The Art and Business of Online Writing with Nicolas Cole, Author, Speaker, and Founder of Digital Press

Michael Simmons 6:19

Wow, that’s really interesting. Yeah, I would have assumed that they like content, that’s a combination of the quantity you put out, and the engagement, so they’d want something a combining of those, but I’ve never really gone deep on. Okay, they’d actually prefer people who are posting more and give them more preference.

Nicolas Cole 6:38

Yeah, I mean, something else that’s fascinating. I’ve just, you know, I love studying other industries. Like, as much as I study writing and publishing, I actually study other industries a lot more. And the Spotify CEO was giving a keynote like a month ago, they’re just talking about the future of music and all of this. And he basically was saying that artists today, like if you’re putting out an album once every two years, like you’re, you’re dead in the in the streaming world, there’s no way because they’re their whole everything. They’re they’re built on their algorithm and the way that streaming works, like he basically was like, if you want to survive as a musician, you need to be putting out new music constantly. Unless you’re already in the tear of, I’m a Drake. I’m a Taylor Swift, I’m a whatever I can get away with that. But if you look at even artists like Drake, they’re putting out singles and they’re they’re doing collabs with other artists. They’re doing stuff on a monthly basis. So yeah, we’re in a volume world.

Michael Simmons 7:36

I see what you’re saying. And I, and I think the other side is also I grew up admiring writers like Michael Lewis or Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm Gladwell spending years yeah. 35 years of book, right. And even with his podcast, is even going and creating a podcast episode every week. I was listening to his thing to create one season of revisionist history, which I think is eight or 10 episodes, took him six months of you know, he’s travelling out to different people to interview them and editing it. Yeah, handing it out. So I kind of grew off admiring those sorts of writers. And even like Nassim Taleb, they’re more in the, you have the spectrum of entertainment versus learning that maybe there but here’s here’s does a great point. But here’s the interesting thing about and I don’t know if this is true for Nassim, but Malcolm Gladwell, you have to remember also was the product of the volume game.

Nicolas Cole 8:30

He was he was, you know, you didn’t start out writing his books. He started out by being a, you know, columnist for I forget what publication was at The New Yorker.

Michael Simmons 8:41

Yeah, The New Yorker. Some other

Nicolas Cole 8:43

Yeah. So, so there’s so there’s the guy who, you know, he spent 10 plus years writing columns, which is volume. If you think about it, it was a different form of volume, because this was, you know, 10 20 plus years ago, but like, he built up a library. And he did all the things that I talked about in the book, right? He built up a library, he learned his voice, he gathered data, he learned what worked, he found his high performing topics. And then he took, if I if I remember correctly, he took one of his columns that had performed really well. And that became his first book. And then like, once he made that leap, like now now because he’s gotten to that stratosphere. Now he can spend six months on 10 episodes. But if you’re like a new person, you’re like my first podcast, I’m gonna spend a year putting the other 10 episodes and that’s it. I think you’re just you’re destined for failure, because it doesn’t work that way. Yeah.

Michael Simmons 9:40

Well, okay. I this is a good conversation. I think there’s a few other things. One is, I think, you know, the average person isn’t a very good writer, hasn’t done a lot of research. And so I think if they if you jump into writing content, you’re also going to be visible Well versus So okay, I take a step back, I view it as almost an algorithm of quantity times improvement. And quantity is one way to get improvement. So you get a feedback loop every time, you can see the number of views and the comments. Even though I haven’t read as many articles, one thing I’ve had, I’ve tested over 4000 titles, I’ve looked at it, okay. Title testing is really big thing and understanding what makes things go viral. And so rather than just doing trial and error and seeing what works, I can get in reps by actually creating the title, I can even target an audience, I could target mediums audience, I could target whoever my audience. And I could get, and I also spent probably 1000 hours studying data on buzzsumo, we get all the data.

Nicolas Cole 10:45

Yeah, so

Michael Simmons 10:47

I that doesn’t address what you were saying about the algorithm. But it addresses the skill part of it, that by really narrowing down on a fundamental skill, like titles, and then testing that I could get 1000s of reps very rapidly and improved from other people’s lessons learned.

Nicolas Cole 11:05

Yeah, we’re saying the same thing for sure, is basically, you know, you have to in some way, create a flywheel for yourself.

Michael Simmons 11:13

And that’s exactly how I think about my writing and my writing career. Ultimately, I think about it as a flywheel. I’m just trying to set things from where I start, how much however much time I had, when I started in my skill set. I’m just trying to set things in motion such that the momentum increases over time. And so I can get more and more of an impact, with less and less time.

Nicolas Cole 11:33

Yes, yeah. And for those that don’t know, so that’s kind of especially in writing and publishing flywheels. Not a very common term. But the term flywheel what what we’re talking about is like, how do you get from idea to creation to feed back to next decision, that whole loop? How do you go through that as quickly as possible and shortening that loop over and over again, the reason why that’s so important, and like I and I think the reason why I almost like overcorrect in talking about it with people is because I find so many writers do not even know how to think in this way. And so what I try and point out is, if you’re like a lot, or a lot of people are very married to this idea of like, I’m going to spend seven years working on my book, write write books, and then my one book is gonna come out. And then I’m gonna just catapult to the stratosphere, and it’s all gonna be over, you know, and like, That’s the dream. That’s what a lot of people are very married to. But what they don’t understand is that you’re basically signing up for a seven year feedback loop flywheel where you only get one piece of data at the end of it,

Michael Simmons 12:51

right? No, yeah, I think. I think one can make errors on both sides. So I think you what you talked about is the biggest one, a blockbuster. That’s the biggest downside of blockbuster, or the risk or the and I think that exists in startups as well. That’s like a company raising $100 million, like building all these factories and systems only to realize that customers don’t want it. And I think on the other side of the spectrum, there’s I think there can be a level of quantity where people are putting out stuff, and they’re not really improving. They’re not even getting enough traction where they even get meaningful feedback. Yeah. And then it just fizzles out. And I’ve had that happen multiple times. You know, I feel like as we’re talking about the best is some combination of feedback loop where your momentum is increasing. And there’s multiple ways to get that. Other factor here, I think is depth. So you think about in the movie industry, you have James Cameron, who is just, it’s hard, it’s going to come out sometime, you know, as originally avatar two is going to come out in like 2012 and 15. Then now it’s 2025. And there’s gonna be four of them. He’s filming at the same time. Yeah, he’s super hardcore on the blockbuster side of things. But I think Apple is very similar, where it’s, it’s doing very few things, but investing so much into it. That’s fundamentally a different thing. Almost. Sometimes, sometimes you can test out an article idea. And you in your book, you talk to an example of Mark Manson. He writes, his one article gets millions of views turns that into a book. It’s one of the top 10 books of the decade nonfiction. Yep. But I’ve also think that sometimes it’s a different thing to take it from the miniature version to the best version. Not you know, let’s say the iPhone prototype. If you just do something where it’s just really, really, too little inside of it, it’s not a good test for the bigger thing.

Nicolas Cole 14:49

Mm hmm.

Unknown Speaker 14:50

So how do you think about that dimension of depth?

Nicolas Cole 14:56

That’s, that is that’s a great question, because I think everyone is going to have their own definition. You know, but I’ve heard a really I was talking with this woman, she’s an executive at a big company. And she, she gave me a great term, which was language for I didn’t realize how I was thinking about it. And she said, whenever she works with startups, she encourages them to think about Minimum Viable repeatability. And so what that means is, you know, especially using startup talking to everyone’s like, how do I build a minimum viable product? Well, I know and mentors that I’ve had have pointed out to, you know, it’s, it’s really not about how do you build the, like you said, the least version of something, it’s how do you build the smallest, you know, most efficient leanest version of something that is good enough to express the true version of what it is you’re trying to grow? Because otherwise, then it gets judged the wrong way. So why I like this idea of minimum viable repeatability is it asks the question like, Okay, if you have a limited number of hours, resources, you know, things that you can research or people that you can collaborate with, what are all the chess pieces on the table? And what is the thing that you can create not just once, but multiple times. And and the reason why that’s so important is because it’s like, again, going back to the volume versus blockbuster model, it’s really not effective. If you go, I have x number of resources, and I’m going to pour all of those resources into creating one thing. And if that one thing works, we’re going to the moon, and if it doesn’t work, we can’t do it again. Right half,

Michael Simmons 16:47

right, right. Yeah. It’s kind of like the risk of ruin of if you go into a casino, and you’re putting all your things on one, and you lose, then you’re out of the game. You can’t play the game anymore.

Nicolas Cole 16:57

Yeah. So that’s why, you know, even if I just think back to when I was first starting writing, like, perfect example, I was working 9 10 hours a day as a copywriter. Yeah, I only had two hours a day for my own writing. I had no resources and no money to pour into, like ad spends, you know, stuff like that. Like I had very fixed number of things that I could use. So the question for me was, how can I use what I have, in a way that I can do something over and over and over again, so that I can build that traction? Whether I’m doing an article a week, or a day or a month or whatever? gets? What is my cadence of repeatability?

Michael Simmons 17:36

Yeah, interesting. Yeah, as you’re talking, and I thought I was thinking about this in the book as well. And I’ve taught a lot of people writing, I think there’s getting to a level where you’re good enough that you can get traction, or you’re close to getting traction. And I think a combination of you be on Quora This is my hypothesis, and you being you went to two different colleges, but studying writing. And you also came from the gaming world where these influencers who are gamers, some of the top gamers create content, and you can see that that has given you and also just the mindset of becoming the leaderboards and improving and you know, that’s that you’re already even though you’re starting on Quora 2014 or so. You’re already a good writer, you’d already taken a lot of the 1000 2000 hours of deliberate practice without realizing it.

Nicolas Cole 18:29

Oh, yeah, I wrote for. I mean, I the first book I wrote was called Confessions of a Teenage Gamer. Yeah, the whole I mean, basically, that whole story was like, Look, I didn’t know I had celiac disease till I was 18. So I was really sick all the time. I gamed because I was depressed and underweight and constantly missing school. And what I would do I mean, you know, just to be blunt about it is I would I be in the bed, I’d sit in the bathroom all day because I was just sick all the time. And I would have my dad’s laptop in there with me and I would just write, I would write in a journal on my dad’s laptop, and and I racked up I seriously like without exaggerating, I think I racked up a couple 1000 hours of practice doing that. So that was my whole adolescence. So I’m I that’s how I got to college. Like, I already had a couple 1000 hours of writing practice under my belt. I already had one of the first big gaming blogs on the internet. Like I was already in the game. Right, right. And then over the years it just became now I’m learning new language for understanding it now I’m now I’m being exposed to the business world. Now I’m working at an ad agency and I’m understanding that side of things like it was, it’s all it Yeah, it’s all just kind of moved in this one direction.

Michael Simmons 19:46

But I wonder for the average person who wants to get into it to be good enough where you can even have momentum and a good flywheel where you feel like you’re getting better people are liking it, and it’s enough momentum that you can justify. Keep going I wonder if that’s getting harder? And it’s probably easier. You think it’s getting easier?

Nicolas Cole 20:06

Yeah, for sure. Cuz you got to remember, man, we didn’t we didn’t have any of these tools 1015 years ago, you know, like when I was when I was a teenager, even when I was, you know, starting this gaming blog, like there, there wasn’t really a mechanism for going viral like that. But I can tell you like, so I’ve seriously, I, I can’t tell you how many emails I’ve gotten from someone who’s like, I took something you said on a podcast, or I read your ebook on Quora or whatever. And I went and applied it. And 30 days later, I just got my first 100,000 views on an answer. I just got a million views on an answer, like, an interesting, it’s, it’s, it’s getting easier. The problem is that people just were talking about writing. And these are all of the writing, publishing, you know, best practices, growth hacks, like we’re in that space, but the reality is that most people don’t gain traction, because of the layer that’s underneath that, which is all rooted in self belief. It’s a it’s a confidence issue. It’s a it’s a, what are people gonna think issue? It’s a has nothing to do with the writing.

Michael Simmons 21:15

Right? Well, number one, I agree that having coached a lot of people from going from not publishing anything to publishing publicly, it’s a really, really big step. And it’s not just one limitation, or that comes up, it’s like a whole bundle of them. So I agree. And if you’re not even in the game, you’re not going to succeed, and most people aren’t even willing to get into the game. The counter side is okay, if you look at the whole bundle of people, you know, buzzsumo had the numbers that I think in 2016, the add the median, content online had eight views or eight shares. And then two years later, is four shares. And so there’s more, there’s more people creating content. So all, all the things that are making it easier to create content, are also creating a lot more competition. So, you know, I just wonder if the people that you mentioned, are outliers, but if you just take it as a larger bundle of people, if that is actually getting harder or easier, I feel like it’s getting easier if you’re good. And you’re considering

Nicolas Cole 22:15

the icon. So that’s a really good point, not a not to, like nitpick here, I can tell we’re both very, like, analytical people, right. But I think the variable that I would want to throw into that is, can we instead of using, you know, as our data source, the like, every page on the internet, let’s, let’s instead examine all of the pages that have to do with people that have been consistent more than the past 30 days. Because my point is, it’s kind of like looking at, like, looking at a video game, is you might have a million accounts. But what if 900,000 of them haven’t been active in the past two years? You know, then then your data is kind of skewed. Right? So I have the, it’s hard because in these conversations, it’s like, it’s very difficult to come up with strategies or rules or best practices that literally apply to like, Hey, you can be a zombie of a human being not ever do anything. And here’s still how you succeed. It doesn’t doesn’t work that way. Yeah. If we’re, if we’re taking people that are like, I’m actively playing the game, I’m actively playing the game, I’m being consistent more than once a month. Now what, then that’s an easier conversation to have.

Michael Simmons 23:31

Yeah, I can see that I can see that’s a really good point. And you know, I should say that about two years ago, I changed my approach where I was only doing blockbuster articles. And that’s all I was doing. But now I do four or five posts per day. And I look at it like a battleship game. Yep. Where you just you’re doing a lot of tests, and you get the benefit of every test. You build followers, you gain skills, but also occasionally you have these posts that take off. And that gives me confidence to invest more time into creating something, something more. Alright, so let’s let’s move on here. So Online Writing is an interesting, really interesting topic. In that it’s really becoming its own thing. I feel there’s all these platforms that are out there. There’s all these mediums that are out there. There’s new business models emerging. And it seems like Silicon Valley is becoming interested in it. You know, a lot of people are feeling like, you could build a following and then launch a makeup line or launch a software product. You could take, you could build a lifelong following whether you use it to build one business, but then you can also use it for other businesses. Elon Musk is a perfect example. We have substack, where you could create your own subscriptions, and so on. So I guess my question for you is, how would you describe where we are right now in the online writing industry, you want to call it that? And then what do you see as the future what are the things about the future that you think you see that other people aren’t really aware of?

Nicolas Cole 24:59

Well, For one, I’d say, you know, Silicon Valley has always been interested in it. If you think about the beginning of the internet, long before there were algorithms, people just wanted to know, how do I publish a webpage? You know that that was 1.0. And that is a form of writing online. Right. And so the interesting thing, and I talked about this, in the first chapter of the book is like, you have to really step back and understand how we got to where we are, you know, and, and one of the big things I try and point out to people is, I find so so many times everyone’s focused on why I want to start a blog. But, you know, the original definition of a blog was, it comes from the term web log, right? And the idea was, I’m just gonna, I’m gonna log like, what I’m doing, it was basically as a way of like, how do I communicate bugs that I’m working on on this site, and, you know, it’s like a different form of a library, that that term, and that mindset doesn’t really apply anymore. And I think more importantly, if you look at your Facebook feed, like, or Twitter feed, or whatever, every time you refresh, you’re not looking at a linear feed. You’re looking at, I’m showing you something that happened 30 seconds ago, and I’m showing you something that happened yesterday. And it’s it’s interspersed, there’s like, there’s a new way of presenting that information. So the idea of writing in a linear way, which I also find a lot of people do, they’re like, I want this post to lead to this post to lead to this post, like, that doesn’t exist anymore.

Michael Simmons 26:31

Right? Right.

Nicolas Cole 26:32

So it’s important to understand these these principles that have changed, so that, you know, if you look at the future, the future of of where I feel like we’re moving is every single thing you right, both has to be able to stand entirely on its own. So if someone randomly comes across one of your however many 100 or however many 1000 articles, they need to be able to read that and not need the context of the other 499 or I write that each post stands alone, each post as a standalone. And at the exact same time, it also has to in some way. Make sense? within the library,

Michael Simmons 27:13

right?

Nicolas Cole 27:14

Yeah. So that way, if someone reads it right, then they then they get curious, and they start poking around. And then they’re like, Okay, cool. I want to read another one. I want to read another one. So when you have these these things in mind, to me, the The future is you have to have both of those at the forefront. And then you have to consider what platforms are in these different stages. I don’t know if you’ve gotten to this part in the book. But yeah,

Michael Simmons 27:37

I have the five different stages of platform

Nicolas Cole 27:39

yet. Yeah, like this is another big thing that people don’t don’t get is all of these platforms are their startups, their companies, right. And so they’re in different life cycles. Sometimes the company is very young. And because they’re growing, and because they’re throwing, you know, they’re, they’re accelerating, they’re putting a bunch of capital behind their growth. If you’re there at that time, you can reap a significant amount of benefit, because you’re kind of in the middle of their windstorm. And so the example I use is, you know, when I started writing on Quora, in 2014 2015, they just raised another big round, they were really trying to accelerate, they wanted their their core users and their power creators to stick around. So what’s gonna get me to stick around, it’s gonna be exposure, if I write something, and it’s like, I just got 10,000 views on it, of course, I’m gonna keep writing there. Yeah. But then a couple years later, when they like kind of achieved their growth, you know, their growth goals, and then they’re like, we’re gonna launch our ad platform, then they start throttling it back. Now, all of a sudden, I’m not getting as much exposure. So this big thing that I that I explained to people is like, it’s not, it’s not like, Hey, here’s the platform, this is it. All you got to do is right here. And now for the rest of your life. You’re good. It’s you have to pay attention to where where these platforms are in their life cycles, and what the next one is, right, right, and then move your library and take full advantage of it. While it’s in that kind of whirlwind of a moment. Yeah,

Michael Simmons 29:15

I agree. Yeah, one of the big mistakes I’ve made in the past was I spent all this time trying to understand which platforms to be on, and I just wasn’t posting enough. I feel like, man, like now. Like, I found this thing. I figured out how it works. It’s working, but then I’m just not fully leveraging it. And so I feel like a corollary there is if you find something, don’t don’t be like it’s gonna be there forever. go all in if there’s something really good.

Nicolas Cole 29:40

Yep. And it and it doesn’t last forever, like, seriously 2015 2016 2017 I was telling everybody, everybody about Quora I was like, This isn’t gonna last. This isn’t gonna last like Come, come get it, get it while it’s hot. And then sure enough, like 2018 you know, they started beta testing their ad platform and by 2019 2020 like It’s still a great platform, it’s still one of the big ones, but it’s nowhere near what it was. And, you know,

Michael Simmons 30:08

you mentioned a few different platforms in your book, you think the ones are gonna stay like Amazon, medium, Quora, LinkedIn, a lot of these are fairly mature, although everyone’s still evolving and testing out new things, you know, and wattpad was one that I, I’ve heard of it, but I haven’t really dumped in jumped in. Yeah, you know, I wonder if there is going to be many new platforms that maybe we’re just at the dawn of social media, there’s a lot of experimentation. But a lot of there’s not going to be as much new platforms, maybe new features on the platforms more than that.

Nicolas Cole 30:38

Yeah, I mean, you know, I talked about this on a different podcast a couple days ago. But medium to me is in a really interesting space in its growth cycle, because it’s raised a ton of money. And it’s raised more than 100 million. And right now, it is the best place to make a living as a writer on the internet, if you’re an independent writer, and you’re

Michael Simmons 31:01

even more than substack,

Nicolas Cole 31:04

I’d say for different reasons. But yeah, I would say even more than substack because it’s right now you’re getting this added benefit, which I think over time substack will probably surpass them in a different way. But like on medium, it has the algorithm has the ability to tap in and you know, reach new people that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise, but their their payouts are, I mean, dude, every month, I get cut a check from medium. That was great. You know, it’s awesome income. And I know a lot of you are comfortable sharing a ballpark range of it.

Michael Simmons 31:36

People know that, okay, if you write every day, and you’re really good, you can get in this ballpark on medium.

Nicolas Cole 31:40

Yeah, if you write every day, I’ve, let’s see 60,000 followers on medium, which like helps, because that adds immediate traffic. And I make probably close to somewhere between like, low range like 60k a year, all the way up to probably like 90 or 100k. a year.

Michael Simmons 32:01

Medium. Yeah, that’s just one of all your platforms.

Nicolas Cole 32:04

Yeah. And that’s, I mean, if you know, that’s anywhere from three grand a month to eight grand a month. And yes, that’s not like, that’s not like money to ignore, right? Like, that’s pretty great. And that’s, they’re also the first platform to really ever do something like that. If you think about what they’re trying to achieve, they’re trying to become the Spotify equivalent of writing opinion pieces. On the internet. It’s like, you get paid on streams, you get paid on, you know, views and engagement on medium. And if they’re successful at that, that’s going to be very powerful. The problem a, I don’t know if they’re profitable yet be they’re paying out writers like, pretty good money, you know, like you’re paying that to one writer, not one person they have, I don’t know what it is 20 million users, whatever. Like, they’re, they’re spending a lot of money doing that. So yeah, they’re, they’re going to be forced, at a certain point, you know, it’s going to be a tipping point where either this is working, and the subscription revenue that they’re getting is more than what they’re paying out, and it all works out. And that’s great. Or they’re going to implode. And they’re going to be like, we can’t keep raising money because this business model isn’t working and whatever, or their pay writers less than less over time after they’ve worked on the Exactly. So this is, you know, the next two years are going to reveal a lot about whether that platform is really going to be what it what it says it’s going to be. So for right now, same thing, I’m telling everybody, like, cash in your chips, make it work, you know, if you’re making money off medium, like great, enjoy it, because it could be more in the future. Could be less. It could be nothing.

Michael Simmons 33:46

Yeah, yeah. And, okay, so we talked a little bit about, okay, what the opportunities are now and you’re bullish on medium? How do you think about for the future? You know, now we’re living in a substack world? You know, we’re seeing, you know, we I just saw a fellowship started by Erik Torenberg for writers. And there’s new monetization channels.

Nicolas Cole 34:09

Yes, sub sub sack I’m also really bullish on because same thing as a larger trend just happening in tech. It’s this whole unbundling of these big platforms. So, you know, if the past decade was about how do we get as many people to this one thing, and then just spray them with ads? You know, that that was that’s been the model for a lot of different industries. Now, it’s starting to become Well, I don’t actually need that many people to make money. If my money is not coming from the ad model. It’s coming from subscription model. Right? And what people don’t understand what that is, like, you know, in order for me to make meaningful income, like when I was writing for ink, I was getting paid per page view that was an ad model. So I need to bring in a million views in order for them to feed out however many ads for me to get paid a penny per view. So after a million views all said and done, I’m left with, you know, I don’t know, five grand, or whatever it is. That’s not a lot based on what I’m driving. And compared

Michael Simmons 35:16

to most people, you’ve hit the lottery, if you’re getting a million views per month, you’re That’s right.

Nicolas Cole 35:20

1% is totally top 1%. If not,

Michael Simmons 35:23

1% 1%?

Nicolas Cole 35:24

Yeah, no. And so it’s just not feasible. But with substack, if I can get 1000 people paying me five bucks a month, like I’m, I quit my full time job, and I’m, I’m just running my sub stack, and I can build on that, and I have more time. And like, that’s, that’s a very powerful conclusion. You know, yeah. The future to me is in your, you’re seeing it with books you’re seeing with articles you’re seeing it with everything is people are moving more and more away from, I don’t actually want or need to sell a million copies, for me to quit my job and be a full time writer. Same thing, I just did a whole Twitter thread about this. If you if you go and do a book deal with a big publisher, even if they give you a six figure advance, you’re getting a 10%, maybe a 15% royalty on that.

Michael Simmons 36:17

And that’s the amount you’re getting paid per hour. Once it’s all said and done. If you’re not happy, it’s probably pretty low.

Nicolas Cole 36:23

Yeah, it’s not that you’re pennies on the dollar. So I think more writers, I’m hoping more writers are starting to wake up to this realization and going, Okay, it’s not about me hitting the lottery, it’s not about me hitting a home run, if I can just hit if I can just get base hits, pretty consistently, and I can maintain ownership. And I can build, you know, my own niche and my own loyal audience. That’s all you need. And all right, making 100 200k a year off not you know, it’s not that much, you don’t need that much to drive that sort of revenue.

Michael Simmons 36:57

And it’s moving from an industry where you almost have to be someone like you who gets like a million views or hits a homerun to even make a living. To now it’s like the, like you’re saying, like the average person could make it. You know, there’s the idea of 1000 true fans. And that’s a the li jin from Andreessen Horowitz has this idea of 100 true fans? I think that’s interesting as well, we have our high ticket program, which is $10,000. And no, I also think there’s gonna be a big opportunity there that’s underestimated that Yeah. Because for most people, like I would say, 95% of people, information isn’t enough. So for example, to go from to start a business or to do something like starting writing, you really have to confront all these fears and internal resistances and procrastination. And so it’s hard to get the mindset stuff from writing. You know, I think, obviously, I think you and I, we started at young age, like reading books, learning from others and on that cycle, but my observation is, is most people aren’t in that.

Nicolas Cole 38:00

Like that phrase, information isn’t enough? Because Because Yeah, you’re right. People do want more. And you bring up a really great point of, I also think, you know, I was just talking, I just had a conversation with Tucker Max about this. I think he falls on one side of the spectrum, which is there’s writers that write to then build some sort of business on top of it. Right, right, you know, and that’s, that’s basically the mission of his whole company was scribe. And that was a big reason why we built digital press in the first place. Like, it’s this whole idea of, don’t think about it as writing, think about it as speaking on the internet. You want people know, what you’re thinking about your insights, your perspectives, how you solve problems. That’s one side of the writing world. And then the other side of the writing world are the people that are like, well, I don’t actually really have an ambition to build a business. I’m not trying to be that type of person. I genuinely want to make money off of the things I write.

Michael Simmons 39:02

Yeah, and this is the side you fall on?

Nicolas Cole 39:05

Well, I’ve been on both, you know, like, I built a seven figure company off of me writing on the internet, you know, so I understand

Michael Simmons 39:15

how you say that you’re talking about your agency.

Nicolas Cole 39:18

Yeah, digital press. We that’s what we did, you know, and, and we took my methods for writing, and we, you know, scaled it by giving it to other executives and founders and saying, here, here’s how you write on the internet, here’s how you do all these things will do it for you. But the other side where you actually want to make money off of people reading your words, selling books, like true, like, I want to make a living as a writer. That’s actually a lot harder. And it’s a lot, it’s a lot more difficult to make that profitable. And so that’s another piece that I can explain to people is like, it’s a lot easier to write. It’s a lot easier to go from, I’m writing on the internet to you. You can hire me as a freelancer. That’s that’s a super short growth curve. Right, right. Versus I’m writing on the internet. And then I put out my first book, then I put out my second book. And I put out my third book. And I put out my fourth book, you know, and like, you don’t know when you’re gonna hit

Michael Simmons 40:16

might take on that second path might take four years or something for the average person. But two hours, 10 years? Yeah, let’s say two hours per day. I mean, you put in more than two hours over time, but the average and you started from not a in 2014, not a lot from a few 1000 hours in. So you think it would take two hours per day? How long do you think it would take for somebody to make a career as a writer,

Nicolas Cole 40:39

I would think less than hours. But I read, I read this interesting study recently where this company, they surveyed, you know, what writers are making more than $100,000 a year off of their writing, like truly off of like book sales and off their writing. And the interesting thing is, I’m trying to remember the exact number. But I think they said, in order to even get close to that, you have to have a minimum of 10 10 titles in your library. 10 books, 10 books. Wow. And again, it goes back to the same thing, right? Like, in terms of your flywheel, it’s just a really unreasonable expectation to say, I’m going to write my first book, never write on anything on the internet, have no marketing vehicle, I’m just going to write this product, and then I’m going to put it up for sale. That’s not just going to magically give you a career. So either way, you’re gonna need to be playing some sort of volume game, it’s just a question of, if you’re going the true, I want to be an author writing path. That’s why I’m kind of pointing out these other things going well, look, you can supplement your income. By writing on medium, you can build a really loyal substack. You can don’t don’t just think of it. Like I’m a writer, and my only source of income is the book that I write. Think of yourself as a media company. And your book or your books are one vehicle one one type of product that you publish.

Michael Simmons 42:14

Yeah, I love that. All right, I’m going to switch gears again. Okay, so when I think about my own self, and Okay, what am I trying to do at a, let’s say, somewhat abstract level, I’m trying to build up a base of ideas. So I spend probably 80% of my writing time actually researching. I’m trying to get better at writing. So once I have an idea, I’m naming it putting out as a tweet as an article as a Blog Post article as a book, hopefully. And then there’s the more in creating courses aspect of it ever mental model, club learning ritual and seminar program. So I’m thinking about a funnels that people really like the writing, they get value from it, they go there. And so I’m thinking about how do I get better at creating funnels? How do I get better at creating transformative programs? No, it’s free four skills idea, production funnel,

Michael Simmons 43:06

And coaching. Yep. And there’s a flywheel that I get better at creating ideas that I can push publish them across multiple platforms, and they get more and more momentum there, which makes it more people go into the funnel, and more people who love the program will then promote the program on its own, and so on. Yeah, no, buy multiple programs. And for you, what how do you view your competitive advantage, or what makes you unique are the flywheel that you’re trying to build go into next five or 10 years.

Nicolas Cole 43:37

My competitive advantage is absolutely, the ability to go from idea to written piece or product very quickly. That that’s what I’ve refined is, speed is definitely an unfair advantage for me. Um, but with that, right, same same thing as you like, I admittedly don’t spend as much time researching in advance, I read a lot. I read a lot. But as you say, just to give people context, I probably read a book every two weeks. I try and I try and read a book a week, but I usually end up getting, you know, spending more time writing, but I try and get through a book every two weeks. And I’m always like, reading interesting essays on the internet. And, you know, yes, yesterday, I was reading an essay penned by Emily, I don’t know how to say her last name, Ratajkowski. The, the, the model and I’ve heard of her about I don’t know her. And she it was an interesting essay about just like intellectual property and you know, models not owning their, you know, basically like themselves and their photos very, really interesting, but I like reading like really diverse things.

Michael Simmons 44:56

Yeah, likewise,

Nicolas Cole 44:58

because it gives you great ideas. But, um, yeah, I’ll say like the next 10 years for me is all everything I did with articles and writing on the internet, I now want to apply to writing books I have of I’m a firm believer that the publishing world is completely upside down. I think it’s ridiculous that when you sell your book to a major publishing house, the deal terms are whatever the advances and then in some cases, 5%, royalties, high end 15% royalties, like it’s nothing. And I’ve heard from pretty much anyone that’s signed a publishing deal, good friends, people I’ve run into at events, all of them have said, I’ll never do it again, through. Yeah, really bad experiences across the board, lots of different publishers, people just saying I had no creative control, people saying, like, they’re just, timelines are completely screwed. And so for me, like, the reason why people go that road, is because of credibility. So every single person says, they’re like, Yeah, but I don’t want to self publish, I want to say I’m a published author. But for me, I mean, first of all, all of the credibility that I’ve earned or gained has all been on the internet. And most of its all just made up stuff anyway, right? Top writer on Quora, like, cool. Most people don’t even know what that badge means. But to me, it was a form of credibility. And then other people adopted it as a form of credibility. Same thing with top 10 writer on ink, you know, like, does that mean something? I don’t know. Yes, no. credibility is subjective, right? No. So my biggest credibility was alright, cool. I’ve racked up 100 million plus views on all my content,

Michael Simmons 46:48

brand, call, keep going, I’m just gonna let the dog out of this room, but I’m listening.

Nicolas Cole 46:54

Let the dog out. And so my my point, though, is, I really think the reason why people don’t even seriously entertain the self published aspect or that road of things is because they think that it’s diminishing, who they are. And then they think that there’s some, like really big, you know, knighting ceremony that happens when Right, right, big publish author? And yeah, like, Okay, I get that side of it. But at the same time, I really believe that look, if you’re, if you had a self published library, and you were making half a million, a million, couple million, 5,000,010 10 million a year off of your own library, because you’ve been at it for 20 years, and you’ve mastered that, and you’re on it, I really don’t think in the long run, someone would be like, you know, what, instead of 10 million a year, I’d rather say I was a published author under a big publishing house. I just don’t believe that anyone would say that. But the reason why I feel like no one’s gotten there is because everyone’s too impatient. And they just, they just want the instant gratification. I wrote my book, I’ll take my 100k advance, or even I’ll take my seven figure advance, I don’t even care, give me a million dollars now. But they don’t do the math and realize that if they had just thought through it a little bit more or just been a little more patient, instead of taking a million now, if that book really was a blockbuster book, they could have made $10 million off that thing.

Michael Simmons 48:34

So you’re, you’re essentially betting on self publishing, and that, using your speed, you can really build up this large body of work over time. So you can publish a book a year book every other year. 10 years from now, Cole has a year

Nicolas Cole 48:49

dude, I’ve done I’ve done four books in the past seven months.

Michael Simmons 48:54

Okay, so we talk 10 years from now your your written 40 books

Nicolas Cole 48:57

a lot, bro. 10 years from now, my goal is 50 plus titles. I’m aiming for 100. And I’m and I’m not trying to sit here and you know, I know the people who are like, Hey, I wrote an ebook on how to train your dog in 20 hours, and then I just threw it up on Amazon with a cover. I did it and you know, Microsoft Paint, you know, I’m not trying to do that. Like, I’m trying to put out quality products but with speed. And I really, really believe that. If you have the patience and the foresight to see what comes with true ownership, then you’re going to it doesn’t take very long to really do the math 10% royalties is not give you a lot like it doesn’t take very long for all of a sudden you just start going okay, I’m making five grand 10 Grand 20 Grand 50 Grand 100 grand a month.

Michael Simmons 49:44

Alright. Okay, so what you’re saying is really interesting to me, like it breaks a lot of the things in my head, which I liked is that always means that there’s opportunity to think differently. So the first thing that that breaks is for me, I get so many of my ideas, unique ideas. From the research I do, otherwise, I feel like I’m like, the things I’m saying aren’t really as much cliche. Although I can see if you’re really good at storytelling and voice, people are just following you for you, in a way. And you’re they like your way of saying the thing they might have already heard. How do you? So given that, you know, how do you make an interesting book four times a year, that gives a new thought? what’s what’s setting it apart in the world where there’s a million books, new books every year?

Nicolas Cole 50:32

Great question. Because Yeah, there’s different, there’s different types of books. And there’s different ways to tell stories or to share information. So for example, right now, I’m co authoring a book with two other guys. They’re the, they’re the geniuses behind it. They’re just, you know, looking, looking for a writer to help them tell the story. But it’s about category creation, it’s a business book, awesome, this book is going to be a bomb, this book is going to blow people away, and it has some incredible research in it. And it is going to like really open people’s minds and be a real truly unique. I have not heard this perspective before. Right? This is a book we’ve been working on for two years. Some projects take longer. Some some projects require that research, they require that time, and especially if you’re doing you know, business books, where it’s like new research has revealed this, you know, those those tend to take longer. Right, right. On the flip side, right, like, the art and business of online writing. I wrote that book in two or three months, edited it for a month. And then how much in life per day

Michael Simmons 51:51

during those two to three months, would you say?

Nicolas Cole 51:54

Anywhere from? I mean, days where, you know, I was just busy doing other stuff, like an hour, all the way to there were a lot of days where I would put in, you know, four or five, six hours

Michael Simmons 52:04

cranking. Okay, so maybe let’s just say three hours for three months, though. Yeah. On average? Yeah.

Nicolas Cole 52:11

Yeah, remember, that’s another that’s a book of like, Okay, this is stuff I’ve been thinking about for 10 years. So a lot easier for me to just to fall out of me. So for whenever I’m, if I’m thinking about this 10 year journey, I have a lot of different projects on different tracks in my mind. Okay,

Michael Simmons 52:30

let me let me pause you there. Okay, so I got it. So one thing is partnering. So if you’re partnering with someone, you’re you, they already have, you know, so much knowledge. And so you’re partnering with your strengths. And other the other step here is areas where you’ve already built up expertise. Like, if you’re writing a book about gaming back in the past, or writing about online writing, you know that in and out, you publish 1000s of articles. So yeah, you don’t need to do a huge amount of research. Yeah, what else do you think about your Do you get to do really high quality and speed at the same time.

Nicolas Cole 53:04

Another one was, you know, like a month or two ago, I put out this book called 19 Tiny Habits That Lead to Huge Results. And this is part of another experiment I’m running. That’s the title of a really high performing article of mine. And that article got, you know, million plus views. And it gave me a lot of feedback on what people wanted to hear about from from me. So part of my experiment has been, I’m going to take these articles with proven titles, and I’m going to turn them into quicker read books, I’m going to take the article that’s going to be the outline for the book, right? Or you got it outline, every main point is a chapter I just expand the point.

Michael Simmons 53:44

So it’s not going to be one of these books. That’s 80,000 words, this might be 20,000 words.

Nicolas Cole 53:49

Yeah, I think this this one was like 40,000, something like that. Okay. Okay. And so and so yeah, same like you had said that book leans very heavily on voice, you you enjoy that book, because you enjoy my writing style, you enjoy the voice that it’s holding, you enjoy the personal stories, it’s a very style based book and style based books are typically easier if you’ve already established your style. If you’re creating a new style that takes a whole lot longer, right right.

Michael Simmons 54:20

But you can almost if you have almost your style is really unique that you can almost write on anything and people will just want to hear your point of view is a secret weapon like that almost.

Nicolas Cole 54:30

Yeah Mark Mark Manson’s you know, Subtle Art of not Giving a Fuck like that. That’s a that is a style book. And they put some other stories in there. But like, it’s, there’s nothing in that that’s like, Oh, this is game changing research. You know, it’s, it’s a style book, you read it because you enjoy his voice. So kind of looking at these different tracks, you know, yeah, co-authoring is one and that those are typically longer projects because you’re working with other people on their timelines. You know, style books that you’ve already you’ve written a ton on the internet, and you already know how your voices and I’ve got, you know, 10 or 20 of those that I’m like, Alright, cool, I can do all these different topics. That’s great. And then I’ve got my memoirs are typically more artistic, more expressive, those take longer, because I that’s more of like an art form to me, you know, it’s not just like, I’m churning those out. Yeah, you know, writing books, like writing books, I know, in and out, like, I’ve got a whole that whole series The art and business of I’ve got a bunch of titles that I want to do under that. So yes, um, it’s, it’s not just, I’m going to pick an idea, turn it out, and then I’m done. It’s what what timeline needs to go with What idea?

Michael Simmons 55:43

Right, interesting. Okay. Really interesting. So one question for you. Related to this is, you know, you’re talking about in your beginning of your writing career, this is you talk about this in your book job with Quora an opportunity to write for ink. And so rather than giving up Corey decided to write for Quora. And and then, you know, now, you know, there’s different publications that you’re active on Twitter, you do medium. And so all these can really add up. And so if you’re doing books, time has to come from somewhere, there can be overlap, where some of the content is reused. But how do you think about making those trade offs? And not only that, there requires a certain amount of credit to jump onto a new platform, there’s a ramping up period, we don’t have any followers, you have to learn how it works. And how do you think about that?

Nicolas Cole 56:31

Yeah, um, I’ll tell you, I’m in that period right now. You know, like, it’s, it’s a really weird feeling. Because I’ve become really accustomed to writing articles on the internet. It’s very easy for me, it’s kind of like I describe it, like I grew up playing classical piano. And I never got to this point. But I imagine the virtuosos are as quickly as they can hear it in their mind. The keys under them just play. Right, right. Improvise, like, I’ve always just been, I’d like wanted to reach that level. But I’ve never gotten there. But that is truly how it is for me with writing, especially writing on the internet. Like, as quickly as I can think it, it’s typed out in front of me. And I’m, I’m just off to the races. And it’s almost like when you get it out of you. It’s like a pretty solid draft that Oh, yeah, I did 99% of the things I’ve published on the internet, I’ve quickly read through once before hitting publish, just how it goes,

Michael Simmons 57:27

Yeah, yeah

Nicolas Cole 57:29

books are very different. And so like you said, the time has to come from somewhere. And so it’s been, it’s been a difficult thing, take me a long time to really kind of confront and myself and be like, okay, no amount of me writing more articles on the internet is gonna get me anywhere. you’ve planned. So how did you?

Michael Simmons 57:48

Yeah, how did you come to that conclusion? Because,

Nicolas Cole 57:53

I mean, in the most basic way, writing on the internet doesn’t make me money. You know, like, I get exposure, and I’ve built a lot of credibility. And all of those things are great, but like, I’ve quite literally racked up 100 million plus views. And I don’t know how many of those I’ve gotten paid on less than 10%. You know, so I think at a certain point, when you’re sitting here and you’re like, I want to, I want to elevate myself, I want to write harder things. And I want to reach a different professional level, you kind of have to admit, okay, well, what I’m doing has gotten me to where I needed to be, it’s gotten me here, but doing that same thing isn’t going to get me to where I want to go. So in confronting that, you know, yeah, I’ll be honest, almost everything I publish on medium is old material. I take stuff I’ve written and I just I republish it there because I had written, you know, 1000 plus answers on Quora before I ever started writing on medium. So I’m just taking over huge fodder.

Michael Simmons 58:57

Yeah,

Nicolas Cole 58:58

yeah, I have a huge library, that’s the big, that’s the big argument that I make for people is if you have a big library, you can just bring it to each new platform, and you don’t have to start over. So while I am auto piloting my medium, and I’m not really writing on Quora, and I don’t write for ink anymore, and, you know, I’m basically ghost writing, you know, I still still have a handful of clients through digital press and go straight through there. And then the rest of my time is spent on books. And it’s gonna take, it’s gonna take a year, two years, three years to really see that flywheel ramp up.

Michael Simmons 59:30

But I love it, you have a little smile on your face, because I feel like number one, you understand how to grind and make it happen and you know, you will and then you just know you love the speed until you just know you’re gonna do it. And it’s gonna happen.

Nicolas Cole 59:42

Yeah, it’s like, you just got to get through that period where you’re, you’re level one and nobody takes you seriously and everybody thinks all your level one or stay level one forever, but like, just wait, just wait.

Michael Simmons 59:54

It’s interesting to see the different approaches and the trade offs because I think what I like about the way You’re doing it is, even though you’re doing a new thing with books, you can still reuse content, you’re building up your core strength. And for me, yeah, I’ve taken the making the decision to do funnels and online courses. And it’s a big, it takes a lot of time to learn how to do funnels and the testing and that world build relationships, and then even to build a transformative course, it takes a lot. So it’s easy to record a course and put it online. But actually, when you actually start talking to students every week, and see how much progress they make, where they’re getting stuck, you realize the typical models for online education are broken, and you just need to have a better model. So that means I write less and things like that. So yeah, interesting. Okay, so for speed, fact, so one, one gains expertise, naturally, one can act faster. I think that’s just part of expertise that once you have the taste, you can do it. Yep. But it seems like yours is whole charge to a whole nother level. So how do you how did you think about building your competitive advantage of speed, that’s different than just Hey, I just do it a lot. Or maybe that’s it, I just force myself to do and I set a timer and do it over time.

Nicolas Cole 1:01:08

I mean, like anything in life, you know, practice makes perfect. So the more the more you do it, the better you get. But, um, but I’ve thought a lot, I’m really obsessed with mastery, the concept of picking something and mastering it. And I, you know, I was doing that as a teenager, I was pro gamer, I went through a phase of bodybuilding. You know, I was a bodybuilder for six years. And I like, I don’t think it’s fair for me to say that I’ve truly mastered that, because it’s not like I was a pro pro bodybuilder. But like, I was, I was doing it, you know, I was eating six meals a day, and I was putting on crazy weight. And now it’s, you know, like I was in that and all of my friends were competitive bodybuilders or power lifters or stuff like that. And so what I’ve noticed in all these different chapters is, there’s these different life cycles you go through, you know, the first is you’re learning the rules of the game, you step in, you don’t really have skill. And if you do, it’s luck, you know, you don’t really know what you’re doing. And your primary goal, which is basically where I’m at now with books is like, what are the rules? How do I play this? What what are my boundaries here? The second phase is, once you learn the rules of the game, you have to start applying them for yourself. You have to be actively practicing, so that you can start to figure out where you need to improve on your own and kind of become aware of what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses, etc. Like, I can already see, one of my weaknesses with with doing all this book publishing on my own is I am so disorganized like files and you know, versions and all this stuff, like it’s driving me nuts. So at a certain point, I either need to get my shit together, or I need to hire someone for this down the road. Like I already know that. Yeah, um, then the reason why you have to go about it yourself is because no one wants to mentor or help someone who isn’t already moving on their own. Everything, right, like everything. So for me, I’m like, I’m gonna be the hardest worker in the room, I’m always I’m gonna set my own pace. That’s great. The third phase is you’ve set your own pace, you’re moving, you’re doing it, you’re naturally going to attract other people who know more than you are know different things than you, and you’re going to spend time with them. And you’re going to soak up their knowledge. And that’s how you then start to really accelerate your learning. And I’ve, I’ve already done that, and ways. You know, like, you know, you know, Craig and yeah, Craig Craig Clemens, one of the best copywriters in the world, you know, like, we just naturally met in LA and hit it off and became great friends. And, you know, he’s given me tons of feedback and insight into how to think about writing. And I like to think that every once in a while, I have something smart to say, too. But yeah, he’s, he’s, he’s brilliant. And he, you know, I’ve learned a lot from him. And I consider him a mentor as much as a friend. You naturally attract people like that, right? And then, and then fourth, fourth step. And fourth phase being once you start to then have all these things, then it’s, it’s just a matter of consistency. It’s your flywheel. I’m learning from other people. I’m integrating it. I’m doing a project I learned repeat, integrating from other people learning that a project repeat. Yeah,

Michael Simmons 1:04:31

I mean, a way what I hear you saying, cuz I, obviously I teach on learning how to learn, I study it. And speed is the speed is a competitive advantage. But it’s almost like the result of you understanding mastery and learning how to learn that you didn’t get the speed. And you have a really good system. You have the mindsets around, you know, you know what it takes to become a master. But most people once they actually learn how much time it requires, then no, yeah, they’re like, I don’t want to do this. But it’s almost like when you get here how much work it takes, you’re like, Alright, I know, I can outwork everyone and people are gonna fall off and I’ll, I’ll keep going.

Nicolas Cole 1:05:09

Yeah, it’s totally man like, I, I still do this, you know, like, when, when I wanted to reward in the world of warcraft when I was a teenager, you know, it’s like I would I order some Chinese food and plant myself down in my computer chair and I wouldn’t get up for 20 hours, you know, I’m gonna sit here and grind this out. And so whenever I’m confronted with something, I think about that a lot. I think like, this was a video game, what would I do? I don’t understand Chinese, I’d order some Chinese. I’d post up and I’d get it done, you know, really, really interesting.

Michael Simmons 1:05:42

Okay, so the speed is really interesting. We talked a little bit about that. And then the other thing that you do, which I don’t do is storytelling, and I started a little bit Forbes doing it, and they really admiring Malcolm Gladwell. And then I kind of realized that I don’t personally enjoy it as much. And then I felt like I didn’t need it as much for things to actually want me to go viral. But now I’m looking back and saying, okay, that’s an area I’d like to develop is the storytelling, especially for book writing. I think it’s important part of me when I go back to to write articles and think about, I’m gonna tell my story. I’m like, Ah, this is boring, or it’s not that interesting, and how you’re not only tell your story, but all your photos of your cover images, are you, which is awesome. So what do you understand that I don’t about storytelling, and even just having the photo of yourself there that is key for people who want to be successful online writing? I know you grew up in Quora. But why is it important other mediums as well?

Nicolas Cole 1:06:44

So this is this is gonna be a very meta concept, but I’m confident that you’ll follow. So back when I was a gamer, we there’s this thing this this has always existed in gaming is people would make what are called PvP videos. And PvP stands for player versus player. And it basically would be you’d run around in the game, and you would record your screen and you would record you fighting other players, you’d capture really great clips, or you would do something flashy or some cool. You take all the clips, you’d put it to some 2000s punk music, and then you’d put it out on the internet and be like, look at how amazing I am.

Michael Simmons 1:07:22

Right, right.

Nicolas Cole 1:07:23

That’s a PvP video.

Michael Simmons 1:07:24

Yeah, my son, but while he plays Minecraft, like four or five hours a day and he has a YouTube channel, so I’m getting a little bit of this from him.

Nicolas Cole 1:07:32

Yeah, so there you go. Okay, so this this was, man, I still have some of these saved on my computer I love there’s so nostalgia. Of like PvP videos are a special thing. But what was amazing about those is, especially when you would watch yourself, play it rewatch the clip that you just recorded, you saw yourself in the third person, saw yourself outside yourself. And gamers, even I remember, like early, you know, to 2009 2010 2011 like gamers were the first ones to really be like, I’m gonna turn myself into a YouTuber, and I’m going to use my character as my avatar. And I’m going to make this cool logo, like gamers really got the idea of quote unquote, personal branding, because they were so used to seeing themselves outside of themselves. I’m in front of you. Yeah. So when I started in 2013 2014, you know, that’s when like, vine and Instagram were blowing up. And you had all these influencer circles starting and all like, immediately, the parallel to me was obvious. It’s like, think of yourself as a character. And you are creating, you know, everything that you make, that’s your PvP video, you know, you’re just expressing who this character is to the world. And that’s the way I’ve always thought about it is even though you still want to be authentic to who you are, you want to express, you know, you as a person, us, you have to also see yourself outside of yourself in question. How does How is this being expressed and received on the other end? Right? Because when, when you take you know, or anyone, anyone takes a selfie and puts it on Instagram, like the reality is like, if you don’t show yourself people don’t see that. Right? They don’t know what you’re doing. They don’t know you, they only see what you show them. Right. So for me, it’s always been this conscious decision making process of like, I want to show and represents who I want, who I want to share with you, you know, same same as any, any influencer, any entertainer, any YouTube or any whatever. And at this end, and simultaneously, I want you to also know who I am and associate my work with me and I want to build that relationship with you and all of those things. So, yeah, they’re all very, like methodical thought out processes. Not like I’m trying to trick people like they’re No, no. I mean

Nicolas Cole 1:10:09

Yeah

Michael Simmons 1:10:10

Yeah, I’ve thought about it a lot, because it’s, the idea of authenticity is a weird idea, because there’s never any way to show all parts of ourselves. So we always have to choose which parts that we want to share with ourselves. And, you know, you don’t want to share parts that are that don’t resonate with other people or, as well. So there’s kind of finding a balance between what parts you share and what parts will resonate with people as well.

Nicolas Cole 1:10:35

But yeah, and to your point with with storytelling is like, just tell your story. You know, like, for me, I i’ve, I bet, you know, you say all Well, my story is boring, or people don’t want to hear my story. Dude, I’ve ghostwritten for so many people. That’s what everybody says. That’s the that’s what everybody says. But when you start talking to them, and you start asking questions, you find you have to know what to listen for. And there’s always these nuances. You know, you’ll you’ll just randomly be like, Well, you know, there’s that one time I took this trip. And I was in this other country, and I was standing there and I saw this, this guy, and it made me think about this. And like, you don’t even realize that you are telling a story. You just don’t think about it that way. Right? Right. And so for me with ghostwriting, that’s what has really trained that in me is I know what to listen for. And I know how to ask questions that get people to start just like going down these rabbit holes.

Michael Simmons 1:11:27

Um, are there any books or worksheets on what those questions are? And what to look for? No, now,

Nicolas Cole 1:11:35

not mean, the idea I should make one. But so yeah, but it’s always good to be honest, up my like, the easiest way to think about it is I feel like anytime you say to yourself, this is boring, nobody’s gonna care about this. That is almost always a neon sign that that’s your inner critic. And that that is something that people will resonate with.

Michael Simmons 1:11:57

Right, interesting. So just letting go via that’s boring. And just moving beyond that as a limiting belief. One question I had to add, as you were talking, I realized a deeper reason. This is more more personal. But I grew up as an only child, my, my mom, my dad died when I was young. So just my mom raising me and she was just a working mom, she commuted an hour each way. So I don’t know, I just remember just being by myself a lot. And at a certain age, I also is awkward socially. So if I were talking to a group, I would really have trouble jumping into the conversation. So I didn’t want to interrupt other people. By the time I thought something to say the conversation moved on. So part of me felt like invisible, and I didn’t want to be invisible. They want to find ways to be invisible. And I feel like at some level, what got baked into me is that if I’m just being myself, I can’t be people won’t see me. And so at some level, I think there’s accomplishments or I do research or things like that. I feel like I have a big idea. That just me by myself is not interesting. How do you

Nicolas Cole 1:13:04

let me let me, let me show you Okay, yeah. So everything you just said, If then we’re working on something, I’d be like, okay, Michael, here’s how it works. When you were a kid, you know, you’re basically saying, I felt really awkward when I was a kid. And you know, my dad died when I was young. I watched my mom work. Two jobs. I was always spending a lot of time by myself. And I always was really afraid to jump into conversations. Because I didn’t want to interrupt someone. I wanted to make sure my ideas were good. This many years later, I’ve learned how to make those ideas good. And I’ve learned that that’s something that you can learn. It’s not something that you’re born with. It’s something that you can practice. I’ve spent the past five years really mastering this process of how do you create great blockbuster ideas? I’m going to show you so that is that’s a article that’s an ad. That’s a sales page. That’s right. That’s everything.

Michael Simmons 1:14:12

Right. And ironically, in sharing this story, I used to share why I’m not good at stories could be a story unto itself. Exactly. And that’s, that’s the whole thing is like, you know, it’s

Nicolas Cole 1:14:23

so funny, man. Like, sometimes I feel like my job’s really easy, because as soon as you ask the question, people tell you like you just said the answer. Right? Right. All I did was say back to you what you said to me, and you see it in a different light, and you’re like, so that’s why, again, what we were talking about a while ago, a lot of it is like we can talk about writing, we can talk about publishing, we can talk about the growth hacks and all that stuff, but the majority of the problem or the things that need to be worked through or what needs to be talked about, it’s all Below that it’s self belief. It’s the way you see yourself, its inner critic. It’s fear of failure. It’s not wanting to be rejected. It’s all that.

Michael Simmons 1:15:10

Thank you, that really lands. And I really feel like it’s so what happens is with the mindset stuff, you have the fear. And then there’s an explanation of it that you come up with, like, for me, I say to myself, well, my story is boring. And then that gets perceived as reality, you know? And then what you did, or there is it just, it could just, I could really see it, taking it from first person to third person I could see, okay, that’s not true. But without that feedback, sometimes it’s easy to get stuck inside that loop.

Nicolas Cole 1:15:43

Exactly, man, and you just, you just got to own it. Like, it’s what is cool about me saying, you know, when I was 17 years old, I was one of the highest ranked World Warcraft players in North America. There’s nothing cool about that. That just has me admitting that I was a massive nerd with no friends, I spent all day in front my computer, but, but by owning it and being like, this is what happened. This is what I was, this is who I am. Here’s my takeaway from that. Do you know how many things I’ve written on the internet? That that is like the first line, when I was 17 years old, I was one of the highest rated World Warcraft players in North America. Here’s what I learned about habits. Here’s what I learned about mindset. Here’s what I learned about teamwork. Here’s what I learned about, you know, and if you go down the list, the everyone has these core narratives, you know, what you just said, as a core narrative, is your life is a big part of who I am.

Michael Simmons 1:16:34

So a deeper idea here is within storytelling, there’s a core narrative about your maybe turning points or different parts. And you can reuse that narrative over and over again, articles or you don’t just use it once, and then it’s done.

Nicolas Cole 1:16:48

Yeah, no, in fact, you have more to gain by using it very, very often. And I, who I I noticed, who kind of introduced me to this way of thinking was Gary Vaynerchuk. I mean, if you go listen to any of his stuff, he says, like the same three core narratives over and over again, you know, and then being like, I built a wine business from I forget what it is x million to y million,

Michael Simmons 1:17:11

3 million, 6 million or something. Which shows I remember that says the camera. heard it so many times. Yeah,

Nicolas Cole 1:17:17

you can exactly you can remember it and then his, you know, he’s like, I’m gonna buy the Jets one day, okay, I love the Jets. That’s, that’s why I’m doing this all for it. Like, he says, Those core narratives over and over again, so that it becomes very easy for people to go, I’ve never heard of Gary Vee, who is he? And all of a sudden, you’ve got three core narratives that you can just spout off and explain about him. So why it’s important to reinforce these over and over again, is then people get to know your story. And that story sticks. And then people use that story to explain who you are. And that’s your word of mouth marketing.

Michael Simmons 1:17:51

Wow, brilliant. So somebody, we’re just getting started with storytelling and telling their own story. You’d have them? Would you have them start with their core narrative as the very first step in the curriculum?

Nicolas Cole 1:18:02

Yeah, you would, you would, usually there’s one or two that are pretty obvious to start with. But you know, they can change over time. You can discover new, more effective ones as you go along, like so every once a while, I’ll write something on the internet with a story I’ve never told before. And maybe that story really sticks. And then I’m like, wow, okay, there’s something there. I’ll lean into that more.

Michael Simmons 1:18:26

And in terms of getting reps on storytelling, I know you mentioned that Quora has plateaued a little bit. But it’s just terms of practicing the skill. Do you feel like would you recommend people just answer for our posts and just everyday try to use those stories to answer it.

Nicolas Cole 1:18:40

Quora is far from dead course still great. And it’s very, like low pressure low, you know, like low barrier to entry, and can give some great data. So yeah, Quora and medium I think are the best. LinkedIn is pretty rare these days. I think it’s great as kind of a republishing platform like you might as well just put it there, too. But you have a LinkedIn newsletter? No, I

Michael Simmons 1:19:05

don’t. That’s the the unlock for for LinkedIn. You know, have you heard of the media LinkedIn newsletter?

Nicolas Cole 1:19:11

Yeah. But to be honest, I don’t know. I haven’t spent much time with it.

Michael Simmons 1:19:15

So how it works is it’s for articles. It’s in a beta. But if you if you if you have the person’s information you can get into it. And then every every time you write at the top of the article is a subscribe button and the name of your newsletter. So, you know, the past few months, I really started being active on it, let’s say in April. And now there’s about 25,000 people in it just from reposting and it’s almost been all reposting old articles there. But now there’s you could just see a steady increase, like the first one I wrote had 3000 now the average was around 10 to 12,000 views. But Wow, I think as you can see it increasing and by about 500 to 1000 subscribers per week.

Nicolas Cole 1:19:54

Okay, sweet. I’m definitely gonna go play with that. So then so right there, you’re pointing out LinkedIn. In beta LinkedIn’s like, we kind of want to make this a thing. So they’re probably accelerating that and pouring more resources into that. Your viewership you’re seeing as a result of it. So that’s a great example. Like, there’s always a new platform or a new feature. Sure, yeah. Yeah, you gotta find them.

Michael Simmons 1:20:18

All right. This was amazing.

Nicolas Cole 1:20:21

I love this. I keep going and going. That’s great. Well,

Michael Simmons 1:20:26

I from our first conversation that we had just a few months ago, I I knew I wanted to talk with you again. And it’s it’s awesome that this got to be the first episode of the podcast, as well. So I hope we can have many more conversations that I’ll follow up with you on a few separate things. But I’m excited about it. Congrats on everything. And thanks, man. onward.

Nicolas Cole 1:20:48

Thanks.

Outro 1:20:50

Thanks for listening to The Michael Simmons Show. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes. If you found value. In today’s episode, we would greatly appreciate a five star rating on your favorite podcast player

 

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