Thread by @Roamfu

1/ TOP LESSONS FROM @robfitz'S WRITEUSEFULBOOKS.COM AND WHY I'LL FOCUS ON WRITING BOOKS INSTEAD OF CREATING COURSES + MY ZETTELKASTEN HERESIES

(all screenshots shared with permission)

I thought I best thing I could do for #roamcult was to create online courses. I enjoy teaching and have been doing corporate training for more than a decade. I changed my mind after digging in the world of online courses and examining what I really want. This is my plan.

@tracyplaces was very generous in showing how the sausage is made. The key realization was that online courses is first marketing—then teaching. Both steps require a lot of work. I thought this is an advantage for me: I have a digital marketing business: advenient.co

After talking to @robfitz (who also uses Roam, it turns out) I realized that hustle is limited. "Online courses is a business, and I already have a business." I want to reserve that part of my brain for project accessiblegenomics.org and my next business: kottabio.com

Also, I could not think of a single online course that has changed my life or my mind, or which I simply love. But ask the same question about books, and I could go on and on.

https://twitter.com/kcorazo/status/1319520426385494017

Plus, my best experiences of flowstates were during writing sessions. I could still remember exactly where I was when I wrote in the flow. I think I'll have to spend years speaking to an imaginary audience and video editing to achieve the same thing with creating online courses.

@robfitz's book The Mom Test was the best book I've read on customer interviews (turns out I'm not the only one - see pic), so when he announced [[Write Useful Books]] I immediately purchased beta access. Below are my top takeaways for the chapters I've read.

He shares a playbook on how to do this in the book. Could he simply be sharing his winning lottery ticket number? It doesn't matter. The system makes sense. We come from the same [[customer development]] lineage: this is how I'd do it.

"The biggest myth about nonfiction is that it succeeds based on the quality of its writing. But that’s wrong. In truth, nonfiction succeeds based on its usefulness to its reader" This cannot be universally true, but this is the pathway to success I want the books I write to have.

Self-publishing vs traditional publishing. Key stat: "To overcome the reduced royalties, a publisher needs to sell at least 5x more copies for you to break even." Plus I don't want to go through the pitching needed to win a deal. I have zero leverage.

"The goal of book marketing is to stop needing to do it." I love the idealism and the inherent soul in the game of this approach.

In Chapter 2, my biggest takeaways were his template on how to build a strong scope and how to design a recommendation trigger.

Chapter 3 is essentially about using [[customer development]] for writing useful books. I'm already sort of doing this, talking to people who show interest in my threads.

New lesson: use Table of Contents (ToC) as Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

Years of marketing writing online gave me a clickbait instinct, but books are already sold when they read it! Write the ToC for learning outcomes instead.

Also, this means I'll still do trainings, but they will be in service of improving the writing.

Here's a summary of the playbook. I think I'll enjoy playing this game.

I'll only read chapters 4-7 once I get to that stage. Just-in-time learning over just-in-case learning!

I have 4 threads or groups of threads that I could develop into books. The one that seems to resonate most with people (intensity from a few, not volume of people) is The Rider and Stallion Productivity model.

https://twitter.com/Roamfu/status/1278321043623555072

I might just write "How to Build Your Spiritual Growth Stack" because I'm afraid to do it, and I got a DM from an editor I trust expressing interest in an article. I treat this as a stronger signal than likes and retweets (which it also has).

https://twitter.com/Roamfu/status/1304380613231865862

There's a lot of interest in Project Management. The problem is that PM means different things to different people, as seen in the answers to the sign-up form. I need to work on a better title that expresses the scope.

https://twitter.com/Roamfu/status/1283386164217409536

I'll be using Roam to plan and execute project accessiblegenomics.org (which just got funded!) So I'll really just be documenting and sharing my usage. Plus, I've been training PM for 10+ years. It's high time I write a book.

https://twitter.com/kcorazo/status/1266227623958507520

This is probably the most useless and academic thing I would write, but I can't stop thinking about this

https://twitter.com/kcorazo/status/1267768235404996613

I feel my writing stack is complete with @robfitz's writing [[customer development]] playbook plus the Zettelkasten, customized for my messy mind.

Article from 6 months ago: roambrain.com/i-tried-to-bui… I'm surprised that I still follow this process, being a serial PKM experimenter

I still think @andy_matuschak's notes.andymatuschak.org should be the vanilla version, a good place for people to start. Here's my thread on that

https://twitter.com/kcorazo/status/1255296825566920705

Advantages of using threads:
- Validate what people are interested in with minimum time investment
- If communication is a key part of your work, this is like a pianist doing her scales
- maximize serendipity by working with the garage door open
- ideas thrive if they roam free

The previous tweet is a glimpse into the future of aided thought. That list came about from creating a thread by riffing on recommendations from @ThreadHelper

https://twitter.com/Roamfu/status/1321989733912780801

My most heterodox practice though is to not have permanent notes. I'm just relying the Magic Trash Panda. I'll burn in the 7th circle of Zettelkasten hell.

https://twitter.com/Roamfu/status/1322913184466964481

Since I'm already damned, might as well question whether permanent notes are just artifacts from the constraints of paper. Actually I sort of asked this 6 months ago at the [[@RoamBrain]] article linked above.

I also changed my mind from "professionals don't need inspiration" to maximizing inspiration by taking care of my Stallion (it is the one who could hear the muse, not the Rider).

https://twitter.com/kcorazo/status/1278159158630481920

We'll see if this works. I'm willing to color inside the lines and get my Stallion to follow the straight path if that is what it takes to make books happen.

More Roamfu threads: roamfu.com 🥋

P.S.

https://twitter.com/DellAnnaLuca/status/1324053703981207552

P.P.S.

https://twitter.com/RobertHaisfield/status/1324206244794572800