In Which I Reveal An As-Yet-Unsuspected Dark Horse In Publishing

Hey guys,

Two things.

Thing number one: I had no idea I could make the blog font larger. I am SO SORRY I’ve been making you read microprint for the last three years. I’m also sorry for making me read microprint for the last three years.

Things are going to get a lot more fun around here.

Thing number two: My best writing often happens in my journal (which I am not sharing with you) and in my email messages (which I occasionally shall), so in this post I’m sharing a note I just sent to a writer, like, eleven minutes ago.

She’s just left my pipeline—early, after only three deadlines—because she realized she didn’t want to write a book, after all.

At least, not yet.

There is deeper, podcast-ier, platform-ier work to be done.

I wrote about this client’s decision in more depth in this Substack post, and if you read that and then come back here for the rest of this post, things will make a lot more sense.

Anyway, after reading said Substack post, this (ex) writer sent me a note and suggested that maybe she, too, might like to try this different kind of coaching as she builds out her own author platform. More like writing coaching than book coaching, per se.

This might be the start of something cool. I’ve copied my response to her below.

And yeah…after a decade-long silence…I’m finally writing again.🤘

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Hi again [writer name], and thanks for your patience! This has been a zany week. Super fire-horsey (and fire-HOSEy).

Thanks for your note. I'm glad you liked reading my post! I have another post on my schedule for this coming week, but I'm not sure I can do both Substack and my newsletter. We'll see how I go. 

Re: the Substack coaching, I love your question! This client of mine is going to write posts for Substack that look very similar to the chapters he was already writing for his book. His blueprint shaped his book out into many short chapters, similar to how Steve Pressfield wrote The War of Art, so I'm just going to coach his writing as before: a chunk of revised material at each deadline, and a chunk of new material (5000w total), with feedback on both. I'd be happy to do something similar with you; it'd sharpen your writing exactly the same way but without the big commitment of needing to knit all the threads together into a cohesive book. It's much freer. And then you're a) creating content consistently and b) improving your writing at the same time.

I have a Bird by Bird package that might work? It's about halfway down the page. 

As far as the life-direction coaching, what's amazing is that this kind of clarity seems to evolve, in part, out of the act of writing itself. Writing forces you to articulate your beliefs in a way that no other medium demands. I just went to find a clip of Jordan Peterson (not my favourite guy, but it was a great clip) talking to a group of students about the power of writing to force you to think your way through things and come out the other side clear, resonant, and able to stand behind your take, but it appears X has suspended his account atm 🤷‍♀️

And if you've ever thought of writing fiction, there's an emerging category called autofiction (watch this space; I'm calling it; I think it'll be huge), where the author writes their own story but fictionalizes whatever they wish—it's v freeing and makes for amazing stories. I've come to realize that writers can make their point even more strongly through the medium of story. Look at shows like Ted Lasso and Breaking Bad and Squid Game. Look at books like The Kite Runner, The Giver and To Kill a Mockingbird. 

Re: my own writing, I've been waiting for a decade for the right story to come along. I stopped writing ten years ago because I didn't want to put another book into the world that was...just another book. I wanted it to matter. It's too easy to just keep churning titles out for the sake of collecting royalties.

That story finally arrived a couple weeks ago, after years waiting patiently for the signal. I plan to spend 2026 writing it (with the help of another book coach—a first for me), then casually float it up into the collective and rip the whole fucking lid off the cultural conversation.

Let me know whether you want to create something weird and different than an actual book-making arrangement! I'd love to chat.

Alex

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Still reading? Cool. Then remember this: autofiction is just being born.

I sense a niche coming on…