:author><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></googleplay:author><itunes:block><![CDATA[Yes]]></itunes:block><item><title><![CDATA[He Invented SWOT and Watched Harvard Take the Credit]]></title><description><![CDATA[Claim It #2: Naming the Enemy]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/he-invented-swot-and-watched-harvard</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/he-invented-swot-and-watched-harvard</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 17 Sep 2026 14:52:52 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6qRr!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F687dbe18-4af6-4c30-bd40-ab3cda24f9a6_1477x1065.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6qRr!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F687dbe18-4af6-4c30-bd40-ab3cda24f9a6_1477x1065.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6qRr!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F687dbe18-4af6-4c30-bd40-ab3cda24f9a6_1477x1065.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6qRr!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F687dbe18-4af6-4c30-bd40-ab3cda24f9a6_1477x1065.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6qRr!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F687dbe18-4af6-4c30-bd40-ab3cda24f9a6_1477x1065.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6qRr!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F687dbe18-4af6-4c30-bd40-ab3cda24f9a6_1477x1065.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6qRr!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F687dbe18-4af6-4c30-bd40-ab3cda24f9a6_1477x1065.png" width="1456" height="1050" 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6qRr!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F687dbe18-4af6-4c30-bd40-ab3cda24f9a6_1477x1065.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6qRr!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F687dbe18-4af6-4c30-bd40-ab3cda24f9a6_1477x1065.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6qRr!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F687dbe18-4af6-4c30-bd40-ab3cda24f9a6_1477x1065.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6qRr!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F687dbe18-4af6-4c30-bd40-ab3cda24f9a6_1477x1065.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>He built the framework the whole business world uses. Few know his name.</p><p>The same thing is happening to your idea right now.</p><p>The whole goal in being a category publisher, in creating your own category, is so you stand out, if not stand alone.</p><p>The world has too many books already. (there I said it, heresy I know)</p><p>But if you are just going to say the same thing everyone else says, why say it?</p><p>The way you stand out is by writing to 1 specific person, helping them solve 1 clear problem, with a unique POV. (Point of view) </p><p>1+1+1 = potential $$$</p><p>Using new language to do it makes you memorable and gives you a clear identity to stand on.</p><h1>Category Language</h1><p>Once you have a category name, nailing your category villain and problem is the next thing to identify.</p><p>Typically, your enemy is the typical way of doing things.</p><p>Whatever 90%+ of the world says is how you do something, fight that, punch at that idea.</p><p>Your unique POV, your life experiences typically has villain that your readers need defeated.</p><p>When I write for independent insurance adjusters my enemy was the &#8220;Adjuster Lottery.&#8221;</p><p>It characterized everything about the industry I hated.</p><p>But it was what EVERYONE said to do.</p><ul><li><p>Get a license</p></li><li><p>Get some basic training</p></li><li><p>Get on some companies</p></li><li><p>Wait on a list with 10,000+ other people</p></li><li><p>Wait for a hurricane to hit so you are needed</p></li></ul><p>To me that was lottery level chances you&#8217;d actually make money so I referred to all that as the Adjuster Lottery.</p><p>It shaped my book, I used gambling metaphors, talked about casinos &#8220;The House Always Wins.&#8221;</p><p>I tell you all this, because this is why we do the work BEFORE we sit down to write. Everything I wrote and talked about became improving the odds of my readers.</p><p>When I write Mini Book Model I had to find an enemy.</p><p>The Big Book Lie is my categories enemy.</p><p>People know they need to write a book, but they get intimidated by having to,</p><ul><li><p>write 40,000 words</p></li><li><p>bleed over the page for months if not years (the longer the better)</p></li><li><p>spend thousands of dollars on cover designers, editors, formatters</p></li><li><p>get 1000 beta readers before you launch your book</p></li><li><p>be consumed in your life having to perform launch lunacy and do 100 podcast interviews to market your book</p></li></ul><p>That&#8217;s all the old way of thinking.</p><p>That&#8217;s the Big Book Lie that publishers and high thinking &#8220;self publishers&#8221; say you HAVE to do.</p><p>It&#8217;s bull crap and it isn&#8217;t what you have to do.</p><p>You can write a 20,000 word or less Mini Book in a few days. Spend $500 or less to publish it. And it be released that same month.</p><p>This is what all the Mini Book series was fighting against, but I set it all up in Mini Book Model as the evil villain and each book is all of us fighting against it.</p><h1>Category Publishers Villain</h1><p>So as I push deeper into publicly developing the Category Publishing category, I&#8217;m spinning on the enemy.</p><p>The big thing I believe people have to fear is creating their category, creating a beautiful slide deck. Writing a great speech. Delivering a lightning strike moment to unveil the category and never actually claiming their category.</p><p>This is the Deck Delusion. </p><p>Just because you wrote and said it on social media (FYI Substack is social media) doesn&#8217;t mean you own a category or are the published author of something.</p><p>But this isn&#8217;t the main enemy. </p><p>People also bury their category it in Substack, X, and LinkedIn posts and someone else picks up the mantle and runs with it. </p><p>Because a post on Substack is NOT claim to a category. It&#8217;s content, which is helpful to flush it out, but does not actually put a real authoritative stake in the ground to say &#8220;This is the ground I&#8217;m standing on for the next few years.&#8221;</p><p>To have people take you seriously you have to write a category claiming book, not just a long newsletter.</p><p>Or worse that you never even figure out what their category actually is and someone else comes and claims it out from under their nose putting a name to what it was you were trying to do.</p><p>And thats when it hit me. Amidst all my ramblings to my wife and to AI trying to flush out what the big thing to fear was. The boogey man people didn&#8217;t even know if it existed I found an enemy.</p><p>Category Theft.</p><p>When someone takes the category you have worked on (knowingly or not) and claimed it as their own.</p><p>Just because you wrote the newsletter on it doesn&#8217;t mean your the authority on a category. (yes, a Mini Book on Substack is still just a long newsletter, it isn&#8217;t authorship as the world defines it)</p><p>To be the authority of a category you have to AUTHOR a book on it.</p><p>Until you do your just a guy or a gal on Substack.</p><p>The moment you publish your category&#8230; now you are a Category Publisher.</p><h1>Category Theft in the Wild</h1><p>Atomic Habits spent 5 years on the NY Time bestseller list&#8230; 5 FREAKING YEARS.</p><p>It has sold 30 million copies worldwide.</p><p>BJ Fogg, a Stanford behavior scientist, had been publishing research on small habits for decades before Atomic Habits came out.</p><p>He didn&#8217;t release his book until a year after James Clear defined the category. He wasn&#8217;t just 12 months late. He never defined it.</p><p>When his book finally came out it read as &#8220;oh, another book on atomic habits.&#8221; After DECADES of work. </p><p>He didn&#8217;t name the ground he was standing on, so somebody else did. With a book.</p><p>James Clear knowingly or not (he&#8217;s a smart guy pretty sure he knew he was defining a new category) created the category of Atomic Habits.</p><p>SWOT was developed over 60 years ago and there is NO CLEAR CREATOR of this way of business Analysis.</p><p>SWOT is an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.</p><p>They can&#8217;t even agree if Stanford or Harvard first came up with it.. .because no one AUTHORED THE BOOK ON IT.</p><p>Albert S. Humphrey worked on the Stanford Research Institute planning project that produced SWOT, from 1960 to 1970. He watched Harvard and MIT get the credit for it.</p><p>So he wrote the correction. A paper saying he&#8217;d been told that those Universities claimed it, and that this is not so.</p><p>He wrote the claim on it and died before it got printed. <br>Six weeks later it ran on page seven of an alumni newsletter.</p><blockquote><p><em>Sixty years later, every business school on earth teaches his framework and can&#8217;t tell you his name.</em></p></blockquote><p>Category Theft.</p><p>Your category isn&#8217;t claimed, you aren&#8217;t the author of it, until you write and publish the book on it.</p><h1>Your Turn to Find Your Enemy</h1><p>I&#8217;ll walk you through how to find your enemy.</p><p>First you have to start with clearly identifying your problem. If you haven&#8217;t done that, you gotta go back.</p><p>Typically you nail down,</p><ol><li><p>The person you are writing to</p></li><li><p>The problem they face</p></li><li><p>The unique POV you have that will help them solve this problem.</p></li></ol><p>Once you have that you can begin working on your <a href="https://categorypublishers.com/p/find-your-category-name-this-week">Category Name.</a> </p><p>But look at the problem you are helping solve.</p><p>Here is my example of Category Publishing,</p><ol><li><p><strong>Person:</strong> someone who is trying to create a category for them and their company</p></li><li><p><strong>Problem:</strong> they aren&#8217;t known as the leader of their category</p></li><li><p><strong>POV:</strong> Writing a Mini Book and publishing it to Amazon is the quickest most definitive way to claim a category.</p></li></ol><p>The villain that they don&#8217;t see that is wreaking havoc, that they aren&#8217;t even aware of until I name it is&#8230; Category Theft.</p><p>If you don&#8217;t solve the problem the boogie man will get you, someone will steal your category.</p><p>So what is the big evil thing lurking behind the problem you solve?</p><p>What will &#8220;get them&#8221; if they don&#8217;t eliminate this problem once and for all?</p><p>As I see it you can go two ways with this.</p><ol><li><p><strong>Name the normal way of thinking the enemy</strong> (Big Book Lie, Deck Delusion)</p></li><li><p><strong>Name the thing that will get them if they don&#8217;t solve the problem</strong> (Category Theft)</p></li></ol><p>I&#8217;ve created a prompt below for those who support this newsletter that&#8217;ll help you find your enemy name</p><p>Keep writing and claiming your life.</p><p>Chris Stanley</p><p></p><h1>The Enemy Finder</h1><p>There are 3 fields right at the top you have to write in your answers then paste this into the AI of your choice.</p><p>It&#8217;ll ask you question after question giving you new enemy names each time until you find a enemy worth fighting.</p>
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   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Find Your Category Name This Week]]></title><description><![CDATA[Claim It #1: Naming the category]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/find-your-category-name-this-week</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/find-your-category-name-this-week</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 08 Sep 2026 18:25:33 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bpjq!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa86da24a-20fc-4655-9380-ce8ac12fc285_1730x909.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bpjq!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa86da24a-20fc-4655-9380-ce8ac12fc285_1730x909.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bpjq!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa86da24a-20fc-4655-9380-ce8ac12fc285_1730x909.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bpjq!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa86da24a-20fc-4655-9380-ce8ac12fc285_1730x909.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bpjq!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa86da24a-20fc-4655-9380-ce8ac12fc285_1730x909.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bpjq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa86da24a-20fc-4655-9380-ce8ac12fc285_1730x909.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bpjq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa86da24a-20fc-4655-9380-ce8ac12fc285_1730x909.png" width="1456" height="765" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/a86da24a-20fc-4655-9380-ce8ac12fc285_1730x909.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:765,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:1169622,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/i/214717764?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa86da24a-20fc-4655-9380-ce8ac12fc285_1730x909.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bpjq!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa86da24a-20fc-4655-9380-ce8ac12fc285_1730x909.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bpjq!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa86da24a-20fc-4655-9380-ce8ac12fc285_1730x909.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bpjq!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa86da24a-20fc-4655-9380-ce8ac12fc285_1730x909.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bpjq!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa86da24a-20fc-4655-9380-ce8ac12fc285_1730x909.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>2016 I read a book that introduced me to a concept that changed my life forever.</p><p>Play Bigger explained how you could &#8220;design&#8221; a category and become the category king/queen of it.</p><p>I was in that season of life reading 2+ business books a week, dozens of podcasts, consume consume consume.</p><p>Play Bigger and this concept stopped me in my tracks&#8230; it made sense.</p><p>Purposefully designing a category for you to be the default option in.</p><p>When I started my company IA Path in October 2016 I vowed to implement Category Design in it.</p><p>I sucked at it.</p><p>I thought I was Online Auto Training, then it shifted to several other category names before falling on Virtual Adjuster Mentorships.</p><p>That&#8217;s when I wrote the Mini Book that changed everything.</p><p>Later I updated my category to &#8220;EXP Free Career Paths&#8221; and the Renewable Workforce is something I&#8217;m still building today. (finalized it as a part of <span class="mention-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Category Pirates &#127988;&#8205;&#9760;&#65039;&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:24674214,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;user&quot;,&quot;url&quot;:null,&quot;photo_url&quot;:&quot;https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/f57c4299-a1ea-4224-bdbe-51dab7161a02_720x720.png&quot;,&quot;uuid&quot;:&quot;2aa92264-c8ab-436e-952a-aacc450afb0e&quot;}" data-component-name="MentionToDOM"></span> <a href="https://categorydesignacademy.com/">Category Design Academy</a> last year! I&#8217;m participating again in 2026 to help shape this very idea I&#8217;m revealing here)</p><h1>What I&#8217;m Building Here</h1><p>I&#8217;ve had a lot of people ask me of the past decade, <br>&#8220;How did you do it? How did you get IA Path to make money?&#8221;<br>&#8221;How did you take your expertise and turn it into a 6 figure up to a $750k/yr business?&#8221;<br>&#8221;How did you get a book to sell in a boring market like adjusting?&#8221;</p><ol><li><p>It isn&#8217;t because I&#8217;m a genius</p></li><li><p>I don&#8217;t work harder than everyone else (although I do work hard)</p></li><li><p>I didn&#8217;t have stacks of cash or a long runway</p></li></ol><p>What I did was frenetic movement. (which I don&#8217;t recommend)</p><p>I tested, not in a systematic A/B split testing way, but through crazy amounts of activity, that moved the needle.</p><p>But what worked was category design put into a Mini Book&#8230; that was the big unlock for my business.</p><p>When I slowed down and took count&#8230; that was the needle mover.</p><p>So I started writing about how short books can helped grow that company.</p><p>After having written 20+ books (over 30 now) people started hiring me to help them with the production, publishing, and even writing of their book.</p><p>People often call me the Mini Book guy, but I have a little beef with Mini Books as a format.</p><p>What worked for me in IA Path wasn&#8217;t Mini Books as some people use them.</p><p>It wasn&#8217;t,</p><ul><li><p>Monthly longform newsletters on Substack called a Mini Book</p></li><li><p>A poorly put together 3k lead magnet</p></li></ul><p>Both of which is what people are starting to think of when they say &#8220;Mini Book&#8221;.</p><p><strong>What helped me was Claiming a Category with a Mini Book.</strong></p><p>In fact, I&#8217;d argue most of my books between those were supporting the category, gave me something to launch, action creates attraction, but really didn&#8217;t move the needle.</p><p>So Mini Books in of themselves isn&#8217;t enough.</p><p>Last year I had a mentor, <span class="mention-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Al Ramadan&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:5840656,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;user&quot;,&quot;url&quot;:null,&quot;photo_url&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/5096de1b-5223-4841-97d6-d7a26f4e50d7_1000x1500.jpeg&quot;,&quot;uuid&quot;:&quot;abb211ca-e08e-46d0-857d-670588efc4ab&quot;}" data-component-name="MentionToDOM"></span> (author of Play Bigger) challenged me via text and said, &#8220;I think your thinking too small being the Mini Book guy. I think you need to think about your category more.&#8221;</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe now&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><h1>What Category Am I Building?</h1><p>So I&#8217;ve been thinking and trying all sorts of ideas.</p><p>Smart Books<br>Smart Publishing<br>Flywheel Builders</p><p><em>shoves the pile of papers off the desk in frustration</em></p><p>But I kept pushing myself (and my wife honestly) with &#8220;what category am I building?&#8221;</p><p>I keep coming back to what I actually believe in.</p><p><strong>I believe in the power of category design implemented through a book.</strong></p><p>So when I wrote <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FPMCSMRR">Mini Book Flywheel</a> I did my own exercise. <br>(check out the excerpt below)</p><div class="callout-block" data-callout="true"><h3><em><strong>Naming Your Category</strong></em></h3><h4><em><strong>Category Story</strong></em></h4><p>Start by describing your idea <em>in plain English,</em> as if you were telling a friend what you&#8217;re building.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like my book had apps connected to it.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;I help people write a nonfiction book, but smaller.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like people sharing their personal car with you.&#8221;</p><p>Start with a simple sentence like that.</p><h4><em><strong>Category Name</strong></em></h4><p><strong>Now write out different keywords that encapsulate the idea from the sentence.</strong></p><p><em>&#8220;It&#8217;s like my <strong>book </strong>had <strong>apps </strong>connected to it.&#8221; = book, applications, apps, cellphone</em></p><p><em>&#8220;I help people write a nonfiction <strong>book</strong>, but <strong>smaller</strong>.&#8221; = small, book, nonfiction</em></p><p><em>&#8220;It&#8217;s like people <strong>sharing </strong>their personal <strong>car </strong>with you.&#8221; = car, sharing, taxi</em></p><p>This becomes the baseline of your category name.</p><p></p></div><p>So I wrote it out.</p><p><em>&#8220;I help people write nonfiction <strong>books</strong> that claim a <strong>category</strong>.&#8221;</em></p><p>And I stopped, that isn&#8217;t Mini Books, so I wrote it again.</p><p><em>&#8220;I help people write <strong>Mini Books</strong> that claim a <strong>category</strong>.&#8221;</em></p><p>So I asked myself, what is that? What are my word choices?</p><div class="callout-block" data-callout="true"><p>Book(s)<br>Publishing<br>Writing<br>Category<br>Design<br>Position(ing)</p></div><p>I wrote out a ton of words, brainstormed for weeks. Two words seemed to do the work I was looking for.</p><p><strong>Category</strong> - Absolutely had to be in the name because that is what I believed in.<br><strong>Publishing</strong> - the act of not just writing books on Substack, but publishing a book.</p><p>Put it together and you get &#8220;Category Publishing&#8221;.</p><p>I opened up a business in that name, secured the domains for categorypublishing.com (the business) and for categorypublishers.com. (the newsletter)</p><p>That&#8217;s where this whole thing started.</p><p>I&#8217;ve spun out a few times since stumbling upon that category name, but now I want to open up about what I&#8217;m doing and why.</p><h1>Claim It: The Weekly Log of Building a Category</h1><p>I&#8217;ve been building in public for years, so I&#8217;m not embarrassed to trip and fall.</p><p>I&#8217;m not scared to try things, in fact I feel its one of the best ways to learn and teach. I really dislike sitting on a mountain acting like I have every jot and tittle figured out.</p><p>I don&#8217;t. </p><p>I share what works and tell you the pot holes I&#8217;ve hit and the traps I&#8217;ve fallen into. </p><p>Seeing the practice happening, to document it, to realize why something worked or didn&#8217;t is what I want to do with this newsletter.</p><p>Will I sometimes share polished content, not documentary style, yes! </p><p>But Each week I&#8217;ll share,</p><ul><li><p>What I&#8217;m doing and why</p></li><li><p>The results of what I did</p></li><li><p>Tell you how you can do it (or avoid it) in your claiming of a category</p></li></ul><p>This edition is an example of the format in practice.</p><p>I shared how I came up with my category name, the struggles, the exercise and the result.</p><p>So now it is your turn.</p><h1>Your Turn: Find a Category Name</h1><p>Test your category name or create a new category using the exercises below. Even if you don&#8217;t &#8220;build a category&#8221; I bet it brings clarity to what you are doing.</p><p>Post your category story, category words, and finally category name in the comments. It may change over time, that&#8217;s fine, you&#8217;ll never stop searching.</p><p>Can&#8217;t wait to see what you come up with.</p><p>Until next time keep claiming your life.</p><p>Coach Chris</p><p>P.S. If you want help figuring out your category, book and business, check out <a href="https://categorypublishing.com/coaching/">Category Publishing Coaching.</a></p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishing.com/coaching/&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Check Out Category Publishing Coaching&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://categorypublishing.com/coaching/"><span>Check Out Category Publishing Coaching</span></a></p><h1></h1><div class="callout-block" data-callout="true"><h3><em><strong>Naming Your Category</strong></em></h3><p>I discussed category design earlier in the book, but now it&#8217;s time for you to execute naming your category, the problem, and the villain.</p><p>The goal of deciding on what category your business falls into is to create the mental shelf space you will take up in your customers mind. People want to drop you into a familiar bucket with other companies they know, which can be good for clarity&#8217;s sake, but bad because you are in the comparison and competition game.</p><p>Defining your own category gives customers a place to put you in their minds.</p><p>This is much harder than it sounds and often is an ever-evolving process, but let&#8217;s get the basics right first.</p><h4><em><strong>Category Story</strong></em></h4><p>Start by describing your idea <em>in plain English,</em> as if you were telling a friend what you&#8217;re building.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like my book had apps connected to it.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;I help people write a nonfiction book, but smaller.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like people sharing their personal car with you.&#8221;</p><p>Start with a simple sentence like that.</p><h4><em><strong>Category Name</strong></em></h4><p>Now write out different keywords that encapsulate the idea from the sentence.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like my <strong>book </strong>had <strong>apps </strong>connected to it.&#8221; = book, applications, apps, cellphone</p><p>&#8220;I help people write a nonfiction book, but smaller.&#8221; = small, book, nonfiction</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like people <strong>sharing </strong>their personal <strong>car </strong>with you.&#8221; = car, sharing, taxi</p><p>This becomes the baseline of your category name.</p><h4><em><strong>Category Language</strong></em></h4><p>Now comes the hardest part, and also the most fun: languaging.</p><p>Languaging is the intentional crafting of language to communicate an idea that has never existed in your customer&#8217;s mind before. The goal is to create a new combination of words for an idea to take up new space so you are there all by yourself.</p><p>Take those words and start making a list of synonyms for those words.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like my <strong>book </strong>had <strong>apps </strong>connected to it.&#8221; = book (manuscript, article, essay, publish), apps (applications, software, automation, internet), cellphone (phone, device, smartphone)</p><p>&#8220;I help people write a <strong>nonfiction book</strong>, but <strong>smaller</strong>.&#8221; = small (tiny, brief, minimalist, mini), book (essay, manuscript, story, article), nonfiction (business, true, how to)</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like people <strong>sharing </strong>their personal <strong>car </strong>with you.&#8221; = car (auto, automobile, vehicle, ride), sharing (rental, borrow, lend), taxi (shuttle, carpool, transit)</p><h4><em><strong>Discover the Name</strong></em></h4><p>With your list of synonyms, begin looking for 1-4 word combinations that explain your idea clearly and get you really excited.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like my <strong>book </strong>had <strong>apps </strong>connected to it.&#8221; = Smart Books</p><p>&#8220;I help people write a nonfiction <strong>book</strong>, but <strong>smaller</strong>.&#8221; = Mini Book</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like people <strong>sharing </strong>their personal <strong>car </strong>with you.&#8221; = Ride Sharing</p><p>You&#8217;ll know when you land on the right combination.</p><p>If you aren&#8217;t sure which combination works the best, explain your idea to someone, summing it up with the your idea phrase and category name.</p><p><em>I help [person] with [problem] by [POV] and I call it [category name]).</em></p><p>If their eyes light up, you&#8217;ve probably found a winner.</p></div><p>If you want to read the rest of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FPMCSMRR">Mini Book Flywheel</a>, you can find it on Amazon.</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">Category Publishers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Find the ONE Thing That Makes You Money]]></title><description><![CDATA[Unlimited Access. 10 Spots]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/find-the-one-thing-that-makes-you</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/find-the-one-thing-that-makes-you</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 07 Sep 2026 23:00:38 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!VCuQ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fda2173bc-43b4-4a59-8f7f-db775f2e8d42_1477x1065.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!VCuQ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fda2173bc-43b4-4a59-8f7f-db775f2e8d42_1477x1065.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!VCuQ!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fda2173bc-43b4-4a59-8f7f-db775f2e8d42_1477x1065.png 424w, 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class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p><p>Ever feel like you&#8217;re so busy doing ALL the things you aren&#8217;t doing the ONE thing that makes money?</p><p>I know some of you are thinking,</p><p>&#8220;Just tell me what to do and I&#8217;ll do it!&#8221;</p><p>That&#8217;s the thing. There are 3 stages to building a business around your books. (If you follow how I do things)</p><blockquote><p><strong>Stage 1:</strong> Claim Your Category by building your core assets.</p><p><strong>Stage 2:</strong> LAZY Book Marketing System so you can sell books all year long.</p><p><strong>Stage 3:</strong> Book to Business Flywheel to turn those leads into customers.</p></blockquote><p>Within each stage are hundreds of potential sticking points.</p><p>So here&#8217;s how my week went talking to authors.</p><ul><li><p>One author has 40 books and can&#8217;t get customers. <span>&#129327;</span></p></li><li><p>Another had written the book. Full of smart ideas, but nothing memorable and no category claimed.</p></li><li><p>A DM from someone needing help launching.</p></li><li><p>Another switching from a publisher to Amazon, not sure how to make sales work.</p></li><li><p>One brilliant guy so smart he couldn&#8217;t see how his expertise could make money. Conferences, newsletters, pages published, but no first dollar.</p></li></ul><p>All stuck at different spots. I knew I could help every one of them.</p><p>But none of my packages made sense for any of them.</p><p>They could hire me to do the production for $10k where my team and I create the cover, edit, and format it. Or they could hire me and my team to write and produce it for $20k.</p><p><strong>But none of these people wanted me to do the work.</strong> They just needed to know what to do. They didn&#8217;t want to climb the mountain of building a book and a business alone.</p><p>My rate has been $500 a call for 2 years.</p><p>So someone would pay it, get unstuck, and hit a new wall three days later. Now the next question costs another $500, so they sit on it. Not deal with it, or they&#8217;d save up five questions for one call and we&#8217;d rush all five.</p><p>They&#8217;d implement 1 if they remembered.</p><p>And some of them didn&#8217;t know what they needed help with at all. They were just overwhelmed and needed someone to say do this next.</p><p>I tossed and turned all night Friday after these conversations feeling like I was missing an option I&#8217;d never thought of. Then in the morning, a whisper in the back of my mind.</p><p><em>&#8220;Flat rate coaching.&#8221;</em></p><p>I sat up.</p><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s it!&#8221;</p><p>No packages. <br>No session counts. <br>One price, ninety days, and you book a call whenever you&#8217;re stuck.</p><p>Doesn&#8217;t matter what it is, I&#8217;m there to help you get out of the rut and make progress.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2Sni!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd9be5819-ceaf-453e-8c80-e92c3246fc16_1200x639.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2Sni!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd9be5819-ceaf-453e-8c80-e92c3246fc16_1200x639.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2Sni!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd9be5819-ceaf-453e-8c80-e92c3246fc16_1200x639.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2Sni!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd9be5819-ceaf-453e-8c80-e92c3246fc16_1200x639.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2Sni!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd9be5819-ceaf-453e-8c80-e92c3246fc16_1200x639.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2Sni!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd9be5819-ceaf-453e-8c80-e92c3246fc16_1200x639.png" width="1200" height="639" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d9be5819-ceaf-453e-8c80-e92c3246fc16_1200x639.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:639,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:28190,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/i/214646034?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd9be5819-ceaf-453e-8c80-e92c3246fc16_1200x639.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2Sni!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd9be5819-ceaf-453e-8c80-e92c3246fc16_1200x639.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2Sni!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd9be5819-ceaf-453e-8c80-e92c3246fc16_1200x639.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2Sni!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd9be5819-ceaf-453e-8c80-e92c3246fc16_1200x639.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2Sni!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd9be5819-ceaf-453e-8c80-e92c3246fc16_1200x639.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><h1><strong>Category Publishing Coaching</strong> </h1><p>$3,000 for 90 days.</p><p>Six calls used to cost $3,000. Now $3,000 buys you ninety days.</p><p>90 days is long enough to accomplish something substantial in your business. <br>That&#8217;s what I want to see happen.</p><p>You could write your Mini Book, get it published on Amazon, and begin getting reviews.</p><p>You could build an entire marketing system that you can simply turn on whenever you want to hit Amazon bestseller before a conference, podcast, or launch of your new product.</p><p>You could create a webinar and sales pipeline that sells your own coaching package based on your book.</p><p>Book as many calls as you need.</p><p>One call at a time. Finish it, do the work, then book the next one if you get stuck.</p><p>Thirty to forty-five minutes. Long enough to get unstuck. Too short for small talk.</p><p>Bring anything.</p><p>Your title.<br>Your category.<br>The offer you can&#8217;t price.<br>The launch you&#8217;re avoiding.<br>The chapter that won&#8217;t work.<br>The business you&#8217;re trying to build on top of the book.</p><p>You don&#8217;t have to know what you&#8217;ll need help with. <br>That&#8217;s the point.</p><p>Every call ends the same way. <br><strong>One thing to do next.</strong> </p><p>Not fourteen options. One thing, and it&#8217;s the right one.</p><p>Here&#8217;s what I think happens.</p><p>The guy with 40 books finally has a path to revenue.<br>The one with smart ideas rewrites the first quarter and takes a space in people&#8217;s minds.<br>The DM about launching turns into a launch that works.<br>The publisher switch stops being scary.<br>The brilliant guy gets his first dollar.</p><p>Then they hit the next problem. And we clear that one too.</p><p>All of them were doing plenty. None of them knew which one thing to do next.</p><p>If you saw yourself in any of that, this is for you.</p><p>Every engagement starts with a call so I can tell you honestly whether I can help. If I can&#8217;t, I&#8217;ll say so.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://calendly.com/iapath/category-publishing&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Book a Discovery Call&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://calendly.com/iapath/category-publishing"><span>Book a Discovery Call</span></a></p><p>I'm taking a max of 10 people to start. When those are full, there's a waitlist.</p><p>Building a business with Mini Books changed my life and I know it can change yours. I can&#8217;t wait to help you with it.</p><p>I&#8217;m so glad to remove the $500 a question price and offer something that can help you break out of where you are stuck.</p><p>Keep spinning,<br>Coach Chris</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[5 Ways to Tell If Your Book Claims a Category or Grows Someone Else's]]></title><description><![CDATA[Most Books Serve a Category. Yours Should Claim One]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/5-ways-to-tell-if-your-book-claims</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/5-ways-to-tell-if-your-book-claims</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 01 Sep 2026 11:54:14 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tkeu!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cbc236e-966a-446f-b626-e75f68da2a26_2048x1152.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tkeu!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cbc236e-966a-446f-b626-e75f68da2a26_2048x1152.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tkeu!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cbc236e-966a-446f-b626-e75f68da2a26_2048x1152.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tkeu!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cbc236e-966a-446f-b626-e75f68da2a26_2048x1152.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tkeu!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cbc236e-966a-446f-b626-e75f68da2a26_2048x1152.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tkeu!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cbc236e-966a-446f-b626-e75f68da2a26_2048x1152.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tkeu!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cbc236e-966a-446f-b626-e75f68da2a26_2048x1152.png" width="1456" height="819" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/0cbc236e-966a-446f-b626-e75f68da2a26_2048x1152.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:819,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:3975477,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/i/213539481?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cbc236e-966a-446f-b626-e75f68da2a26_2048x1152.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tkeu!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cbc236e-966a-446f-b626-e75f68da2a26_2048x1152.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tkeu!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cbc236e-966a-446f-b626-e75f68da2a26_2048x1152.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tkeu!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cbc236e-966a-446f-b626-e75f68da2a26_2048x1152.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tkeu!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0cbc236e-966a-446f-b626-e75f68da2a26_2048x1152.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p><p>I made two big mistakes with my first book, the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1723443530">Hail Adjuster&#8217;s Playbook</a>.</p><ol><li><p>The cover was terrible, hard to read.</p></li><li><p>I wrote a how-to book without a new point of view.</p></li></ol><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!HNEn!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd0e9647b-c326-40f7-a6b2-2858981c2945_447x447.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!HNEn!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd0e9647b-c326-40f7-a6b2-2858981c2945_447x447.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!HNEn!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd0e9647b-c326-40f7-a6b2-2858981c2945_447x447.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!HNEn!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd0e9647b-c326-40f7-a6b2-2858981c2945_447x447.jpeg 1272w, 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pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p><p>You might be thinking, &#8216;Wait a second Chris, I&#8217;m not supposed to write a how-to book?&#8221;</p><p>Write all the how-to books you want. Just not before giving people a new way to frame  your instructions.</p><p>See I was wanting to set my business and myself up as something people would never forget. Problem was I didn&#8217;t give them anything to remember me as.</p><p>Adjuster training already existed. People already had beliefs about it. I showed up and taught them how to do a thing in a category and way they already believed in. I affirmed their point of view, I didn&#8217;t give them a new one.</p><p>I gave them some good information and it got me some kudos, good reviews, and attaboys, but not really many clients.</p><p>Then I wrote my second book, Independent Adjuster&#8217;s Playbook, and it all changed. People starting hiring me, the difference was nearly instant.</p><p>I had someone this week DM me on LinkedIn saying &#8220;Just started reading Mini Book Model, good stuff.&#8221;</p><p>They were a fellow author and I wanted to remark, &#8220;That isn&#8217;t my best book in that series, but everyone seems to like it best.&#8221;</p><p>So I thought about my IA Playbook. I thought about Mini Book Model, why they got most the love.</p><p>Then it hit me&#8230;</p><p>Both of them don&#8217;t just tell you how to do something, they make you believe something new.</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">Category Publishers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div><h2>How I &#8216;Accidentally&#8217; Claimed a Spot in People&#8217;s Mind</h2><p>I wrote my 2nd book, Independent Adjuster&#8217;s Playbook, and the thesis was,</p><p>&#8220;The way your trying to do this, is wrong. Here&#8217;s why and what you should do instead.&#8221;</p><p>The first quarter of the book was me breaking down the normal way of thinking in our industry and offering an alternative.</p><p>I offered a new way to see our industry, instead of getting work with houses= claims, get work with auto claims.</p><p>It was a simple switch, but it landed. People started calling me &#8220;the Auto Guy.&#8221;</p><p>They started asking for Virtual Adjuster Mentorships. (the category I set up with that book) Other companies started modeling my language and the way I did things. (which grew my category)</p><p>The book worked.</p><h2>Why It Worked</h2><p>What I didn&#8217;t realize at the time, was that I had created a new category in people&#8217;s minds, because of the first 25% of that book.</p><p>Now I don&#8217;t just mean the technical category name &#8220;Virtual Adjuster Mentorships&#8221;, I mean new real estate in their minds.</p><p>It&#8217;s where &#8220;the auto guy&#8221; term they all seemed to parrot comes from. They slotted me in this spot they didn&#8217;t know existed before.</p><p>So two nights ago just before bed I had an epiphany&#8230;</p><p>If the primary thing I&#8217;m selling, if my category is primarily built around intellectual property, I have to write a book that makes the case for taking up real estate in people&#8217;s minds.</p><p>Companies with physical categories like, Uber, just need to convince you to take 1 ride and you have the epiphany. Drive a Cyber Truck and you&#8217;ll get why its different.</p><p>The only way for me to get someone to test drive intellectual property is to let them read and experience thinkers high of a new way to see and solve a problem.</p><p>I can&#8217;t just tell them &#8220;how to do the thing.&#8221;</p><p>I have to make the case for my category, for my spot in their mind. If I choose a category or space in someone&#8217;s mind where other people already take up space it&#8217;s too competitive.</p><p>I&#8217;d then have to convince them to replace that person with me and that&#8217;s not a fight I want to have.</p><p>Same thing happened when I intentionally wrote the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BY94V91B">Mini Book Model</a>.</p><p>I set out to become known as the &#8220;Mini Book guy&#8221; and to establish Mini Books as a legit type of book.</p><p>I argued for Mini Books and against the &#8220;big book lie&#8221; that you have to write a 30k word manuscript to have a &#8216;real&#8217; book.</p><p>I wrote more books in the series that were straight how-to.</p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DYF38R8C">Mini Book Writing</a> - how to write a Mini Book in 7 days<br><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DY8F8WBH">Mini Book Publishing</a> - how to publish your book to Amazon<br><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DMWG6TBC">Mini Book Marketing</a> - how to sell your first 1000 books<br><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0F4BD8LTC">Mini Book Money </a>- how to create products around your books</p><p>People &#8216;like&#8217; those books, but they tell me they &#8216;love&#8217; <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BY94V91B">Mini Book Model</a>.</p><p>Took me a while to understand that. Love and <em>use </em>are two different jobs. Mini Book Model changed what they thought was allowed. The other four they actually open when they sit down to work.</p><p>Both matter. Only one of them claimed the category.</p><h2>People Want Their Minds Changed</h2><p>A good friend and client of mine Stuart Corrigan sent me research yesterday that explains some of the why and validated a theory of mine.</p><p>The research shows that people want their minds changed.</p><p>I get this from the <a href="https://www.edelman.com/expertise/Business-Marketing/2025-b2b-thought-leadership-report">2025 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report</a>, survey was of 1,934 business executives in business from 1-1000+ employees.</p><p>What they found helps us realize how to make sales and get customers, especially in a B2B context. In B2B, which I often operate in, there are different types of decision makers.</p><p>Sure there is the guy your talking to trying to sell, but then there is the person(s) who actually make the decision behind the scenes. They call these the &#8220;hidden decision-makers.&#8221;</p><p>All that to set up the way the stats fall out. <br>The two most striking statistics are this,</p><blockquote><p>86% of hidden decision-makers want fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions rather than validate their thinking.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p>91% of hidden decision-makers say a hallmark of quality is helping them uncover challenges or needs they hadn&#8217;t recognized, versus 81% of target decision-makers.</p></blockquote><p><strong>81%+ of decision makers are looking for thought leaders and people to help them see challenges or needs they didn&#8217;t know about.</strong></p><p>They are begging for someone to create a category (a way of thinking) and present it to them!</p><p>Decision makers are wanting someone to do the hard thinking for them and present a new point of view&#8230; a new solution&#8230; a new category.</p><p>This is why books like Atomic Habits, Building a Storybrand, Play Bigger, The Existing Market Trap, do so good at creating a category.</p><p>They each present a new way of thinking, often to an existing obvious problem, but as a result the author and company behind the book gets known as the leader of the category.</p><p>They become a category king or a category of one.</p><h2>How to Write a Book That Gets You Customers</h2><p>Hopefully I&#8217;ve shown you that just writing a how-to book doesn&#8217;t guarantee you&#8217;ll get customers.</p><p>I&#8217;ve experienced it, both a book that moves the needle in business and one that provides royalties but doesn&#8217;t establish a category.</p><blockquote><p>How to books have a place, they serve the category they belong to&#8230; but they don&#8217;t establish the category.</p></blockquote><p>Only by publishing a book that names and frames your category, a new way of thinking, a new solution, can you claim a category with a book.</p><p>Then you can write how-to books inside that category. <strong>Otherwise you are writing and helping someone else&#8217;s category get bigger.</strong></p><p>The intetional process of claiming your category with a book is Category Publishing.</p><p>Here are the steps I see when I break down my books that established a category and when I look at other famous books like Atomic Habits.</p><p>You can write &#8220;how-to&#8221;, but the first 25% must change how people think and give them a new frame for the &#8220;how-to&#8221; to sit inside. </p><p>The part that surprised me when I broke down the famous ones.</p><ul><li><p>Atomic Habits is mostly how-to. </p></li><li><p>Building a StoryBrand is mostly how-to. </p></li><li><p>The 5 Love Languages is mostly how-to. </p></li></ul><p>James Clear spends three chapters on why goals fail and seventeen on what to do instead.</p><p>The teaching in my first books was never the problem.</p><p>The first 25% of a book decides whether the teaching belongs to you or to someone else and their category. that is where the problem takes hold.</p><p>So here are 5 things a Category defining book must have.</p><p></p><p><strong>1. Does the first quarter of the Mini Book argue against something? <br></strong>This is an argument against the status quo way of thinking. Remember the research, decision makers don&#8217;t want validation, they want problems they didn&#8217;t see, new ideas and solutions.<br><br><strong>2. Is the framework named and owned?</strong><br>Magic triangle. Storybrand Script. Five Love Languages. Category Kings. 13 Deadly Sins. If your framework and way of thinking has no name, you built a how-to. If someone can repeat your mechanism&#8217;s name at dinner, you built a framework that can be remembered.</p><p><strong>3. Can someone use your framework without buying your idea?<br></strong>Try lifting one tactic out of your book. Hand it to someone who never read it.<br>Anybody can use &#8220;lay your gym clothes out the night before.&#8221; Nobody can use &#8220;name, frame, and claim a category&#8221; without first agreeing with Play Bigger. Portable tactics grow other categories. Anchored tactics grow yours.</p><p><strong>4. Does the reader get new language?</strong><br>&#8220;I&#8217;m a words of affirmation person.&#8221; &#8220;I&#8217;m a systems guy.&#8221; &#8220;We&#8217;re a category king.&#8221; Readers should walk away with a name for something if they apply what they learned. If it can provide new language for them in their life and business your doing category publishing.</p><p><strong>5. Does it name the enemy the reader is currently fighting?</strong><br>An enemy must be named. The reader must choose to fight against this thing to apply your new way of thinking. If you wanted to be a Mini Book Author, you&#8217;d have to fight the Big Book Lie that says a book must be 30k+ words.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQ00!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7e67d8f-5d5c-4361-b5c4-08a1d18de70a_1024x1536.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQ00!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7e67d8f-5d5c-4361-b5c4-08a1d18de70a_1024x1536.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQ00!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7e67d8f-5d5c-4361-b5c4-08a1d18de70a_1024x1536.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQ00!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7e67d8f-5d5c-4361-b5c4-08a1d18de70a_1024x1536.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQ00!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7e67d8f-5d5c-4361-b5c4-08a1d18de70a_1024x1536.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQ00!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7e67d8f-5d5c-4361-b5c4-08a1d18de70a_1024x1536.png" width="378" height="567" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d7e67d8f-5d5c-4361-b5c4-08a1d18de70a_1024x1536.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1536,&quot;width&quot;:1024,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:378,&quot;bytes&quot;:2268598,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/i/213539481?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7e67d8f-5d5c-4361-b5c4-08a1d18de70a_1024x1536.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQ00!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7e67d8f-5d5c-4361-b5c4-08a1d18de70a_1024x1536.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQ00!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7e67d8f-5d5c-4361-b5c4-08a1d18de70a_1024x1536.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQ00!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7e67d8f-5d5c-4361-b5c4-08a1d18de70a_1024x1536.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UQ00!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7e67d8f-5d5c-4361-b5c4-08a1d18de70a_1024x1536.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>I wrote five how-to books after Mini Book Model. They sell every day inside a category I own.</p><p>I just happened to have written them in the right order that time. I want to make sure you do the same.</p><p>Keep spinning.</p><p>Coach Chris</p><p>P.S. If you need help with your book ask questions in the comments. Happy to help.</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">Category Publishers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Boring Way I Got My First 100 Book Reviews]]></title><description><![CDATA[The moment someone sees your book has 2 reviews, they think &#8220;Oh, they are THAT kind of author.&#8221;]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/how-i-got-my-first-100-book-reviews</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/how-i-got-my-first-100-book-reviews</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 14:22:40 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/426fe4e2-3aff-4466-bb0e-8f5a00973cff_1200x639.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The moment someone sees your book has 2 reviews, they think &#8220;Oh, they are THAT kind of author.&#8221;</p><p>The number 1 way to get people to take you seriously is to write a book and have a lot of good reviews for it.</p><p>As Flywheel Builders our first job is simple, but hard, claim a category we belong to.</p><p>The easiest way is to,</p><p>1. Figure out who your person, problem, and POV is</p><p>2. Create a framework of how they work through that problem</p><p>3. Write a book about that framework</p><p>But once you have the book, if no one reads it, uses, or reviews it&#8230; it really doesn&#8217;t have the effect we hoped it would.</p><p>The moment someone checks out your book on Amazon and sees 2 reviews&#8230; they don&#8217;t want to buy it and they don&#8217;t believe you are really professional.</p><p>We lack credibility because we lack&#8230; social proof.</p><p>I faced this back in 2020.</p><p>I had written God is Like a Geyser. A Christian Observational about how I learned things about God by spending time in Yellowstone National Park.</p><p>I&#8217;d push people to the book and it had 20 reviews. My click rate was good on ads, but the take rate was abysmal. People wouldn&#8217;t spend $0.99 or even FREE due to lack of reviews.</p><p>So I vowed I&#8217;d do everything I could to get reviews for that book. (other than pay for people to leave fake reviews.)</p><p>I heard that the best way to get a lot of people to read your book and ultimately review it was to get a Bookbub promo. 1 million readers and often made authors careers.</p><p>I wanted it and I wanted it bad.</p><p>The problem?</p><p>You had to have around 100 reviews to get accepted. I had my first goal.</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">The Flywheel is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div><h1>How I Got My First 100 Reviews of My Book</h1><p>I set out to &#8220;crack the code&#8221; on getting reviews.</p><p>Do you know what I found the top two things I had to do to get people to leave reviews was?</p><p>1. Get a lot of people to download my book</p><p>2. Ask them to review it</p><p>It&#8217;s so stupidly simple it hurts.</p><p>BECAUSE ITS BORING.</p><p>That&#8217;s why so few people do it.</p><p>Here is how I got my first 100 reviews.</p><p>1. Price my book as FREE</p><p>2. Buy book promos for God is Like a Geyser every couple weeks.</p><p>3. Run Bookbub ads to similar audiences consistently</p><p>I did that for a year.</p><p>My reviews climbed to right around 100 and that&#8217;s when I shifted to phase 2 of my review pursuit.</p><h1>How I Reached Over 300 Reviews</h1><p>I noticed that as I hit around 100 reviews my ads converted better.</p><p>More people downloaded my book when I gave it away.</p><p>Success bred more success.</p><p>People like to read a good book, they don&#8217;t like to take a gamble.</p><p>But I wanted more reviews.</p><p>I&#8217;d heard about bookbub Promos from a book by David Gaughran about Bookbub. I knew that getting a book promo could lift me into a new standing as an author to a cold reader.</p><p>Bookbub Promos go out to hundreds of thousands of readers in your genre and category of book.</p><p>Readers select if they&#8217;d like special deals sent to their inbox on Non-fiction, biography, religion, sci-fi, etc. and each day they get a curated list of books that are discounted within that genre.</p><p>Authors can&#8217;t just buy their way into Bookbub, it is too desirable a book promo. You must apply and get approved. One of the requirements is around 100 reviews, rated well, and the rest is a mystery.</p><p>You can apply every month, there is no cost to the author if you aren&#8217;t selected.</p><p>I applied 3 months in a row before getting selected.</p><p>With my Bookbub date set I realized I wouldn&#8217;t be in signal when it went out.</p><p>I was sailing off the coast of Florida to the Dry Tortugas, about a days sail, for a week with my wife and kids. Just so happens it was the week of my Bookbub.</p><p>I went 4 days without knowing the results of the ad going out.</p><p>The moment I was back in signal I checked my KDP reports. 12,000 people had downloaded my book in a 2-day period.</p><p>12,000&#8230;</p><p>Over the next 3 months reviews came in, poured in by my standards. As the dust settled I was close to 300 reviews.</p><p>But how did that happen?</p><h2>How You Get People to Leave a Review on Your Book</h2><p>Just because 12,000 people download your free book, doesn&#8217;t mean they&#8217;ll review it.</p><p>Practically you have to think through what has to happen for someone to leave a review&#8230; and the task is daunting.</p><p>1. They must see your book</p><p>2. They must select your book (even if free)</p><p>3. They must see your book in their library</p><p>4. They must read your book</p><p>5. They must like your book enough to read to the end</p><p>6. They must read your urgent plea for a review</p><p>7. They must rate your book</p><p>8. They must click the link to leave a review</p><p>9. They must leave a review</p><p>WOW. What a chain of events that must occur.</p><p>There are a few things that stand out that we can control and some things we can&#8217;t control.</p><p>1. We must market our book (see #1 above why)</p><p>2. We must have a good book cover (see my articles on how to make a QUICK book cover if intimidated)</p><p>3. We must have a compelling topic/hook</p><p>4. We must have clear subtitles and book description</p><p>5. We must have a good book (imagine that!) so they make it past chapter 1</p><p>6. We must ask for the review and make it easy for them</p><p>7. You must remind them to leave a review</p><p>Feels like a never ending to do list, I get it.<br>Before I left out to sea I had to make sure I had some things in place in my business flywheel to take advantage of such a huge marketing opportunity as Bookbub.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_92t!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a558142-7a88-48f8-82e1-cbf98ec09cf9_1247x863.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_92t!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a558142-7a88-48f8-82e1-cbf98ec09cf9_1247x863.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_92t!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a558142-7a88-48f8-82e1-cbf98ec09cf9_1247x863.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_92t!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a558142-7a88-48f8-82e1-cbf98ec09cf9_1247x863.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_92t!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a558142-7a88-48f8-82e1-cbf98ec09cf9_1247x863.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_92t!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a558142-7a88-48f8-82e1-cbf98ec09cf9_1247x863.png" width="1247" height="863" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2a558142-7a88-48f8-82e1-cbf98ec09cf9_1247x863.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:863,&quot;width&quot;:1247,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_92t!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a558142-7a88-48f8-82e1-cbf98ec09cf9_1247x863.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_92t!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a558142-7a88-48f8-82e1-cbf98ec09cf9_1247x863.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_92t!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a558142-7a88-48f8-82e1-cbf98ec09cf9_1247x863.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_92t!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a558142-7a88-48f8-82e1-cbf98ec09cf9_1247x863.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Book <br>Before I could even apply for Bookbub I had to have my book written and published on Amazon and optionally other retailers like Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple, etc.</p><p>I had to have my book description right, smart categories selected, good cover, get my book listed for free.</p><p>Inside the book there had to be a lead magnet to entice the reader to sign up for my email list.<br></p><h3>Website</h3><p>Next, I had to have a lead magnet actually functional and working on my website.</p><p>Even if it was just a lead page generated by kit, it had to work. The person who takes the lead magnet, I can then remind in 20 or 30 days that if they enjoyed the book to leave a review.</p><p><strong>The majority of the reviews I got came from people who signed up from my newsletter on my website and I reminded them.</strong></p><h3>Newsletter</h3><p>Once someone joins your newsletter through your books lead magnet a simple email series welcoming them, telling behind the scenes of the book, or even recapping is it great, but not required.</p><p>1 welcome email &#8220;Thanks for downloading [blank]. Hope you enjoy the book. Let me know what you thought.&#8221;</p><p>1 review request &#8220;A few weeks back you grabbed a copy of my book [insert name]. Let me know what you thought of the book.&#8221;</p><p>When they resond (and yes some will respond) you can say &#8220;Hey I&#8217;d love it if you shared that as a review on Amazon. Copy and paste it on Amazon at the link below.&#8221; and give them the link that actually goes straight to your book and the &#8220;Leave a Review&#8221; page loaded.</p><p>It&#8217;ll reduce friction ad increase your reviews.</p><p><strong>Don&#8217;t ask for the review. Ask what they thought, then ask them to paste it.</strong></p><h3>Ads</h3><p>Getting set up with Bookbub ads or signing up for other book promotions is really easy.</p><p>But like everything else it just felt like one more thing to learn. I wouldn&#8217;t have gotten to 100 reviews as fast if I didn&#8217;t take the time to learn. I might have never gotten to over a 100 reviews.</p><p>I set up a Trello board with dates for each promo I scheduled. A reminder date to buy it again 2 months out. And I&#8217;d run about $150-$200 a month in ads and promos a month.</p><p><strong>TIP: </strong>The more book promos I did a month, the less effective they were. Many readers are on the same lists. If I scheduled and paid for 5 book promos in a 3 day period the last few were also less effective regardless of the company running the promotion.</p><h3>Customers</h3><p>Once the ads started running I&#8217;d have a 30 day delay between books downloaded and new reviews showing up.</p><p>This is likely because my book was a 30 day devotional, so it was designed to be read in a month. But, if you replicate this strategy give it time before you write it off and say &#8216;this doesn&#8217;t work.&#8217;</p><p>People don&#8217;t always read a book they download right away. By continuing to run ads I was showing up in their email reminding them about your book. People may even click it again to download it, see they already own it, and decide it is time to read it.</p><p>I had a couple people email me with stories like &#8220;I saw your book several times and finally I went to get it and I&#8217;d already owned it. So I started reading it. It is so good!&#8221;</p><p>They&#8217;d go on and tell me about their trip to Yellowstone or what they learned etc. and we&#8217;d form a connection.</p><p>My goal was to take them from being a book downloader to being your reader and ultimately to becoming a customer with a review.</p><p>They may not have purchased anything. I gave the book away for free most times, but it was me proving my book&#8217;s worth as an author. Seeing for myself if I wrote a good enough book to get good reviews.</p><p>That in turn built my Category of Christian Observationals and helped my series and audience grow.</p><p>When I would launch a new book in that series I no longer had to do promos or ads to hit bestseller, it just happened with an email out to my customers.</p><p>Run It In Your Own Flywheel</p><p>I&#8217;ve walked you through what I did with my God is Like series.</p><p>I did it for God is Like a Geyser, but I also did it for other books, including niche insurance books.</p><p>- 300+ reviews for God is Like a Geyser</p><p>- 100+ reviews for God is Like a Rocket Launch</p><p>- 100+ for the last book in the series God is Like a Box of Crayons</p><p>- 150+ for the Independent Adjuster&#8217;s Playbook</p><p>- 240+ for the Auto Adjuster&#8217;s Playbook</p><p>- 100+ for Mini Book Model</p><p>In each case getting reviews made it easier to sell more books, to earn trust, and to&#8230; get more reviews.</p><p>The difference between God is Like Series and the IA Playbook series is that Book promos don&#8217;t work for niche industries like insurance, plumbing etc. unless its directed at a broad audience like &#8220;How to fix your own leaky faucet&#8221; or &#8220;how to read your insurance policy and why you should&#8221;.</p><p>But books that help niche audiences that don&#8217;t apply to a broad group of people you need to work your way into the circles in that industry. Find where they hang out, answer questions, give away books, (in exchange for joining the email list) do content marketing on the proper social channel to give away the book.</p><p>If your book does have mass appeal then you can skip the content creation game on social and just do what I did for God is Like.</p><p>Here is the breakdown of this play that you can execute within your Flywheel.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2vZt!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff038b656-aac0-4e15-8ed1-d86170df3ec2_1234x1727.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2vZt!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff038b656-aac0-4e15-8ed1-d86170df3ec2_1234x1727.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2vZt!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff038b656-aac0-4e15-8ed1-d86170df3ec2_1234x1727.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2vZt!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff038b656-aac0-4e15-8ed1-d86170df3ec2_1234x1727.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2vZt!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff038b656-aac0-4e15-8ed1-d86170df3ec2_1234x1727.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2vZt!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff038b656-aac0-4e15-8ed1-d86170df3ec2_1234x1727.png" width="1234" height="1727" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/f038b656-aac0-4e15-8ed1-d86170df3ec2_1234x1727.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1727,&quot;width&quot;:1234,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2vZt!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff038b656-aac0-4e15-8ed1-d86170df3ec2_1234x1727.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2vZt!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff038b656-aac0-4e15-8ed1-d86170df3ec2_1234x1727.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2vZt!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff038b656-aac0-4e15-8ed1-d86170df3ec2_1234x1727.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!2vZt!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff038b656-aac0-4e15-8ed1-d86170df3ec2_1234x1727.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><h3>The 100 Review Run</h3><p><strong>Objective: </strong>100 reviews.</p><p><strong>Parts touched: </strong>Book, Ads, Website, Customers.</p><p><strong>Prerequisites: </strong>published book, lead magnet inside it, capture page live.</p><p><strong>The moves: </strong>price it free, book promos on a rolling calendar, BookBub ads to comp audiences, remind your list at day 20-30. The ask is the mechanism, the reminder is where most reviews actually come from.</p><p><strong>The fork, on the card: </strong>broad-appeal book runs promos; niche book works the circles where its readers gather.</p><p><strong>Duration: </strong>months, honestly. This is the grind play.</p><p><strong>Milestone: </strong>100 reviews.<br></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ir5E!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5511a5cf-5c56-4c08-8d5c-ae28a4d290b2_1234x1727.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ir5E!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5511a5cf-5c56-4c08-8d5c-ae28a4d290b2_1234x1727.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ir5E!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5511a5cf-5c56-4c08-8d5c-ae28a4d290b2_1234x1727.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ir5E!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5511a5cf-5c56-4c08-8d5c-ae28a4d290b2_1234x1727.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ir5E!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5511a5cf-5c56-4c08-8d5c-ae28a4d290b2_1234x1727.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ir5E!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5511a5cf-5c56-4c08-8d5c-ae28a4d290b2_1234x1727.png" width="1234" height="1727" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/5511a5cf-5c56-4c08-8d5c-ae28a4d290b2_1234x1727.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1727,&quot;width&quot;:1234,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ir5E!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5511a5cf-5c56-4c08-8d5c-ae28a4d290b2_1234x1727.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ir5E!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5511a5cf-5c56-4c08-8d5c-ae28a4d290b2_1234x1727.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ir5E!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5511a5cf-5c56-4c08-8d5c-ae28a4d290b2_1234x1727.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!ir5E!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5511a5cf-5c56-4c08-8d5c-ae28a4d290b2_1234x1727.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><h3>The BookBub Shot</h3><p><strong>Objective:</strong> the promo that moves thousands of downloads in 48 hours.</p><p><strong>Prerequisite:</strong> 100 reviews &#8212; the Run&#8217;s milestone is this play&#8217;s entry ticket.</p><p><strong>The moves:</strong> apply monthly until accepted (took me three tries, but I&#8217;ve had books rejected for years), stage the machine before the date: lead magnet working, list reminder sequence loaded, review ask in the back matter. Then let it fire.</p><p><strong>Milestone: </strong>the download spike, and the review wave that rolls in over the next 90 days.</p><p>Ask any questions you have about getting book reviews in the comments.</p><p>Keep spinning.</p><p>Coach Chris</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">The Flywheel is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Week I Killed Revenue Writers]]></title><description><![CDATA[And what is coming next]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/the-week-i-killed-revenue-writers</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/the-week-i-killed-revenue-writers</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2026 20:20:08 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/211356139/5e8be3014357eca0449171a203d1a147.mp3" length="0" type="audio/mpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>(I recorded this podcast then had AI turn it into a newsletter. These are my words, but AI did touch it, but it 100% based on my recording)</em></p><p>Today&#8217;s a little bit of a sad day. Mixed emotions for me, because I&#8217;m announcing that I&#8217;m killing the Revenue Writers Podcast.</p><p>Before we get too sappy, I&#8217;m not going anywhere. Lord willing. The plan is to sunset the name Revenue Writers in exchange for something else. </p><p>It&#8217;s tough on me because I really like the term, but I feel inside of me, and maybe some of you feel it too, that it&#8217;s caused a little bit of confusion.</p><h3>Why the name stopped fitting</h3><p>When I say Revenue Writers, what I imagined were people who want to write for a living and generate revenue. That&#8217;s accurate. That&#8217;s what I want to be. That&#8217;s mainly what I am.</p><p>But when I&#8217;m honest about how I&#8217;ve built my company, and how I passed my insurance adjuster training company before that, sure, writing is a large part of it. Yet some people, myself included, fight the other things that are needed to actually generate revenue because we want to be known as a writer.</p><p><strong>While we&#8217;re revenue writers, we need to be much more than writers if we want to make money in our business.</strong></p><p>I feel like I can teach you how to write a book, but that doesn&#8217;t necessarily teach you how to make money. Mini-books will always be a core part of what I teach. It&#8217;s one of the best formats to start generating revenue quickly and one of the best formats to transfer expertise to build your business. But both mini-books and revenue writing lock me into this concept of writing. </p><p>I&#8217;ve written thirty-one plus books and ghostwritten books for big companies, and that&#8217;s still not the whole picture.</p><div><hr></div><h3>What I saw when I stopped seeing my business as linear</h3><p>Over the past decade of writing books and building businesses, I started to see a different picture. </p><p>The simple online business model is literally what I would have written down of how I run my business. But since I wrote Mini Book Flywheel this last year, I&#8217;ve started to pivot deeper.</p><p>Diving into the flywheel is how I get better at what I do as a CEO. I&#8217;m trying to understand what I&#8217;m actually doing at a more complex level that turns out to be less complex. There are lots of moving parts, things spinning and moving, but it really isn&#8217;t rocket science. It&#8217;s a few things we&#8217;ve got to do. They&#8217;re just things we don&#8217;t always want to do.</p><p>We want to just write. Go write another mini-book. That&#8217;s fun. But to build a business, you have to build a flywheel.</p><p><strong>Once I stopped seeing my business as a linear thing, I suddenly felt a lot more peace and clarity about what I needed to do.</strong></p><p>Flywheel is the glue that puts it all together. It gives me the liberty to talk about podcasts, books, and social media where applicable, all inside a framework that doesn&#8217;t feel sporadic. Mini-books are one of the core assets that the flywheel spins around.</p><div><hr></div><h3>The names I bought and buried</h3><p>For the domain junkies out there like myself, I went through a few names over the last few weeks and bought a few I didn&#8217;t end up needing.</p><ul><li><p>Flywheel Publishing was the working title for a while. Already taken. There&#8217;s a publishing company by that name that teaches writing, and I didn&#8217;t want to cause confusion, so we&#8217;re not going with it.</p></li><li><p>A few other names were too close to what other people are doing.</p></li></ul><p>After a lot of research, I&#8217;m pushing the chips in. Moving forward, this podcast will be called the Flywheel Builders Podcast.</p><div><hr></div><h3>What Flywheel Builders is</h3><p>This is where we&#8217;ll talk about how to build a flywheel and everything related to it. That&#8217;s everything in your business. We&#8217;ll focus primarily on spinning around your book.</p><p>If you&#8217;re a non-author, you technically could do this with your messaging. But the easiest way to get your messaging right is to write a mini-book, and then that&#8217;s your bible on your messaging.</p><p>Here&#8217;s what&#8217;s rolling out:</p><ul><li><p><strong>The app, Flywheel Builder.</strong> I&#8217;m building it to run my own business actively, and I keep refining it until it&#8217;s ready for you. It&#8217;ll help you run your flywheel, see what&#8217;s working and what&#8217;s not, and create new things inside of it. I don&#8217;t know how soon it&#8217;ll see the light of day, but that&#8217;s the plan.</p></li><li><p><strong>The cohort, The Core.</strong> We&#8217;ll all build a flywheel together. I&#8217;ll build mine for my business, you&#8217;ll build yours for your business. It&#8217;s named The Core because at the center of your flywheel is the core.</p></li><li><p><strong>The newsletter, The Flywheel.</strong> You might have noticed it already updated. Consolidating down on this concept, going all in.</p></li></ul><div><hr></div><h3>Stick around or don&#8217;t</h3><p>I get really excited when I look at the flywheel and it starts to make sense how a business actually works. </p><p>It&#8217;s not linear, it isn&#8217;t a funnel. Funnels are inside the flywheel, a piece of it, but it&#8217;s not linear.</p><p>If you&#8217;re thinking, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know, you&#8217;re going crazy, Chris,&#8221; I get it. No problem. We&#8217;ll catch you on a different one.</p><p>But if you&#8217;re excited about building a business that spins around your books, where you don&#8217;t have to restart every Monday morning with a new concept, a new launch, a new funnel, then stick around. We&#8217;re going to build ecosystems, weather patterns that attract customers and keep them in orbit around us until they&#8217;re in position and ready to buy.</p><p>Till next episode, when it&#8217;ll be the Flywheel Builders Podcast, keep spinning.</p><p>Coach Chris</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[What I tell every person who asks "what book should I write?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[Walking through Yellowstone thinking your book topic.]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/what-i-tell-every-person-who-asks</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/what-i-tell-every-person-who-asks</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 13 Aug 2026 13:11:11 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/210823444/62780f46dca6304643d36a2ad871f1ec.mp3" length="0" type="audio/mpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hey Revenue Writers,</p><p>This newsletter edition was first recorded as a podcast and I used AI to turn it into newsletter form. </p><p>While AI was used to repurpose these are my words&#8230; I often write the newsletter first and then record a podcast but this is the reverse order to show you all how you can use AI to create while it still being YOUR ideas, YOUR content, YOUR words.</p><p>Enjoy,</p><h1>The book that will grow your business</h1><p>I get this question a lot.</p><p>&#8220;What book should I write? What should my book&#8217;s topic be? I want to write a book, but I don&#8217;t know how to figure out what to make it about.&#8221;</p><p>If you want to build a business around a book, the answer is very different than if you just want to write a book to pass on to your kids. I&#8217;ve done both, and I enjoy both. Today I want to talk about how I approach writing a book to start or grow your business.</p><p>It&#8217;s not the only way to do it. It&#8217;s how I approach it.</p><h3>Why the book itself isn&#8217;t where the money shows up</h3><p>You&#8217;re going to think you&#8217;re making money because of your books. It&#8217;s more of a catalyst.</p><p>Most people say, &#8220;I&#8217;m only selling 100 books a month,&#8221; or whatever it is.</p><p>I only make $400 or $500 a month usually on my 8 insurance books&#8217; sales. That&#8217;s when it does okay. Most times it goes lower than that.</p><p>My business, IA Path, has done really well. It made up to $750,000 a year most years, and it&#8217;s mainly centered around my books. But the book sales don&#8217;t drive the business. And it&#8217;s not always leads driving it either.</p><p><strong>The reason a book is so good at helping you grow your business is because you have to understand your topic to such a degree that it makes you truly an expert.</strong></p><h3>What actually makes someone an expert</h3><p>I have to understand things to the stupidest degree possible. Otherwise I feel like I can&#8217;t talk about it or help other people with it.</p><p>Knowledge is useless.</p><p>Look at AI. It knows everything.<br>Knowledge is great, but it&#8217;s abundant, so your knowledge is not much of an advantage.</p><p>Your experience is part of your advantage.</p><p>What makes you truly an expert is if you can replicate the results you&#8217;ve had for yourself with other people. You put it together as a package to pass on to somebody,</p><p><em>&#8220;This is how I got the result. Here&#8217;s how you can do it, too.&#8221;</em></p><p>You make it to where someone else can understand it AND get the same result you did.</p><p>Now you&#8217;re an expert.</p><p>Books happen to be one way that&#8217;s done.</p><p>You can do it through courses, through presentations. But the most easily transferable form of media that exists is books. Because there&#8217;s no video, no audio, it&#8217;s text on a page. To make it make sense to somebody else, you have to boil it down to its fundamentals.</p><p>That&#8217;s the power of writing a book.</p><h3>How to know what to write about</h3><p>Once you know what you want to write about, that&#8217;s the topic and subject matter you&#8217;re going to become an expert in.</p><p><em>&#8220;But Chris, I can&#8217;t just pick random topics.&#8221;</em></p><p>No, of course not.</p><p>You have to start where you already have experience, because you can&#8217;t prove expertise until you can transfer it to somebody else.</p><p>Think of a restaurant. You don&#8217;t open a restaurant and ask what you want to cook. You ask what you&#8217;re already good at cooking. What have you made that was so good people wanted more of?</p><p><em>&#8220;My mother is Italian. I&#8217;ve made Italian food my whole life. My kids ask me to make lasagna every year on my birthday.&#8221;</em></p><p>That&#8217;s probably your category.</p><p>Wherever your experience lies, that should be one edge of your category.</p><h3>The three things that form your category</h3><p>Once you have your big broad topic, figure out three things:</p><ol><li><p>The <strong>person </strong>you want to serve.</p></li><li><p>The <strong>problem </strong>that person has that you have experience solving.</p></li><li><p>Your <strong>point of view</strong>, gained from your experience, of how they should solve that problem.</p></li></ol><p>Here&#8217;s how it worked for me.</p><p>I looked at my expertise,</p><p><em>&#8220;I&#8217;m an insurance adjuster by trade, so that&#8217;s my big broad topic. But I&#8217;m not the best at everything in insurance, so I should help new people. I&#8217;ve had friends who wanted to get in the industry and couldn&#8217;t because they didn&#8217;t know how. So my person is someone who wants to become an adjuster but doesn&#8217;t know how.&#8221;</em></p><p>The problem?<br>When someone wants to accomplish something, what is stopping them?</p><p>For my person, they found there were experience requirements. So the problem is they want to get in the industry, but there are experience requirements stopping them. They feel trapped in a maze.</p><p>Then the point of view.</p><p>Everyone was trying to become an adjuster a certain way, and I had a different way. My point of view was they should get started with auto claims. That&#8217;s the experience I had. Other people got started in property. My experience was different than a lot of people&#8217;s.</p><p><strong>Your experience gives you the big category umbrella, and your person, problem, and POV give it its shape.</strong></p><h3>Turn your point of view into a framework</h3><p>With your POV, make it very different from what most people do.</p><p>If it&#8217;s the same as everybody else, dig deeper, because a point of view has to be unique. If it&#8217;s the same as everybody else, they can get it with AI.</p><p>You might be thinking,</p><p><em>&#8220;Chris, I don&#8217;t have a unique point of view.&#8221;</em></p><p>You probably do. You just don&#8217;t realize it.</p><p>One, it&#8217;s unique because of your unique life experiences. <br><span>Two, to make it truly sound unique, turn that point of view into a framework.</span></p><p>Here&#8217;s how I do that. I come up with the steps of how I would solve the problem with my point of view. To become an independent adjuster based on my point of view, I interviewed 100 people, drew from my life experiences, and found there were seven steps everybody had to do to get work in this industry.</p><p><strong>I wrote out the seven steps. </strong><span>That was my unique point of view.</span></p><p>No one else had ever said it that way.<br>No one else had ever made it that clear.<br>No one else had my life experiences.</p><p>Those steps of the framework became my book.</p><h3>The whole process</h3><p>If you want to build a business around a book, or use a book to grow or start one:</p><ul><li><p>Determine the big category you want to be adjacent to. For me it was insurance adjusting.</p></li><li><p>Determine your person, your problem, and your point of view.</p></li><li><p>Figure out the unique framework you want to teach people and pass on.</p></li></ul><p>To make it transferable from a book, it has to be something that makes sense like a framework. That&#8217;s the book you should write. That&#8217;s where you should start.</p><p>Sure, there are other ways to do it. But you want my opinion, that&#8217;s what you do.</p><p>Now go do that process.</p><p>Spin it up.</p><p>Until next time, keep spinning.</p><p>Coach Chris</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I built my business backwards for years. Here's the map I wish I'd had.]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ever had this happen to you?]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/i-built-my-business-backwards-for</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/i-built-my-business-backwards-for</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 10 Aug 2026 13:33:27 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/210601890/8db8b62ba5c71235571daa7c793bcf2d.mp3" length="0" type="audio/mpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Ever had this happen to you? (or heard of it happening to someone?)</p><p>Someone tests social post after social post, month after month, maybe year after year. Not anchored to anything in particular. Just throwing things out there to see what sticks.</p><p>Then something hits.</p><p>They&#8217;re not even sure why.</p><p>Comments flooding in, DMs stacking up, strangers begging to give them money. And they&#8217;ve got nothing to send them.</p><p><span>No book.</span><br><span>No offer.</span><br><span>No product.</span></p><p><span>No core to catch all that attention and turn it into something real.</span><br><span>Just a lame &#8220;Follow me and be sure to hit the bell icon to get notified.&#8221;</span></p><p>They don&#8217;t have a business that spins around that post... so it dies off.</p><p>That&#8217;s what happens when you build backwards... you chase virality before you build the vehicle.</p><p>I want to talk about the map that proves it.</p><p><span>Over the past few months I&#8217;ve been somewhat obsessing about the concept of Flywheels.</span></p><p><span>Last year I wrote a book called Mini Book Flywheel and that is part of why my brain keeps thinking on it. Mini Book Flywheel was my first attempt at explaining how businesses are like Flywheels and how a Mini Book is one of the most powerful ways to spin it.</span></p><p><span>But like many of my books it was just as much exploration/revelation as it was explanation.</span></p><p><span>So I had much more I had to sift through.</span></p><p>Let&#8217;s dive into this map I keep seeing.</p><p>I call it the Company Flywheel.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png" width="1456" height="1067" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1067,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><h2><strong>Company Flywheel</strong></h2><p><span>A company flywheel is different from the &#8220;</span><a href="https://www.minibook.news/p/how-to-make-handmade-content-in-the-c20"><span>Content Flywheel</span></a><span>&#8220; I discussed last week.</span></p><p>Think of the two flywheels as different views.</p><p>Content Flywheel is for weekly content planning. While the Company Flywheel is more for big picture strategy for your company.</p><h2><strong>CORE - Category</strong></h2><p>Like all flywheel frameworks I can&#8217;t shake the reality that at the core is your Category.</p><p>If you are a Mexican gourmet chef so much of what is thought about you is pre-determined by the type of food you are cooking.</p><p>If someone walks into a &#8220;Mexican&#8221; restaurant we expect certain things... mainly margaritas on the menu and free chips and salsa.</p><p>You are boxed in, good and bad.</p><p>You change the category, &#8220;I am a pastry chef.&#8221; Well the category changed and everything changes.</p><p>The same goes for us as authors in our own business.</p><p>If you write about Sales Funnels... you are going to be lumped in to the Funnel Bro&#8217;s crowd and inevitably compared to Russell Brunson because he is the category king of funnels.</p><p>So our author business is VASTLY determined by what category of book/business we decide to write.</p><p>If you write about how to have great hair... might be a tough sell to sell baseball caps or accounting services.</p><p>Your category locks you in.</p><h2><strong>CORE ASSETS - Ring 1</strong></h2><p>Once you&#8217;ve decided on your category of business and book you have to now create your core assets.</p><p>1. Books</p><p>2. Products</p><p>3. Customers</p><p>Without those 3 things it becomes really tough to make your flywheel spin.</p><h3><strong>Books</strong></h3><p>The book is your category in tangible form.</p><p>It is your Bible... there is hardly a category of religion called Christianity without a Bible.</p><p>Your book does the same thing. It evangelizes your category. It spreads your vision and mission.</p><p>It puts you as a leader of the category simply by having written the &#8216;book on it&#8217;.</p><p>A book also happens to be one of the easiest to promote and transfer from person to person.</p><p>&#8220;Want to know how to save on Taxes? Here you go.&#8221; And you hand them your book. Instant answers if they want them.</p><p>A Substack post, a newsletter, a Youtube video is less permanent. It&#8217;s more like a newspaper article. Sure it gets catalogued and does last some time in history, but its nothing like the Bible or Homer&#8217;s Odyssey. Books that were passed on verbally then written down onto papyrus, paper, and eventually the printing press.</p><p>Your book is the greatest evangelizing asset at pulling people deeper into your core.</p><h3><strong>Products</strong></h3><p>Often I&#8217;ve had people read my book, Independent Adjuster&#8217;s Playbook, and throw down thousands of dollars to hire me as an adjusting mentor.</p><p>They go to my website click the product and buy.</p><p>But if I didn&#8217;t have the product I&#8217;d never get them to be a customer.</p><p>You have to have products beyond your book to have a business with a spinning flywheel.</p><p>I wrote extensively about the different ways Mini Book authors can do this in Mini Book Money, so I won&#8217;t beat the horse too much.</p><p><span>But my 3 favorite products are,</span><br><br><span>- Coaching (1 on 1)</span><br><span>- Cohorts (1 to some)</span><br><span>- Courses (1 to masses)</span></p><p>Typically you start with some form of coaching, whether its a done for you, done with you, or DIY advice.</p><p>It&#8217;s much easier to pull someone from a book into a 1 on 1 relationship than dump them into a digital product.</p><p>As AI makes creating digital easier and easier the human element of 1 on 1 human interaction will continue to be valued more and more.</p><p>So don&#8217;t snub your nose at 1 on 1.</p><h3><strong>Customers</strong></h3><p>Every thriving business flywheel must have raving superconsumers, AKA customers that love the product and company so much they&#8217;ll advocate for it.</p><p>You can go very far in business just based on word of mouth.</p><p>But you can&#8217;t get word of mouth without finding them and evangelizing them (usually with a book) and getting them to become paying customers through products.</p><p>I had someone reach out this week telling me &#8220;Someone came and looked at my wrecked car and I asked them how I could learn to do what they did. They referred me to you.&#8221;</p><p>Turns out someone who paid me $5k to have me mentor them then turned around told a potentially competitor in their market that I was the way to get started...</p><p>We have no referral program, no commission, just happy customers referring people who they think we can help over to us.</p><p>That&#8217;s the flywheel core spinning around the category you operate in.</p><h2><strong>CONVERSATIONS - Ring 2</strong></h2><p>Before someone reads a book or buys a product to become a customer they almost always encounter you and your category through a conversation.</p><p><span>I talked some about this last week when I dove into the </span><a href="https://www.minibook.news/p/let-ai-slice-it-never-let-ai-say">Content Flywheel</a><span>.</span></p><p>This ring is about engaging with people that have found your category and your content (Ring 3) and want to know more.</p><p>Typically we engage with them in 1 of 3 ways.</p><p>1. Sales (DM&#8217;s, Calls, Meetings, Webinar)</p><p><span>2. Newsletter (Email/Substack/etc.)</span><br><span>3. Podcast (audio/video)</span></p><p>These are the ways we get someone to raise their hand. This isn&#8217;t pieces of content, this is company tools to product content and opportunities to talk to people.</p><p>So yes some overlap from a &#8220;Podcast episode&#8221; that is spun up from a &#8220;newsletter article&#8221; but in a company CEO viewpoint we say, &#8220;How is the newsletter performing?&#8221; We aren&#8217;t asking about one issue, we are saying how is the company platform of the newsletter going.</p><h2><strong>What that really means is &#8220;How many people are we having actual conversations with?&#8221;</strong></h2><p>Whether its your newsletter, podcast, or sales conversations these platforms provide us ways to get people to &#8220;buy a book&#8221; to learn more.</p><p>Or to purchase product we introduce to them so they can become customers.</p><h2><strong>CONTENT - Ring 3</strong></h2><p>This is where most new business owners start, content.</p><p>Which makes sense. It is what we notice FIRST about a business. But starting with content before you have the category, your core, and your conversations figured out is just plain backwards.</p><p>Your content is purposeless, aimless, and often worthless if you don&#8217;t have a category you are pointing people towards.</p><p>What is it they are looking for? What are you helping them solve? What is your unique POV of how they can solve it?</p><p>All of these things are your category and content without a category is noise.</p><h3><strong>Social</strong></h3><p>Your social media channels are there to find new people to have conversations with.</p><p>Every post carries your category, your POV, your fingerprints on it. People who like what they hear want to engage more. They join your newsletter, listen to your podcast, DM your or sign up to get on a call.</p><p>This isn&#8217;t just about posting anything its about being strategic, knowing what the next steps you want an interested browser to do with your company.</p><h3><strong>Ads</strong></h3><p>Targeting people directly isn&#8217;t simply &#8220;social content&#8221; it is advertising.</p><p>Advertising can be effective at showing the masses your POV whether its your book, podcast, lead magnet for getting on your newsletter, or a direct outreach to DM, to try and get them to have a conversation with you.</p><p>But most times social and ads are ultimately directing them to a place that you own... your webpage.</p><h3><strong>Website</strong></h3><p>Your website hosts your lead magnet, a call scheduler or something that brings people into a conversation with you.</p><p>You&#8217;ve moved them from the rented land of social media into your domain. (literally) It is so important to have this as a bridge, even if it isn&#8217;t a massive wordpress site, but just a lead magnet page through your email provider. This is your way to know that someone has gone from the outer ring to enter into a conversation with you.</p><h2><strong>The Bridges</strong></h2><p>Here&#8217;s what I couldn&#8217;t unsee once I saw it.</p><p><span>Each ring has a bridge... the one asset that hands a person to the next ring inward.</span></p><p><span>Website bridges Content -&gt; Conversations.</span></p><p><span>Sales bridges Conversations -&gt; Core Assets.</span></p><p><span>Customers bridge your Core Assets -&gt; Category through word of mouth.</span></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png" width="1456" height="1067" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1067,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><span>Belief doesn&#8217;t leap from the outer edge to the core. It spirals inward, one bridge at a time.</span></p><p><span>We often focus on one piece, but don&#8217;t pay enough attention to if we have all the pieces in place and most importantly if someone can even walk across the bridge.</span></p><p><span>Hope that helps you map out your author business and how to improve it.</span></p><p><span>Keep spinning,</span></p><p><span>Coach Chris</span></p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">The Flywheel is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Map Every Author Business Follows (Whether They Know It or Not)]]></title><description><![CDATA[Ever heard a story like this?]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/the-map-every-author-business-follows</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/the-map-every-author-business-follows</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 03 Aug 2026 13:39:58 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Ever heard a story like this?</p><p>Someone tests social post after social post, month after month, maybe year after year. Not anchored to anything in particular. Just throwing things out there to see what sticks.</p><p>Then something hits.</p><p>They&#8217;re not even sure why.</p><p>Comments flooding in, DMs stacking up, strangers begging to give them money. And they&#8217;ve got nothing to send them.</p><p>No book.<br>No offer.<br>No product.</p><p>No core to catch all that attention and turn it into something real.<br>Just a lame &#8220;Follow me and be sure to hit the bell icon to get notified.&#8221;</p><p>They don&#8217;t have a business that spins around that post... so it dies off.</p><p>That&#8217;s what happens when you build backwards... you chase virality before you build the vehicle.</p><p>I want to talk about the map that proves it.</p><p><span>Over the past few months I&#8217;ve been somewhat obsessing about the concept of Flywheels.</span></p><p><span>Last year I wrote a book called Mini Book Flywheel and that is part of why my brain keeps thinking on it. Mini Book Flywheel was my first attempt at explaining how businesses are like Flywheels and how a Mini Book is one of the most powerful ways to spin it.</span></p><p><span>But like many of my books it was just as much exploration/revelation as it was explanation.</span></p><p><span>So I had much more I had to sift through.</span></p><p>Let&#8217;s dive into this map I keep seeing.</p><p>I call it the Company Flywheel.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png" width="1456" height="1067" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1067,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><h2>Company Flywheel</h2><p>A company flywheel<span> is different from the &#8220;</span><a href="https://www.minibook.news/p/how-to-make-handmade-content-in-the-c20"><span>Content Flywheel</span></a><span>&#8220; I discussed last week.</span></p><p>Think of the two flywheels as different views.</p><p>Content Flywheel is for weekly content planning. While the Company Flywheel is more for big picture strategy for your company.</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">The Flywheel is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div><h2>CORE - Category</h2><p>Like all flywheel frameworks I can&#8217;t shake the reality that at the core is your Category.</p><p>If you are a Mexican gourmet chef so much of what is thought about you is pre-determined by the type of food you are cooking.</p><p>If someone walks into a &#8220;Mexican&#8221; restaurant we expect certain things... mainly margaritas on the menu and free chips and salsa.</p><p>You are boxed in, good and bad.</p><p>You change the category, &#8220;I am a pastry chef.&#8221; Well the category changed and everything changes.</p><p>The same goes for us as authors in our own business.</p><p>If you write about Sales Funnels... you are going to be lumped in to the Funnel Bro&#8217;s crowd and inevitably compared to Russell Brunson because he is the category king of funnels.</p><p>So our author business is VASTLY determined by what category of book/business we decide to write.</p><p>If you write about how to have great hair... might be a tough sell to sell baseball caps or accounting services.</p><p>Your category locks you in.</p><h2>CORE ASSETS - Ring 1</h2><p>Once you&#8217;ve decided on your category of business and book you have to now create your core assets.</p><p>1. Books</p><p>2. Products</p><p>3. Customers</p><p>Without those 3 things it becomes really tough to make your flywheel spin.</p><h3>Books</h3><p>The book is your category in tangible form.</p><p>It is your Bible... there is hardly a category of religion called Christianity without a Bible.</p><p>Your book does the same thing. It evangelizes your category. It spreads your vision and mission.</p><p>It puts you as a leader of the category simply by having written the &#8216;book on it&#8217;.</p><p>A book also happens to be one of the easiest to promote and transfer from person to person.</p><p>&#8220;Want to know how to save on Taxes? Here you go.&#8221; And you hand them your book. Instant answers if they want them.</p><p>A Substack post, a newsletter, a Youtube video is less permanent. It&#8217;s more like a newspaper article. Sure it gets catalogued and does last some time in history, but its nothing like the Bible or Homer&#8217;s Odyssey. Books that were passed on verbally then written down onto papyrus, paper, and eventually the printing press.</p><p>Your book is the greatest evangelizing asset at pulling people deeper into your core.</p><h3>Products</h3><p>Often I&#8217;ve had people read my book, Independent Adjuster&#8217;s Playbook, and throw down thousands of dollars to hire me as an adjusting mentor.</p><p>They go to my website click the product and buy.</p><p>But if I didn&#8217;t have the product I&#8217;d never get them to be a customer.</p><p>You have to have products beyond your book to have a business with a spinning flywheel.</p><p>I wrote extensively about the different ways Mini Book authors can do this in Mini Book Money, so I won&#8217;t beat the horse too much.</p><p>But my 3 favorite products are,<br><br>- Coaching (1 on 1)<br>- Cohorts (1 to some)<br>- Courses (1 to masses)</p><p>Typically you start with some form of coaching, whether its a done for you, done with you, or DIY advice.</p><p>It&#8217;s much easier to pull someone from a book into a 1 on 1 relationship than dump them into a digital product.</p><p>As AI makes creating digital easier and easier the human element of 1 on 1 human interaction will continue to be valued more and more.</p><p>So don&#8217;t snub your nose at 1 on 1.</p><h3>Customers</h3><p>Every thriving business flywheel must have raving superconsumers, AKA customers that love the product and company so much they&#8217;ll advocate for it.</p><p>You can go very far in business just based on word of mouth.</p><p>But you can&#8217;t get word of mouth without finding them and evangelizing them (usually with a book) and getting them to become paying customers through products.</p><p>I had someone reach out this week telling me &#8220;Someone came and looked at my wrecked car and I asked them how I could learn to do what they did. They referred me to you.&#8221;</p><p>Turns out someone who paid me $5k to have me mentor them then turned around told a potentially competitor in their market that I was the way to get started...</p><p>We have no referral program, no commission, just happy customers referring people who they think we can help over to us.</p><p>That&#8217;s the flywheel core spinning around the category you operate in.</p><h2>CONVERSATIONS - Ring 2</h2><p>Before someone reads a book or buys a product to become a customer they almost always encounter you and your category through a conversation.</p><p>I talked some about this last week when I dove into the <a href="https://www.minibook.news/p/let-ai-slice-it-never-let-ai-say">Content Flywheel</a>.</p><p>This ring is about engaging with people that have found your category and your content (Ring 3) and want to know more.</p><p>Typically we engage with them in 1 of 3 ways.</p><p>1. Sales (DM&#8217;s, Calls, Meetings, Webinar)</p><p>2. Newsletter (Email/Substack/etc.)<br>3. Podcast (audio/video)</p><p>These are the ways we get someone to raise their hand. This isn&#8217;t pieces of content, this is company tools to product content and opportunities to talk to people.</p><p>So yes some overlap from a &#8220;Podcast episode&#8221; that is spun up from a &#8220;newsletter article&#8221; but in a company CEO viewpoint we say, &#8220;How is the newsletter performing?&#8221; We aren&#8217;t asking about one issue, we are saying how is the company platform of the newsletter going.</p><h2>What that really means is &#8220;How many people are we having actual conversations with?&#8221;</h2><p>Whether its your newsletter, podcast, or sales conversations these platforms provide us ways to get people to &#8220;buy a book&#8221; to learn more.</p><p>Or to purchase product we introduce to them so they can become customers.</p><h2>CONTENT - Ring 3</h2><p>This is where most new business owners start, content.</p><p>Which makes sense. It is what we notice FIRST about a business. But starting with content before you have the category, your core, and your conversations figured out is just plain backwards.</p><p>Your content is purposeless, aimless, and often worthless if you don&#8217;t have a category you are pointing people towards.</p><p>What is it they are looking for? What are you helping them solve? What is your unique POV of how they can solve it?</p><p>All of these things are your category and content without a category is noise.</p><h3>Social</h3><p>Your social media channels are there to find new people to have conversations with.</p><p>Every post carries your category, your POV, your fingerprints on it. People who like what they hear want to engage more. They join your newsletter, listen to your podcast, DM your or sign up to get on a call.</p><p>This isn&#8217;t just about posting anything its about being strategic, knowing what the next steps you want an interested browser to do with your company.</p><h3>Ads</h3><p>Targeting people directly isn&#8217;t simply &#8220;social content&#8221; it is advertising.</p><p>Advertising can be effective at showing the masses your POV whether its your book, podcast, lead magnet for getting on your newsletter, or a direct outreach to DM, to try and get them to have a conversation with you.</p><p>But most times social and ads are ultimately directing them to a place that you own... your webpage.</p><h3>Website</h3><p>Your website hosts your lead magnet, a call scheduler or something that brings people into a conversation with you.</p><p>You&#8217;ve moved them from the rented land of social media into your domain. (literally) It is so important to have this as a bridge, even if it isn&#8217;t a massive wordpress site, but just a lead magnet page through your email provider. This is your way to know that someone has gone from the outer ring to enter into a conversation with you.</p><h2>The Bridges</h2><p>Here&#8217;s what I couldn&#8217;t unsee once I saw it.</p><p>Each ring has a bridge... <span>the one asset that hands a person to the next ring inward.</span></p><p><span>Website bridges Content -&gt; Conversations.</span></p><p><span>Sales bridges Conversations -&gt; Core Assets.</span></p><p><span>Customers bridge your Core Assets -&gt; Category through word of mouth.</span></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png" width="1456" height="1067" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1067,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!XqeW!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2a3531c5-5c03-43d8-900c-bd134ad4d7c8_2164x1586.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><span>Belief doesn&#8217;t leap from the outer edge to the core. It spirals inward, one bridge at a time.</span></p><p><span>We often focus on one piece, but don&#8217;t pay enough attention to if we have all the pieces in place and most importantly if someone can even walk across the bridge.</span></p><p><span>Hope that helps you map out your author business and how to improve it.</span></p><p><span>Keep spinning,</span></p><p><span>Coach Chris</span></p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">The Flywheel is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How to Make Handmade Content in the Age of AI]]></title><description><![CDATA[Without Losing Your Mind]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/how-to-make-handmade-content-in-the-c20</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/how-to-make-handmade-content-in-the-c20</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2026 14:42:52 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/208695090/11f30fecfe0925c6a48bb874b44b0b16.mp3" length="0" type="audio/mpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OlJe!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8ab8c3f-1e61-42c6-95a2-cbcbb3afc179_1200x639.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OlJe!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8ab8c3f-1e61-42c6-95a2-cbcbb3afc179_1200x639.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OlJe!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8ab8c3f-1e61-42c6-95a2-cbcbb3afc179_1200x639.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OlJe!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8ab8c3f-1e61-42c6-95a2-cbcbb3afc179_1200x639.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OlJe!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8ab8c3f-1e61-42c6-95a2-cbcbb3afc179_1200x639.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OlJe!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8ab8c3f-1e61-42c6-95a2-cbcbb3afc179_1200x639.png" width="1200" height="639" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/c8ab8c3f-1e61-42c6-95a2-cbcbb3afc179_1200x639.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:639,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:262415,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/208695090?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8ab8c3f-1e61-42c6-95a2-cbcbb3afc179_1200x639.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OlJe!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8ab8c3f-1e61-42c6-95a2-cbcbb3afc179_1200x639.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OlJe!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8ab8c3f-1e61-42c6-95a2-cbcbb3afc179_1200x639.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OlJe!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8ab8c3f-1e61-42c6-95a2-cbcbb3afc179_1200x639.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!OlJe!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc8ab8c3f-1e61-42c6-95a2-cbcbb3afc179_1200x639.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p><p>You can&#8217;t let AI say your point of view... only slice it.</p><p>Have you seen all the AI backlash? (or the latest Substack AI detection tool!?!?)</p><p>Wow, people spend billions convincing us to write with AI and now people are screaming they hate it.</p><p>People swear they can spot (sometimes smell) AI content a mile away.</p><p>So for those of us who bought into the vision of AI helping us run our content machines... what are we supposed to do?</p><p>I wrote a book a few years back called the Simple Online Business Model.</p><p>It was the basics of what it took to keep a online business going, even as a busy homeschool dad/CEO.</p><p>I&#8217;ve been refining my method for years but as I took time off from posting on social and away from writing newsletters I really tried to get a visual image of how I could run my business.</p><p>Then it hit me, like a box of rocks (and I&#8217;m as dumb as one sometimes), it all made so much sense.</p><p>So here is the formula I see and how I&#8217;m reapproaching content writing for both my businesses so I can &#8220;just keep spinning&#8221; content up without becoming AI slop.</p><p>I call it the Content Flywheel.</p><h2>Content Flywheel</h2><p>Using AI or my own well-worn brain, that still works most days, (didn&#8217;t fry it totally with Claude and GPT last year&#8230; thank God!) I find a topic.</p><p>The topic is the &#8220;Core Content&#8221; of my weekly content flywheel.</p><p>Then out from that topic spins all other content for the week.</p><ol><li><p>Core Content (Ideas)</p></li><li><p>Conversations (Newsletter/Podcast/Video)</p></li><li><p>Clips (Posts/Shorts/Carousel/Soundbites)</p></li></ol><p>And it piggybacks on the model I laid out for you a couple episodes back of the Business/Company Flywheel.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png" width="1456" height="1117" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1117,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><ol><li><p>Core (category/book)</p></li><li><p>Conversations</p></li><li><p>Content</p></li></ol><p>Someone tuning into your podcast each week is having a conversation with you in their ears. There is an existing relationship.</p><p>Same with newsletter or YouTube channel. But how does someone typically get into that inner band?</p><p>Through content.</p><p>No conversation (even one way) happens if they don&#8217;t know you exist.</p><p>So we use that outer band of the flywheel to pull people into the inner band.</p><p>Here is what that practically looks like.</p><h2>Core</h2><p>You come up with the idea.</p><p>Here is what a core idea looks like. (this is a topic I came up with for my adjuster audience)</p><p>&#8220;16,000 Tomorrow vs. 1 Maybe<br>16,000 daily US auto claims against the single predicted major hurricane.&#8221;</p><p>So you do the same for your audience. Come up with a topic idea and hook.</p><p>That one idea is my content flywheel for a week and its rooted in my own book the Independent Adjuster&#8217;s Playbook.</p><p>Bonus if you find an idea that you can circle that&#8217;s from your book you have written or one you are writing.</p><h2>Conversation</h2><p>Next I actually write my newsletter&#8230; like type it or talk it.... myself... without AI... back in the stone ages I know.</p><p>Whether you can chat into a mic with an outline or tip tap on your keyboard determines what works best for you.</p><p>I&#8217;ve done both, took an idea, recorded it, but most times I type it out.</p><p>Doesn&#8217;t matter how, point is YOU do it. This is a conversation you are having with your audience.</p><p>You can&#8217;t outsource this all out to AI. This is where we mess up. We mess up our most important content. The conversation piece to our audience, and we become AI slop.</p><p>Studies are showing that <a href="https://originality.ai/blog/ai-website-sales-study">people pay more for stuff when a human actually makes it.</a> Like &#8220;handmade&#8221; but for the digital age.</p><p>So take the time to actually write your content.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png" width="1456" height="844" 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https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Now I&#8217;m not the only person saying to do this.</p><p><span class="mention-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Ryan Levesque&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:120576113,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;user&quot;,&quot;url&quot;:null,&quot;photo_url&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b6c82ea5-768a-4c85-970c-9ba9ea888974_981x981.jpeg&quot;,&quot;uuid&quot;:&quot;057ef1ed-497a-40f6-b3a4-f1e35a66b492&quot;}" data-component-name="MentionToDOM"></span>, author of the widely popular book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ask-Counterintuitive-Discover-Customers-Business-ebook/dp/B07QZNNX36">Ask</a> and his upcoming book, Return to Real, practices this same concept.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp" width="317" height="358.1109375" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/ac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1446,&quot;width&quot;:1280,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:317,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><a href="https://ryanlevesque.net/strategic-content-ecosystem/">He writes his newsletter, reads it as a podcast, then his team posts content for the week</a> using those as the ingredients.</p><p>He is championing the idea of &#8220;Return to Real&#8221; by actually writing your core newsletter and then and only then using AI to do some repurposing.</p><p>Both Ryan and I, and many others are advocating for humanity in our content.</p><p>We cannot lose our voice to our AI&#8230; so we have to do the hard work to write the Conversation pieces.</p><p>Once you have your thoughts, your human thoughts, you can use the leverage of AI to create other content truly in your own voice.</p><h2>Clips</h2><p>Once you have your 1000-2000 word Conversation Content (or however long you want to write it) you can use AI to slice and dice and everything nice and be actually reflective of your voice.</p><p>You did the thinking, you didn&#8217;t outsource that, so we can leverage AI like team members to make stuff.</p><ul><li><p>Image post</p></li><li><p>Carousel</p></li><li><p>Infographic</p></li><li><p>Soundbite</p></li><li><p>Video Clip<br></p></li></ul><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png" width="335" height="480.73446327683615" 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https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>These pieces of content go out in the world looking for people that will be helped by or resonate with the content.</p><p>If they like what they see they&#8217;ll sign up for a newsletter (usually through a CTA lead magnet) or follow you on YouTube or subscribe to your podcast.</p><p>That&#8217;s when you&#8217;ve gotten them into your weekly conversations.</p><p>They&#8217;ll be way more likely to see your content in the future. The job of the conversation content is then to keep pulling them into your Business Flywheel core... to get them to make a purchase.</p><p>To become a part of the story of your business.</p><p>Because at the beating heart of every successful business are the people who are raving fans.</p><p>Your superconsumers.</p><p>I hope that helps you think about content in a new way.</p><p>Quit thinking about content in &#8220;what should I post on LinkedIn?&#8221;</p><p>The question is what is this weeks &#8220;Core Idea?&#8221; and &#8220;What&#8217;s going to help someone and as a result move them closer to a conversation with me?&#8221;</p><p>Write that newsletter, record that podcast, then what to post on LinkedIn, Substack, Instagram, or Facebook becomes a logical conclusion that has your fingerprints all over it... not Claude&#8217;s.</p><p>That&#8217;s the whole rule I live by now.</p><p>Let AI slice it. Never let AI say it.</p><p>The saying is the human part, the slicing is just packaging</p><p>Guard the line between the two like your voice depends on it... because it does.</p><p>Keep spinning.</p><p>- Coach Chris</p><p>If you want to learn more about the concept of flywheels and how to build a business with one, check out my book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FPMCSMRR">Mini Book Flywheel: How to Design a Category That Makes Your Business Unforgettable</a>.</p><p>P.S. Yes, if you were wondering about the screenshots, I&#8217;ve been developing a tool around the concept of flywheels&#8230; stay tuned... more to come in the coming weeks.</p><p>P.P.S. Ironic the week I post this I see this as I go to post it. An &#8220;AI tool that grades whether it was written by a human or AI&#8221;. Ironic. Substack is using AI to judge if it is human or not. But it proves my point! People care if you wrote it or not.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 848w, 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class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How to Make Handmade Content in the Age of AI Without Losing Your Mind]]></title><description><![CDATA[Content Flywheel Reveal]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/how-to-make-handmade-content-in-the</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/how-to-make-handmade-content-in-the</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 27 Jul 2026 14:33:09 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/208330680/fd592f38db1691a0a430b663cf306643.mp3" length="0" type="audio/mpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UZx0!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6944fd3e-425a-4af6-b0c5-64d0d38270ea_1200x639.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UZx0!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6944fd3e-425a-4af6-b0c5-64d0d38270ea_1200x639.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UZx0!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6944fd3e-425a-4af6-b0c5-64d0d38270ea_1200x639.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UZx0!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6944fd3e-425a-4af6-b0c5-64d0d38270ea_1200x639.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UZx0!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6944fd3e-425a-4af6-b0c5-64d0d38270ea_1200x639.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UZx0!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6944fd3e-425a-4af6-b0c5-64d0d38270ea_1200x639.png" width="1200" height="639" 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UZx0!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6944fd3e-425a-4af6-b0c5-64d0d38270ea_1200x639.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UZx0!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6944fd3e-425a-4af6-b0c5-64d0d38270ea_1200x639.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UZx0!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6944fd3e-425a-4af6-b0c5-64d0d38270ea_1200x639.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UZx0!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6944fd3e-425a-4af6-b0c5-64d0d38270ea_1200x639.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>You can&#8217;t let AI say your point of view... only slice it.</p><p>Have you seen all the AI backlash? (or the latest Substack AI detection tool!?!?)</p><p>Wow, people spend billions convincing us to write with AI and now people are screaming they hate it.</p><p>People swear they can spot (sometimes smell) AI content a mile away.</p><p>So for those of us who bought into the vision of AI helping us run our content machines... what are we supposed to do?</p><p>I wrote a book a few years back called the Simple Online Business Model.</p><p>It was the basics of what it took to keep a online business going, even as a busy homeschool dad/CEO.</p><p>I&#8217;ve been refining my method for years but as I took time off from posting on social and away from writing newsletters I really tried to get a visual image of how I could run my business.</p><p>Then it hit me, like a box of rocks (and I&#8217;m as dumb as one sometimes), it all made so much sense.</p><p>So here is the formula I see and how I&#8217;m reapproaching content writing for both my businesses so I can &#8220;just keep spinning&#8221; content up without becoming AI slop.</p><p>I call it the Content Flywheel.</p><h2>Content Flywheel</h2><p>Using AI or my own well-worn brain, that still works most days, (didn&#8217;t fry it totally with Claude and GPT last year&#8230; thank God!) I find a topic.</p><p>The topic is the &#8220;Core Content&#8221; of my weekly content flywheel.</p><p>Then out from that topic spins all other content for the week.</p><ol><li><p>Core Content (Ideas)</p></li><li><p>Conversations (Newsletter/Podcast/Video)</p></li><li><p>Clips (Posts/Shorts/Carousel/Soundbites)</p></li></ol><p>And it piggybacks on the model I laid out for you a couple episodes back of the Business/Company Flywheel.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png" width="1456" height="1117" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1117,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" 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class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><ol><li><p>Core (category/book)</p></li><li><p>Conversations</p></li><li><p>Content</p></li></ol><p>Someone tuning into your podcast each week is having a conversation with you in their ears. There is an existing relationship.</p><p>Same with newsletter or YouTube channel. But how does someone typically get into that inner band?</p><p>Through content.</p><p>No conversation (even one way) happens if they don&#8217;t know you exist.</p><p>So we use that outer band of the flywheel to pull people into the inner band.</p><p>Here is what that practically looks like.</p><h2>Core</h2><p>You come up with the idea.</p><p>Here is what a core idea looks like. (this is a topic I came up with for my adjuster audience)</p><p>&#8220;16,000 Tomorrow vs. 1 Maybe<br>16,000 daily US auto claims against the single predicted major hurricane.&#8221;</p><p>So you do the same for your audience. Come up with a topic idea and hook.</p><p>That one idea is my content flywheel for a week and its rooted in my own book the Independent Adjuster&#8217;s Playbook.</p><p>Bonus if you find an idea that you can circle that&#8217;s from your book you have written or one you are writing.</p><h2>Conversation</h2><p>Next I actually write my newsletter&#8230; like type it or talk it.... myself... without AI... back in the stone ages I know.</p><p>Whether you can chat into a mic with an outline or tip tap on your keyboard determines what works best for you.</p><p>I&#8217;ve done both, took an idea, recorded it, but most times I type it out.</p><p>Doesn&#8217;t matter how, point is YOU do it. This is a conversation you are having with your audience.</p><p>You can&#8217;t outsource this all out to AI. This is where we mess up. We mess up our most important content. The conversation piece to our audience, and we become AI slop.</p><p>Studies are showing that <a href="https://originality.ai/blog/ai-website-sales-study">people pay more for stuff when a human actually makes it.</a> Like &#8220;handmade&#8221; but for the digital age.</p><p>So take the time to actually write your content.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 424w, 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https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Now I&#8217;m not the only person saying to do this.</p><p><span class="mention-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Ryan Levesque&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:120576113,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;user&quot;,&quot;url&quot;:null,&quot;photo_url&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b6c82ea5-768a-4c85-970c-9ba9ea888974_981x981.jpeg&quot;,&quot;uuid&quot;:&quot;9ceb0b64-3408-45ea-922c-a87ef1a782a8&quot;}" data-component-name="MentionToDOM"></span>, author of the widely popular book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ask-Counterintuitive-Discover-Customers-Business-ebook/dp/B07QZNNX36">Ask</a> and his upcoming book, Return to Real, practices this same concept.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp" width="317" height="358.1109375" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/ac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1446,&quot;width&quot;:1280,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:317,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><a href="https://ryanlevesque.net/strategic-content-ecosystem/">He writes his newsletter, reads it as a podcast, then his team posts content for the week</a> using those as the ingredients.</p><p>He is championing the idea of &#8220;Return to Real&#8221; by actually writing your core newsletter and then and only then using AI to do some repurposing.</p><p>Both Ryan and I, and many others are advocating for humanity in our content.</p><p>We cannot lose our voice to our AI&#8230; so we have to do the hard work to write the Conversation pieces.</p><p>Once you have your thoughts, your human thoughts, you can use the leverage of AI to create other content truly in your own voice.</p><h2>Clips</h2><p>Once you have your 1000-2000 word Conversation Content (or however long you want to write it) you can use AI to slice and dice and everything nice and be actually reflective of your voice.</p><p>You did the thinking, you didn&#8217;t outsource that, so we can leverage AI like team members to make stuff.</p><ul><li><p>Image post</p></li><li><p>Carousel</p></li><li><p>Infographic</p></li><li><p>Soundbite</p></li><li><p>Video Clip<br></p></li></ul><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png" width="335" height="480.73446327683615" 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https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>These pieces of content go out in the world looking for people that will be helped by or resonate with the content.</p><p>If they like what they see they&#8217;ll sign up for a newsletter (usually through a CTA lead magnet) or follow you on YouTube or subscribe to your podcast.</p><p>That&#8217;s when you&#8217;ve gotten them into your weekly conversations.</p><p>They&#8217;ll be way more likely to see your content in the future. The job of the conversation content is then to keep pulling them into your Business Flywheel core... to get them to make a purchase.</p><p>To become a part of the story of your business.</p><p>Because at the beating heart of every successful business are the people who are raving fans.</p><p>Your superconsumers.</p><p>I hope that helps you think about content in a new way.</p><p>Quit thinking about content in &#8220;what should I post on LinkedIn?&#8221;</p><p>The question is what is this weeks &#8220;Core Idea?&#8221; and &#8220;What&#8217;s going to help someone and as a result move them closer to a conversation with me?&#8221;</p><p>Write that newsletter, record that podcast, then what to post on LinkedIn, Substack, Instagram, or Facebook becomes a logical conclusion that has your fingerprints all over it... not Claude&#8217;s.</p><p>That&#8217;s the whole rule I live by now.</p><p>Let AI slice it. Never let AI say it.</p><p>The saying is the human part, the slicing is just packaging</p><p>Guard the line between the two like your voice depends on it... because it does.</p><p>Keep spinning.</p><p>- Coach Chris</p><p>If you want to learn more about the concept of flywheels and how to build a business with one, check out my book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FPMCSMRR">Mini Book Flywheel: How to Design a Category That Makes Your Business Unforgettable</a>.</p><p>P.S. Yes, if you were wondering about the screenshots, I&#8217;ve been developing a tool around the concept of flywheels&#8230; stay tuned... more to come in the coming weeks.</p><p>P.P.S. Ironic the week I post this I see this as I go to post it. An &#8220;AI tool that grades whether it was written by a human or AI&#8221;. Ironic. Substack is using AI to judge if it is human or not. But it proves my point! People care if you wrote it or not.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png" width="1456" height="707" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:707,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:153920,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/208042788?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Let AI Slice It. Never Let AI Say It.]]></title><description><![CDATA[You can&#8217;t let AI say your point of view...]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/let-ai-slice-it-never-let-ai-say</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/let-ai-slice-it-never-let-ai-say</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 23 Jul 2026 18:52:38 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span>You can&#8217;t let AI say your point of view... only slice it.</span></p><p><span>Have you seen all the AI backlash? (or the latest Substack AI detection tool!?!?)</span></p><p><span>Wow, people spend billions convincing us to write with AI and now people are screaming they hate it.</span></p><p><span>People swear they can spot (sometimes smell) AI content a mile away.</span></p><p><span>So for those of us who bought into the vision of AI helping us run our content machines... what are we supposed to do?</span></p><p><span>I wrote a book a few years back called the Simple Online Business Model.</span></p><p><span>It was the basics of what it took to keep a online business going, even as a busy homeschool dad/CEO.</span></p><p><span>I&#8217;ve been refining my method for years but as I took time off from posting on social and away from writing newsletters I really tried to get a visual image of how I could run my business.</span></p><p><span>Then it hit me, like a box of rocks (and I&#8217;m as dumb as one sometimes), it all made so much sense.</span></p><p><span>So here is the formula I see and how I&#8217;m reapproaching content writing for both my businesses so I can &#8220;just keep spinning&#8221; content up without becoming AI slop.</span></p><p><span>I call it the Content Flywheel.</span></p><h2><span>Content Flywheel</span></h2><p><span>Using AI or my own well-worn brain, that still works most days, (didn&#8217;t fry it totally with Claude and GPT last year&#8230; thank God!) I find a topic.</span></p><p><span>The topic is the &#8220;Core Content&#8221; of my weekly content flywheel.</span></p><p><span>Then out from that topic spins all other content for the week.</span></p><ol><li><p><span>Core Content (Ideas)</span></p></li><li><p><span>Conversations (Newsletter/Podcast/Video)</span></p></li><li><p><span>Clips (Posts/Shorts/Carousel/Soundbites)</span></p></li></ol><p>And it piggybacks on the model I laid out for you a couple episodes back of the Business/Company Flywheel.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png" width="1456" height="1117" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1117,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!vZiO!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2b42f06a-1927-4f4f-acb5-f19397ba3ed7_1460x1120.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><ol><li><p><span>Core (category/book)</span></p></li><li><p><span>Conversations</span></p></li><li><p><span>Content</span></p></li></ol><p><span>Someone tuning into your podcast each week is having a conversation with you in their ears. There is an existing relationship.</span></p><p><span>Same with newsletter or YouTube channel. But how does someone typically get into that inner band?</span></p><p><span>Through content.</span></p><p><span>No conversation (even one way) happens if they don&#8217;t know you exist.</span></p><p><span>So we use that outer band of the flywheel to pull people into the inner band.</span></p><p><span>Here is what that practically looks like.</span></p><h2><span>Core</span></h2><p><span>You come up with the idea.</span></p><p><span>Here is what a core idea looks like. (this is a topic I came up with for my adjuster audience)</span></p><p><span>&#8220;16,000 Tomorrow vs. 1 Maybe<br>16,000 daily US auto claims against the single predicted major hurricane.&#8221;</span></p><p><span>So you do the same for your audience. Come up with a topic idea and hook.</span></p><p><span>That one idea is my content flywheel for a week and its rooted in my own book the Independent Adjuster&#8217;s Playbook.</span></p><p><span>Bonus if you find an idea that you can circle that&#8217;s from your book you have written or one you are writing.</span></p><h2><span>Conversation</span></h2><p><span>Next I actually write my newsletter&#8230; like type it or talk it.... myself... without AI... back in the stone ages I know.</span></p><p><span>Whether you can chat into a mic with an outline or tip tap on your keyboard determines what works best for you.</span></p><p><span>I&#8217;ve done both, took an idea, recorded it, but most times I type it out.</span></p><p><span>Doesn&#8217;t matter how, point is YOU do it. This is a conversation you are having with your audience.</span></p><p><span>You can&#8217;t outsource this all out to AI. This is where we mess up. We mess up our most important content. The conversation piece to our audience, and we become AI slop.</span></p><p><span>Studies are showing that </span><a href="https://originality.ai/blog/ai-website-sales-study"><span>people pay more for stuff when a human actually makes it.</span></a><span> Like &#8220;handmade&#8221; but for the digital age.</span></p><p><span>So take the time to actually write your content.</span></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" 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src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png" width="1456" height="844" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:844,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jRe1!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F818e3894-d3c2-4a2f-9db7-0667cb181f19_2880x1670.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><span>Now I&#8217;m not the only person saying to do this.</span></p><p><span class="mention-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Ryan Levesque&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:120576113,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;user&quot;,&quot;url&quot;:null,&quot;photo_url&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b6c82ea5-768a-4c85-970c-9ba9ea888974_981x981.jpeg&quot;,&quot;uuid&quot;:&quot;057ef1ed-497a-40f6-b3a4-f1e35a66b492&quot;}" data-component-name="MentionToDOM"></span><span>, author of the widely popular book </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ask-Counterintuitive-Discover-Customers-Business-ebook/dp/B07QZNNX36"><span>Ask</span></a><span> and his upcoming book, Return to Real, practices this same concept.</span></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp" width="317" height="358.1109375" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/ac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1446,&quot;width&quot;:1280,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:317,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qPDh!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac01c4a6-6fc5-4249-aae5-a24a057e6a86_1280x1446.webp 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><a href="https://ryanlevesque.net/strategic-content-ecosystem/"><span>He writes his newsletter, reads it as a podcast, then his team posts content for the week</span></a><span> using those as the ingredients.</span></p><p><span>He is championing the idea of &#8220;Return to Real&#8221; by actually writing your core newsletter and then and only then using AI to do some repurposing.</span></p><p><span>Both Ryan and I, and many others are advocating for humanity in our content.</span></p><p><span>We cannot lose our voice to our AI&#8230; so we have to do the hard work to write the Conversation pieces.</span></p><p><span>Once you have your thoughts, your human thoughts, you can use the leverage of AI to create other content truly in your own voice.</span></p><h2><span>Clips</span></h2><p><span>Once you have your 1000-2000 word Conversation Content (or however long you want to write it) you can use AI to slice and dice and everything nice and be actually reflective of your voice.</span></p><p><span>You did the thinking, you didn&#8217;t outsource that, so we can leverage AI like team members to make stuff.</span></p><ul><li><p><span>Image post</span></p></li><li><p><span>Carousel</span></p></li><li><p><span>Infographic</span></p></li><li><p><span>Soundbite</span></p></li><li><p><span>Video Clip<br></span></p></li></ul><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png" width="335" height="480.73446327683615" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1524,&quot;width&quot;:1062,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:335,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!7lpC!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F23c5b105-7dd6-4543-a74e-b1797f2646a2_1062x1524.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><span>These pieces of content go out in the world looking for people that will be helped by or resonate with the content.</span></p><p><span>If they like what they see they&#8217;ll sign up for a newsletter (usually through a CTA lead magnet) or follow you on YouTube or subscribe to your podcast.</span></p><p><span>That&#8217;s when you&#8217;ve gotten them into your weekly conversations.</span></p><p><span>They&#8217;ll be way more likely to see your content in the future. The job of the conversation content is then to keep pulling them into your Business Flywheel core... to get them to make a purchase.</span></p><p><span>To become a part of the story of your business.</span></p><p><span>Because at the beating heart of every successful business are the people who are raving fans.</span></p><p><span>Your superconsumers.</span></p><p><span>I hope that helps you think about content in a new way.</span></p><p><span>Quit thinking about content in &#8220;what should I post on LinkedIn?&#8221;</span></p><p><span>The question is what is this weeks &#8220;Core Idea?&#8221; and &#8220;What&#8217;s going to help someone and as a result move them closer to a conversation with me?&#8221;</span></p><p><span>Write that newsletter, record that podcast, then what to post on LinkedIn, Substack, Instagram, or Facebook becomes a logical conclusion that has your fingerprints all over it... not Claude&#8217;s.</span></p><p><span>That&#8217;s the whole rule I live by now.</span></p><p><span>Let AI slice it. Never let AI say it.</span></p><p><span>The saying is the human part, the slicing is just packaging</span></p><p><span>Guard the line between the two like your voice depends on it... because it does.</span></p><p><span>Keep spinning.</span></p><p><span>- Coach Chris</span></p><p><span>If you want to learn more about the concept of flywheels and how to build a business with one, check out my book,</span> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FPMCSMRR">Mini Book Flywheel: How to Design a Category That Makes Your Business Unforgettable</a>.</p><p>P.S. Yes, if you were wondering about the screenshots, I&#8217;ve been developing a tool around the concept of flywheels&#8230; stay tuned... more to come in the coming weeks.</p><p>P.P.S. Ironic the week I post this I see this as I go to post it. An &#8220;AI tool that grades whether it was written by a human or AI&#8221;. Ironic. Substack is using AI to judge if it is human or not. But it proves my point! People care if you wrote it or not.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png" width="1456" height="707" 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srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Mwb2!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5eac4c5c-3b8e-446c-8e0e-ccd273a00374_2528x1228.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[My Business Finally Makes Sense Again: The 3 Layers of a Flywheel]]></title><description><![CDATA[Hey Revenue Writers,]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/my-business-finally-makes-sense-again</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/my-business-finally-makes-sense-again</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2026 14:27:09 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/207197328/e826471ab0fed3da9c7791578184c373.mp3" length="0" type="audio/mpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hey Revenue Writers,</p><p>Every business needs a system that finds customers, brings them into your orbit, and solidifies you as the right product.</p><p>Most people think of this process as sales funnels.</p><p>Usually goes something like this.</p><p>&#8594; Awareness &#8594; Interest &#8594; Decision &#8594; Contact &#8594; Sell</p><p>or</p><p>&#8594; Social Media &#8594; Lead Magnet &#8594; Sales Page &#8594; Order Bump &#8594; Upsell &#8594; Downsell</p><p>You get the idea. But here is a graphic to make sure you feel how crazy it can feel.</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">The Flywheel is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg" width="1024" height="1024" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1024,&quot;width&quot;:1024,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:247595,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/206850110?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>This shows the two extremes I see funnels take.</p><ol><li><p>Over simplification (it never feels that clean and straightlined)</p></li><li><p>Over complication (see all that swirling going on inside the image?)</p></li></ol><p>Sales funnels always felt like I was missing a piece of the puzzel.</p><p>I learned sales funnels from Russell Brunson. Best in the biz at funnels. But I never could make sense of how his whole ecosystem worked with his funnels. I understood sales page funnels but then people got dumped into something he never could explain.</p><p>The messy backend of swirling nonsense.</p><p>So I started looking at my own business and how ti worked.</p><p>Rarely was it &#8594; Lead Magnet &#8594; Sales Page &#8594; Sale.</p><p>It was months or years from someone raising their hand as interested to spending $$$ with me. When they spent they&#8217;d jump straight to the $5000 package.</p><p>So sales funnels don&#8217;t fully explain how that works. That always bugged me.</p><p>Slowly I began to realize a funnel is for a single moment in time, or a compressed moment in time. It&#8217;s the checkout process.</p><p>But the messy backend? The ambiguous blog that actually made Russell Brunson and so many online marketers successful wasn&#8217;t the checkout page of their sales funnel. </p><p>It was their flywheel.</p><p>While a funnel looks and acts like a tornado, it spins up fast, pulls people in, spits them out, bada bing, bada boom.</p><p>Flywheels are like hurricanes. Still pulling people in, but at a much slower speed. In nature hurricanes last 10x longer than tornadoes so this is the weather system, the business ecosystem that drives our businesses.</p><p>But I wanted to explain it clearer than I ever had.</p><p>It&#8217;s the invisible force behind the drawing of your customers into orbit around you and keeping them in orbit around you until they are ready to buy.</p><p>Having been running an online business for 10+ years I try really hard to simplify everything&#8230; for me.</p><p>Because I get overwhelmed if my white board or notebook gets too complicated.</p><p>Today I want to peel back what makes a flywheel spin and what the layers of the flywheel is actually made up to make it practically to you and your business.</p><h1>3 Layers of a Business Flywheel</h1><p>I wrote a book called &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FPMCSMRR">Mini Book Flywheel: How to Design a Category That Makes Your Business Unforgettable</a>&#8221; and in there I break down a flywheel, but it was still too complicated. (see below, I was so close, yet so far)</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg" width="1456" height="819" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:819,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:685239,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/206850110?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>This past week I&#8217;ve started building Flywheel Publishing, the first flywheel builder that I know of.</p><p>While building it I had an epiphany&#8230; basically a re-realization and an idea for simplification.</p><p>There are 3 layers to a flywheel.</p><ol><li><p>Category</p></li><li><p>Conversations</p></li><li><p>Content</p></li></ol><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png" width="1200" height="639" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/bb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:639,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:393180,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/206850110?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Ahhh much simpler and they are all &#8220;C&#8217;s&#8221; so, that makes me happy.</p><p>Let&#8217;s look at these 3 layers quickly.</p><p>For those that read Mini Book Writing or Mini Book Model you&#8217;ll know I like to break things down into 3 points and 3 subpoints.</p><p>So yes, the 3 layers are my points and now they&#8217;ll each have 3 subpoints. (this is a very meta teaching moment)</p><h2>Category</h2><p>When building your category there are only 3 things you have to do. (only being very tongue and cheek)</p><ol><li><p>Name your category</p></li><li><p>Frame your category</p></li><li><p>Claim your category</p></li></ol><h3>Claim Your Category</h3><p>This is the basis for your Flywheel.</p><p>Ryan Levesque calls it being a Category of 1. </p><p>Even if you don&#8217;t invent the next Uber category, you still need unique positioning, a way for people to understand what category you sit in.</p><p>Being intentional about this is so important.</p><p>I&#8217;m not a self publishing guy. I was the Mini Book guy</p><p>I wasn&#8217;t an insurance instructor. I was the auto guy.</p><p>So first you have to name what category you belong to. This is know as languaging and its harder than it sounds.</p><p>I&#8217;ve spun and spun and spun around the idea of mini books, smart publishing, category publishing&#8230; then WHAM&#8230; flywheel publishing hit me.</p><p>There is a lot to languaging a category but one you have named your category you can begin to&#8230;</p><h3>Frame Your Category</h3><p>Think of this are you core framework.</p><p>Uber set the stage of how ridesharing worked. Users have an app, they request a ride, it looks like this. The drivers get set up like this. They get a notification. blah blah blah.</p><p>The blueprint for the category the framework of how it all worked was decided and now you can&#8217;t imagine a ridesharing app looking or working any other way.</p><p>As authors we do this through written frameworks (like the one I&#8217;m diong right now). I&#8217;m framing what an author flywheel is made up of.</p><p>That&#8217;s me framing the category of an author flywheel.</p><h3>Claim Your Category</h3><p>Claiming your category is becoming known as the king or queen of it. (according to <span class="mention-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Category Pirates &#127988;&#8205;&#9760;&#65039;&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:24674214,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;user&quot;,&quot;url&quot;:null,&quot;photo_url&quot;:&quot;https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/f57c4299-a1ea-4224-bdbe-51dab7161a02_720x720.png&quot;,&quot;uuid&quot;:&quot;b6e7a2f9-c291-47ab-9823-7b07e45161f7&quot;}" data-component-name="MentionToDOM"></span>  it often results in earning up to 76% of the market share)</p><p>My favorite way to stake a claim is with a&#8230; mini book. </p><p>5000 - 15,000 words that define your category and show you have expertise in it.</p><p>Then the rest of what I&#8217;ll lay out moving forward is the process of continually &#8220;claiming&#8221; your category.</p><h2>Conversations</h2><p>Once your category starts spinning you will start off first with direct conversations with people.</p><p>This could be,</p><ul><li><p>DM (direct message)</p></li><li><p>Sales calls</p></li><li><p>Newsletter emails</p></li><li><p>Events</p></li><li><p>etc.</p></li></ul><p>This is how you get moving in the early days.</p><p>When you want to go to the masses to find more people to have conversations you move to layer 3.</p><h2>Content</h2><p>This is what most people think about when they want to get their flywheel spinning.</p><p>Content.</p><ul><li><p>Social Media Posts</p></li><li><p>Blog Posts</p></li><li><p>Podcasts</p></li><li><p>Video</p></li><li><p>Website</p></li><li><p>etc.</p></li></ul><p>But if you start with content you are missing the big opportunity!</p><h2>Why Category &#8594; Conversations &#8594; Content is the Right Order</h2><p>Your category and the problem it solves fuels your conversations and makes you attack the problem for people you want to serve.</p><p>That inspires conversations and shows people you care.</p><p>Those conversations bring up questions which spins up valuable content ideas.</p><p>When you follow this pattern growing your business gets so much easier.</p><p>Can&#8217;t wait to hear your feedback</p><p>Coach Chris</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">The Flywheel is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The messy backend of building a business that nobody explains... solved.]]></title><description><![CDATA[The 3 Layers of a Flywheel That Builds Your Business]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/the-messy-backend-of-building-a-business</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/the-messy-backend-of-building-a-business</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:14:08 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hey Revenue Writers,</p><p>Every business needs a system that finds customers, brings them into your orbit, and solidifies you as the right product.</p><p>Most people think of this process as sales funnels.</p><p>Usually goes something like this.</p><p>&#8594; Awareness &#8594; Interest &#8594; Decision &#8594; Contact &#8594; Sell</p><p>or</p><p>&#8594; Social Media &#8594; Lead Magnet &#8594; Sales Page &#8594; Order Bump &#8594; Upsell &#8594; Downsell</p><p>You get the idea. But here is a graphic to make sure you feel how crazy it can feel.</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">The Flywheel is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg" width="1024" height="1024" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1024,&quot;width&quot;:1024,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:247595,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/206850110?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!I9HY!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8d5e1c27-46f4-4fc4-af67-76a7fc5d46bd_1024x1024.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>This shows the two extremes I see funnels take.</p><ol><li><p>Over simplification (it never feels that clean and straightlined)</p></li><li><p>Over complication (see all that swirling going on inside the image?)</p></li></ol><p>Sales funnels always felt like I was missing a piece of the puzzel.</p><p>I learned sales funnels from Russell Brunson. Best in the biz at funnels. But I never could make sense of how his whole ecosystem worked with his funnels. I understood sales page funnels but then people got dumped into something he never could explain.</p><p>The messy backend of swirling nonsense.</p><p>So I started looking at my own business and how ti worked.</p><p>Rarely was it &#8594; Lead Magnet &#8594; Sales Page &#8594; Sale.</p><p>It was months or years from someone raising their hand as interested to spending $$$ with me. When they spent they&#8217;d jump straight to the $5000 package.</p><p>So sales funnels don&#8217;t fully explain how that works. That always bugged me.</p><p>Slowly I began to realize a funnel is for a single moment in time, or a compressed moment in time. It&#8217;s the checkout process.</p><p>But the messy backend? The ambiguous blog that actually made Russell Brunson and so many online marketers successful wasn&#8217;t the checkout page of their sales funnel. </p><p>It was their flywheel.</p><p>While a funnel looks and acts like a tornado, it spins up fast, pulls people in, spits them out, bada bing, bada boom.</p><p>Flywheels are like hurricanes. Still pulling people in, but at a much slower speed. In nature hurricanes last 10x longer than tornadoes so this is the weather system, the business ecosystem that drives our businesses.</p><p>But I wanted to explain it clearer than I ever had.</p><p>It&#8217;s the invisible force behind the drawing of your customers into orbit around you and keeping them in orbit around you until they are ready to buy.</p><p>Having been running an online business for 10+ years I try really hard to simplify everything&#8230; for me.</p><p>Because I get overwhelmed if my white board or notebook gets too complicated.</p><p>Today I want to peel back what makes a flywheel spin and what the layers of the flywheel is actually made up to make it practically to you and your business.</p><h1>3 Layers of a Business Flywheel</h1><p>I wrote a book called &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FPMCSMRR">Mini Book Flywheel: How to Design a Category That Makes Your Business Unforgettable</a>&#8221; and in there I break down a flywheel, but it was still too complicated. (see below, I was so close, yet so far)</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg" width="1456" height="819" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:819,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:685239,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/206850110?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YXQf!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F02bc265b-7320-414c-a545-9317bf04774d_1920x1080.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p><p>This past week I&#8217;ve started building Flywheel Publishing, the first flywheel builder that I know of.</p><p>While building it I had an epiphany&#8230; basically a re-realization and an idea for simplification.</p><p>There are 3 layers to a flywheel.</p><ol><li><p>Category</p></li><li><p>Conversations</p></li><li><p>Content</p></li></ol><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png" width="1200" height="639" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/bb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:639,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:393180,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/206850110?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!C3Zc!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbb583e26-7c92-4128-a2f9-1bd0e1bef2eb_1200x639.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Ahhh much simpler and they are all &#8220;C&#8217;s&#8221; so, that makes me happy.</p><p>Let&#8217;s look at these 3 layers quickly.</p><p>For those that read Mini Book Writing or Mini Book Model you&#8217;ll know I like to break things down into 3 points and 3 subpoints.</p><p>So yes, the 3 layers are my points and now they&#8217;ll each have 3 subpoints. (this is a very meta teaching moment)</p><h2>Category</h2><p>When building your category there are only 3 things you have to do. (only being very tongue and cheek)</p><ol><li><p>Name your category</p></li><li><p>Frame your category</p></li><li><p>Claim your category</p></li></ol><h3>Claim Your Category</h3><p>This is the basis for your Flywheel.</p><p>Ryan Levesque calls it being a Category of 1. </p><p>Even if you don&#8217;t invent the next Uber category, you still need unique positioning, a way for people to understand what category you sit in.</p><p>Being intentional about this is so important.</p><p>I&#8217;m not a self publishing guy. I was the Mini Book guy</p><p>I wasn&#8217;t an insurance instructor. I was the auto guy.</p><p>So first you have to name what category you belong to. This is know as languaging and its harder than it sounds.</p><p>I&#8217;ve spun and spun and spun around the idea of mini books, smart publishing, category publishing&#8230; then WHAM&#8230; flywheel publishing hit me.</p><p>There is a lot to languaging a category but one you have named your category you can begin to&#8230;</p><h3>Frame Your Category</h3><p>Think of this are you core framework.</p><p>Uber set the stage of how ridesharing worked. Users have an app, they request a ride, it looks like this. The drivers get set up like this. They get a notification. blah blah blah.</p><p>The blueprint for the category the framework of how it all worked was decided and now you can&#8217;t imagine a ridesharing app looking or working any other way.</p><p>As authors we do this through written frameworks (like the one I&#8217;m diong right now). I&#8217;m framing what an author flywheel is made up of.</p><p>That&#8217;s me framing the category of an author flywheel.</p><h3>Claim Your Category</h3><p>Claiming your category is becoming known as the king or queen of it. (according to <span class="mention-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;name&quot;:&quot;Category Pirates &#127988;&#8205;&#9760;&#65039;&quot;,&quot;id&quot;:24674214,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;user&quot;,&quot;url&quot;:null,&quot;photo_url&quot;:&quot;https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/f57c4299-a1ea-4224-bdbe-51dab7161a02_720x720.png&quot;,&quot;uuid&quot;:&quot;b6e7a2f9-c291-47ab-9823-7b07e45161f7&quot;}" data-component-name="MentionToDOM"></span>  it often results in earning up to 76% of the market share)</p><p>My favorite way to stake a claim is with a&#8230; mini book. </p><p>5000 - 15,000 words that define your category and show you have expertise in it.</p><p>Then the rest of what I&#8217;ll lay out moving forward is the process of continually &#8220;claiming&#8221; your category.</p><p></p><h2>Conversations</h2><p>Once your category starts spinning you will start off first with direct conversations with people.</p><p>This could be,</p><ul><li><p>DM (direct message)</p></li><li><p>Sales calls</p></li><li><p>Newsletter emails</p></li><li><p>Events</p></li><li><p>etc.</p></li></ul><p>This is how you get moving in the early days.</p><p>When you want to go to the masses to find more people to have conversations you move to layer 3.</p><p></p><h2>Content</h2><p>This is what most people think about when they want to get their flywheel spinning.</p><p>Content.</p><ul><li><p>Social Media Posts</p></li><li><p>Blog Posts</p></li><li><p>Podcasts</p></li><li><p>Video</p></li><li><p>Website</p></li><li><p>etc.</p></li></ul><p>But if you start with content you are missing the big opportunity!</p><p></p><h2>Why Category &#8594; Conversations &#8594; Content is the Right Order</h2><p>Your category and the problem it solves fuels your conversations and makes you attack the problem for people you want to serve.</p><p>That inspires conversations and shows people you care.</p><p>Those conversations bring up questions which spins up valuable content ideas.</p><p>When you follow this pattern growing your business gets so much easier.</p><p></p><p>Can&#8217;t wait to hear your feedback</p><p>Coach Chris</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">The Flywheel is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I've been building something I couldn't name... until now]]></title><description><![CDATA[A new name for this newsletter. A new discipline. A new tool.]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/ive-been-building-something-i-couldnt</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/ive-been-building-something-i-couldnt</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 09 Jul 2026 12:06:53 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!m6sM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5fb05d10-c197-46db-b731-25f75b441743_1200x639.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!m6sM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5fb05d10-c197-46db-b731-25f75b441743_1200x639.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!m6sM!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5fb05d10-c197-46db-b731-25f75b441743_1200x639.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!m6sM!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5fb05d10-c197-46db-b731-25f75b441743_1200x639.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!m6sM!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5fb05d10-c197-46db-b731-25f75b441743_1200x639.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!m6sM!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5fb05d10-c197-46db-b731-25f75b441743_1200x639.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!m6sM!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5fb05d10-c197-46db-b731-25f75b441743_1200x639.png" width="1200" height="639" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/5fb05d10-c197-46db-b731-25f75b441743_1200x639.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:639,&quot;width&quot;:1200,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:374090,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/206278049?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5fb05d10-c197-46db-b731-25f75b441743_1200x639.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" 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class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Hey Revenue Writers,</p><p>Big update today.</p><p>This newsletter is being renamed to The Flywheel. (wait I&#8217;ll explain)</p><p>And I&#8217;ve finally named the discipline I&#8217;ve been building for 7+ years.</p><p>It&#8217;s called Flywheel Publishing.</p><p>This is when your business spins around your book, turning one manuscript into the assets, content, products, and services that grow the business.</p><p>Now let me explain where this is coming from&#8230;</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">Mini Book Revenue Writers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div><h2>Ghostwriting for a Billion $ Organization</h2><p>February 16th I got asked to ghostwrite a billion dollar organizations category defining book.</p><p>I said yes, terrified to not be able to live up to what a billion dollar organization expects.</p><p>What I found through the process of not just coaching, but actually getting in the writing trenches then producing the book start to finish, was that a billion dollar brand struggles with the same things we as Revenue Writers struggle with.</p><p>They were publishing a book to place a flag in the ground for their category. They wanted to be remembered for something.</p><p>They are doing events now using the books as content that spins out from the manuscript into talks, content, and giveaways.</p><p>Their category is their core and out of that category sits a Mini Book and from that core asset everything flows.</p><h2>Why I&#8217;ve Been So Quiet</h2><p>Now as I reflected the last 3 months as I was in the actual contractual work time frame on what I&#8217;m doing here, with you all.</p><p>I dialed back writing because I was stretched thin and farming it out wholly to AI felt, well not right.</p><p>I heavily use AI for brainstorming ideas, verbal processing, editing, and some writing in a pinch when my brain is stuck.</p><p>But I found my brain was stuck too much&#8230; I was too reliant on AI.</p><p>So I just stopped.</p><p>I started reading my own old work, drinking my own Kool-Aid all over again.</p><p>I saw the pattern of how I was searching for terms of what it was that I did, how to explain it, how to present in a way that made sense.</p><p>As a category designer at heart, I&#8217;ve never felt &#8220;Mini Books&#8221; was the be all category I would sit in. It&#8217;s always been about more than that.</p><p>So you&#8217;ve seen me use Mini Books, Revenue Writing, Category Publishing (close), Smart Books (more on that soon), etc. in my search for a category my philosophy of business building would fit in.</p><p>But I didn&#8217;t want to be bound to a single asset, Mini Books, Smart Books, etc. I&#8217;ve been building my businesses with Mini Books at the core. I wanted the philosophy I talked about to fit, but I haven&#8217;t been able to figure it out, but I keep trying.</p><p>Then when it came time to publish the book I had ghostwritten. I had to go through the hell of working with an organization to publish a book through print on demand companies for bulk books and on KDP.</p><h2>What I&#8217;ve Been Building</h2><p>I got so frustrated with the process that I started coding my own tool. I&#8217;d tried before and failed. But this time was different. </p><p>The last four months I&#8217;ve been Vibe Coding for my primary company IA Path. I built an app that generated $10K in its first month. So I knew I could do it right this time.</p><p>The app isn&#8217;t ready to go live, but lets just say in 10 minutes you go from manuscript in your word doc to published on Amazon with almost no decisions from you.</p><p>But I didn&#8217;t know what to call it so this agitation and confusion around how all the pieces fit together in my brain turned into a raging inferno of confusion.</p><p>The final piece clicked when I re-read my own book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mini-Book-Flywheel-Unforgettable-Publishing-ebook/dp/B0FPMCSMRR">Mini Book Flywheel: How to Design a Category That Makes Your Business Unforgettable</a>&#8221;. I knew what I&#8217;d written was right, but not refined.</p><p>I got so excited I started testing word combinations of what this future app would be called&#8230; and what happened across 2 days of agony was a word combination that didn&#8217;t just describe the app but finally described the way I approached business.</p><p>Flywheel Publishing.</p><h2>What is Flywheel Publishing&#8230; Really?</h2><p>Flywheel Publishing is when your business spins around your book turning one manuscript into the assets, content, products, and services that grow the business.</p><p>It&#8217;s like a hurricane, feeding itself. Not like a tornado that feeds off an existing weather system. Flywheel&#8217;s are self sustaining.</p><p>Flywheel Publishing is what I&#8217;ve been practicing for 10 years with my own Mini Books at IA Path.<br>Flywheel Publishing is what I&#8217;ve been doing here writing about Mini Books.<br>Flywheel Publishing is what I&#8217;ll be teaching here on newsletter.</p><p>Because of that I&#8217;m renaming this newsletter &#8220;The Flywheel&#8221; where I&#8217;ll share how to build a business using your book(s). You&#8217;ll see the name update coming soon.</p><p>Lastly Flywheel Publishing is the app I&#8217;m building that&#8217;ll help you build and manage your own flywheel for your business&#8230; all centered around your book.</p><p>I&#8217;m glad to be back, excited to be writing every word again.</p><p>Your Flywheel Coach,<br>Chris Stanley</p><p>P.S. I welcome your thoughts. I&#8217;ll be changing the name before next weeks edition.</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">Mini Book Revenue Writers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[5 letters decide if your book sells. Most authors don't know them.]]></title><description><![CDATA[(It is based on the first chapter of Mini Book Writing: How to Structure and Write Your Mini Book in 7 Days (Without Overthinking)]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/5-letters-decide-if-your-book-sells</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/5-letters-decide-if-your-book-sells</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 02 Jun 2026 13:11:54 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3FST!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7228a29b-5101-4af3-9183-4d206a5a34cc_1040x1250.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>(It is based on the first chapter of <strong><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DYF38R8C">Mini Book Writing: </a></strong><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DYF38R8C">How to Structure and Write Your Mini Book in 7 Days (Without Overthinking)</a></p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2" target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DYF38R8C" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3FST!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7228a29b-5101-4af3-9183-4d206a5a34cc_1040x1250.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3FST!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7228a29b-5101-4af3-9183-4d206a5a34cc_1040x1250.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3FST!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7228a29b-5101-4af3-9183-4d206a5a34cc_1040x1250.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3FST!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7228a29b-5101-4af3-9183-4d206a5a34cc_1040x1250.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3FST!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7228a29b-5101-4af3-9183-4d206a5a34cc_1040x1250.png" width="184" height="221.15384615384616" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/7228a29b-5101-4af3-9183-4d206a5a34cc_1040x1250.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1250,&quot;width&quot;:1040,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:184,&quot;bytes&quot;:213867,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DYF38R8C&quot;,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/146788006?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7228a29b-5101-4af3-9183-4d206a5a34cc_1040x1250.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3FST!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7228a29b-5101-4af3-9183-4d206a5a34cc_1040x1250.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3FST!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7228a29b-5101-4af3-9183-4d206a5a34cc_1040x1250.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3FST!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7228a29b-5101-4af3-9183-4d206a5a34cc_1040x1250.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!3FST!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7228a29b-5101-4af3-9183-4d206a5a34cc_1040x1250.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div></div></div></a></figure></div><div><hr></div><h2>Create a POWER Promise to the Reader</h2><p>The number one thing you can do to make your book successful is to make a strong promise to your reader.</p><p>This promise to the reader is a promise of what problem you are going to help them solve. This promise is made through your title, your subtitle, and your book cover. The reader will decide on purchasing and reading your book based on these three things alone.</p><p>The success of your book is determined long before you write your first word; it&#8217;s decided when you choose a problem and make a promise.</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">Mini Book Revenue Writers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div><p>You communicate your promise in 5 different ways:</p><ul><li><p><strong>P</strong> &#8211; Problem the reader faces.</p></li><li><p><strong>O</strong> &#8211; Offer of the solution to the problem.</p></li><li><p><strong>W</strong> &#8211; Words that create a great hook in your title.</p></li><li><p><strong>E</strong> &#8211; Expectation of transformation stated in the subtitle.</p></li><li><p><strong>R</strong> &#8211; Reveal the genre and overall theme with your cover.</p></li></ul><p>We&#8217;ll break each of these down.</p><h4>Problem &amp; Offer of a Solution</h4><p>Every good business and every good book starts by solving the correct problem for the customer.</p><p>When starting a business, you must know your customer and then decide what problem you want to solve for that customer. This is no different with your books. Each mini book you write should solve one singular problem your customer has.</p><p>It should help them achieve the big promise that your company aims to fulfill.</p><p>For instance, I help people write mini books, and this book is helping with the problem of getting your first draft done in 7 days or less.</p><h4>Choosing a Problem</h4><p>If you are having trouble choosing what problem to solve, consider these 3 growth catalysts:</p><ol><li><p><strong>Bigger is better:</strong> The bigger the problem or the pool of people that have a problem, the better.</p></li><li><p><strong>Smaller is faster:</strong> A smaller promise that is quicker to experience makes the reader have a win fast and causes good reviews and viral word of mouth.</p></li><li><p><strong>First in series bonus:</strong> If the problem you help solve is the first problem they will encounter, they will come back to you for additional answers.</p></li></ol><p>The more of the growth catalysts your problem has, the better for your book and business. (You can find more on this concept in my book Simple Online Business Model.)</p><h4>Choosing a Solution</h4><p>Your solution doubles as the category of your solution.</p><p>You can solve a problem in several different ways, but how you choose to solve that problem defines your category of solution and book. To get a book written without taking a lot of your time, you could hire a ghostwriter, use ChatGPT, or write a mini book. My solution and therefore category is mini books.</p><p>Your solution is very important because it speaks a lot about the content of the book.</p><p>If you are having trouble knowing what solution or category your book should fall into, you may be trying to write the wrong book. The problem you are helping someone solve should be one you&#8217;ve already solved yourself. Then, the solution and category you are writing about should be the way that you solved that problem!</p><p>This is how you take the mystery out of writing a non-fiction book.</p><p>The book will practically write itself if you are just telling someone how you solved a problem in the past with a particular solution.</p><h4>Timeline</h4><p>Determine how soon the reader can expect their problem to be solved with your solution.</p><p>Going back to the &#8220;smaller is faster&#8221; point, it is easier to sell a book on how to write a non-fiction book in 7 days compared to how to spend 2 years writing your next book. You&#8217;ll want to set realistic expectations and have real-world experience showing that their problem can be solved or at least begin to be solved in the amount of time you promise. Look back through your journey and see how fast you solved it. If someone else you know solved it quicker, then look at why and try to incorporate how they got faster results into your book.</p><p>Determining how fast someone can accomplish this, along with the problem and category of solution, will prepare you to come up with a killer title and subtitle in the next section of this chapter.</p><h3>Title &amp; Subtitle (Words &amp; Expectation)</h3><h4>Title</h4><p>A good title is the hook of your book.</p><p>Think of some of the greatest books of all time: Tipping Point, Snow Leopard, Start With Why. Each of these titles drives your curiosity and pulls you in, making you want to know more. Just like a good copywriter knows that a headline makes a sales page or that a headline can make an ad, the hook of the book&#8212;your title&#8212;can make or break the book.</p><p>This is why I believe you must start with the title &amp; subtitle before you ever type a single word.</p><p>Having a good hook or a good title can actually birth a book all by itself.</p><p>I&#8217;ve written several books that were inspired by simply coming up with a hook. My books PDR Cash Box, Simple Online Business Model, and Misleading Money Mantra all began because I stumbled across these titles or hooks. This proves that the title is more than just a title; it&#8217;s a hook for the reader and a hook for the author.</p><p>You will find it much easier to write a book when you are captivated by the title.</p><h4>3 Different Types of Titles</h4><p>There are 3 common types of titles I see expert-based nonfiction books utilize:</p><ol><li><p><strong>One Word Titles:</strong> Examples include Ask by Ryan Levesque, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, and Margin by Richard Swenson.</p></li><li><p><strong>Framework Titles:</strong> Examples include 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, Simple Online Business Model by me, and Atomic Habits by James Clear. These use the name of the core concept or framework inside the book as the title.</p></li><li><p><strong>Brand Titles:</strong> Examples include Business Made Simple by Donald Miller, Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, and IA Path Playbook. These titles establish a company name in readers&#8217; minds.</p></li></ol><p>Picking which of these to use will eliminate the name overwhelm many first-time authors face.</p><p><em>(Framework titles can be an awesome launching point for a new business or a new product. If you don&#8217;t have your own framework, you can easily create one based on the topic you&#8217;re looking to write a book on. Download my FRAMEworks worksheet to create your own at Minibookstraitjacket.com.)</em></p><h4>Subtitle</h4><p>While the title, as a hook, can be vague, the subtitle must be clear.</p><p>This is where you clear up any confusion or ambiguity in your one-word title. Even with framework titles like Simple Online Business Model, you need to clarify what will happen when your framework is applied. The reader wants to know: if I follow your framework and read your book, what will happen?</p><p>This is the job of your subtitle, to eliminate any questions that remain after the title.</p><p>The ambiguous one-word titles become perfectly clear when you add the subtitle:</p><ul><li><p>Ask: The Counterintuitive Online Method to Discover Exactly What Your Customers Want to Buy . . . Create a Mass of Raving Fans . . . and Take Any Business to the Next Level</p></li><li><p>Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking</p></li><li><p>Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives</p></li></ul><p>You might have been unsure what you&#8217;d get out of &#8220;Ask,&#8221; but now you know exactly what the author is promising.</p><p>Our framework and brand titles zero in on the transformation someone will experience if they apply their framework:</p><ul><li><p>The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich</p></li><li><p>Atomic Habits: An Easy &amp; Proven Way to Build Good Habits &amp; Break Bad Ones</p></li><li><p>Business Made Simple: 60 Days to Master Leadership, Sales, Marketing, Execution, Management, Personal Productivity, and More</p></li></ul><p>A good subtitle offers a clear transformation that the reader will experience if they pick up, read, and apply your book.</p><h3>Cover</h3><p>Your book cover reveals to the reader the genre, theme, and feel of the book.</p><p>Is it going to be a female power book? Or a book written by a manly man like Bear Grylls? Is it an intellectual or a straightforward how-to book?</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jIDR!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F78787aeb-1b9a-48a8-8500-3f057fbda5c9_2240x1260.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jIDR!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F78787aeb-1b9a-48a8-8500-3f057fbda5c9_2240x1260.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jIDR!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F78787aeb-1b9a-48a8-8500-3f057fbda5c9_2240x1260.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jIDR!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F78787aeb-1b9a-48a8-8500-3f057fbda5c9_2240x1260.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jIDR!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F78787aeb-1b9a-48a8-8500-3f057fbda5c9_2240x1260.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jIDR!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F78787aeb-1b9a-48a8-8500-3f057fbda5c9_2240x1260.png" width="1456" height="819" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/78787aeb-1b9a-48a8-8500-3f057fbda5c9_2240x1260.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:819,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jIDR!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F78787aeb-1b9a-48a8-8500-3f057fbda5c9_2240x1260.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jIDR!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F78787aeb-1b9a-48a8-8500-3f057fbda5c9_2240x1260.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jIDR!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F78787aeb-1b9a-48a8-8500-3f057fbda5c9_2240x1260.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!jIDR!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F78787aeb-1b9a-48a8-8500-3f057fbda5c9_2240x1260.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Letting the potential reader know will help them decide if this is the right fit for them, which increases the number of happy readers and the average rating of your review.</p><p>My framework for creating book covers is the QUICK Book Cover Model:</p><ul><li><p><strong>Q</strong> &#8211; Qualify what a good selling book cover looks like by finding three you like the feel of on Amazon.</p></li><li><p><strong>U</strong> &#8211; Upload those designs to Canva or Bookbrush.</p></li><li><p><strong>I</strong> &#8211; Insert the elements and recreate the book cover as close as possible.</p></li><li><p><strong>C</strong> &#8211; Customize the cover by changing the title, subtitle, author name, images, and colors to match your book and brand.</p></li><li><p><strong>K</strong> &#8211; Kindle ready, ensure your cover meets Kindle requirements and is ready for publication.</p></li></ul><p>Let&#8217;s run through these quickly.</p><h4>Q &#8211; Qualify a Best Selling Book Cover</h4><p>Head to Amazon and search the non-fiction best selling books in a broad category like business or self-help, that will match the big category of your book.</p><p>Find three books with hundreds if not thousands of reviews. These will serve as your bestselling models. If your title is one word, try to find one-word titles.</p><p>Once you find a title that you feel you&#8217;d like the look and feel of something similar, right-click and save it to your computer.</p><h4>U &#8211; Upload Designs to Canva/BookBrush</h4><p>Take your three designs and upload them to your design software of choice, something like Canva or Bookbrush.</p><p>You&#8217;re going to select an ebook cover as the template and dimensions. You&#8217;ll use each of these designs you&#8217;ve downloaded as the background of your design. Simply lock it in place so you can manipulate things on top of it without moving it around.</p><p>This will serve as something you can model after.</p><h4>I &#8211; Insert Elements</h4><p>You&#8217;ll add text and images to recreate the book cover.</p><p>You&#8217;ll need to determine the style and size of the font. Match the colors on the background, images, and text. Find images that match any on the cover.</p><p>Most book covers are simpler than you first imagine, so get it really close to the original, but don&#8217;t stress if it&#8217;s a little off.</p><h4>C &#8211; Customize the Cover</h4><p>Now you change everything to make it your book.</p><p>Change the words to be your title, subtitle, and author name. Change the images to be your own unique ones. Change the colors to match your brand and vibe.</p><p>In the end, you&#8217;ll have something that drew inspiration from but doesn&#8217;t look exactly like the original cover, like the ones I did for my friend Jeff below.</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMIZ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf154cc2-11d1-45d5-876c-86dd003e9949_2240x1260.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMIZ!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf154cc2-11d1-45d5-876c-86dd003e9949_2240x1260.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMIZ!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf154cc2-11d1-45d5-876c-86dd003e9949_2240x1260.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMIZ!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf154cc2-11d1-45d5-876c-86dd003e9949_2240x1260.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMIZ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf154cc2-11d1-45d5-876c-86dd003e9949_2240x1260.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMIZ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf154cc2-11d1-45d5-876c-86dd003e9949_2240x1260.png" width="1456" height="819" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/bf154cc2-11d1-45d5-876c-86dd003e9949_2240x1260.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:819,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" title="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMIZ!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf154cc2-11d1-45d5-876c-86dd003e9949_2240x1260.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMIZ!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf154cc2-11d1-45d5-876c-86dd003e9949_2240x1260.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMIZ!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf154cc2-11d1-45d5-876c-86dd003e9949_2240x1260.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!cMIZ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf154cc2-11d1-45d5-876c-86dd003e9949_2240x1260.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><h4>K &#8211; Kindle (KDP) Ready</h4><p>You&#8217;ll need to make sure your cover is ready to upload to Amazon&#8217;s publishing service called KDP:</p><ul><li><p>1,600 x 2,560 pixels</p></li><li><p>Under 50 MB</p></li><li><p>JPEG file type</p></li></ul><p>Download your file, make sure it meets those requirements, and you have your book cover DONE!</p><p>You now have a POWER promise to your reader. You are hooking the potential reader with your title, communicating a clear transformation they will experience if they buy, read, and apply your book. Plus, you have a cover that communicates all of that and the theme and feel of your book in an instant.</p><p>This will guide you every step through the rest of your book creation journey.</p><div><hr></div><h2><strong>Action Step: Craft Your POWER Promise</strong></h2><ol><li><p><strong>Identify the Problem:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Think about the main issue your book will address for your readers. Write down this problem clearly and concisely.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Formulate Your Offer:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Determine the solution you are providing to solve this problem. Make sure your offer is compelling and actionable.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Create a Hook for Your Title:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Brainstorm a list of potential titles that hook your readers&#8217; interest. Aim for something that is intriguing and directly related to your topic.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Draft Your Subtitle:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Clearly state the transformation or benefit the reader will experience by applying the content of your book. Ensure it complements the title and provides clarity.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Design Your Book Cover:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Sketch out ideas or use design software to create a mock-up of your cover. Include your title and subtitle, and think about the imagery and colors that will best convey your book&#8217;s theme and genre.</p></li></ul></li></ol><p>By completing these steps, you&#8217;ll have a strong POWER promise that hooks your readers and sets clear expectations, making your book more attractive and compelling.</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">Mini Book Revenue Writers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Watch how I create a professional looking book cover in under 1hr... live.]]></title><description><![CDATA[She said "Nobody would imagine that's what we started from."]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/watch-how-i-create-a-professional</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/watch-how-i-create-a-professional</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 07 May 2026 16:32:59 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RZRJ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3a5c711-077c-4790-be12-221382c13717_1400x735.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RZRJ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3a5c711-077c-4790-be12-221382c13717_1400x735.jpeg" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RZRJ!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3a5c711-077c-4790-be12-221382c13717_1400x735.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RZRJ!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3a5c711-077c-4790-be12-221382c13717_1400x735.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RZRJ!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3a5c711-077c-4790-be12-221382c13717_1400x735.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RZRJ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3a5c711-077c-4790-be12-221382c13717_1400x735.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RZRJ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3a5c711-077c-4790-be12-221382c13717_1400x735.jpeg" width="1400" height="735" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/c3a5c711-077c-4790-be12-221382c13717_1400x735.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:735,&quot;width&quot;:1400,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:null,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RZRJ!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3a5c711-077c-4790-be12-221382c13717_1400x735.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RZRJ!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3a5c711-077c-4790-be12-221382c13717_1400x735.jpeg 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RZRJ!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3a5c711-077c-4790-be12-221382c13717_1400x735.jpeg 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!RZRJ!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3a5c711-077c-4790-be12-221382c13717_1400x735.jpeg 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a><figcaption class="image-caption"></figcaption></figure></div><p>Hey Revenue Writer,</p><p>Look at that first cover.</p><p>It&#8217;s fine. It&#8217;s not embarrassing. But it&#8217;s not stopping anyone mid-scroll either.</p><p>Now look at the second one.</p><p>Bold yellow background. Vibrant woman. Red circle popping. Script title that actually reads on a thumbnail. That&#8217;s a cover people click.</p><p>Here&#8217;s the kicker &#8212; we built both of them. Live. In under an hour.</p><p>Colette came to the Quick Book Cover Workshop with a Bible study book called <em>Squeeze the Word</em> and a cover that looked like a thousand other self-published books. Good concept. Lame execution. The kind of cover where you know, you just <em>know</em>, it was made in Canva by someone who isn&#8217;t a designer.</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">Mini Book Revenue Writers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div><p>By the end of the workshop, she had a cover that stood next to bestsellers.</p><p>Her words, not mine: <em>&#8220;Nobody would imagine that&#8217;s what we started from.&#8221;</em></p><p>That&#8217;s the goal. Every time.</p><p>The cover&#8217;s job isn&#8217;t to be pretty. It&#8217;s to stop someone in three seconds on a thumbnail-sized bookshelf called Amazon and make them click. That&#8217;s it. And most self-published covers fail that test before the book even gets a chance.</p><p>We ran Colette&#8217;s final cover through the thumbnail test, the click test, and the three-second test. It passed all three.</p><p>If you want to see exactly how we got there &#8212; the method, the tool I built to speed up the process, and the live Canva build from ugly to awesome &#8212; the replay is up now.</p><p>Watch it before it comes down.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/p/quck-book-cover-workshop-replay&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Replay Link&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.minibook.news/p/quck-book-cover-workshop-replay"><span>Replay Link</span></a></p><p>&#8212; Chris</p><p>P.S. The method is called QUICK. Five steps. One to two hours max. And you don&#8217;t need to be a designer. I was an insurance adjuster for 15 years. I figured it out. You can too.</p><div class="subscription-widget-wrap-editor" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://categorypublishers.com/subscribe?&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Subscribe&quot;,&quot;language&quot;:&quot;en&quot;}" data-component-name="SubscribeWidgetToDOM"><div class="subscription-widget show-subscribe"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">Mini Book Revenue Writers is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.</p></div><form class="subscription-widget-subscribe"><input type="email" class="email-input" name="email" placeholder="Type your email&#8230;" tabindex="-1"><input type="submit" class="button primary" value="Subscribe"><div class="fake-input-wrapper"><div class="fake-input"></div><div class="fake-button"></div></div></form></div></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[QUICK Book Cover Workshop Replay]]></title><description><![CDATA[Create a best-selling book cover in as little as 1 hour]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/quck-book-cover-workshop-replay</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/quck-book-cover-workshop-replay</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 07 May 2026 16:28:26 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-video.s3.amazonaws.com/video_upload/post/196795223/96014601-ec06-4cf4-bcf9-afba7c836e29/transcoded-00001.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>(Tool I used during the event can be find by clicking below.</em><br><a href="https://quickcoverfinder.netlify.app/">QUICK BOOK COVER FINDER</a>)</p><p><br>Hey Revenue Writer,</p><p><strong>What you&#8217;re about to watch:</strong></p><p>Colette came in with a Bible study book called <em>Squeeze the Word</em> and a cover that looked like ten thousand other self-published books on Amazon.</p><p>In under an hour, we rebuilt it live, from scratch, using a five-step method calle&#8230;</p>
      <p>
          <a href="https://categorypublishers.com/p/quck-book-cover-workshop-replay">
              Read more
          </a>
      </p>
   ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Learn to Create Your Own Best Selling Book Cover TONIGHT]]></title><description><![CDATA[QUICK Book Cover Workshop Starts at 6pm (EST) TONIGHT]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/learn-to-create-your-own-best-selling</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/learn-to-create-your-own-best-selling</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 05 May 2026 16:57:13 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_Jms!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9f265850-e1b8-4623-a5db-ac3075409251_1280x1280.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The QUICK Book Cover Workshop kicks off in a few hours. 6pm (EST)</p><p>Three hours, live. I&#8217;ll be teaching how I&#8217;ve created best-selling covers for mine and other authors book.</p><p>Live I&#8217;ll be building covers from scratch in Canva. Step by step through every letter of the QUICK Book Cover Model.</p><p>You bring your title. I&#8217;ll walk you through building a cover that belongs next to the bestsellers in your category.</p><p>Here&#8217;s what you walk away with tonight.</p><ul><li><p>A finished cover concept for your book.</p></li><li><p>The exact reference workflow I use for every Mini Book I publish.</p></li><li><p>A tool to find great covers that are proven and well reviewed in seconds</p></li><li><p>Replay of the event</p></li></ul><p>Three ways to join.</p><p><strong>Revenue Writers Member. $35 a month. </strong>Attend free. Replay through end of week. (then cancel so there is no monthly membership if you want)</p><p><strong>&#192; La Carte. $197.</strong> Lifetime access to the full course. Goes to $247 after tonight.</p><p>The price on the &#192; La Carte option goes up after the event.</p><p>Click below to grab your seat.</p><p><a href="https://www.minibook.news/p/quick-book-cover-workshop-register">Register for the Workshop</a></p><p>See you at 6.</p><p>Coach Chris Stanley</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[I Gave AI An Hour To Beat My Book Cover]]></title><description><![CDATA[Last year I built a cover in one hour for my most popular book on writing.]]></description><link>https://categorypublishers.com/p/i-gave-ai-an-hour-to-beat-my-book</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://categorypublishers.com/p/i-gave-ai-an-hour-to-beat-my-book</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Chris Stanley]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 29 Apr 2026 21:27:03 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qWBs!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7b3fb6f-38d7-47c5-8cba-afc9dd193df0_740x420.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qWBs!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7b3fb6f-38d7-47c5-8cba-afc9dd193df0_740x420.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qWBs!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7b3fb6f-38d7-47c5-8cba-afc9dd193df0_740x420.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qWBs!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7b3fb6f-38d7-47c5-8cba-afc9dd193df0_740x420.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qWBs!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7b3fb6f-38d7-47c5-8cba-afc9dd193df0_740x420.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qWBs!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7b3fb6f-38d7-47c5-8cba-afc9dd193df0_740x420.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qWBs!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7b3fb6f-38d7-47c5-8cba-afc9dd193df0_740x420.png" width="740" height="420" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d7b3fb6f-38d7-47c5-8cba-afc9dd193df0_740x420.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:420,&quot;width&quot;:740,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:168062,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/195917162?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7b3fb6f-38d7-47c5-8cba-afc9dd193df0_740x420.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qWBs!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7b3fb6f-38d7-47c5-8cba-afc9dd193df0_740x420.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qWBs!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7b3fb6f-38d7-47c5-8cba-afc9dd193df0_740x420.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qWBs!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7b3fb6f-38d7-47c5-8cba-afc9dd193df0_740x420.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!qWBs!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7b3fb6f-38d7-47c5-8cba-afc9dd193df0_740x420.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" fetchpriority="high"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>Last year I built a cover in one hour for my most popular book on writing.</p><p>I used a method I&#8217;d been refining for years. </p><p>Five steps. <br>Predictable result. <br>I used my favorite hot pink color and modeled the cover after Atomic Habits.</p><p>That cover has been my Mini Book Model cover ever since.</p><p>Last week I got curious.</p><p>AI tools have come a long way in twelve months. <br>Canva templates have multiplied. <br>Maybe the hour-long manual method was overkill now.</p><p>So I ran an experiment.</p><p>I gave Gemini one hour. <br>I gave a Canva template one hour. <br>I put both up against the QUICK Method cover I&#8217;d already made.</p><p>Same book. <br>Same hour budget. <br>Three very different results.</p><p>Here they are. <br>You be the judge.</p><div><hr></div><h3>Cover 1. Gemini AI. One Hour.</h3><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YhyR!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc56bf8c-11f5-4441-807c-3e17df281a19_1664x2560.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YhyR!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc56bf8c-11f5-4441-807c-3e17df281a19_1664x2560.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YhyR!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc56bf8c-11f5-4441-807c-3e17df281a19_1664x2560.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YhyR!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc56bf8c-11f5-4441-807c-3e17df281a19_1664x2560.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YhyR!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc56bf8c-11f5-4441-807c-3e17df281a19_1664x2560.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YhyR!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc56bf8c-11f5-4441-807c-3e17df281a19_1664x2560.png" width="1456" height="2240" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/cc56bf8c-11f5-4441-807c-3e17df281a19_1664x2560.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:2240,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:5858917,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/195917162?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc56bf8c-11f5-4441-807c-3e17df281a19_1664x2560.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YhyR!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc56bf8c-11f5-4441-807c-3e17df281a19_1664x2560.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YhyR!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc56bf8c-11f5-4441-807c-3e17df281a19_1664x2560.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YhyR!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc56bf8c-11f5-4441-807c-3e17df281a19_1664x2560.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!YhyR!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcc56bf8c-11f5-4441-807c-3e17df281a19_1664x2560.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p><p>I opened Gemini and went to work.</p><p>Wrote prompts. Refined them. Tried different styles, different palettes, different layouts. Iterated for a full hour.</p><p>This was the best version I got. (Check out the ugly one I got without massaging it for 1 hour)</p><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tVyl!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb0c91333-b0a9-4c42-8789-17045e18cec8_1696x2528.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tVyl!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb0c91333-b0a9-4c42-8789-17045e18cec8_1696x2528.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tVyl!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb0c91333-b0a9-4c42-8789-17045e18cec8_1696x2528.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tVyl!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb0c91333-b0a9-4c42-8789-17045e18cec8_1696x2528.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tVyl!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb0c91333-b0a9-4c42-8789-17045e18cec8_1696x2528.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tVyl!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb0c91333-b0a9-4c42-8789-17045e18cec8_1696x2528.png" width="277" height="412.83653846153845" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/b0c91333-b0a9-4c42-8789-17045e18cec8_1696x2528.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:2170,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:277,&quot;bytes&quot;:6492995,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/195917162?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb0c91333-b0a9-4c42-8789-17045e18cec8_1696x2528.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tVyl!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb0c91333-b0a9-4c42-8789-17045e18cec8_1696x2528.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tVyl!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb0c91333-b0a9-4c42-8789-17045e18cec8_1696x2528.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tVyl!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb0c91333-b0a9-4c42-8789-17045e18cec8_1696x2528.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!tVyl!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb0c91333-b0a9-4c42-8789-17045e18cec8_1696x2528.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p><br>The shapes on the original have movement. The pink and navy palette feels somewhat modern. The exploding book in the center is a clever visual metaphor.</p><p>A cover has one job though. <br>Sell the book.</p><p>This one doesn&#8217;t. It is art.<br>The title fights the artwork for attention. <br>The subtitle disappears into the chaos.</p><p>Gemini gave me a poster. Not a Mini Book cover.</p><p>I could sell some books with it&#8230; but I&#8217;d be fighting uphill.</p><div><hr></div><h3>Cover 2. Canva Template. One Hour.</h3><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!nUwb!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff552013c-7223-48a1-9796-d823e74648a2_1000x1000.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!nUwb!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff552013c-7223-48a1-9796-d823e74648a2_1000x1000.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!nUwb!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff552013c-7223-48a1-9796-d823e74648a2_1000x1000.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!nUwb!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff552013c-7223-48a1-9796-d823e74648a2_1000x1000.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!nUwb!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff552013c-7223-48a1-9796-d823e74648a2_1000x1000.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!nUwb!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff552013c-7223-48a1-9796-d823e74648a2_1000x1000.png" width="1000" height="1000" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/f552013c-7223-48a1-9796-d823e74648a2_1000x1000.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:1000,&quot;width&quot;:1000,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:302378,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/195917162?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff552013c-7223-48a1-9796-d823e74648a2_1000x1000.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!nUwb!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff552013c-7223-48a1-9796-d823e74648a2_1000x1000.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!nUwb!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff552013c-7223-48a1-9796-d823e74648a2_1000x1000.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!nUwb!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff552013c-7223-48a1-9796-d823e74648a2_1000x1000.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!nUwb!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff552013c-7223-48a1-9796-d823e74648a2_1000x1000.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p></p><p>Next I opened Canva.</p><p>Searched book cover templates. <br>Picked the one closest to my brand. <br>Spent an hour swapping fonts, adjusting icons, tweaking the layout.</p><p>This is what an hour of template work looks like.</p><p>The pink is on brand. The little circular icons feel relevant to the Mini Book idea. The type is clean.</p><p>The cover still feels safe.</p><p>The icons are stock. The layout is template default, but I did make a few decisions that made a big different. <br>Nothing about it claims a category.<br>Nothing says you HAVE to read this book.</p><p>It isn&#8217;t BAD. Mini is big enough I like it better than my original one from years ago, but not it.</p><p>A reader scrolling Kindle thumbnails sees ten thousand covers like this every month. They swipe past in half a second.</p><p>Templates skip the work that wins sales on Amazon.</p><div><hr></div><h3>Cover 3. The QUICK Method. One Hour.</h3><div class="captioned-image-container"><figure><a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" target="_blank" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hgHU!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf13bbe8-2fa2-496d-967d-983f4fc1fb98_1410x2250.png" data-component-name="Image2ToDOM"><div class="image2-inset"><picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hgHU!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf13bbe8-2fa2-496d-967d-983f4fc1fb98_1410x2250.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hgHU!,w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf13bbe8-2fa2-496d-967d-983f4fc1fb98_1410x2250.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hgHU!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf13bbe8-2fa2-496d-967d-983f4fc1fb98_1410x2250.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hgHU!,w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf13bbe8-2fa2-496d-967d-983f4fc1fb98_1410x2250.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hgHU!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf13bbe8-2fa2-496d-967d-983f4fc1fb98_1410x2250.png" width="1410" height="2250" data-attrs="{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/bf13bbe8-2fa2-496d-967d-983f4fc1fb98_1410x2250.png&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:2250,&quot;width&quot;:1410,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:366199,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/i/195917162?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf13bbe8-2fa2-496d-967d-983f4fc1fb98_1410x2250.png&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hgHU!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf13bbe8-2fa2-496d-967d-983f4fc1fb98_1410x2250.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hgHU!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf13bbe8-2fa2-496d-967d-983f4fc1fb98_1410x2250.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hgHU!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf13bbe8-2fa2-496d-967d-983f4fc1fb98_1410x2250.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!hgHU!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbf13bbe8-2fa2-496d-967d-983f4fc1fb98_1410x2250.png 1456w" sizes="100vw" loading="lazy"></picture><div class="image-link-expand"><div class="pencraft pc-display-flex pc-gap-8 pc-reset"><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container restack-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg aria-hidden="true" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 20 20" fill="none" stroke-width="1.5" stroke="var(--color-fg-primary)" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon-noB79L"><g><path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 17.5 4.07589 15.5379 2.94432 12.7632L2.41165 11.3235M2.41165 11.3235L1.5293 15.7353M2.41165 11.3235L6.38224 13.0882"></path></g></svg></button><button tabindex="0" type="button" class="pencraft pc-reset pencraft icon-container view-image buttonBase-GK1x3M"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round" class="lucide lucide-maximize2 lucide-maximize-2 icon-noB79L"><polyline points="15 3 21 3 21 9"></polyline><polyline points="9 21 3 21 3 15"></polyline><line x1="21" x2="14" y1="3" y2="10"></line><line x1="3" x2="10" y1="21" y2="14"></line></svg></button></div></div></div></a></figure></div><p>This one I made last year.</p><p>Same hour budget. Different process.</p><p>I modeled it after Atomic Habits. The number one bestseller in self-improvement. Millions of copies sold and counting. (of Atomic habits&#8230; not mine)</p><p>Here is what QUICK stands for.</p><p><strong>Q.</strong> Qualify three bestselling covers in your category. <br><strong>U.</strong> Upload them to Canva as your blueprint. <br><strong>I.</strong> Insert and recreate the elements that matter. <br><strong>C.</strong> Customize everything to your book and brand. <br><strong>K.</strong> Kindle ready, with the right specs to publish.</p><p>The hot pink dominates the thumbnail. The splatter texture borrows a complexity from a different proven cover. <br>The font is HUGE (which I love).</p><p>When a reader scrolls past this cover, their brain whispers something familiar.</p><p>That looks like a book I should buy.</p><p>That is the whole game.</p><div><hr></div><h3>The Verdict</h3><p>I&#8217;m sticking with Cover 3.</p><p>AI got faster. <br>Templates got prettier. <br>Neither beat a method built around how readers actually buy books on Amazon.</p><p>The thumbnail decides if your book gets clicked. <br>The cover decides if the click becomes a sale. <br>The whole funnel runs on seconds of visual judgment.</p><p>The QUICK Method puts your book next to category winners on day one. It puts you in the same visual conversation as the books readers already trust.</p><p>You don&#8217;t need to be a designer. You need a process.</p><div><hr></div><h3>I&#8217;m Teaching It Live This Tuesday</h3><p>Tuesday May 4th. 6 to 9pm Eastern.</p><p>I&#8217;ll be on screen building a Cover 3 from scratch. Live in Canva. Step by step through every letter of QUICK.</p><p>You bring your title. I&#8217;ll walk you through building a cover that belongs next to the bestsellers in your category.</p><p>Three ways to join.</p><p><strong>Revenue Writers Member.</strong> $35 a month. Attend free. Replay through end of week. </p><p><strong>&#192; La Carte.</strong> $197. Lifetime access to the full course. Goes to $247 after Tuesday. </p><p><strong>Founding Member.</strong> $400 one time. Full Revenue Writers membership for life plus the complete course.</p><p>Click below to register.</p><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.minibook.news/p/quick-book-cover-workshop-register&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Register for the Workshop&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.minibook.news/p/quick-book-cover-workshop-register"><span>Register for the Workshop</span></a></p><p>Talk soon,</p><p>Chris Mini Book Guy</p>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>