Comment on Has AI Already Killed How-To Nonfiction? Sales Trends, My Personal Data, and What It Might Mean for the Future by Rachel

Hey Tim. Appreciate this blog post and the details you've shared.

I'm sure you've got a good handle on the data you're seeing and I trust you're probably right. But there are other reasons that people will buy less books too (living expenses/economy is a big one). And as much as it pains me to say this, there is a lot of shit out there in the book/self-help world (or just in general, lol). Many people wanted to get rich off giving advice-- blogs, substacks, books, e-courses, etc. Maybe it got oversaturated. Those people (who did it for money) will move on to other ventures, chasing the cheese. And what will be left is a smaller number of books, but perhaps better ones.

And nobody knows what will happen with AI or how it will fold into our future.

But if folks are doing what they'd be doing if nobody were watching (or vanity metrics aren't part of the equation), then all of the metrics, algos, SEO and AI stuff matters a lot less anyway.

Or I'm totally wrong, which is most possible.

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. “ – Mark Twain

(as an aside, this last bit made me realize there is risk in too much focus-group style 'testing'-- as it risks losing one's conviction. This is rarely discussed but is possibly important.)