Reading time: 1.58 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, During the pandemic, I had so many book coaching clients. (this isn’t a flex, promise) I took a massive scary leap and turned away from something people needed — sales copywriting — towards something nobody “needs” — writing a book. I kinda expected to last a month, then have to get a job picking fruit or stacking shelves or go back to being a cleaner again. But something weird and wonderful happened: people wanted to write. They...
2 days ago • 2 min read
Reading time: 2.24 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, Caution: you may experience these side effects when you write your book: 🌤️ An increased sense of self 🗝️ Realising the true value you have to offer 👀 A new way of looking at the world ✨ Seeing — really seeing — your true skills, knowledge, and talent (May also cause giddiness, tears, laughter, rage, delight, and a propensity to panic-eat cheese.) And that’s just the side effects. Because you also get A BOOK. A real live book you...
3 days ago • 3 min read
Read this email in your browser. Reading time: 4.30 Hey Reader, Here’s a bunch of things you don’t need to write a book: 🧑🏽🎨 A degree in English Literature A degree in English Language A degree 20 years’ experience in your chosen topic Fancy writing software 10 different workflow and productivity apps Expensive notebooks A big old stick up your butt A firm grasp on spelling and grammar A neurotypical brain 4 hours per day A bunch of privilege A cabin in the woods Independent wealth Here’s...
6 days ago • 5 min read
Reading time: 3.58 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, It’s my birthday today and here are 46 things I’ve learned. One for each year I’ve been alive. ✅ Pebbles are brilliant but if you fill your pockets with them they break your pockets. Even if your life partner loves you to distraction, they will still get annoyed if you run out of pockets and start filling their pockets with pebbles. Dinosaurs are for everyone, not just for children. Adults should never stop playing because when...
7 days ago • 4 min read
Reading time: 2.22 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, “Write a book? A BOOK? Like, 200 pages and 50,000 words? A compelling story that hooks you in and drags you along that is worthy of the bestseller lists? Are you kidding me?” Well, if you put it like that… Ya, a book feels terrifying. So let’s not do that. Not just yet. Instead, consider this: Story isn’t the big banana. A book isn’t the enormous enchilada. The story and the book are simply the vehicle for the idea. So riddle me...
8 days ago • 3 min read
Reading time: 2.59 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, The longer you leave it, the harder it gets. And the more pointless it seems… And the more you should have started last week, last month, last year — so you may as well not start at all. It’s too late now, after all. What is even the point of it allllllll? … But this, my friend, is absolute piddywiddle. Sure, the best time to have started writing your book is a year ago or a month ago or a week ago, but you didn’t. shrug Oh well....
9 days ago • 3 min read
Reading time: 4.56 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, The first time I picked up The Heretics by Will Storr I got about 25 pages into it — not even past the introduction — before I had to put it down because I got so angry. It’s about people who think the Earth is flat, who believe homeopathy can cure cancer, who think they’ve been abducted by aliens. Climate change deniers and antivaxxers and Moon landing deniers. Fringers + conspiracy theorists. I got angry because my initial...
13 days ago • 5 min read
Reading time: 2.11 Read this email in your browser. Hey Reader, It’s weird, what happens when we set out to write Something Important, like a book or an essay or even a social media post. Our bodies and minds are taken over by the ghost of our primary school selves, worried the teacher will take the ideas our imaginations made and squash them into a boring little cube that fits the system. And instead of writing something real, we write something correct. Or we try to. But what comes out is...
16 days ago • 2 min read
Reading time: 6.07 Hey Reader, Lockdown, 2020. I was a copywriter who also helped people write nonfiction books, but the world had just shattered + shut down and who the hell was going to indulge writing a book when the ship was sinking? [sounds horribly familiar right now, doesn’t it?] I lost a big copy client, as everyone battened down the hatches. Then another. It was decision time: do I crash and burn? Or go all-in on what I really want to do? Do I continue to seek copywriting clients...
20 days ago • 6 min read