📺
Nir Eyal on selling a million copies via curiosity, learning, and sharing

In this Useful Books Community Q&A, we’re joined by the legendary Nir Eyal, bestselling author of Hooked and Indistractable.

Incredible stuff from an exceptional author. Hope you love it.

Timestamps & topics

• 0:00 Welcome!
• 0:38 Nir’s journey into writing (journalism→business→books)
• 3:35 Curiosity-driven writing (and the books we didn’t write)
• 4:56 Writing goals and process
• 6:38 From unproven selfpub to top-tier tradpub
• 9:11 Start collecting emails
• 10:51 Writing is never easy
• 11:58 Becoming an Indistractable author
• 15:21 Risk of blogging and oversharing ideas?
• 17:45 Beta-readers are the dream
• 20:29 Teaching and blogging as book v1
• 22:47 Better beta reading software
• 23:14 The best structural tool is a picture
• 25:03 Finding unique and powerful case studies
• 26:55 Digital add-ons, lead magnets, list building
• 29:48 Big audience vs. engaged audience?
• 31:02 Commercial success and publishing industry trends
• 32:27 Keep learning from Nir!