Andy Sansness

People read nonfiction to learn and to feel. My framework for ensuring a blog post accomplishes both is to start with a first draft that focuses on "novel" ideas.

A novel idea is one that's not just new to the reader, but also significant and not easily intuited. Think of it as new and worthwhile . I've identified five categories:

• Counter-intuitive —

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• A hundred thousand songs are uploaded daily to streaming platforms.


• In the last year 1.7 million books were self-published.


• 2,500 videos are uploaded to YouTube each minute.


• There are now 3 million podcasts—and 30 million podcast episodes were released last year.


• 86% of youngsters want to grow up to become influencers, and contribute to these

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Today I learned that the East side of most American cities is poorer than the West side because of the Industrial Revolution. Factories produced pollution, and winds in the US tend to move West to East. Wealthy people, wanting to avoid pollution carried by the wind, stayed West.