You can’t let AI say your point of view... only slice it.

Have you seen all the AI backlash? (or the latest Substack AI detection tool!?!?)

Wow, people spend billions convincing us to write with AI and now people are screaming they hate it.

People swear they can spot (sometimes smell) AI content a mile away.

So for those of us who bought into the vision of AI helping us run our content machines... what are we supposed to do?

I wrote a book a few years back called the Simple Online Business Model.

It was the basics of what it took to keep a online business going, even as a busy homeschool dad/CEO.

I’ve been refining my method for years but as I took time off from posting on social and away from writing newsletters I really tried to get a visual image of how I could run my business.

Then it hit me, like a box of rocks (and I’m as dumb as one sometimes), it all made so much sense.

So here is the formula I see and how I’m reapproaching content writing for both my businesses so I can “just keep spinning” content up without becoming AI slop.

I call it the Content Flywheel.

Content Flywheel

Using AI or my own well-worn brain, that still works most days, (didn’t fry it totally with Claude and GPT last year… thank God!) I find a topic.

The topic is the “Core Content” of my weekly content flywheel.

Then out from that topic spins all other content for the week.

1. Core Content (Ideas)

2. Conversations (Newsletter/Podcast/Video)

3. Clips (Posts/Shorts/Carousel/Soundbites)

And it piggybacks on the model I laid out for you a couple episodes back of the Business/Company Flywheel.

1. Core (category/book)

2. Conversations

3. Content

Someone tuning into your podcast each week is having a conversation with you in their ears. There is an existing relationship.

Same with newsletter or YouTube channel. But how does someone typically get into that inner band?

Through content.

No conversation (even one way) happens if they don’t know you exist.

So we use that outer band of the flywheel to pull people into the inner band.

Here is what that practically looks like.

Core

You come up with the idea.

Here is what a core idea looks like. (this is a topic I came up with for my adjuster audience)

“16,000 Tomorrow vs. 1 Maybe
16,000 daily US auto claims against the single predicted major hurricane.”

So you do the same for your audience. Come up with a topic idea and hook.

That one idea is my content flywheel for a week and its rooted in my own book the Independent Adjuster’s Playbook.

Bonus if you find an idea that you can circle that’s from your book you have written or one you are writing.

Conversation

Next I actually write my newsletter… like type it or talk it.... myself... without AI... back in the stone ages I know.

Whether you can chat into a mic with an outline or tip tap on your keyboard determines what works best for you.

I’ve done both, took an idea, recorded it, but most times I type it out.

Doesn’t matter how, point is YOU do it. This is a conversation you are having with your audience.

You can’t outsource this all out to AI. This is where we mess up. We mess up our most important content. The conversation piece to our audience, and we become AI slop.

Studies are showing that people pay more for stuff when a human actually makes it. Like “handmade” but for the digital age.

So take the time to actually write your content.

Now I’m not the only person saying to do this.

, author of the widely popular book Ask and his upcoming book, Return to Real, practices this same concept.

He writes his newsletter, reads it as a podcast, then his team posts content for the week using those as the ingredients.

He is championing the idea of “Return to Real” by actually writing your core newsletter and then and only then using AI to do some repurposing.

Both Ryan and I, and many others are advocating for humanity in our content.

We cannot lose our voice to our AI… so we have to do the hard work to write the Conversation pieces.

Once you have your thoughts, your human thoughts, you can use the leverage of AI to create other content truly in your own voice.

Clips

Once you have your 1000-2000 word Conversation Content (or however long you want to write it) you can use AI to slice and dice and everything nice and be actually reflective of your voice.

You did the thinking, you didn’t outsource that, so we can leverage AI like team members to make stuff.

• Image post

• Carousel

• Infographic

• Soundbite

• Video Clip
  

These pieces of content go out in the world looking for people that will be helped by or resonate with the content.

If they like what they see they’ll sign up for a newsletter (usually through a CTA lead magnet) or follow you on YouTube or subscribe to your podcast.

That’s when you’ve gotten them into your weekly conversations.

They’ll be way more likely to see your content in the future. The job of the conversation content is then to keep pulling them into your Business Flywheel core... to get them to make a purchase.

To become a part of the story of your business.

Because at the beating heart of every successful business are the people who are raving fans.

Your superconsumers.

I hope that helps you think about content in a new way.

Quit thinking about content in “what should I post on LinkedIn?”

The question is what is this weeks “Core Idea?” and “What’s going to help someone and as a result move them closer to a conversation with me?”

Write that newsletter, record that podcast, then what to post on LinkedIn, Substack, Instagram, or Facebook becomes a logical conclusion that has your fingerprints all over it... not Claude’s.

That’s the whole rule I live by now.

Let AI slice it. Never let AI say it.

The saying is the human part, the slicing is just packaging

Guard the line between the two like your voice depends on it... because it does.

Keep spinning.

- Coach Chris

If you want to learn more about the concept of flywheels and how to build a business with one, check out my book, Mini Book Flywheel: How to Design a Category That Makes Your Business Unforgettable.

P.S. Yes, if you were wondering about the screenshots, I’ve been developing a tool around the concept of flywheels… stay tuned... more to come in the coming weeks.

P.P.S. Ironic the week I post this I see this as I go to post it. An “AI tool that grades whether it was written by a human or AI”. Ironic. Substack is using AI to judge if it is human or not. But it proves my point! People care if you wrote it or not.

You can’t let AI say your point of view... only slice it.

Have you seen all the AI backlash? (or the latest Substack AI detection tool!?!?)

Wow, people spend billions convincing us to write with AI and now people are screaming they hate it.

People swear they can spot (sometimes smell) AI content a mile away.

So for those of us who bought into the vision of AI helping us run our content machines... what are we supposed to do?

I wrote a book a few years back called the Simple Online Business Model.

It was the basics of what it took to keep a online business going, even as a busy homeschool dad/CEO.

I’ve been refining my method for years but as I took time off from posting on social and away from writing newsletters I really tried to get a visual image of how I could run my business.

Then it hit me, like a box of rocks (and I’m as dumb as one sometimes), it all made so much sense.

So here is the formula I see and how I’m reapproaching content writing for both my businesses so I can “just keep spinning” content up without becoming AI slop.

I call it the Content Flywheel.

Content Flywheel

Using AI or my own well-worn brain, that still works most days, (didn’t fry it totally with Claude and GPT last year… thank God!) I find a topic.

The topic is the “Core Content” of my weekly content flywheel.

Then out from that topic spins all other content for the week.

1. Core Content (Ideas)

2. Conversations (Newsletter/Podcast/Video)

3. Clips (Posts/Shorts/Carousel/Soundbites)

And it piggybacks on the model I laid out for you a couple episodes back of the Business/Company Flywheel.

1. Core (category/book)

2. Conversations

3. Content

Someone tuning into your podcast each week is having a conversation with you in their ears. There is an existing relationship.

Same with newsletter or YouTube channel. But how does someone typically get into that inner band?

Through content.

No conversation (even one way) happens if they don’t know you exist.

So we use that outer band of the flywheel to pull people into the inner band.

Here is what that practically looks like.

Core

You come up with the idea.

Here is what a core idea looks like. (this is a topic I came up with for my adjuster audience)

“16,000 Tomorrow vs. 1 Maybe
16,000 daily US auto claims against the single predicted major hurricane.”

So you do the same for your audience. Come up with a topic idea and hook.

That one idea is my content flywheel for a week and its rooted in my own book the Independent Adjuster’s Playbook.

Bonus if you find an idea that you can circle that’s from your book you have written or one you are writing.

Conversation

Next I actually write my newsletter… like type it or talk it.... myself... without AI... back in the stone ages I know.

Whether you can chat into a mic with an outline or tip tap on your keyboard determines what works best for you.

I’ve done both, took an idea, recorded it, but most times I type it out.

Doesn’t matter how, point is YOU do it. This is a conversation you are having with your audience.

You can’t outsource this all out to AI. This is where we mess up. We mess up our most important content. The conversation piece to our audience, and we become AI slop.

Studies are showing that people pay more for stuff when a human actually makes it. Like “handmade” but for the digital age.

So take the time to actually write your content.

Now I’m not the only person saying to do this.

, author of the widely popular book Ask and his upcoming book, Return to Real, practices this same concept.

He writes his newsletter, reads it as a podcast, then his team posts content for the week using those as the ingredients.

He is championing the idea of “Return to Real” by actually writing your core newsletter and then and only then using AI to do some repurposing.

Both Ryan and I, and many others are advocating for humanity in our content.

We cannot lose our voice to our AI… so we have to do the hard work to write the Conversation pieces.

Once you have your thoughts, your human thoughts, you can use the leverage of AI to create other content truly in your own voice.

Clips

Once you have your 1000-2000 word Conversation Content (or however long you want to write it) you can use AI to slice and dice and everything nice and be actually reflective of your voice.

You did the thinking, you didn’t outsource that, so we can leverage AI like team members to make stuff.

• Image post

• Carousel

• Infographic

• Soundbite

• Video Clip
  

These pieces of content go out in the world looking for people that will be helped by or resonate with the content.

If they like what they see they’ll sign up for a newsletter (usually through a CTA lead magnet) or follow you on YouTube or subscribe to your podcast.

That’s when you’ve gotten them into your weekly conversations.

They’ll be way more likely to see your content in the future. The job of the conversation content is then to keep pulling them into your Business Flywheel core... to get them to make a purchase.

To become a part of the story of your business.

Because at the beating heart of every successful business are the people who are raving fans.

Your superconsumers.

I hope that helps you think about content in a new way.

Quit thinking about content in “what should I post on LinkedIn?”

The question is what is this weeks “Core Idea?” and “What’s going to help someone and as a result move them closer to a conversation with me?”

Write that newsletter, record that podcast, then what to post on LinkedIn, Substack, Instagram, or Facebook becomes a logical conclusion that has your fingerprints all over it... not Claude’s.

That’s the whole rule I live by now.

Let AI slice it. Never let AI say it.

The saying is the human part, the slicing is just packaging

Guard the line between the two like your voice depends on it... because it does.

Keep spinning.

- Coach Chris

If you want to learn more about the concept of flywheels and how to build a business with one, check out my book, Mini Book Flywheel: How to Design a Category That Makes Your Business Unforgettable.

P.S. Yes, if you were wondering about the screenshots, I’ve been developing a tool around the concept of flywheels… stay tuned... more to come in the coming weeks.

P.P.S. Ironic the week I post this I see this as I go to post it. An “AI tool that grades whether it was written by a human or AI”. Ironic. Substack is using AI to judge if it is human or not. But it proves my point! People care if you wrote it or not.

Have you seen all the AI backlash? (or the latest Substack AI detection tool!?!?)

Wow, people spend billions convincing us to write with AI and now people are screaming they hate it.

People swear they can spot (sometimes smell) AI content a mile away.

So for those of us who bought into the vision of AI helping us run our content machines... what are we supposed to do?

I wrote a book a few years back called the Simple Online Business Model.

It was the basics of what it took to keep a online business going, even as a busy homeschool dad/CEO.

I’ve been refining my method for years but as I took time off from posting on social and away from writing newsletters I really tried to get a visual image of how I could run my business.

Then it hit me, like a box of rocks (and I’m as dumb as one sometimes), it all made so much sense.

So here is the formula I see and how I’m reapproaching content writing for both my businesses so I can “just keep spinning” content up without becoming AI slop.

I call it the Content Flywheel.

Content Flywheel

Using AI or my own well-worn brain, that still works most days, (didn’t fry it totally with Claude and GPT last year… thank God!) I find a topic.

The topic is the “Core Content” of my weekly content flywheel.

Then out from that topic spins all other content for the week.

1. Core Content (Ideas)

2. Conversations (Newsletter/Podcast/Video)

3. Clips (Posts/Shorts/Carousel/Soundbites)

And it piggybacks on the model I laid out for you a couple episodes back of the Business/Company Flywheel.

1. Core (category/book)

2. Conversations

3. Content

Someone tuning into your podcast each week is having a conversation with you in their ears. There is an existing relationship.

Same with newsletter or YouTube channel. But how does someone typically get into that inner band?

Through content.

No conversation (even one way) happens if they don’t know you exist.

So we use that outer band of the flywheel to pull people into the inner band.

Here is what that practically looks like.

Core

You come up with the idea.

Here is what a core idea looks like. (this is a topic I came up with for my adjuster audience)

“16,000 Tomorrow vs. 1 Maybe
16,000 daily US auto claims against the single predicted major hurricane.”

So you do the same for your audience. Come up with a topic idea and hook.

That one idea is my content flywheel for a week and its rooted in my own book the Independent Adjuster’s Playbook.

Bonus if you find an idea that you can circle that’s from your book you have written or one you are writing.

Conversation

Next I actually write my newsletter… like type it or talk it.... myself... without AI... back in the stone ages I know.

Whether you can chat into a mic with an outline or tip tap on your keyboard determines what works best for you.

I’ve done both, took an idea, recorded it, but most times I type it out.

Doesn’t matter how, point is YOU do it. This is a conversation you are having with your audience.

You can’t outsource this all out to AI. This is where we mess up. We mess up our most important content. The conversation piece to our audience, and we become AI slop.

Studies are showing that people pay more for stuff when a human actually makes it. Like “handmade” but for the digital age.

So take the time to actually write your content.

Now I’m not the only person saying to do this.

, author of the widely popular book Ask and his upcoming book, Return to Real, practices this same concept.

He writes his newsletter, reads it as a podcast, then his team posts content for the week using those as the ingredients.

He is championing the idea of “Return to Real” by actually writing your core newsletter and then and only then using AI to do some repurposing.

Both Ryan and I, and many others are advocating for humanity in our content.

We cannot lose our voice to our AI… so we have to do the hard work to write the Conversation pieces.

Once you have your thoughts, your human thoughts, you can use the leverage of AI to create other content truly in your own voice.

Clips

Once you have your 1000-2000 word Conversation Content (or however long you want to write it) you can use AI to slice and dice and everything nice and be actually reflective of your voice.

You did the thinking, you didn’t outsource that, so we can leverage AI like team members to make stuff.

• Image post

• Carousel

• Infographic

• Soundbite

• Video Clip
  

These pieces of content go out in the world looking for people that will be helped by or resonate with the content.

If they like what they see they’ll sign up for a newsletter (usually through a CTA lead magnet) or follow you on YouTube or subscribe to your podcast.

That’s when you’ve gotten them into your weekly conversations.

They’ll be way more likely to see your content in the future. The job of the conversation content is then to keep pulling them into your Business Flywheel core... to get them to make a purchase.

To become a part of the story of your business.

Because at the beating heart of every successful business are the people who are raving fans.

Your superconsumers.

I hope that helps you think about content in a new way.

Quit thinking about content in “what should I post on LinkedIn?”

The question is what is this weeks “Core Idea?” and “What’s going to help someone and as a result move them closer to a conversation with me?”

Write that newsletter, record that podcast, then what to post on LinkedIn, Substack, Instagram, or Facebook becomes a logical conclusion that has your fingerprints all over it... not Claude’s.

That’s the whole rule I live by now.

Let AI slice it. Never let AI say it.

The saying is the human part, the slicing is just packaging

Guard the line between the two like your voice depends on it... because it does.

Keep spinning.

- Coach Chris

If you want to learn more about the concept of flywheels and how to build a business with one, check out my book, Mini Book Flywheel: How to Design a Category That Makes Your Business Unforgettable.

P.S. Yes, if you were wondering about the screenshots, I’ve been developing a tool around the concept of flywheels… stay tuned... more to come in the coming weeks.

P.P.S. Ironic the week I post this I see this as I go to post it. An “AI tool that grades whether it was written by a human or AI”. Ironic. Substack is using AI to judge if it is human or not. But it proves my point! People care if you wrote it or not.

Every business needs a system that finds customers, brings them into your orbit, and solidifies you as the right product.

Most people think of this process as sales funnels.

Usually goes something like this.

→ Awareness → Interest → Decision → Contact → Sell

or

→ Social Media → Lead Magnet → Sales Page → Order Bump → Upsell → Downsell

You get the idea. But here is a graphic to make sure you feel how crazy it can feel.

This shows the two extremes I see funnels take.

1. Over simplification (it never feels that clean and straightlined)

2. Over complication (see all that swirling going on inside the image?)

Sales funnels always felt like I was missing a piece of the puzzel.

I learned sales funnels from Russell Brunson. Best in the biz at funnels. But I never could make sense of how his whole ecosystem worked with his funnels. I understood sales page funnels but then people got dumped into something he never could explain.

The messy backend of swirling nonsense.

So I started looking at my own business and how ti worked.

Rarely was it → Lead Magnet → Sales Page → Sale.

It was months or years from someone raising their hand as interested to spending $$$ with me. When they spent they’d jump straight to the $5000 package.

So sales funnels don’t fully explain how that works. That always bugged me.

Slowly I began to realize a funnel is for a single moment in time, or a compressed moment in time. It’s the checkout process.

But the messy backend? The ambiguous blog that actually made Russell Brunson and so many online marketers successful wasn’t the checkout page of their sales funnel.

It was their flywheel.

While a funnel looks and acts like a tornado, it spins up fast, pulls people in, spits them out, bada bing, bada boom.

Flywheels are like hurricanes. Still pulling people in, but at a much slower speed. In nature hurricanes last 10x longer than tornadoes so this is the weather system, the business ecosystem that drives our businesses.

But I wanted to explain it clearer than I ever had.

It’s the invisible force behind the drawing of your customers into orbit around you and keeping them in orbit around you until they are ready to buy.

Having been running an online business for 10+ years I try really hard to simplify everything… for me.

Because I get overwhelmed if my white board or notebook gets too complicated.

Today I want to peel back what makes a flywheel spin and what the layers of the flywheel is actually made up to make it practically to you and your business.

3 Layers of a Business Flywheel

I wrote a book called “Mini Book Flywheel: How to Design a Category That Makes Your Business Unforgettable” and in there I break down a flywheel, but it was still too complicated. (see below, I was so close, yet so far)

This past week I’ve started building Flywheel Publishing, the first flywheel builder that I know of.

While building it I had an epiphany… basically a re-realization and an idea for simplification.

There are 3 layers to a flywheel.

1. Category

2. Conversations

3. Content

Ahhh much simpler and they are all “C’s” so, that makes me happy.

Let’s look at these 3 layers quickly.

For those that read Mini Book Writing or Mini Book Model you’ll know I like to break things down into 3 points and 3 subpoints.

So yes, the 3 layers are my points and now they’ll each have 3 subpoints. (this is a very meta teaching moment)

Category

When building your category there are only 3 things you have to do. (only being very tongue and cheek)

1. Name your category

2. Frame your category

3. Claim your category

Claim Your Category

This is the basis for your Flywheel.

Ryan Levesque calls it being a Category of 1.

Even if you don’t invent the next Uber category, you still need unique positioning, a way for people to understand what category you sit in.

Being intentional about this is so important.

I’m not a self publishing guy. I was the Mini Book guy

I wasn’t an insurance instructor. I was the auto guy.

So first you have to name what category you belong to. This is know as languaging and its harder than it sounds.

I’ve spun and spun and spun around the idea of mini books, smart publishing, category publishing… then WHAM… flywheel publishing hit me.

There is a lot to languaging a category but one you have named your category you can begin to…

Frame Your Category

Think of this are you core framework.

Uber set the stage of how ridesharing worked. Users have an app, they request a ride, it looks like this. The drivers get set up like this. They get a notification. blah blah blah.

The blueprint for the category the framework of how it all worked was decided and now you can’t imagine a ridesharing app looking or working any other way.

As authors we do this through written frameworks (like the one I’m diong right now). I’m framing what an author flywheel is made up of.

That’s me framing the category of an author flywheel.

Claim Your Category

Claiming your category is becoming known as the king or queen of it. (according to it often results in earning up to 76% of the market share)

My favorite way to stake a claim is with a… mini book.

5000 - 15,000 words that define your category and show you have expertise in it.

Then the rest of what I’ll lay out moving forward is the process of continually “claiming” your category.

Conversations

Once your category starts spinning you will start off first with direct conversations with people.

This could be,

• DM (direct message)

• Sales calls

• Newsletter emails

• Events

• etc.

This is how you get moving in the early days.

When you want to go to the masses to find more people to have conversations you move to layer 3.

Content

This is what most people think about when they want to get their flywheel spinning.

Content.

• Social Media Posts

• Blog Posts

• Podcasts

• Video

• Website

• etc.

But if you start with content you are missing the big opportunity!

Why Category → Conversations → Content is the Right Order

Your category and the problem it solves fuels your conversations and makes you attack the problem for people you want to serve.

That inspires conversations and shows people you care.

Those conversations bring up questions which spins up valuable content ideas.

When you follow this pattern growing your business gets so much easier.

Can’t wait to hear your feedback

Coach Chris

Every business needs a system that finds customers, brings them into your orbit, and solidifies you as the right product.

Most people think of this process as sales funnels.

Usually goes something like this.

→ Awareness → Interest → Decision → Contact → Sell

or

→ Social Media → Lead Magnet → Sales Page → Order Bump → Upsell → Downsell

You get the idea. But here is a graphic to make sure you feel how crazy it can feel.

This shows the two extremes I see funnels take.

1. Over simplification (it never feels that clean and straightlined)

2. Over complication (see all that swirling going on inside the image?)

Sales funnels always felt like I was missing a piece of the puzzel.

I learned sales funnels from Russell Brunson. Best in the biz at funnels. But I never could make sense of how his whole ecosystem worked with his funnels. I understood sales page funnels but then people got dumped into something he never could explain.

The messy backend of swirling nonsense.

So I started looking at my own business and how ti worked.

Rarely was it → Lead Magnet → Sales Page → Sale.

It was months or years from someone raising their hand as interested to spending $$$ with me. When they spent they’d jump straight to the $5000 package.

So sales funnels don’t fully explain how that works. That always bugged me.

Slowly I began to realize a funnel is for a single moment in time, or a compressed moment in time. It’s the checkout process.

But the messy backend? The ambiguous blog that actually made Russell Brunson and so many online marketers successful wasn’t the checkout page of their sales funnel.

It was their flywheel.

While a funnel looks and acts like a tornado, it spins up fast, pulls people in, spits them out, bada bing, bada boom.

Flywheels are like hurricanes. Still pulling people in, but at a much slower speed. In nature hurricanes last 10x longer than tornadoes so this is the weather system, the business ecosystem that drives our businesses.

But I wanted to explain it clearer than I ever had.

It’s the invisible force behind the drawing of your customers into orbit around you and keeping them in orbit around you until they are ready to buy.

Having been running an online business for 10+ years I try really hard to simplify everything… for me.

Because I get overwhelmed if my white board or notebook gets too complicated.

Today I want to peel back what makes a flywheel spin and what the layers of the flywheel is actually made up to make it practically to you and your business.

3 Layers of a Business Flywheel

I wrote a book called “Mini Book Flywheel: How to Design a Category That Makes Your Business Unforgettable” and in there I break down a flywheel, but it was still too complicated. (see below, I was so close, yet so far)

This past week I’ve started building Flywheel Publishing, the first flywheel builder that I know of.

While building it I had an epiphany… basically a re-realization and an idea for simplification.

There are 3 layers to a flywheel.

1. Category

2. Conversations

3. Content

Ahhh much simpler and they are all “C’s” so, that makes me happy.

Let’s look at these 3 layers quickly.

For those that read Mini Book Writing or Mini Book Model you’ll know I like to break things down into 3 points and 3 subpoints.

So yes, the 3 layers are my points and now they’ll each have 3 subpoints. (this is a very meta teaching moment)

Category

When building your category there are only 3 things you have to do. (only being very tongue and cheek)

1. Name your category

2. Frame your category

3. Claim your category

Claim Your Category

This is the basis for your Flywheel.

Ryan Levesque calls it being a Category of 1.

Even if you don’t invent the next Uber category, you still need unique positioning, a way for people to understand what category you sit in.

Being intentional about this is so important.

I’m not a self publishing guy. I was the Mini Book guy

I wasn’t an insurance instructor. I was the auto guy.

So first you have to name what category you belong to. This is know as languaging and its harder than it sounds.

I’ve spun and spun and spun around the idea of mini books, smart publishing, category publishing… then WHAM… flywheel publishing hit me.

There is a lot to languaging a category but one you have named your category you can begin to…

Frame Your Category

Think of this are you core framework.

Uber set the stage of how ridesharing worked. Users have an app, they request a ride, it looks like this. The drivers get set up like this. They get a notification. blah blah blah.

The blueprint for the category the framework of how it all worked was decided and now you can’t imagine a ridesharing app looking or working any other way.

As authors we do this through written frameworks (like the one I’m diong right now). I’m framing what an author flywheel is made up of.

That’s me framing the category of an author flywheel.

Claim Your Category

Claiming your category is becoming known as the king or queen of it. (according to it often results in earning up to 76% of the market share)

My favorite way to stake a claim is with a… mini book.

5000 - 15,000 words that define your category and show you have expertise in it.

Then the rest of what I’ll lay out moving forward is the process of continually “claiming” your category.

Conversations

Once your category starts spinning you will start off first with direct conversations with people.

This could be,

• DM (direct message)

• Sales calls

• Newsletter emails

• Events

• etc.

This is how you get moving in the early days.

When you want to go to the masses to find more people to have conversations you move to layer 3.

Content

This is what most people think about when they want to get their flywheel spinning.

Content.

• Social Media Posts

• Blog Posts

• Podcasts

• Video

• Website

• etc.

But if you start with content you are missing the big opportunity!

Why Category → Conversations → Content is the Right Order

Your category and the problem it solves fuels your conversations and makes you attack the problem for people you want to serve.

That inspires conversations and shows people you care.

Those conversations bring up questions which spins up valuable content ideas.

When you follow this pattern growing your business gets so much easier.

Can’t wait to hear your feedback

Coach Chris

Hey Revenue Writers,

Big update today.

This newsletter is being renamed to The Flywheel. (wait I’ll explain)

And I’ve finally named the discipline I’ve been building for 7+ years.

It’s called Flywheel Publishing.

This is when your business spins around your book, turning one manuscript into the assets, content, products, and services that grow the business.

Now let me explain where this is coming from…

Ghostwriting for a Billion $ Organization

February 16th I got asked to ghostwrite a billion dollar organizations category defining book.

I said yes, terrified to not be able to live up to what a billion dollar organization expects.

What I found through the process of not just coaching, but actually getting in the writing trenches then producing the book start to finish, was that a billion dollar brand struggles with the same things we as Revenue Writers struggle with.

They were publishing a book to place a flag in the ground for their category. They wanted to be remembered for something.

They are doing events now using the books as content that spins out from the manuscript into talks, content, and giveaways.

Their category is their core and out of that category sits a Mini Book and from that core asset everything flows.

Why I’ve Been So Quiet

Now as I reflected the last 3 months as I was in the actual contractual work time frame on what I’m doing here, with you all.

I dialed back writing because I was stretched thin and farming it out wholly to AI felt, well not right.

I heavily use AI for brainstorming ideas, verbal processing, editing, and some writing in a pinch when my brain is stuck.

But I found my brain was stuck too much… I was too reliant on AI.

So I just stopped.

I started reading my own old work, drinking my own Kool-Aid all over again.

I saw the pattern of how I was searching for terms of what it was that I did, how to explain it, how to present in a way that made sense.

As a category designer at heart, I’ve never felt “Mini Books” was the be all category I would sit in. It’s always been about more than that.

So you’ve seen me use Mini Books, Revenue Writing, Category Publishing (close), Smart Books (more on that soon), etc. in my search for a category my philosophy of business building would fit in.

But I didn’t want to be bound to a single asset, Mini Books, Smart Books, etc. I’ve been building my businesses with Mini Books at the core. I wanted the philosophy I talked about to fit, but I haven’t been able to figure it out, but I keep trying.

Then when it came time to publish the book I had ghostwritten. I had to go through the hell of working with an organization to publish a book through print on demand companies for bulk books and on KDP.

What I’ve Been Building

I got so frustrated with the process that I started coding my own tool. I’d tried before and failed. But this time was different.

The last four months I’ve been Vibe Coding for my primary company IA Path. I built an app that generated $10K in its first month. So I knew I could do it right this time.

The app isn’t ready to go live, but lets just say in 10 minutes you go from manuscript in your word doc to published on Amazon with almost no decisions from you.

But I didn’t know what to call it so this agitation and confusion around how all the pieces fit together in my brain turned into a raging inferno of confusion.

The final piece clicked when I re-read my own book “Mini Book Flywheel: How to Design a Category That Makes Your Business Unforgettable”. I knew what I’d written was right, but not refined.

I got so excited I started testing word combinations of what this future app would be called… and what happened across 2 days of agony was a word combination that didn’t just describe the app but finally described the way I approached business.

Flywheel Publishing.

What is Flywheel Publishing… Really?

Flywheel Publishing is when your business spins around your book turning one manuscript into the assets, content, products, and services that grow the business.

It’s like a hurricane, feeding itself. Not like a tornado that feeds off an existing weather system. Flywheel’s are self sustaining.

Flywheel Publishing is what I’ve been practicing for 10 years with my own Mini Books at IA Path.
Flywheel Publishing is what I’ve been doing here writing about Mini Books.
Flywheel Publishing is what I’ll be teaching here on newsletter.

Because of that I’m renaming this newsletter “The Flywheel” where I’ll share how to build a business using your book(s). You’ll see the name update coming soon.

Lastly Flywheel Publishing is the app I’m building that’ll help you build and manage your own flywheel for your business… all centered around your book.

I’m glad to be back, excited to be writing every word again.

Your Flywheel Coach,
Chris Stanley

P.S. I welcome your thoughts. I’ll be changing the name before next weeks edition.

Create a POWER Promise to the Reader

The number one thing you can do to make your book successful is to make a strong promise to your reader.

This promise to the reader is a promise of what problem you are going to help them solve. This promise is made through your title, your subtitle, and your book cover. The reader will decide on purchasing and reading your book based on these three things alone.

The success of your book is determined long before you write your first word; it’s decided when you choose a problem and make a promise.

You communicate your promise in 5 different ways:

• P – Problem the reader faces.

• O – Offer of the solution to the problem.

• W – Words that create a great hook in your title.

• E – Expectation of transformation stated in the subtitle.

• R – Reveal the genre and overall theme with your cover.

We’ll break each of these down.

Problem & Offer of a Solution

Every good business and every good book starts by solving the correct problem for the customer.

When starting a business, you must know your customer and then decide what problem you want to solve for that customer. This is no different with your books. Each mini book you write should solve one singular problem your customer has.

It should help them achieve the big promise that your company aims to fulfill.

For instance, I help people write mini books, and this book is helping with the problem of getting your first draft done in 7 days or less.

Choosing a Problem

If you are having trouble choosing what problem to solve, consider these 3 growth catalysts:

1. Bigger is better: The bigger the problem or the pool of people that have a problem, the better.

2. Smaller is faster: A smaller promise that is quicker to experience makes the reader have a win fast and causes good reviews and viral word of mouth.

3. First in series bonus: If the problem you help solve is the first problem they will encounter, they will come back to you for additional answers.

The more of the growth catalysts your problem has, the better for your book and business. (You can find more on this concept in my book Simple Online Business Model.)

Choosing a Solution

Your solution doubles as the category of your solution.

You can solve a problem in several different ways, but how you choose to solve that problem defines your category of solution and book. To get a book written without taking a lot of your time, you could hire a ghostwriter, use ChatGPT, or write a mini book. My solution and therefore category is mini books.

Your solution is very important because it speaks a lot about the content of the book.

If you are having trouble knowing what solution or category your book should fall into, you may be trying to write the wrong book. The problem you are helping someone solve should be one you’ve already solved yourself. Then, the solution and category you are writing about should be the way that you solved that problem!

This is how you take the mystery out of writing a non-fiction book.

The book will practically write itself if you are just telling someone how you solved a problem in the past with a particular solution.

Timeline

Determine how soon the reader can expect their problem to be solved with your solution.

Going back to the “smaller is faster” point, it is easier to sell a book on how to write a non-fiction book in 7 days compared to how to spend 2 years writing your next book. You’ll want to set realistic expectations and have real-world experience showing that their problem can be solved or at least begin to be solved in the amount of time you promise. Look back through your journey and see how fast you solved it. If someone else you know solved it quicker, then look at why and try to incorporate how they got faster results into your book.

Determining how fast someone can accomplish this, along with the problem and category of solution, will prepare you to come up with a killer title and subtitle in the next section of this chapter.

Title & Subtitle (Words & Expectation)

Title

A good title is the hook of your book.

Think of some of the greatest books of all time: Tipping Point, Snow Leopard, Start With Why. Each of these titles drives your curiosity and pulls you in, making you want to know more. Just like a good copywriter knows that a headline makes a sales page or that a headline can make an ad, the hook of the book—your title—can make or break the book.

This is why I believe you must start with the title & subtitle before you ever type a single word.

Having a good hook or a good title can actually birth a book all by itself.

I’ve written several books that were inspired by simply coming up with a hook. My books PDR Cash Box, Simple Online Business Model, and Misleading Money Mantra all began because I stumbled across these titles or hooks. This proves that the title is more than just a title; it’s a hook for the reader and a hook for the author.

You will find it much easier to write a book when you are captivated by the title.

3 Different Types of Titles

There are 3 common types of titles I see expert-based nonfiction books utilize:

1. One Word Titles: Examples include Ask by Ryan Levesque, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, and Margin by Richard Swenson.

2. Framework Titles: Examples include 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, Simple Online Business Model by me, and Atomic Habits by James Clear. These use the name of the core concept or framework inside the book as the title.

3. Brand Titles: Examples include Business Made Simple by Donald Miller, Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, and IA Path Playbook. These titles establish a company name in readers’ minds.

Picking which of these to use will eliminate the name overwhelm many first-time authors face.

(Framework titles can be an awesome launching point for a new business or a new product. If you don’t have your own framework, you can easily create one based on the topic you’re looking to write a book on. Download my FRAMEworks worksheet to create your own at Minibookstraitjacket.com.)

Subtitle

While the title, as a hook, can be vague, the subtitle must be clear.

This is where you clear up any confusion or ambiguity in your one-word title. Even with framework titles like Simple Online Business Model, you need to clarify what will happen when your framework is applied. The reader wants to know: if I follow your framework and read your book, what will happen?

This is the job of your subtitle, to eliminate any questions that remain after the title.

The ambiguous one-word titles become perfectly clear when you add the subtitle:

• Ask: The Counterintuitive Online Method to Discover Exactly What Your Customers Want to Buy . . . Create a Mass of Raving Fans . . . and Take Any Business to the Next Level

• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

• Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives

You might have been unsure what you’d get out of “Ask,” but now you know exactly what the author is promising.

Our framework and brand titles zero in on the transformation someone will experience if they apply their framework:

• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich

• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

• Business Made Simple: 60 Days to Master Leadership, Sales, Marketing, Execution, Management, Personal Productivity, and More

A good subtitle offers a clear transformation that the reader will experience if they pick up, read, and apply your book.

Cover

Your book cover reveals to the reader the genre, theme, and feel of the book.

Is it going to be a female power book? Or a book written by a manly man like Bear Grylls? Is it an intellectual or a straightforward how-to book?

Letting the potential reader know will help them decide if this is the right fit for them, which increases the number of happy readers and the average rating of your review.

My framework for creating book covers is the QUICK Book Cover Model:

• Q – Qualify what a good selling book cover looks like by finding three you like the feel of on Amazon.

• U – Upload those designs to Canva or Bookbrush.

• I – Insert the elements and recreate the book cover as close as possible.

• C – Customize the cover by changing the title, subtitle, author name, images, and colors to match your book and brand.

• K – Kindle ready, ensure your cover meets Kindle requirements and is ready for publication.

Let’s run through these quickly.

Q – Qualify a Best Selling Book Cover

Head to Amazon and search the non-fiction best selling books in a broad category like business or self-help, that will match the big category of your book.

Find three books with hundreds if not thousands of reviews. These will serve as your bestselling models. If your title is one word, try to find one-word titles.

Once you find a title that you feel you’d like the look and feel of something similar, right-click and save it to your computer.

U – Upload Designs to Canva/BookBrush

Take your three designs and upload them to your design software of choice, something like Canva or Bookbrush.

You’re going to select an ebook cover as the template and dimensions. You’ll use each of these designs you’ve downloaded as the background of your design. Simply lock it in place so you can manipulate things on top of it without moving it around.

This will serve as something you can model after.

I – Insert Elements

You’ll add text and images to recreate the book cover.

You’ll need to determine the style and size of the font. Match the colors on the background, images, and text. Find images that match any on the cover.

Most book covers are simpler than you first imagine, so get it really close to the original, but don’t stress if it’s a little off.

C – Customize the Cover

Now you change everything to make it your book.

Change the words to be your title, subtitle, and author name. Change the images to be your own unique ones. Change the colors to match your brand and vibe.

In the end, you’ll have something that drew inspiration from but doesn’t look exactly like the original cover, like the ones I did for my friend Jeff below.

K – Kindle (KDP) Ready

You’ll need to make sure your cover is ready to upload to Amazon’s publishing service called KDP:

• 1,600 x 2,560 pixels

• Under 50 MB

• JPEG file type

Download your file, make sure it meets those requirements, and you have your book cover DONE!

You now have a POWER promise to your reader. You are hooking the potential reader with your title, communicating a clear transformation they will experience if they buy, read, and apply your book. Plus, you have a cover that communicates all of that and the theme and feel of your book in an instant.

This will guide you every step through the rest of your book creation journey.

Action Step: Craft Your POWER Promise

1. Identify the Problem:

   • Think about the main issue your book will address for your readers. Write down this problem clearly and concisely.

2. Formulate Your Offer:

   • Determine the solution you are providing to solve this problem. Make sure your offer is compelling and actionable.

3. Create a Hook for Your Title:

   • Brainstorm a list of potential titles that hook your readers’ interest. Aim for something that is intriguing and directly related to your topic.

4. Draft Your Subtitle:

   • Clearly state the transformation or benefit the reader will experience by applying the content of your book. Ensure it complements the title and provides clarity.

5. Design Your Book Cover:

   • Sketch out ideas or use design software to create a mock-up of your cover. Include your title and subtitle, and think about the imagery and colors that will best convey your book’s theme and genre.

By completing these steps, you’ll have a strong POWER promise that hooks your readers and sets clear expectations, making your book more attractive and compelling.

Hey Revenue Writer,

Look at that first cover.

It’s fine. It’s not embarrassing. But it’s not stopping anyone mid-scroll either.

Now look at the second one.

Bold yellow background. Vibrant woman. Red circle popping. Script title that actually reads on a thumbnail. That’s a cover people click.

Here’s the kicker — we built both of them. Live. In under an hour.

Colette came to the Quick Book Cover Workshop with a Bible study book called Squeeze the Word and a cover that looked like a thousand other self-published books. Good concept. Lame execution. The kind of cover where you know, you just know, it was made in Canva by someone who isn’t a designer.

By the end of the workshop, she had a cover that stood next to bestsellers.

Her words, not mine: “Nobody would imagine that’s what we started from.”

That’s the goal. Every time.

The cover’s job isn’t to be pretty. It’s to stop someone in three seconds on a thumbnail-sized bookshelf called Amazon and make them click. That’s it. And most self-published covers fail that test before the book even gets a chance.

We ran Colette’s final cover through the thumbnail test, the click test, and the three-second test. It passed all three.

If you want to see exactly how we got there — the method, the tool I built to speed up the process, and the live Canva build from ugly to awesome — the replay is up now.

Watch it before it comes down.

Replay Link

— Chris

P.S. The method is called QUICK. Five steps. One to two hours max. And you don’t need to be a designer. I was an insurance adjuster for 15 years. I figured it out. You can too.

Hey Revenue Writer,

What you’re about to watch:

Colette came in with a Bible study book called Squeeze the Word and a cover that looked like ten thousand other self-published books on Amazon.

In under an hour, we rebuilt it live, from scratch, using a five-step method calle…

Read more

Three hours, live. I’ll be teaching how I’ve created best-selling covers for mine and other authors book.

Live I’ll be building covers from scratch in Canva. Step by step through every letter of the QUICK Book Cover Model.

You bring your title. I’ll walk you through building a cover that belongs next to the bestsellers in your category.

Here’s what you walk away with tonight.

• A finished cover concept for your book.

• The exact reference workflow I use for every Mini Book I publish.

• A tool to find great covers that are proven and well reviewed in seconds

• Replay of the event

Three ways to join.

Revenue Writers Member. $35 a month. Attend free. Replay through end of week. (then cancel so there is no monthly membership if you want)

À La Carte. $197. Lifetime access to the full course. Goes to $247 after tonight.

The price on the À La Carte option goes up after the event.

Click below to grab your seat.

Register for the Workshop

See you at 6.

Coach Chris Stanley

Last year I built a cover in one hour for my most popular book on writing.

I used a method I’d been refining for years.

Five steps.
Predictable result.
I used my favorite hot pink color and modeled the cover after Atomic Habits.

That cover has been my Mini Book Model cover ever since.

Last week I got curious.

AI tools have come a long way in twelve months.
Canva templates have multiplied.
Maybe the hour-long manual method was overkill now.

So I ran an experiment.

I gave Gemini one hour.
I gave a Canva template one hour.
I put both up against the QUICK Method cover I’d already made.

Same book.
Same hour budget.
Three very different results.

Here they are.
You be the judge.

Cover 1. Gemini AI. One Hour.

I opened Gemini and went to work.

Wrote prompts. Refined them. Tried different styles, different palettes, different layouts. Iterated for a full hour.

This was the best version I got. (Check out the ugly one I got without massaging it for 1 hour)

The shapes on the original have movement. The pink and navy palette feels somewhat modern. The exploding book in the center is a clever visual metaphor.

A cover has one job though.
Sell the book.

This one doesn’t. It is art.
The title fights the artwork for attention.
The subtitle disappears into the chaos.

Gemini gave me a poster. Not a Mini Book cover.

I could sell some books with it… but I’d be fighting uphill.

Cover 2. Canva Template. One Hour.

Next I opened Canva.

Searched book cover templates.
Picked the one closest to my brand.
Spent an hour swapping fonts, adjusting icons, tweaking the layout.

This is what an hour of template work looks like.

The pink is on brand. The little circular icons feel relevant to the Mini Book idea. The type is clean.

The cover still feels safe.

The icons are stock. The layout is template default, but I did make a few decisions that made a big different.
Nothing about it claims a category.
Nothing says you HAVE to read this book.

It isn’t BAD. Mini is big enough I like it better than my original one from years ago, but not it.

A reader scrolling Kindle thumbnails sees ten thousand covers like this every month. They swipe past in half a second.

Templates skip the work that wins sales on Amazon.

Cover 3. The QUICK Method. One Hour.

This one I made last year.

Same hour budget. Different process.

I modeled it after Atomic Habits. The number one bestseller in self-improvement. Millions of copies sold and counting. (of Atomic habits… not mine)

Here is what QUICK stands for.

Q. Qualify three bestselling covers in your category.
U. Upload them to Canva as your blueprint.
I. Insert and recreate the elements that matter.
C. Customize everything to your book and brand.
K. Kindle ready, with the right specs to publish.

The hot pink dominates the thumbnail. The splatter texture borrows a complexity from a different proven cover.
The font is HUGE (which I love).

When a reader scrolls past this cover, their brain whispers something familiar.

That looks like a book I should buy.

That is the whole game.

The Verdict

I’m sticking with Cover 3.

AI got faster.
Templates got prettier.
Neither beat a method built around how readers actually buy books on Amazon.

The thumbnail decides if your book gets clicked.
The cover decides if the click becomes a sale.
The whole funnel runs on seconds of visual judgment.

The QUICK Method puts your book next to category winners on day one. It puts you in the same visual conversation as the books readers already trust.

You don’t need to be a designer. You need a process.

I’m Teaching It Live This Tuesday

Tuesday May 4th. 6 to 9pm Eastern.

I’ll be on screen building a Cover 3 from scratch. Live in Canva. Step by step through every letter of QUICK.

You bring your title. I’ll walk you through building a cover that belongs next to the bestsellers in your category.

Three ways to join.

Revenue Writers Member. $35 a month. Attend free. Replay through end of week.

À La Carte. $197. Lifetime access to the full course. Goes to $247 after Tuesday.

Founding Member. $400 one time. Full Revenue Writers membership for life plus the complete course.

Click below to register.

Register for the Workshop

Talk soon,

Chris Mini Book Guy

I had some family events come up I didn't expect and I have to delay the QUICK Book Cover Workshop until next Tuesday.

I apologize for the confusion and delay.

Looking forward to helping you all make your book cover live.

Not only so you have a cover but that you know how to design covers forever moving forward.

We'll meet Tuesday May 5th 6-9pm

Coach Chris Stanley

I’ve been designing my own book covers for years.

Never really talked about it.

It felt like one of those things that was just part of the process — find some covers I like, open Canva, figure it out, ship it.

Then a client asked me to find them a professional designer.

I found one. A good one. The quote came back at $3,500.

For one cover.

I paid it, it was the right call for that project. But it made me realize that most authors don’t know there’s another way. A way that produces covers that look just as professional. That convert just as well. That don’t require a designer, a budget, or any design experience.

I’ve been doing it for thirty books.

Tuesday night I’m teaching it live.

Three hours. Start to finish. I’ll build covers on screen so you can see every decision in real time.

The QUICK Book Cover Workshop, Tuesday April 28th, 6–9pm Eastern.

Three ways to join:

Revenue Writers Member — $35/mo Attend free. Replay through end of week. Not a member click HERE to register.

À La Carte — $197 Full course lifetime access. Templates, tools, replay, everything as it’s built. Goes to $247 after the event.

Founding Member — $400 one time Full Revenue Writers membership for life plus the complete course. Full access for a year. Already a member? Click HERE to register.

Buy a Ticket & Lifetime Access to the Course

Buy Lifetime Access

Chris

P.S. If you’ve ever looked at your cover and felt like something was off but couldn’t explain what, Tuesday night you’ll know exactly what it is.

I just paid $3,500 for a book cover.

For a client project, and it was worth every penny for that situation.

But most authors don’t need to spend that.
Most authors shouldn’t spend that.

You need a cover that looks professional, signals the right reader, and doesn’t embarrass you on Amazon.
Trust me, you don’t need to spend thousands to get there.

I know because I’ve designed most of my 30+ covers of my books. I’ve also hired people off Fiverr, 99 Designs, tried to use Canva templates, even AI Covers… none of it works for me.

Tuesday April 28th from 6–9pm I’m walking through my exact process live, start to finish, so you never have to pay $3,500 for something you can build yourself in an afternoon.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

1. How to find a cover idea that will actually sell

2. How to build it in Canva so you never have to hire a designer

3. How to make sure it connects to your brand and ecosystem

4. How to turn it into a physical and digital cover Amazon accepts

Three ways to join:

Member · $35/month Become a paying Revenue Writers subscriber and Tuesday’s workshop is included free.
Replay access will only be available through end of week, five days to rewatch and apply it.

→ Already a paying member? You’re in. Just register at the bottom of this email and show up.

À La Carte · $197 Just want the course, no membership required. Full replay, every template, the tools I’ve built to speed up the process, and the complete course as I finish building it. Yours forever.

Price goes to $247 once the course is fully built.

Purchase a Ticket & Course

Founding Member · $400 one time One annual payment. No monthly fee for the year.

Full Revenue Writers membership for 1 year plus the complete QUICK Book Cover Course included. Every workshop, every resource, everything going forward the rest of the year.

Register below at the bottom of this email and you’ll be registered for the live event and receive the full course after its complete.

Tuesday April 28th · 6–9pm Eastern

— Coach Chris Stanley

P.S. $3,500 is what a professional cover costs when someone else builds it. Tuesday night I’ll show you how to build one yourself and know it’s good before you ever upload it to Amazon.

PAYING MEMBERS REGISTER BELOW

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In 2016 I was running a region for someone else’s company.

Good job. Good money. Not my thing.

Then I read Play Bigger.

I remember sitting with it thinking, this is exactly what I’ve been trying to do without knowing what to call it. I didn’t want to build another adjuster training company. I wanted to build something that didn’t exist yet. A category nobody had named.

I went back to work Monday morning thinking differently.

A few months later I started IA Path.

From day one I built it the way Play Bigger described.
Not better than the competition.
Different from the competition.

I named a category, Virtual Adjuster Mentorships, then evolved it into EXP Free Career Paths. I stopped talking about training and started talking about a new way to start an insurance career without the experience requirements that kept everyone else stuck.

People started calling me the auto guy.

Others tried to copy the model. Most couldn’t figure out why it worked for me and not for them. Some customers complained we were the only option in our space.

That last one is how you know category design is working.

Here’s what Play Bigger taught me that no other business book had:

The goal isn’t to win the competition.
The goal is to make the competition irrelevant by creating a category they can’t follow you into.
If they do follow you into it they are playing by your rules.

Most businesses design a product. Some design a company. Almost nobody intentionally designs the category at the same time.

That’s the Magic Triangle, company, product, and category designed together simultaneously. Whoever aligns all three first becomes the category king. And the research behind Play Bigger showed that category kings capture 76% of the market. Everyone else splits the remaining 24%.

The math on competing suddenly looks very different.

Four authors wrote this book together.

Al Ramadan, Christopher Lochhead, Dave Peterson, and Kevin Maney. They used category design to write the book on category design, as I write a category publishing article about it, which is about as meta as it gets.

The book itself was their lightning strike.

They’ve gone on to do different things since.

built , the newsletter and podcast empire that has become required reading for anyone serious about category design.

runs Play Bigger advising founders and CEOs on how to apply the framework at the highest level.

just released a new book on category design and runs a consulting firm around it. They’re not all in the same room anymore, but they’re still the dominant force in the category they created.

Nobody has displaced them.
Nobody is close.

That’s what happens when you write the book on the category.

You don’t just lead it at launch. You lead it permanently.

This is Vol. 04 of How They Claimed It, the series where I break down how the books that changed my thinking actually claimed their categories and what it can teach us about how we can do the same in our own categories.

Named it.
Framed it.
Claimed it.

The Category Publishing Law applies every single time.

The person who writes the book on a category gets remembered as the leader of it.

Coach Chris

P.S. Play Bigger is still in print. Still relevant. Still the best single book on why competing is the wrong game. If you haven’t read it, read it. If you have, read it again. I’m on my 10th pass.

It’s the foundation I’ve built the concepts of Mini Books and Category Publishing on… you won’t regret reading it.

They look at royalties. They look at downloads. They celebrate when a number goes up and panic when it doesn’t.

But they never ask the one question that actually tells them whether their marketing is working.

Did my BookBub ad sell books?

Not, did I sell books the week I ran ads. Not, did my royalties go up this month.

Specifically. On the days my ads ran, did more books sell than the days they didn’t?

What did each sale cost me?
That’s the number.

That’s the only number that tells you whether your ad spend is doing anything or just quietly draining your account while your book stays invisible.

Here’s what I found when I finally tracked it properly.

On days I ran BookBub ads, 9 books sold per day on average.

On days I didn’t, 5.

Same book.
Same Amazon page.
Same price.

The only variable was the ad.

That’s the LAZY principle in action. You’re not trying to make the ad profitable. You’re trying to prove the ad is working.

Once you know it’s working you keep it running.

Once you know it’s not, you stop and test something new.

Z — Zero In With Targeted Ads, is the chapter in the LAZY Book Launch Model that covers this. (coming soon)

The whole point isn’t to find a winning ad once. It’s to build a system that tells you when an ad is working and when it isn’t so you never waste money guessing.

Most authors guess forever.

I built a tool so you don’t have to.

It’s called the LAZY BookBub Ad Tracker.

​

You upload your KDP sales report. You upload your BookBub ad report. It analyzes both and tells you exactly what happened, cost per book sold on ad days, units sold with ads vs without, and what the data is actually saying.

I’ve got some upcoming additions to it, but this alone I would have killed for these past 9 years of book marketing.

It’s included free for everyone who grabs the LAZY Book Marketing Masterclass.

Seven chapters. Twenty-six lessons. The full system for marketing your book without it taking over your life.

And now a tool that tells you whether any of it is actually working.

Get the LAZY Book Marketing Masterclass →

Your Book Coach,
Chris

P.S. 234 books sold. $428 in ad spend. $3.15 cost per book on ad days. That’s what the LAZY BookBub Ad Tracker showed me about my own book.

Now I know exactly where to keep spending and where to stop.
Now I can actually decide if its worth it or not.

And you can to.

Got great feedback. People showed up, stayed till the end, and walked away with a real system for marketing their book without it taking over their life.

So I want to do another one.

This time it'd be the QUICK Book Cover Workshop.

I’ve designed all of my own covers. Figured out what works, what screams self-published from 2009, and how to model what already sells without copying it.

No designer. No budget. Just Canva and a strategy that actually works.

If that’s something you’d show up for, drop a comment or hit reply. Want to know if there’s interest before I set a date.

— Chris

Hey Revenue Writers,

You wrote a book.

Real work. Real thinking. Real value inside those pages.

And if you’re honest, the marketing around it has never quite matched what the book deserves.

Not because you don’t know what to do. But because every piece of advice out there assumes you have unlimited time, a launch team, and a tolerance for chaos that most business owners with an actual business just don’t have.

A few weeks ago I ran the LAZY Book Marketing Workshop.

Good people showed up. We went deep on the system. But when it was over I had a decision to make.

I could put the replay up and sell it.

I’ve bought those. You probably have too. One long video you watch with good intentions, get pulled away from twenty minutes in, and never open again.

That felt like a disservice to the book you wrote.

So instead I built the LAZY Book Marketing Masterclass. Not a replay. Not just a course you buy and feel good about. A system you actually run.

Here’s what’s inside:

L — Leverage an email list that sells your book for you every week.

A — Optimize your Amazon page so the people already finding your book actually buy it.

Z — Zero in on targeted ads that cost $30 a day and keep you on the bestseller list for a month.

Y — Build a year-long launch so the book keeps working long after everyone else has moved on to their next release.

Seven chapters. Twenty-six lessons. And built into every chapter are prompts and templates that do the thinking with you. Tell the welcome sequence prompt what your book is about. It gives you a sequence. Tell the book description prompt your person, problem, and POV. It gives you the copy.

You fill in what only you know. The tools handle the rest.

Your book is good. It deserves marketing that treats it that way.

Get the LAZY Book Marketing Masterclass

Your Book Coach,
Chris Stanley

P.S. The system behind this kept one of my books at Amazon Bestseller for over a month. While I was living my life.

Hey Revenue Writers,

I rebuilt my adjusting company’s website using StoryBrand.

Before I did, I thought the site was solid.

Clear offer.
Good story.
Knew my audience.

Then I read the book and wanted to delete everything.

My website was about me.
My credentials.
My story.
My team.
My process.
My history.

Page after page of me auditioning for a role, which comes across as begging to buy.

The customer showed up looking for help and found a guy talking about himself.

StoryBrand has a name for this. It’s called making yourself the hero. And almost every business does it without knowing.

The fix sounds simple.

The customer is the hero.
You are the guide.
Your job is to hand them a plan and get out of the way.

I rewrote the whole thing. Led with their problem. Positioned myself as the person who’d already solved it.

Made the next step obvious.

It worked.

StoryBrand became one of my favorite business books of all time. Still is.

And here’s the thing I noticed every time someone else tried to teach storytelling in marketing after that.

I compared them to Donald Miller.

Every single time.

Not because they weren’t good. Some of them were brilliant. But Donald Miller had become the measuring stick.

When you’re the measuring stick nobody else wins.

That’s not luck. That’s Category Publishing.

He did three things really well.

Named It

He named it. Not “story marketing.” Not “brand narrative.” StoryBrand. Two words anyone can remember, explain, and search for. Simple enough to own. Specific enough that you instantly knew whether you had it or not.

Framed It

He framed it.

The SB7 Framework. Seven parts.

1. A character.

2. A problem.

3. A guide.

4. A plan.

5. A call to action.

6. Success

7. Failure.

He took something that existed since the beginning of time (story telling) and made it teachable on a Monday morning. The framework is what made it spreadable without him being in the room.

Claimed It

He claimed it. And here’s the part people don’t always know.

The book wasn’t the product. The book was the door.

He did what most of us should do, he used his book to get high quality leads.

Every person who finished Building a StoryBrand closed it knowing exactly what they needed next. A certified Guide. A two-day workshop in Nashville. A BrandScript review. The certification empire, the conference, Business Made Simple, all of it flowed from one book that made you feel the gap and made the next step obvious.

Before the book he wrote memoirs.

After the book he was the person you called when your message wasn’t working.

One book.
One framework.
One name.

That’s the Category Publishing Law.

Question is what unique process do you have?

What problems have you solved that you could establish a new way of thinking… a new category or subcategory that would allow you to stop competing?

Most of us have these things. We know we are different than other competition, but its hard for us to figure out how to stand out.

If you need help working through what makes you unique.
What your category is and could be.
If you need help getting your book written and published so you own that category and way of thinking…
That is what I help people do.

I’d love to help.

Your Coach,
Chris Stanley

P.S. Who should Vol. 04 be? Hit reply.

Hey Revenue Writers,

Gary Chapman didn’t invent the idea that people feel loved differently.

Therapists had observed it for decades. Couples had felt it without being able to name it.

Then Gary Chapman wrote the book on it.

And everything changed.

Not because the idea was new. Because he gave it a name. A framework. A taxonomy.

Five Love Languages.

Words of Affirmation. Acts of Service. Receiving Gifts. Quality Time. Physical Touch.

Five categories. One quiz. Every person on earth fits somewhere inside it.

That’s Category Publishing.

But before I get into what Gary did — let me tell you what it did for me.

My love languages are Physical Touch first. Words of Affirmation second.

Which means I feel most loved when my wife reaches over and grabs my hand while I’m driving the bus down the highway.

Or when she says, out of nowhere, I’m proud of you.

Those two things fill my tank completely.

The Five Love Languages gave me the language for what I already felt.

And it changed how I love her back.

Because here’s the thing about love languages, yours is rarely theirs.

My wife’s primary language isn’t Physical Touch.

Understanding that changed everything about how I show up in my marriage.

Then I started watching my kids.

One of my boys wants little trinkets from the store.

A Hot Wheels car.
A pack of Pokémon cards.
Something small.

It’s not about the price. It’s never about the price. It’s about the fact that I saw something and thought of him.

That kid is a Gifts person.

The moment I understood that I stopped feeling guilty about stopping at the dollar bin at Target. That two dollar toy isn’t spoiling him. It’s speaking his language.

Then I thought about my sister.

Growing up she was the same way.

You could hand her a piece of gum, literally a single piece of gum, and it would make her whole day.

Not because she needed gum. Because you thought of her.

I didn’t understand that as a kid. I thought she was just easy to please.

She wasn’t easy to please. She was a Gifts person. And nobody had named it yet.

I didn’t understand any of this until Gary Chapman gave it a name.

Gary Chapman named it.

He took something people already felt. Already experienced. Already knew somewhere deep down.

And he named it.

Framed it. Wrote the book on it.

Gary Chapman didn’t change how humans love each other.

He just gave us the words to talk about it.

Twenty million copies later, those five words are part of how we describe ourselves.

“My love language is Physical Touch.”

Say that sentence out loud. Feel how naturally it comes.

That’s the power of a book that claims a category.

Name your category.
Frame it with a system.
Claim it with a book.

The person who writes the book on a category gets remembered as the leader of it.

What category are you not claiming?

Chris