Nick Bilton's nonfiction reads like thrillers. His secret came from studying how Alfred Hitchcock made you care about murderers: "The biggest lesson I've ever learned was a book I read about how to write murder mysteries. I sought the book out because when I was writing the Twitter story, I had written a draft and gave it to a friend to read. He got to page 160 of a 300-page book, and he wrote in big red letters: I hate them all." "So I started thinking: who do you want to read that you hate? A murderer. So I started studying: How does Hitchcock do it?" "When you're reading a book or watching a movie, you're not just following the story, you're imagining yourself in it. That's why we love heist movies. You're on the edge of your seat because you're thinking: what would I do if I was that person?" "Every murderer has a mother that loves them, because your mother will always love you. That's why Hitchcock gave these really bad people mothers. And murder mystery writers make you human: murderers still lose their car keys. They drop their grocery bag." "Even if you can't identify with the desire to murder someone, you can identify with those moments, and then you can put yourself in the body of the character."

SpaceX is turning Science Fiction in Science Nonfiction. Elon is a now trillionare. Neil deGrasse Tyson was wrong. SpaceX was 1st to successfully land and reuse an orbital-class rocket booster in 2017. NASA never accomplished this. Just the beginning!

Alex Hormozi holds the world record for the fastest-selling nonfiction book ever. Here's how he designed the cover: "The word "leads," I tested the hell out of. I had $100,000,000 Promotion, $100,000,000 Advertising, $100,000,000 Leads, $100,000,000 Marketing, and Leads was the one that won." "Leads is the output of advertising. No one wants to advertise. People want leads." "If you're gonna go through all the work of writing the book, which is significantly harder than testing the cover and the title, do that." "Tim Ferriss tested The 4-Hour Workweek. He hated the title, but it crushed all the other titles. So that's what the book became, and obviously became a bestseller."

NEW blog post is up! "Has AI Already Killed How-To Nonfiction? Sales Trends, My Personal Data, and What It Might Mean for the Future" My head has been spinning after getting a spreadsheet roughly a week ago. Before we dive into my dirty laundry, let’s state the obvious: millions of people have a vague sense that AI is changing things. And LLMs sure are convenient for getting answers quickly. My team and I use Claude and other tools daily. But far fewer people have first-hand experience with the speed and intensity of disruption that’s happening. Not in a year, not in six months, but right now. So let me show you, using my own books as the cadaver on the table, what a fatality looks like. (Link below)