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Podcast Notes: The James Altucher Show - Part 3: How to Write and Publish Your First Book in 30 Days
Episode Overview In this episode, James Altucher provides actionable strategies for aspiring writers aiming to complete their first book in just 30 days. He discusses overcoming writer's block, crafting compelling introductions, and the essential tools and frameworks needed for effective writing and publishing. This is the third installment in a series designed to guide individuals through the writing process.
Key Concepts
The Writer's Journey
- Struggles as a Writer: Acknowledges that many writers face moments of doubt and difficulty, particularly when motivation wanes.
- Tools for Resilience: Offers techniques that he has used in writing over 25 books to maintain momentum and improve writing quality.
The 6 U’s of Persuasive Writing James introduces the 6 U's that every chapter, especially the introduction, should encompass to engage readers effectively:
- Urgency: Explain why the book is important right now.
- Unique: What sets this book apart from others?
- Useful: How will the book benefit the reader?
- Ultra-Specific: What exact topics will the book cover?
- User-Friendly: Is the content easy to understand and apply?
- Unquestionable Proof: Provide evidence or testimonials to back claims made in the book.
Tools for Topic Selection
- Warren Buffett’s 5/25 Rule: A method for prioritizing interests and ensuring focus on the most important topics. Write down 25 interests, select the top 5, and disregard the rest to maximize mastery and productivity.
Enhancing Readability
- Flesch-Kincaid Score: A tool to check the readability of writing. Aim for a score that corresponds to a fifth to seventh-grade reading level to ensure accessibility.
Overcoming Writer's Block James shares nine techniques to break through writer's block:
- Drink Coffee: Use caffeine as a stimulant to boost creativity.
- Read Great Books: Immerse yourself in the writing styles of authors you admire.
- Talk into the Page: Write as if you’re speaking to someone; this can ease the writing process.
- Start in the Middle: Begin writing from the center of your ideas instead of the introduction.
- Make Yourself Vulnerable: Share your struggles or failures to connect with readers.
- Establish a Routine: Write at the same time every day to build a habit.
- Channel Anger: Use feelings of frustration as fuel for writing.
- Seek Inspiration: Look for interesting stories or visuals that spark ideas.
- Create Lists: Jot down ideas or topics to explore further.
Importance of Storytelling
- Crafting Narratives: Emphasizes that storytelling is essential in both fiction and nonfiction. Every point made should include a story or anecdote to illustrate key ideas. This approach not only keeps the reader engaged but also makes the content relatable.
Additional Writing Techniques
- Reading Aloud: Helps identify awkward phrases or flow issues in writing.
- Cutting First and Last Paragraphs: Often improves clarity and flow of the piece.
- Minimizing Complex Language: Encourages the use of simple language and fewer adjectives to enhance readability.
Final Thoughts
- Community and Mastery: Engaging deeply with a few topics enhances personal satisfaction and helps build a community around shared interests.
- Continuous Improvement: The more you practice writing and reading, the better you become. Emphasizes that writing is a skill honed over time.
Resources
- Udemy Course: Offers a more in-depth exploration of writing and publishing in 30 days.
- BetterHelp: Sponsorship mention for mental health support, encouraging listeners to take care of their well-being as they pursue their writing goals.
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Conclusion James Altucher's podcast episode provides practical advice for aspiring authors, emphasizing perseverance, clarity, and storytelling. By utilizing the discussed techniques and principles, writers can successfully navigate the challenges of the writing process and complete their first book in just 30 days.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Being an entrepreneur is a 24-7 job. And when you're hiring, you need a partner that works as hard as you do. That hiring partner is LinkedIn Jobs. When you clock out, LinkedIn clocks in. LinkedIn makes it easy to post your job for free, share with your network, get qualified candidates that you can manage all in one place. For one thing, you can post a job. LinkedIn's new feature can help you write job descriptions and then quickly get your job in front of the right people. You get qualified candidates. At the end of the day, the most important thing to your business is the quality of the candidates.
0:30And with LinkedIn, of course, you can feel confident that you're getting the best. Based on LinkedIn data, 72 % of small, medium businesses say using LinkedIn helps them find high-quality candidates. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash altature. That's linkedin.com slash altature to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. So we've actually already talked quite a bit about writing an introduction to your book. And, you know, we've talked about storytelling, even the introduction.
1:11Very important to tell your story. Why are you writing this book? Again, it's the who are you? Why are you? Why now? So like as an example, if you're writing a book about negotiation, tell us the worst moment in your life where you've had the worst negotiations. where it was just so bad, you're embarrassed, maybe you're even crying about it. And we'll build from there. And we've also talked about how to construct a great first line that has this sense of mystery in it. It'll compel people to read the second line, and the third line, and the next paragraph, and then the book.
1:54This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show.
2:08Here's a critical thing about introductions that's different from the rest of the book. And it's often why I recommend writing the introduction last, after you've read the book. But the key thing about introductions is that an intro is almost selling the rest of your book. A reader's gonna read the intro and you're going to sell them on the concept that not only do you need to read this book because this topic is really important, but you need to read this book because it's written by me. And here are the reasons why you need to read it. So in order to write a great introduction, in addition to some of the things we've already spoken about, like the arc of the hero and storytelling and so on, we also need to learn some selling techniques.
2:51What are the techniques that the best salesman in history used to sell anything? And I'll explain this technique called the six U's, and I'll give an example in sales of how they're used, but also we'll talk about it in the context of writing a nonfiction book, and in particular, an introduction. I'll talk about these six U's one at a time. The first one is urgency. So why is this book right now urgent for the demographic that you're trying to reach? Why is it urgent for them to read this book right now? So let's look at this in terms of sales. Let's say Uber had just started and Uber would like to get people to use this app, this brand new app.
3:40You know, the way it's urgent is that you can say when it's raining and you're in New York City, it's impossible for you to get a cab. So it's urgent for you to have a way to get a cab if you're trying to get someplace. That's the first you. Now, how can you use that in a book? Let's say you're writing a book about negotiation. The urgency is we're about to hit the worst period in our economy in 12 years. Maybe we are, maybe we aren't. I'm not making a prediction, I'm just saying. An introduction could say, when times are tough economically or when times are tough for you or your family, it's very important that you have the skills of negotiation so you can maximize your salary, maximize your opportunities, get the lowest price on a house you're trying to buy, and so on.
4:27And it's very important during these hard times. The second you, unique. Your book has to be unique. Your product has to be unique. So what would Uber say if they're trying to convince someone that their product is unique? They could say, we're the only app that's aggregated hundreds of car services into a single app. Okay, I believe it, that's unique. Now, if you're writing a book on habits to get better at golf, you could say there are many books out there about golf, which is stating the obvious. It's not so bad to address people's objections, but usually there's many books about golf, but there's none that use a purely science-based approach to improve your golf score.
5:12So assuming you're gonna use scientific research to write a book about how to improve someone's golf score. The third you is useful. So if you're Uber, for instance, it's very simple to say why you're useful. We're going to get you there on time. Boom, that's it. If you're writing a book about, I don't know, golf, it's useful if it makes me a better golf player. So you could tell a story about how you use these techniques or someone else use these techniques to be a better golf player. Fourth you, ultra specific. With Uber, how can they get specific? Well, they could say, we know exactly where you are because of the GPS on your phone.
5:53We have your credit card preloaded into the app and a car is gonna show up in four minutes and it's gonna take you using GPS exactly where you wanna go. It's an ultra specific way of describing what the app does. Now in a book, again, let's say it's a book about how to negotiate better. We're gonna show you how to negotiate with your boss. We're gonna show you how to negotiate with friends or a spouse. We're going to show you how to negotiate when you're trying to sell something. Basically summarize your table of contents. And that's ultra specific about what the book is going to do. Fifth view, user-friendly.
6:29So I'll give an example from Uber. One click and a car shows up. It's user-friendly. Just one click. Let's say you're writing a book and you want to demonstrate that it's user-friendly. You could tell a story. Always better to tell a story, but you could say, let's say the book is, just making this up, how anyone could build a robot. Well, the introduction can say, we're gonna show you step-by-step every aspect of building a robot, and by the time you're done with this book, it doesn't matter if you're a nuclear scientist or straight out of kindergarten, we'll give you diagrams and everything you need to know to build a robot.
7:06And then the sixth you, the final you, and maybe the most important, is unquestionable proof. So again, I'll use the case of Uber. I can go to the app store and see all the reviews. Oh, there's a million five-star reviews. They got me where I needed to go and it was fast and easy to use. So that's unquestionable proof that this is a good app. That's why on Amazon, it's good to have good reviews to talk about your book. But unquestionable proof in the introduction might be, again, stories. Here's someone who used these techniques and they built a robot in 10 days or their Goff score went from 20 below par to par or they were able to negotiate double the salary when they were just going for a 10 % increase in salary.
7:54So unquestionable proof also could be data. Like where we looked at 75 scientific papers and we broke each one down and we have very specific experiments that were used to prove that every one of these habits we recommend will improve your golf score. So it could be testimonials, it could be data, it could be testimonials from authority figures. So let's say you're writing about the 10 greatest presidents in US history and you say Abraham Lincoln. Well, is this your opinion? Well, you can have other authority figures, like maybe other people that others admire say, yes, Gandhi maybe said, Abraham Lincoln had a huge influence on the way I was able to make India independent.
8:39Or Martin Luther King could reference quotes of Gandhi or other famous historical figures or figures you trust could say a testimonial about why Abraham Lincoln was a great president. So again, there's lots of ways to have unquestionable proof. It could be data, it can be testimonials, it could be authority figures, or it could be, again, your story. Like I did these five techniques that I'm about to show you about, and I started beating the tennis pro at my tennis club. So that's proof enough for me if it worked for the author. So again, in summary, urgency. Why is this important for your demographic right now?
9:16Unique, what's different about this book than any other book? Because I might as well read the other books if it's not unique. Useful, what is this actually gonna do for me? How is this gonna actually improve my life if I read this book? Ultra specific, what are the specific things you're going to tell me so I can judge whether or not to read the rest of this book. User-friendly, is it gonna be easy for me to do this? Like, oh, this is a book about cooking Mexican. What if I've never even cooked before? Will it be easy for me to follow the instructions and unquestionable proof? Why does this work?
9:48Is there scientific data? Are there user testimonials? Is there some authority figure who says there's proof? Do you, the author, have a story that shows, that proves that this works? So those are the six U's. You need them in every introduction. By the way, you might need them in every chapter or kind of the introduction of every chapter. So think about that as you're writing your chapters. But these six U's are useful in selling techniques. You just had an entire mini course on salesmanship by learning the six U's. But also, again, an introduction sells the rest of the book. And maybe even the first paragraph of every chapter needs some component of these six U's.
10:28In general, every article should have the six U's. And again, when you're writing even tweets or social media posts, think about the six U's. Think about why this post on Instagram is urgent for people to see or ultra specific or useful or unique. So all of these things will help you to not only be a better writer, but be a better salesman and even establish a bigger social media presence. One more thing before we get into the art of storytelling and the craft of writing. I want to give you a helpful technique to perhaps figure out who you are or why you are or why now. And this is a technique supposedly developed by Warren Buffett.
11:10I don't know if that's true or not, but it's always called the Warren Buffett 525 rule. And I want to talk about it and how it applies to writing and maybe kind of organizing what you're passionate about, what you're interested in. So basically, somebody asked Warren Buffett, Warren, I have so many interests. How do I get good at them? And Warren Buffett said, OK, I have a solution for you. Make the list of the 25 things you're most passionate about. So for Warren Buffett, I imagine on his top five is probably investing. And I know he loves playing the card game bridge. Maybe he plays golf. I have no idea.
11:48Obviously loves chocolates. Early on in his career, he bought a chocolate company. and so on. And like for myself, I'm interested in lots of things. I'm interested in writing, of course. I'm interested in chess. I'm interested in teaching, investing, entrepreneurship. I'm also interested in, you know, some things I wish I could be better at is playing the piano, learning a new language, flying a plane. I actually took a flying lesson once and really enjoyed it. And I always told myself, I'd love to get a pilot's license. Unfortunately, I'd probably have to get a driver's license first, which I don't have, but I would like to eventually get a pilot's license, or at least that's on my list of 25.
12:23Maybe working out more. I love science fiction. I love doing stand-up comedy. I've been on and off interested in making a TV show over the past 30 years. I've pitched a dozen times different TV shows to the networks. So I have a big list that fills at least the 25. Step two, separate the list into two lists, the first five and the next 20. And then step three, and this is the most important step, take this list of 20, crumple it up, throw it away, and never look at those 20 things again. Only focus on the first five. And so why does he say that? Of course, you're interested in numbers six through 25, but you're not as interested in numbers one through five.
13:10And his point is every minute you spend on the bottom 20 items of things that you're passionate about is a minute you spend away from mastering one of the first five things. So for instance, on my top 25 is poker. There was one year, 1999, I played poker for 365 days straight. I just loved it. I love the game. Even now, I love the game. But chess is on my list of my top five. So every minute I spend studying poker or playing poker could have been a minute I could have spent really mastering this game, the chess, this activity that I'm much more passionate about. Same thing for shooting pool, which might be on my bottom 20 or, you know, all the 20 things.
14:00Every minute I spend on those is a minute I could have spent working on my writing or working on entrepreneurship. or my top five is teaching like I'm doing here. I love to teach these types of courses and teach the things that I'm passionate about. So every minute that I'm out, I'll use poker again as an example, playing poker, I could have been spent thinking about how to teach writing or I could have spent writing or I could have spent studying chess or whatever. So that's his point really. If you wanna master something, it's okay to have lots of interests and lots of passions, but never spend time on the bottom 20.
14:36always focus on getting better at the top five. So why is this useful in writing? Well, could be you're not passionate about writing, which is fine. Doesn't mean you shouldn't write a book, but let's say your interests are habits to improve your life and golf and science or whatever. You could now think about, okay, here's topics I could write about. Maybe I could write a book about the 30 best habits to become a better golf player. Or maybe you can use one of the bottom 20 to get examples to help you. Like maybe science and physics is in your bottom 20, but golf is in your top five. Well, that's great.
15:20Now you can maybe combine interests and you can write a book, The Science of Getting Better at Golf. Now, I'm not saying you should write those books. I'm gonna get to the book frameworks in a little bit, but do this exercise. guys, make your list right now or whenever you have time today, your top 25 skills and subjects that you're passionate about that you would like to get better at and separate out and see what the top five is and what the bottom 20 is. And this is going to help you later when we figure out what it is you're going to write your book about. Now, if you already know the website notepad.com, N-O-T-E-P-D.com, this is where I write my list.
16:01And in fact, I wrote my list of top 25 items there. It's there now for me to look at and keep track of. In any case, 525 rule is very important.
16:32place. For one thing there, you could post a job. LinkedIn's new feature can help you write job descriptions and then quickly get your job in front of the right people. You get qualified candidates. At the end of the day, the most important thing to your business is the quality of the candidates. And with LinkedIn, of course, you can feel confident that you're getting the best. Based on LinkedIn data, 72 % of small and medium businesses say using LinkedIn helps them find high quality candidates. Find out why more than 2.5 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring today. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn.
17:04Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash altature. That's linkedin.com slash altature to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Somebody asked me when I wrote about this, when I first wrote about this, and I have a chapter about the 525 rule in my book, Skip the Line, but somebody asked me, well, what if I want to get better at all 25? Why do I have to master the first five? What if I just want to get better at all 25? That's fine too. No one says you have to only master or get better at five things. But I just want to add, there's a lot of research into happiness and well-being.
17:40And there's an entire field about this called positive psychology. And positive psychology doesn't really acknowledge that happiness exists. Happiness tends to be fleeting. And every day there's moments that are happy and moments that are sad. But well-being is what they talk about, is this ongoing feeling of improvement and contentment with your life. And they say there are three components to wellbeing. One is community. Do you have good connections with your friends, your family, your neighbors, your employees, your colleagues? Do you have a community? Another component is freedom, which nobody is completely free.
18:20Certainly my children are my bosses to some extent, and we all have different responsibilities that let's put it where we're a slave to and then we have to do every day. But what percentage of decisions every day are yours to make versus someone else's? If your boss tells you to do something, that's fine. You work as an employee somewhere, but that decision is not 100 % yours. It's partly your boss's. So as you're moving upwards on the freedom scale, a greater percentage of your decisions each day are because you are making those decisions. So that's freedom. And the third component of well-being is mastery.
19:00And that's this feeling that I'm improving at something I love doing. So if you love golf, maybe your first golf score is 50 above par. Then you take some lessons and now it's 30 above par. Then you work with a real pro and you work hard at it. Now it's 10 above par and so on. You feel better as you improve at something. And by the way, mastering a new field or mastering any field brings you community because the other people who are trying to master that field or who have already gotten better or who love that or passionate about that field are part of your community, whether they're better than you, worse than you, equal to you.
19:37I remember one time I was in Buenos Aires and I didn't speak any Spanish. Nobody really spoke any English. And I went to Buenos Aires chess club. It's one of the most famous chess clubs in the world. Two world championship matches were fought there. One in the 1920s. The other actually was a sort of a world championship match that Bobby Fisher played in the 70s in the Buenos Aires chess club. And it's a beautiful chess club. It's late at night. I knock on the door. someone answers and in Spanish basically says we're closed. And I said, I just want to look around. And he's like, no, no, no, we're closed.
20:12And my friend I was with, she told him what my rating was. And he opened the door and he smiled and he's like, oh, maestro, come in, come in. And they gave me a tour of the whole place. They served me coffee. I ended up playing a little blitz match against the Argentinian junior champion, which we split two games to two games. And it was fun. So by pursuing and mastering this one topic, it had opened up a community for me all the way on the other side of the world. So that's what I think Warren Buffett was getting to with this 525 rule, is that when you do find your five and you start pursuing it, and you pursue it with what I'm later going to describe as the spoken wheel technique, but in general, if you write a book about it, if you do a podcast about it, if you become known in the area, you build community and you can relate to other people no matter what their language, what their geography, what their demographic, you can relate to them and that becomes your community.
21:13So it adds to your general contentment in life, your general wellbeing. So whether this 525 rule, you use it to figure out what you're going to write about or you use it to just improve your life and community in some area, I think it's an important part of this course and it gives you things to think about. So do that exercise. Write down your 25, split the 20 from the five and think about focusing on the five. These are the five things you wanna focus on. And we'll talk about later how you can be right about these things, other aspects, how you can monetize these topics. But just think about this rule.
21:52It helps you answer the questions we addressed previously, the who are you, why are you, why now? I'm going to tell you about one of the most useful tools for writing and editing that you will ever see and hardly anybody knows about it. In fact, a friend of mine sent me an article this morning to help him edit and I used this exact tool before I even read the article just to kind of get an idea. But okay, what is this mysterious tool? It's called the Flesch-Kincaid score and sometimes it's abbreviated as the F-K score, which almost sounds a bit crude, the F-K score, but it's an invaluable tool.
22:33If you Google F-K score calculator, it'll take you to a bunch of pages that are, you could basically cut and paste a piece of text, a story, an article, even an entire book into a screen, and it will tell you the grade level, the academic grade level that the book is written at. So it's very interesting. You would think very good books are written at a high grade level and very bad books are written at a low grade level. That's not true at all. For instance, Ernest Hemingway's book, Old Man and the Sea, which arguably helped Ernest Hemingway win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Old Man and the Sea is written at about a fifth grade level.
23:14The Harry Potter books are written at about a seventh grade level. The Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, which everybody claims they've read, but no one's actually read, is written at about a 14th grade level. And so how does it do this? Why is this a useful score? Well, it turns out that right about the fifth through seventh grade levels are the most readable books for adults. This is important for adults. I don't care about fifth, sixth, and seventh graders unless I'm writing a book for that audience. But when I'm writing a book for adults, and there's a lot of evidence for this, most people want to read books.
23:48They don't even realize they want to read this, but most people read books at a fifth, sixth, or seventh grade level. Again, Harry Potter books are some of the most widely read books of all time. They're written at about between a sixth and seventh grade level, depending on which book you're talking about. And Jurassic Park, which was more popular as a movie than as a book, was written at about a 10th grade level. Old Man and the Sea at about a fifth grade level. One friend of mine was an academic, and he sent me one of his papers to read. And I put it in. It was written at a 26th grade level, which was ridiculously unreadable.
24:23So here's what the FK score takes into account. It looks at basically the number of syllables per word and the number of words per sentence. Simple. And there's an exact mathematical formula that's been tinkered with for decades. Actually, it was the US Navy that originally came up with the FK score. But the point is, is that you want to reduce the number of syllables in your words. So don't use fancy vocabulary in any of your writing. Just write how you talk. Simpler is better. And you want to have a few words per sentence, which is why I actually don't like to have a lot of commas in my articles or books, but break things up into periods.
25:05And if I was to try to improve the FK score, I would say, how many sentences per paragraph the more sentences, the less readable. So you like to have a lot of white space in your writing. So I try to break up my paragraphs as much as possible. No more than two or three sentences per paragraph. Now, sometimes you might think you need four or five sentences, but always try to break it up. If you look at some of the best writers out there, Hemingway, Kurt Vonnegut, Charles Bukowski, Raymond Carver, Toni Morrison, some of their paragraphs are just one sentence. So again, fewer syllables per word, fewer words per sentence, fewer sentences per paragraph.
25:44Keep it simple. It's interesting. Somebody calculated the FK score of 2 ,000 different Wikipedia biographies. So they looked at sports figures, scientists, politicians, all sorts of biographies of people. So it turns out the most readable Wikipedia biography pages were sports stars. Like, for instance, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Larry Bird were both basketball players. They had roughly an FK score of 70, which means they're roughly a seventh grade level. But biographies of mathematicians were at like a 12th grade level. So they weren't very readable. Again, it's considered fairly easy to read if it's at a seventh grade level.
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26:26Above that, no good. So always try to keep your FK score at a seventh grade level. And again, you can find FK calculators all over the internet. And if you want to improve your FK score when you're editing, replace commas with periods wherever you can and reduce the number of syllables per word, meaning use simpler language. Don't try to use fancy flowery language. And my added suggestion to that is have more paragraph breaks. Don't have your paragraphs be like this huge mess of words. Have it be very readable. So it's very easy to understand. So again, use the FK score to improve your writing.
27:08Oh, we're back. Sorry, I was playing with this abacus instead of writing my latest chapter in my latest book. And sometimes I'm watching TikTok videos or YouTube videos. Sometimes I'm playing a game. Sometimes I can't even get myself to sit down to write the next chapter or the next word. There are many reasons people get writer's block. or an inability to just sit down and write. So I'm going to give you nine ways that work for me to overcome writer's block. And I've gotten writer's block quite a bit over the years. I remember about 10 years ago, it would be a common thing. I would sit down at the desk and if it took even like an hour to get me to start writing, my wife knew to just back away very slowly for me if she could see that I was upset because of my writer's block.
27:58I couldn't even talk before I started writing. But here's what's worked for me, and I hardly ever get writer's block anymore. First off, I'll just be honest, coffee, just drinking a stimulant in the morning and then writing, that helps a lot. It gets the mind juices flowing. Second, reading great books. Even if I've read them before, sometimes reading a really good book that I've enjoyed and just feeling that author's voice gets me thinking in a writer's way. So I always like to read a little bit before I write. Second, very important. I think it was Seth Godin who told me, Seth Godin's one of my favorite nonfiction writers.
28:36He writes a lot about business. Seth Godin once told me, listen, do you ever get talker's block? And the answer is no. If you ask me about any subject, within a few seconds, I'll be able to talk about it, even if I know nothing about that subject. So you want to write the way you would talk. So think about the topic you're writing about and talk about it. But talk into the page, talk into the screen. And if you're looking for a topic to write about, that's another story. So sometimes I will surf the web a little bit to look for inspiration, particularly if I'm writing articles. Not if I'm writing a book, because a book I've already outlined and I know how to research the book and so on.
29:14But if I'm writing a blog post, an article, I remember one time I saw this photograph. I think I was on a website called Boing Boing. and I saw a photograph of the great jazz musician, Louis Armstrong, who I knew nothing about. I knew nothing about jazz. I knew nothing about Louis Armstrong. But I saw this picture of Louis Armstrong playing a trumpet with pyramids in the background. He was in the desert in Egypt and pyramids were in the background and he was standing on sand and he was playing the trumpet and this beautiful woman was sitting next to him, listening to him. And I was wondering just what brought him to this scene?
29:50What created this photograph? And that gave me the inspiration to research Louis Armstrong. And I found all these crazy things. So I wrote an article about it. And so that got me just surfing for interesting photographs or stories, gave me some inspiration. Another way that I've gotten over writer's block is start in the middle. And this is very important. Let's say I'm writing an article about how to be a great investor. I might not want to start with the introduction because I might not yet know what the article is about. So start in the middle. Well, Warren Buffett's a value investor. So maybe, you know, how do you be a good value investor might be, and I'll make a list of here's all the ways to be a good investor.
30:36Warren Buffett's a value investor. This guy is an arbitrage investor. This guy is at whatever. Or if I am writing an article, the 10 best, you know, presidents in history. I'll just make the list first and I won't worry so much about the writing. I'll make my list of the 10 people I think are the best presidents and then I'll start fleshing it out. Do some more research, do some biographical research, and then finally write an intro and maybe an outro. So start in the middle is a good technique. Another technique, if it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead. Start with the blood. We've seen this example where I talked about some of the best first lines I've ever read in books and the importance of the first line.
31:17But start talking about yourself. If I was writing an article about investing, maybe I would start with, in 2002, I lost millions of dollars investing and I went broke. I start with my own bleeding. I make myself vulnerable, which leads to another technique. Make yourself the bad guy, because people always want to read about you admitting some flaws. I think it was Carrie Fisher who said, nobody wants to read about handsome, rich people who have nothing but success. Nobody. But they do want to read about flaws and villains are always more interesting. So for instance, when I wrote my book, The Power of No, I remember one of the chapters I started off with one time I broke up with a girlfriend by sending her a text breaking up.
32:05And of course, that makes you should try to be as honest as possible and not break up that way instead of just this text that ends things. But I made myself a bad guy and that got me writing and telling this story and then, you know, led to the rest of the chapter of that book. Another important technique, start at the same time every day. Now, this technique might be good for you, might not. It's good for me. I know if I wake up at a certain time and I start writing at a certain time, my brain and body are ready to write. Maybe that works, maybe it doesn't. This is just a suggestion. Try starting at the same time every day.
32:42So you get in the habit of your brain knows this is now the time to write and the writing starts to flow. And final technique I want to talk about is what's making you angry, like get angry and solve the problem. So for instance, right now I might be angry. Oh, the federal reserve is hiking rates in order to stop inflation. and I might come up with 10 reasons why they shouldn't do this. Well, it doesn't really stop inflation. Here's why. It could cause the economy to go into a recession. It could cause housing prices to go down too much and that's a third of the economy. I can get angry and just write my list and then flesh out the list.
33:25Why is it that housing prices will go down? Or why is it that the economy might go into a recession? And then I can write the introduction by bleeding. you know, oh, last recession, I went broke. And so I don't want it to happen again. I remember one time, one of my daughters was applying for college, but she didn't really know what she wanted to study. She didn't know why she was going to college. She had no good reasons. And so why should someone spend$60 ,000 a year to send or borrow$60 ,000 a year to send this kid to college? I was angry. And it turns out college tuitions have risen faster than inflation every year for the past 60 years in a row.
34:03So I was getting angry thinking about it. So I started making a list. What are alternatives to college? And I ended up writing a book, 40 Alternatives to College. And by the way, that was a book I wrote in just a few weeks, published on Amazon. And in the category of college education for a while, it was the number one bestselling book. So anger got me out of writer's block. So those are nine techniques. They're all useful. I would say start in the middle has been throughout time the most useful one for me because usually I have a vague sense of what I want to write about, but I might not be sure how I want to start it or what stories I want to tell.
34:38So forget all that, make your list, like how to be a better public speaker. Here's my list. And then I might tell a story of a time I was really afraid of public speaking. And then in the list, I'll flesh it out. Why is this good? Why is this bad? And try to tell stories for each point in the list. And so all of a sudden, everything starts to flow. So start in the middle. And again, remind yourself, you never get talker's block. So write the way you would talk. Then try coffee. Try reading some of your favorite writers. Make yourself the bad guy. If it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead. Look around for inspiration and so on.
35:13So I've already talked about a lot of writing techniques. We talked about writing techniques in the art of storytelling, in the arc of the hero. We talked about writing techniques actually in the section on avoiding writer's block. So for instance, when avoiding writer's block, I mentioned you should start in the middle. If it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead. Like these are also writing techniques. And very important, when I talked about the Flesch-Kincaid score or the FK score, the one tool that is most useful to improving or editing your writing, I talked about use simple language. Don't use words with a lot of syllables.
35:52Use periods more than commas. Few sentences per paragraph. Keep it simple. Keep it at a grade level, between fifth and seventh grade level. So these are all very useful writing techniques. And the best way to get better at writing is simply to write. And second best way to get better at writing, I'm sure everyone has told you this and you already know this, but is to read. Read authors you like. Read great authors. read authors who inspire you, and you'll get a sense of how great published writers write. So the more you read, the better writer you be, and the more you write, the better writer you'll be.
36:31But I'm going to get to some specific suggestions. They're not organized in any way. We're just going to get right into it. But one other important technique, and this is useful for books, articles, tweets, blog posts. I'll admit I don't always do this because maybe I'm writing in a cafe and I don't want to do this, but here's the technique. Read out loud what you've written. Sometimes when I read out loud what I write, I realize, oh, that's not really what I would say. Or sometimes I'll even feel a little cringy like, oh, did I really just say that? So this is a valuable technique. It was written about by an author, William Zinsser.
37:12I think he was a journalist, but his book was read widely by every journalist called On Writing Well. And his main advice from this book was read everything out loud while you're editing, before you submit it for publication. The person who referred me to that book and who told me that advice was Stephen Dubner, who wrote, among other things, Freakonomics. He told me he reads out loud everything that he writes. and he asked me if I do the same. I said I didn't, but then I started doing that as much as I could. So that's main advice, but I'm gonna give you some other advice. Some of it's gonna sound a little bit strange, but it works and we'll look at examples.
37:49First piece of advice, and it's gonna sound strange, when you write something, an article, a chapter, a book, whatever, take out the first paragraph and take out the last paragraph and then read it again. Very often, even if you know this rule, if you take out the first paragraph and the last paragraph, it reads better. And it's odd to say, even if you know this rule, because you might think to yourself, okay, I already took out the first paragraph or what I was considering the first paragraph. And now he wants me to take out another paragraph? Yes, because even knowing this paragraph, I find from my own writing, it almost always reads better if I take out part or all of the first, sometimes even the second paragraph.
38:30and if I take out the last paragraph. Why does this work? I don't always know, but I suspect it's because when you get into the meat of an article, it sort of flows a little better. And sometimes it's very hard to start and finish an article. And it's also really great. So that's why the first and last paragraph might be your weakest. Another reason is sometimes it's good to start a scene or a story after it's already started. You know, maybe you're writing about a scary event, the house blew up and everybody started running. Well, maybe it's better to start with everybody was running. And that's a little bit more sudden.
39:07And now we want to know why everyone was running. And then you explain the house blew up. Or maybe sometimes it's good to end not on a nice sweet note, but the note right before that. Here's another small tip. Use the word said, S-A-I-D. I don't like a lot of words for said. Don't say he pleaded with her to give him the money or he demanded that they take off their shoes before they go in the house. If you use the word said and Jack said to Jill, take off your shoes before you come in the house, he didn't demand, he didn't order, he didn't plead. We'll figure it out from the context. The reader will figure it out from the context.
39:51You want to give the reader work to do. You want them to think about things. You want to outsource some of the understanding. So this is how you keep your writing simple, is that you don't describe every last detail because that's boring. So use the word said more than use other words. And similarly, you don't need to use that many adjectives. Like he ran quickly to the store. Okay, but I don't know what quickly means. I just know that it means he ran faster than usual. Is that what it means? Instead, it might say he had to get milk from the store. It was a mile away. he returned in 15 minutes with that milk.
40:30Now, I don't know why I'm writing a story about milk, but from that description, I know exactly what happened. And now I really think to myself, boy, that was quick. That was quicker than I would expect someone to go. So in most cases, if you use adjectives, consider taking them out and either doing nothing else or being a little bit more descriptive. Remember, there's that saying, show, don't tell. Don't tell us what to think, show us, and then the reader will do their own thinking. Another important thing is don't be afraid of what people will think about you. Sometimes someone tells me an idea for a book or an article they would write, and then they would say, oh, but I'm going to have to do it anonymously.
41:13I'm like, why would you have to do it anonymously? And oh, everybody will hate me, or my family will hate me if I write this book or my fellow employees might hate me if I write this book. When you're writing, don't think so far ahead. You might not finish the book or the article. You might not publish it. You might not want to publish it. Lots of things have to happen between now, the moment when you're coming up with an idea and the moment all of your friends or family are reading your book. So at least in the first draft, second draft, maybe even third draft, write, be honest, write everything you want to say.
41:50Then later on, worry about or not worry about what people think. For every one person you are worrying about what they will think while you're writing, you can deduct about 1 % from the quality of the article or book or post or whatever. So if I'm worried about what 20 people will think of me, if I write this, then your article will probably be 20 % worse than if I didn't worry about these people and what they would think. So that's very important. Deliver value with every sentence. So Kurt Vonnegut would put it this way. Every sentence must either show us more about a character or contribute to the story.
42:31Now he's talking about fiction, but the same thing applies to nonfiction. Who are the characters in nonfiction? Well, first off, the author is the main character in a good piece of nonfiction because the author has experienced researching the topic, has maybe stories of their own about the topic, and so on. That's particularly true for what's a category called literary nonfiction, where you are writing a little bit about yourself in a nonfiction story. But in a work of nonfiction, you're still writing many stories. Every point you make in a nonfiction book should contain stories. You don't just say George Washington was the best president.
43:11Thomas Edison was the best inventor. You tell why you tell stories about them. And so every sentence has to deliver value. It has to deliver information and entertainment and tell a story. I've already written about in the overcoming writer's block, how when you write a story that includes yourself, you should be the bad guy, or you should at least be honest and self-deprecating and don't be afraid to put yourself down. But we already spoke about that. Now, very important, have lots of ideas. So this is important when, let's say you're writing about, again, I've been using negotiation as example, or getting better on a sport, but let's say you're writing about how to be a better negotiator and you're writing a book about that, or how to have more charisma, how to win a debate, anything.
44:02Have lots of ideas. And in the next section, I'm going to tell you how I organize my ideas, but get ready to have lots of ideas. So you can work with, you want to be able to do more research than you need to put together the book. So this is very important. This is where you have confidence while you're writing that you're not going to run out of things to say. Curiosity is very important. Again, let's say you're writing a book about persuasion. You should be curious about every aspect of persuasion. Well, what if I have to persuade someone one-on-one? What if I'm speaking to an audience and I need to persuade all of them?
44:40What if I need to persuade through email? What if I need to persuade someone who's already rejected me? What if I need to persuade someone who I know believes in the exact opposite of what I'm trying to persuade them of. Let's say I want to persuade my kids not to go to college and I know they want to go to college. How do I even start bringing it up? How do I persuade a boss to give me a raise? Is there a difference between financial persuasion and other types and political persuasion? What if I want to persuade myself to start good habits? How do I do it? So be insanely curious about your topic And that curiosity will drive you to have more ideas than you even need to write your book.
45:24So every aspect, if you're writing a story, you're writing Thomas Edison was a great inventor. Here's why. Was Thomas Edison a tinkerer when he grew up? Were his parents inventors? Like be curious about every aspect of your character. If you're writing fiction, this is really important actually. You know, it's very interesting. When people write fiction, they often know much more about their characters than eventually appear in the book. They'll write whole descriptions of their characters, like this character went to this school, played these sports in high school, had these girlfriends or boyfriends or did this or did that.
46:01None of that might appear in the eventual novel, but you feel the depth of the character when the author writes about that person. The author made that character three-dimensional. The author was so curious about that character that in his or her head, he fleshed out all the details of that character. So you feel that confidence in the writing. Same holds true for nonfiction. Like be insanely curious about everything you write about. And that will give you, push yourself to have as many questions as possible and to answer them in the writing. Again, you always want to be over-prepared to write and not under-prepared.
46:37And finally, most importantly of all, we've talked about this again and again. We've done an entire section on this, but ABS, always be storytelling. People communicate in stories. Let's say your neighbor had a heart attack. When you ask your neighbor, oh, Hank, why did you have a heart attack? He's not going to say, well, the blood couldn't make it to my arteries. So my heart shut down for a few minutes and I had to go to the hospital. He's not going to say that. He's going to say, oh, gosh, I've been so stressed at work. It ended up and I had a heart attack. or you can say, oh gosh, my wife left me or my kids are sick and I've been worried about them or the IRS sent me a letter and I just had a heart attack while reading it.
47:23He's gonna tell you a story. Always beat storytelling. A book isn't a list of facts and information. A book is a list of stories that connect the information together. Even a novel is basically, it's a large story, but then there's stories within stories. We spoke about Star Wars, the story of Luke Skywalker saving the galaxy by blowing up the Death Star. But inside the story, there's the story about Luke met Obi-Wan Kenobi. There's the story of how Han Solo had to deal with his debt with Jabba the Hutt. There's the story of why Princess Leia was captured. There's the story of, you know, Luke learning the force and on and on.
48:06And this applies to nonfiction. It applies to fiction equally to nonfiction. If you're writing a book, 50 habits to make you financially successful, each habit has to have stories attached to it. And we'll talk about this again. But basically, if you have a book like that, 50 habits or 30 habits to become a billionaire, then you have to have what the habit is, what's the proof. Remember the six U's, that also is valuable writing advice. Why is this habit unique? Why is it useful? Why is it user-friendly? Why is it ultra-specific? And what's the unquestionable proof? The unquestionable proof might be a story that you tell about yourself where you didn't have the habit and didn't become a billionaire.
48:49And then there might be stories about how, well, Richard Branson has this habit or Warren Buffett has this habit. And you tell a story in a unique way. And again, maybe it's mentioned somewhere else, the story, but you could tell it in your own unique way and why it was interesting to you to tell the story in this way or why this story appealed to you. You know, I mentioned in another section how I was inspired by a photograph of Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet in front of pyramids with this beautiful woman listening to him. That's part of my story of Louis Armstrong is me being inspired by this photo.
49:22Who is this guy? And so always be storytelling to connect every idea up. That is the most important advice. If you're always storytelling and if you understand the arc of the hero and if you understand the six U's And if you use simple language, you have lots of ideas and all the other things I just spoke about and I spoke about in these other sections, you're going to be ready to write a great book and you're going to write it in the next 30 days. So next, I'm going to talk to you about the four frameworks that I have developed for you to write and publish your first book in 30 days. We've talked a lot about writing.
50:00Let's now start writing and figuring out what our book is about.
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From the publisher
Notes from James:
This is where a lot of people quit—but you won’t. This episode is about pushing through the dip that comes when writing gets tough. I give you tools I’ve used across 25+ books to keep going, stay motivated, and write better.
Episode Descriptions:
This is Part 3 of my 30-day writing series—and we’re getting into the real tools that will make your writing not just better, but publishable. If you’ve ever stared at a blank page and felt overwhelmed, stuck, or unsure of where to go next, this is the episode that will break that wall down.
I walk you through the “6 U’s” that every chapter—and especially your book introduction—must follow to grab readers, hook them emotionally, and sell the value of your book. You’ll also learn the “Warren Buffett 5/25 Rule” and how it helps you figure out exactly what to write about, plus a little-known editing tool (the Flesch-Kincaid score) that will instantly improve your writing’s clarity.
If you’ve hit writer’s block, feel stuck mid-draft, or need structure to keep going, you’ll find every tool you need right here.
This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/JAMES and get on your way to being your best self.
What You’ll Learn:
- The 6 U’s of persuasive writing: Urgency, Unique, Useful, Ultra-Specific, User-Friendly, Unquestionable Proof
- How to sell your book in the introduction using sales psychology techniques
- Why Warren Buffett’s 5/25 Rule might be the most important tool for picking a topic
- How to use the Flesch-Kincaid Score to make your writing clearer and more readable
- Nine real techniques I’ve used to overcome writer’s block—even on my worst days
- Why storytelling isn’t just a craft—it’s your most important writing tool
Timestamps:
00:00 Crafting a Compelling Book Introduction
01:58 The Six U's of Selling Your Book
07:52 Applying the Six U's to Your Writing
09:34 The Warren Buffett 5/25 Rule for Focus
22:01 The Importance of Readability: Flesch-Kincaid Score
28:27 Introduction to Overcoming Writer's Block
28:54 Nine Techniques to Overcome Writer's Block
36:33 Additional Writing Techniques and Tips
47:57 The Importance of Storytelling in Writing
51:07 Frameworks for Writing and Publishing Your Book
P.S. Want to go deeper? Check out my full course on Udemy or visit chooseyourselfacademy.com: How to Write and Publish a Book in 30 Days – available now.
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