Sublime

the product must be inherently worth sharing—and then on top of that, you must facilitate and encourage the spreading you’d like to see by adding tools and campaigns that enable virality.

In 2008, I came to the realization that while I would one day like to publish a book, unless things changed, I would have no way of actually telling readers about my book. I decided I would build an email list. But what about? I wasn’t important or interesting enough for people to just sign up based on my name alone. So I came up with an idea: What

do we chase short-term attention and validation—whether that’s indulging in the endless search for ideas or simply the distraction of talk and chatter?

a classic of any kind has two characteristics: 1) It’s good, and 2) it has been consumed by a lot of people (relatively, at least). One of the best ways to build a readership, viewership, listenership, user base, or customer base early on is by making it cheap.

One of my clients, Tim Ferriss, spends hundreds of hours rigorously testing everything from his title to his cover ideas to his chapter titles.

Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.