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A Big Amazon Problem – #119

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On the most recent episode of This Old Marketing, my weekly content and marketing news podcast with Robert Rose, we talked quite a bit about fake content. Among other things, we covered how AI-generated books are everywhere on sites like Amazon and Goodreads. Btw, Amazon owns Goodreads.

Basically, these AI books are being created and then taking the name of legitimate authors. One very famous author, Jane Friedman, shared her experience on this matter. She says:

There’s not much that makes me angry these days about writing and publishing. I’ve seen it all. I know what to expect from Amazon and Goodreads. Meaning: I don’t expect much, and I assume I will be continually disappointed. Nor do I have the power to change how they operate. My energy-saving strategy: move on and focus on what you can control.

That’s going to become much harder to do if Amazon and Goodreads don’t start defending against the absolute garbage now being spread across their sites.

I know my work gets pirated and frankly I don’t care. (I’m not saying other authors shouldn’t care, but that’s not a battle worth my time today.)

But here’s what does rankle me: garbage books getting uploaded to Amazon where my name is credited as the author.

So back to me…there were a number of books that came out in Jane’s name and were up on Amazon. Jane says because she’s fairly well-known Amazon and Goodreads took these down quickly…after a few days…but the damage was done. Jane goes on and says that even though these books were removed, they will always be floating around out there.

I’m sure the smart people at Amazon and Goodreads are working on this, but the fact that someone or some robot could so easily create a book in someone else’s name is a big problem. Right now, there is no real verification system (LinkedIn just integrated Clear to verify accounts). Authors, people just like Jane, have no control over their Goodreads profile.

Jane ends by pleading:

We desperately need guardrails on this landslide of misattribution and misinformation. Amazon and Goodreads, I beg you to create a way to verify authorship, or for authors to easily block fraudulent books credited to them. Do it now, do it quickly.

I agree with Jane that Amazon needs to do something about this, but Amazon may not seriously fight this fight. Amazon releases 1.4 million self-published books per year, so the cost to fund something on this scale is astronomical.

The solution, today, is that creators who develop their own audiences DO NOT publish on Amazon. Independent authors can create a safe space that they own and control and direct their fans to that page.

We’ve become so accustomed to putting everything we do as authors and creators on Amazon we never stop to consider if we should. I know I was that way. 10 years ago, when I published Content Inc., Amazon was critical to its success…getting recommended in multiple ways from Amazon. Simply put, Amazon significantly boosted my sales.

Today, Amazon is not as important because I have many other ways to reach my audience.

But Amazon is still important to many authors today, but it’s become TOO important to most. It’s a problem.

There are too many books and Amazon isn’t looking out for the independent author. What Amazon is doing is when the author sends a buyer to Amazon…Amazon gets all the customer data and keeps an unhealthy share of the profits. The author gets ZERO data.

Why we continue to do this is maddening to me.

There is a better way…and that better way, I think, is outside of Amazon. So grow your audience, build your tribe, and when you release your book, do it on your own site, where you keep your profits and your data.

Tennis and Russia

Pam and I had a great week watching professional tennis at Tennis In the Land in downtown Cleveland. After watching Sloan Stephens defeat Lauren Davis (a native Northeast Ohioan), we stayed on to watch Nadia Podoroska from Argentina versus Veronika Kudermetova from Russia.

Except that we had to look up where Kudermetova was from.

Why you ask?

Instead of having a country emblem on the screen like everyone else, Kudermetova’s was blacked out. Pam thinks the announcer said she was from Moscow, but I didn’t hear a city or country at all.

I understand why this was done, what with the Ukraine/Russia War sieging on, but I couldn’t help to feel bad for Kudermetova who seems to be playing without a country at the moment.

My Recommendations

Over the past month quite a few things have made a real impact on me.

Six: The Musical. One of the best musicals I’ve seen in a long time. And bonus…it’s 90 minutes with no intermission. Six is the story of the six wives of Henry VIII and which one suffered the most while married to Henry. The music is tremendous and the writing superb. Plus, it’s an all-female cast and band. Finally, if you are into such things, it makes a point that hits you over the head like a sledgehammer.

This Changes Everything documentary. After my Barbie update from last newsletter, I received a recommendation to watch this documentary. Every male should watch this to get some understanding of why content is the way it is in Hollywood…and…why there is still so much work to be done. You can watch it free on YouTube here.

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel. A fast-moving book told in a style I haven’t read since The Martian by Andy Weir. If you like sci-fi, you’ll love this book.

Immaculate Grid: Baseball.
I’ve never played Wordle in my life. I’ve stayed away from almost every online game on the planet. But my youngest son showed me this game and I was immediately hooked. I prefer the baseball version, but they also have football, hockey, basketball, and soccer. So good!

My Next Chapter + Barbie Thoughts – #118

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17 Years of Speech Therapy Help

August 7, 2023 – Joe Pulizzi, Jim Kozak, JK Kalinowski, Jim McPhillips

On Monday we held our 17th Annual Orange Effect Foundation Golf for Autism. It rained half the day in Elyria, Ohio, but both the morning and afternoon groups were able to finish on time. We had a record 164 golfers this year!

Over these 17 years, OEF (through the amazing gifts of so many) has been able to deliver $500,000+ to almost 400 children in 35 states. Without organizations like OEF, children around the US would go without the speech therapy or speech devices they so desperately need.

So many amazing people to thank, especially our incredible board, our wonderful volunteers, and the hundreds of sponsor companies and individuals that come through for us every year.

If you are local to Northeast Ohio, our next fundraiser is a “Night at the Races” on November 3rd in Cleveland, Ohio. Here’s the link to sign up and more information. Email me with questions.

Barbie Thoughts

I went to see Barbie at the theater this week. Impressive movie.

Barbie just surpassed over $1 billion dollars at the box office.

And here’s something I didn’t know.

Director Greta Gerwig is the first female solo director to reach the $1 billion dollar mark at the box office.

Some interesting takeaways from my Barbie experience:

  • More than half of the crowd wore pink.
  • Most people came in groups (fewer couples).
  • The vast majority of the audience were women.
  • It seemed to me that a large group of people in attendance were not regular movie goers (not sure where the seats were, how the process worked, etc.). I checked on this. According to a survey by The Quorum, 20 percent of Barbie attendees couldn’t remember the last time they saw a movie.

So many have already mentioned how great the marketing for Barbie has been, but it seems, over and over, that if you make a great movie targeting women it generally does amazingly well.

Why? It’s rarely, if ever, done. What a novel concept…to target a group of people that never get targeted. Brilliant.

Go see it if you haven’t.

My Next Chapter

Last week I was over the moon excited to announce that our content creator newsletter The Tilt, and our content creator event, Creator Economy Expo, have been acquired by Lulu.

Here are some thoughts…

The Tilt newsletter is not changing. We will continue to deliver a newsletter every Tuesday and Friday with the goal to help content creators become profitable content entrepreneurs. The entire staff, Laura, Marc, Ann and Dave, will remain in their roles.

Creator Economy Expo will also continue as one of the leading in-person events for content creators. CEX24 will be held in Cleveland in May. As soon as we have the dates locked down, I’ll let you know via this newsletter.

Lulu is excited to continue to grow these projects with our team. But you may ask, why would a self-publishing printing company like Lulu want to acquire The Tilt and CEX?

Personally, I’ve been paying attention to Lulu for years as a self-publishing alternative that not only gives authors their fair share of revenues and profits, but also direct access to first-party data from customers (instead of giving it to places like Amazon). But when Lulu started to invest in teaching authors about the complete business model of content entrepreneurship (beyond books), I fell in love with them.

When we launched The Tilt 2+ years ago, much of our education was built around the “three legs of the stool” for content entrepreneurs. The first is building a platform and a regular audience. The second is expanding audience growth opportunities through in-person and digital speaking opportunities. The third is becoming the leading expert in your particular niche through a published book.

Platform. Speaking. Book.

It’s a simple business model that, frankly, works and continues to work. The marriage between The Tilt/CEX and Lulu will help us continue to assist content creators in creating truly exceptional content business models based on these three pillars.

Okay, great…what happens to me?

As some of you know, this is my third official sale of a company (SocialTract in 2010, Content Marketing Institute in 2016, and The Tilt/CEX in 2023). My goal with this sale is to continue doing what I love and what I am good at and leave the business side to someone else.

This is where Lulu comes in. Lulu will continue to invest in and support The Tilt and CEX with time and resources, while I will continue to write more books, host my two podcasts, produce this newsletter, and remain in my role as host and event programmer for Creator Economy Expo.

But here’s what I’m really excited about.

I’ve already begun working with Matt Briel at Lulu to develop a book publishing service specifically designed for content creators. There are a couple reasons why I feel this is so needed.

First, and you may or may not know this, when you publish a book and sell it through a distribution platform like Amazon, you don’t get any of the customer data. Amazon keeps all of that. So as much as I talk about not building your content house on rented land, that is exactly what most authors (including me) do.

Tilt Publishing, or whatever we end up calling it, will provide publishing services where creators can sell directly to their customers, knowing exactly who bought from them and for how much, and then we will print on demand and ship directly. You, the creator, and not Amazon, will get that data.

Second, if you publish a book traditionally like I have through someone like a McGraw-Hill, you get about 15 percent of the sale from that book. If you sell an ebook, you get around 25 percent. This is not enough in my opinion.

Any author who publishes should get more than 50 percent from selling their print book and almost all the sale of a digital book. I want to help make that happen.

And, we want to get your book out quickly, outsourcing the stuff like cover design, editorial, layout and production to us so you can focus on your business. We are working now to sign up initial beta authors, and then will roll out the complete program at the beginning of 2024. If you’d like to be one of the first authors considered for Tilt Publishing, go to thetilt.com/publishing.

In closing, I chose to work on this project with Lulu because I believe it’s necessary. We talk every day about not giving social media sites so much power, to keep the business model in our own hands as creators, but we haven’t talked about this for books…and that has to stop. According to The Tilt research, book revenue and profits are #2 behind consulting revenues for the average creator, so it’s already really important. But just think if we can get more creators to sell directly, keeping both the data and the profit, and not giving anymore to Jeff Bezos?

If you have any questions, just email me back and let me know what you think.

A special thanks to so many of you who supported me through this “third” chapter of my career. I’m looking forward to the fourth.

Cheese Death

An Italian cheese maker died on Sunday after apparently being crushed by a shelf of aged cheese.

I have no comment on this except for the fact that it saddens me immensely.

Down Goes Anderson

Tom Hamilton and me at the Weatherhead Awards in 2012.

On Saturday during the Cleveland Guardians and Chicago White Sox baseball game, a rare no-holds-barred fight broke out between Guardians’ star Jose Ramirez and White Sox all-star Tim Anderson.

For whatever you feel about baseball or about fighting in baseball, Guardians’ announcer Tom Hamilton, displaying his hall-of-fame talent, gave one of the best baseball calls in history. You can see the play and listen to the call here.

The call has gone completely viral and has been covered literally everywhere.

GV Art & Design is one of the most popular T-shirt and apparel providers in the Cleveland, Ohio area. Pam and I have many of their shirts. Always a great design and almost always sports related.

Literally a few hours after “the big fight” went down at Progressive Field in Cleveland, GV Art released their new shirt entitled “Down Goes Anderson.”

According to local sources, this will become GV Art’s best-selling shirt of all time.

My point of telling you all this? How many companies could move so fast as to have a T-shirt ready the next day?

GV Art is successful because they listen to their customers and adapt to the market extremely fast. They had the T-shirt out before anyone else and won because of it.

I’m sure we could all learn a lesson or two from GV Art.

NOTE: I wavered on putting this into the newsletter because I don’t want to, in any way, condone acts of violence. I do, however, believe that it’s a great case study and believe it was important to share.

If Not, Just Stop – #117

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I started watching the new Wham! Documentary on Netflix. Truly an excellent resource for anyone looking for differentiation and voice.

Before Wham! (George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley) became a supergroup, they released the song Wham! Rap, which was heralded as a social commentary rap.

These words hit home:

Do you enjoy what you do?
If not, just stop
Don’t stay there and rot

Wise words from a couple of kids (at the time).

What’s Your Tilt?

Content creators (at any sized company) fail at building an audience for two reasons. One is because they stop. Two is because they lack a content tilt.

The content tilt is that area of little to no competition on the web that actually gives you a chance to break through the noise and be relevant.

It’s what makes you so different that your audience notices you and rewards you with its attention.

If you don’t tilt your content just enough to make your story different, your content will fade into the rest of the clutter and be forgotten.

What’s your tilt?

If you’d like, email it to me and I’ll take a look.

AI: Must Listen Podcast

I’ve rarely listened to any one podcast episode more than one time.

This one I’ve listened to three times.

This Prof G interview with Mo Gawdat, former Chief Business Officer at Google [X], is required listening for anyone in business…but especially for authors, content creators and marketers.

I truly believe we need to prepare now as knowledge workers for what is to come with artificial intelligence. It will all be here quicker than you think.

One interesting take: as human intelligence could be discounted with the rise of AI, in-person communication will be at a premium. This means that anyone who can speak in front of a crowd and keep their attention will have many more opportunities in the near future.

You can skip the initial overview and go directly to the interview with Mo at the 18:30 mark.

The Pricing Conundrum

Last week my wife and I spent some time in Duck, North Carolina. If you aren’t familiar with that area, Duck is an small town on the outer banks of North Carolina, a thousand people in the off season that swells to over 20,000 people during vacation time. It sits on a thin strip of land between the Currituck Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.

I absolutely loved the area. We stayed about ¼ mile from the ocean and the sound, so you can take your pick of water. We also, of course, ate the very popular duck donuts, which lived up to the billing.

Before leaving this beautiful area, we decided to stop into a somewhat famous bagel place just south of Duck. The line was out the door, but we got in line anyway. I could see the extra-large bagels from the back of the line.

While standing in line, my wife didn’t look happy. Of course, and as always, I personalized this, wondering what I did to make her so upset. I asked her if everything was okay. She said, yes, but see how well you know me.

I quickly ran through the last 10 minutes in my head to see what I could have done wrong.

Then she let me off the hook and asked me to look at the menu.

At this establishment, the menu is on the wall. All different bagel sandwiches, bagel spreads and drinks.

“No prices,” she said.

“Ah yes,” one of my wife’s biggest pet peeves. She absolutely hates any establishment where she can’t find the prices. And when I say hates, I mean loathes.

We were considering leaving, but we did stay in line to try the bagels first. They were great, but we won’t be going back, all because of a very simple and fixable thing.

In contrast, before going to the Chelsea/Wrexham match in Chapel Hill, NC later that week, we stopped by a watering hole called the Casual Pint. They had an amazing beer selection, and better yet, had prices. Each beer on the wall was color coded by the type of beer – sours, pilsners, IPAs and Stouts – and then next to each was the ½ pint price, full pint and growler price, plus the alcohol content. We stayed for an extra drink and ordered lunch as well.

I’m sure there are folks out there that believe holding back the information on pricing is some kind of amazing selling strategy, but I’m here to tell you that you are losing business.

When my friend Paul Roetzer launched his PR firm PR 20/20, he was the only one I knew that had ALL their pricing on the web, from press release creation to strategic consultation. It was all there for competitors to see. And what happened? They became the first Hubspot partner agency and were so successful that Paul sold the agency to start The Marketing AI Institute. Who knew that easily accessible pricing was a competitive advantage? It still is. I go to so many agency and creator sites where I still can’t find their pricing.

Here’s an easy fix.

What do you sell? List that.

For everything you sell, do you have the pricing clearly apparent and easy to find?

If not, do that now.

If I click on an event and I can’t find pricing, I don’t go.

If I go to an online course and can’t find pricing, I don’t buy.

More and more people are behaving this way.  A lack of pricing information says something very clearly to me…that organization doesn’t care enough about the customer to share this information.

The good news is that it’s fixable. Let’s fix this together.

Thoughts on Threads and Bitcoin – #116

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Golf for Autism

Our 17th Annual (can you believe that?) Orange Effect Foundation golf outing scramble is coming up August 7th at Elyria Country Club. If you live in Northern Ohio, please join us. Singles or foursomes welcome.

We are also in search of hole sponsorships for $250 each. Donate here. Each hole sponsorship covers five hours of speech therapy for kids who need it but can’t afford it. Most of the Orange Effect children are on the autism spectrum.

OEF now has grants out to over 350 children in 35 states.

Thank you so much for considering and spreading the word.


Zuck 1, Elon DNF

Like most others in the marketing space, I’ve been watching the launch of Meta’s new Twitter competitor, Threads, very closely.

Actually, it was less than 24 hours after launch when Robert Rose and I went on the air for This Old Marketing to discuss it (you can watch and listen here).

For newbies, last week Meta (the parent of Facebook and Instagram) launched a new social media app called Threads. Basically, it’s Twitter from 2008.

The week of May 26th there were rumors about Meta launching something like this. On that date, I made a big prediction that Meta was just poking the Elon Musk bear and would never launch something as silly as Twitter (which has a horrible business model IMO). It would just be a waste of time. So, if Meta decided to launch such a thing, I said they should call it Instaflop (because it would be an instant flop for sure…and playing off Instagram a bit…clever, right?).

Well, I was most definitely wrong…and now I see the light.

Some thoughts:

1. On the podcast I said that Threads would have more users in the US than Twitter by the end of July. Pulling from Instagram’s two billion user base makes this pretty easy to accomplish.

Wow was I off on this? In five days, Threads hit the 100 million user mark (Twitter has less than 80 million users in the US). Whether they keep the users is one thing, but social media growth like this has never been seen before. Just for reference, it took ChatGPT two months to get to 100 million users.

According to the company, they aim to be “the public conversation app with 1 billion people on it”. So far, it looks like they might make that happen.

2. Threads won’t need monetize the site for the time being (they honestly never have to). It’s a data and loyalty play.

This is where I was wrong before. The Twitter advertising business model just doesn’t work. Ads on Twitter never performed well (compared to Facebook and Instagram) and subscription and verification on that platform is up in the air. Thus, I figured Meta would stay away from it.

But, if they decide NOT to advertise on Threads, it’s brilliant. First, when you sign up to Threads you basically sign away your first born in the form of data. You give Threads the right to take every little bit of data they have on you (which will help them create better ads on FB and Instagram). Also, the more time to you spend with Meta’s products, the better for Meta.

When I was at Content Marketing Institute, we knew our best customers came from those who engaged with us on at least three platforms (i.e., a podcast, blog, webinar, newsletter, magazine, etc.). More usage equals more loyalty. If that’s all Threads did, it may be good enough.

So…a data and loyalty play…but it also seems to be driving Meta verification, which gives you the blue check mark on Facebook, Instagram and now Threads (so there is a bit of a revenue play).

3. Twitter has gone from $44 billion in value to (easily) less than $5 billion. There is a case to be made that it’s worth more to Elon to just scrap it and take the loss (although he won’t do that because of the other investors).

Simply put, Twitter can’t match Threads because Twitter has to make direct money from the app. Threads doesn’t have to. It’s like competing against a non-profit organization.

4. Mark Zuckerberg thanks his god every night that Elon Musk bought Twitter. If Elon didn’t buy Twitter, Threads would not exist.

I don’t talk about this much, but in 2009 I attended a “content marketing event”. Frankly, it was terrible. If I didn’t go to that event, I probably would have never been compelled to launch Content Marketing World about a year later.

I think the same thing happened for Mark Zuckerberg. He saw Elon destroying Twitter and the light bulb came on. After Zuck’s Metaverse pivot, he desperately needed a win. Elon gave him one.

In summary, I’ve seen mixed reviews about Threads. Some people are complaining about seeing people in their stream that shouldn’t be there. Others love it because it reminds them of Twitter pre-2010. It’s early yet, so no one really knows…but I’m not an Elon fan, so if he takes the loss on this one, I won’t be crying about it.

Oh…and a final note.  I believe a message on Threads should be called a Tweet. There…I said it.

We Don’t Talk about Bitcoin

A few of you have been asking me about my thoughts on Bitcoin and if they’ve changed at all recently.

For those of you new to this newsletter, I’m a big believer in Bitcoin. I believe it’s important that we have a currency available that is not influenced by any one nation. Its rules are set in math. There will never be more than 21 million Bitcoin, so the inflation is predicted in advance.

I first learned about Bitcoin in 2016. I bought my first Bitcoin through Coinbase in 2017 at around $2,600. Since then, it’s been as high as $69,000 per coin and as low as $3,000. Even though Bitcoin been around since 2008, it’s still incredibly young and immature, hence the volatility. As I’m writing this, a Bitcoin is valued at $30,500 (up 100 percent in 2023).

This is not in any way investment advice, but here’s how I see it.

If you can’t get your finances in order, stay away from Bitcoin. That means if you don’t have your retirement accounts set up and don’t have a long-term investing strategy, I would get the basics down first. For example, get out of debt, get a Roth IRA and make sure you have a will.

If you have all that in order, I believe about 1 to 3 percent of your wealth should be put into Bitcoin. You can see my entire investing strategy here, which gives a bit more detail.

But…this is a long-term strategy. Short-term, we have no clue what will happen, especially since the SEC is very much against cryptocurrency of any kind (at the present time). Any money you need in the short term should NOT be put into stocks, bonds or Bitcoin for that matter.

If you decide to purchase some, you can use a tool like Coinbase or Swan to purchase it, but I WOULD NOT keep your Bitcoin on those platforms. Simply put, I don’t trust any outside organization when it comes to holding my crypto. So, purchase it and then self-custody your Bitcoin using something like a Ledger cold wallet (that’s what I use).

We own Bitcoin and Ethereum. I don’t have faith in any other cryptocurrency at the present time, but very much believe in both of these over the long term.

My theory (at present) is that Bitcoin will have the market capitalization of gold inside 20 years. Gold’s market cap is currently $12.7 Trillion. Bitcoin’s is $593 billion. That means that Bitcoin will have to increase more than 20x from here to reach the market cap of gold. As more and more large institutions buy into Bitcoin, I believe this will happen.

If you have any questions about this at all, please email me. I’d be happy to take a crack at any question, but just know that I am not in any way shape or form a financial expert.

10 Things You Need to Do with Your Finances – #115

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Prompt – 3D render of money slipping through cracks, digital art

It’s amazing to me how many truly intelligent people are horrible with money. I’m talking exceptionally bright individuals. These are doctors, engineers, first-rate marketers, mechanics, and authors who are setting themselves up for financial failure.

I don’t mean to be harsh. Financial skills are barely taught in the American educational system. It’s tragic. But come on? It’s time to act.

Do any of these sound familiar?

1. Steadily accumulating credit card debt every month (living above their means).
2. Paying interest on credit cards that are, sometimes, 20 percent+.
3. Two or even three loans on their houses.
4. No real retirement account and not taking advantage of something like a Roth IRA (where you don’t get taxed on the investment earnings).
5. No monthly budget of any kind.

And then, there are some of the older people we know that don’t have a trust or will set up for when they pass. Or, not having a spouse on a credit card account (if you die and your spouse isn’t on the account, the bank will immediately cancel the card, even if you have a card with your name on it).

I don’t know, maybe we think we are going to live forever and this stuff just escapes us. Or maybe we hate our family and just want to saddle them with all the problems.

If any of this sounds familiar to you, it’s time for a financial audit.

Here’s your full to-do list for the next 30 days.

1. Make sure you spend less than you make each month.
2. Pay off your credit card balance each month.
3. Open and contribute to a Roth IRA each month.
4. Get or update your will.
5. Get or update a trust.
6. Buy a used car instead of a new car next time.
7. Don’t borrow against your home equity. Make additional payments against your principal if you own a house.
8. Have a 90-day emergency fund (just in case).
9. Complete your retirement plan and stick to it.
10. Before you buy something, see if maybe you can borrow someone else’s instead.

If you get on the right side of each of these, you’ll sleep SO much better. And if anything unfortunate happens, you just put your family in a manageable position.

What Makes You Different?

I like to download audio books for my long runs. Don’t get me wrong, I love to listen to music, but it’s not an efficient use of time. So, for the past few years, I’ve listened to a number of amazing audio books. Billy Summers by Stephen King was amazing. Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami (thanks Jeff!) is a must read for any writer. And Fairy Tale by Stephen King pushed me through the majority of my marathon training (22 hours of play on 1.1x speed).

For the last purchase I decided to mix things up a bit. I downloaded Seth Rogen’s Yearbook. I didn’t have high expectations, but I wanted an autobiography that wasn’t 30 hours long. Seth’s six hours did the trick.

Not only was I pleasantly surprised, I loved it. I’ve listened to multiple passages more than once. Seth is an excellent narrator who has also mixed in several celebrity voices along the way during dialogue scenes.

NOTE: It’s a NSFW book. You probably already knew that. I mean, it’s Seth Rogen.

One section has a perfect message for content creators and I want to share it.

Seth is talking about his standup career. I had no idea Rogen began doing standup in Canada in his early teens. On one occasion, Seth, 16 at the time, was doing a showcase for amateurs to win a spot for a Canadian comedy festival. Unbeknownst to Seth, Jerry Seinfeld was in town preparing for a special and was due to go on immediately before Seth. Of course, Jerry crushed it beyond Seth’s belief.

Reluctantly, Seth went on stage talking about bicycle cops…and bombed. He didn’t make it into the festival. He felt horrified.

The next week, Seth again went on stage, talking about bike cops and crazy glue. He gets off stage and a comedian named Darryl Lenox confronts him…basically saying “what the heck are you doing talking about bike cops and crazy glue?”

Seth asked what he meant by that.

Darryl said [paraphrasing] “…you are 16 years old, you need to be talking about the stuff that only you can talk about. Anybody can talk about bike cops and crazy glue.”

Then he asks Seth, so, what do you do on weekends? Seth responds: try to buy beer and sneak into strip clubs. Darryl says, write about that.

Then asks, you got a girlfriend? Seth says, no, I wish, I mean, I had one, but I got dumped after three days.

To this Darryl laughs, and again says you need to be doing that on stage. Only you can talk about that stuff. Just do that.

It was a pivotal moment in Seth’s career. From that point, he did start talking about the things that happen in life that only he could talk about. That led to a movie called SuperBad in 2007, which just happened to do over $170 million at the box office. It was one of the best comedic returns on budget of all time.

Such a great lesson, but often we get caught up on what we think we should be writing or podcasting or YouTubing about. That’s where the content tilt comes in. First, you match up what makes you special and unique with what your audience’s needs are. That sweet spot mixture paves the way for true differentiation.

We’ve all been where Seth was at. And we can all do what Seth has done. What makes you you? Well, you need to be writing about that.

100 Percent Potential

What percent of your potential would you like to be?

I read this article about John Mayer where he asked himself this question after going through a six-day hangover.

So it got me thinking about all sorts of questions, like:

What does it mean to live at 100 percent of your potential?

Does that include your personal life and your career?

Is this even possible in the first place?

First you need to think about how you can impact the world and other people.

And then, you need to go through everything you do on a regular basis. What holds you back and what pushes you forward?

Easiest step one? Take the things that hold you back and stop doing them.

Take a look at Issue #60 of The Random where I break down my goal-setting process. If this is something that interests you, my Record – Review – Remove method might work.

Here Comes More Misinformation

Interesting census information here from the Duke Reporters’ Lab.

In a nutshell, misinformation is on the rise, but at the same time the number of companies that focus on fact checking has plateaued and is now decreasing.
Especially with the rise of AI and deepfakes, we need more organizations, not less, focusing on what the truth is. Or (not to be overly negative) is this a losing battle? It must be from an economic standpoint.