How James Clear is Writing His Next Book

Bestsellers use Notes as a testing ground. They float ideas, gauge interest, and refine their message before investing time in full posts.

"If a Note resonates, it becomes a newsletter post," one writer shared. "If it really resonates, it becomes a pillar post."

Deleting anything smaller than that is about a mix of editing and reader experience design. Throughout the writing process, maintain a separate “cutting room floor” document to paste and preserve all the chapters and sections that you cut from the

On the other hand, I have clients who blog extensively before publishing. They develop their book ideas based on the themes that they naturally gravitate toward but that also get the greatest response from readers (one client sold a book proposal using a screenshot of Google queries to his site). They test the ideas they’re writing about in the boo

As absurd as it sounds, that’s exactly what most authors do with books. They write in secret, piling up a manuscript’s worth of beautiful words and only then start figuring out whether people want it and it works. But by that point, even small changes have become