How He Sold 4 Million Books | with Morgan Housel | How I Write Podcast | Author: Psychology of Money

In this episode, you’ll learn how Morgan Housel captivates millions of readers with his writing. We cover topics like selfish writing; ruthless self-editing; writing with brevity; and making dry ideas come alive on the page.

TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 Intro
00:00:50 How Morgan's writing has changed
00:03:00 Career
00:05:30 Storytelling
00:09:00 Reading
00:11:40 Admiration
00:18:45 Tools
00:20:45 Writing good history
00:23:00 Mantras
00:28:00 Second book
00:29:00 Writing environment
00:32:00 Walking
00:35:00 Business Model
00:36:00 Business of Speaking and Writing Books
00:42:00 Experimenting
00:43:45 Audiobooks
00:45:30 End Notes
00:47:30 Reading interviews
00:48:00 Selfish writing
00:54:00 "Same As Ever"
00:56:50 Ken Burns
01:00:00 Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet
01:04:00 Quitting and criticism
01:06:00 Improving
01:09:30 Chapter titles
01:20:00 Editing process
01:26:30 Epiphanies
01:31:00 Love of sentences
01:32:30 Aphorisms
01:39:50 Writing conclusions
01:45:00 Brevity
01:54:30 Feedback
01:59:11 What moves the needle

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ABOUT THE HOST:
I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible.

How I Write is a podcast by Write of Passage // Production by Adam Soccolich

[DavidPerellChannel]

Morgan Housel has written 4, 000 blog posts and sold 4 million copies of The Psychology of Money.

As a writer, he's the best storyteller I know too.

Here are his principles for writing:

1. Leave out the parts that readers tend to skip.

2. Writing is an efficiency game. Whoever says the most stuff in the fewest words wins.

3. You have five seconds to catch somebody's attention on the Internet. If you didn't catch them with the headline or in the first two sentences, they're gone.

4. If you're stuck on a piece, go for a walk.

5. If an idea comes to you while you're out walking, email it to yourself immediately.

6. People don’t remember books; they remember sentences.

7. A good story is like leverage for ideas. An idea on its own might be boring, but if you tell a good story about someone interacting with that idea, you can get people to nod their heads and pay attention.

8. Great writing begins with great reading.

9. If you want to write better and more memorable sentences, ask yourself: "If somebody was reading this on Kindle, would they highlight this sentence?" If the answer is no, consider removing it.

10. Everyone should write. Why? Because everyone is full of ideas they’re not aware of. This means they’re also unaware of the value of their ideas, and this value can only be unlocked via writing.

11. Start with one brave sentence and see where it goes.

12. Big words mask little thoughts. They’re an attempt to fool the reader into thinking you’re smart when you have nothing smart to say.

13. Writing for others is work, and it shows. Writing for yourself is fun, and it shows.

14. Morgan calls this Selfish Writing: write to solve your own problems, and the audience will get pulled in because of your emotional involvement. But if you pander to the audience, they will sense your lingering indifference, and leave.

15. The Power Law of Success: if you do 30 things, 29 of them are going to be irrelevant. One of them will completely change everything. Keep writing—volume is your friend.

16. Most books, even by proven authors, are flops. Mark Twain wrote 28 novels. You haven't heard of most of them, but that doesn't matter because he wrote two classics: "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

17. Mark Twain used to read aloud to his family and watch their reactions. If he saw them getting bored, he’d cut that part out. If he saw them getting excited, he’d double down on that section.

18. Success takes time. Don’t rush it. Morgan spent 14 years as a professional writer before he published his first book. In that time, he wrote more than 4, 000 blog posts.

19. Morgan tells the story of two trees. One grows in the shade of a mother tree, growing slowly because the sunlight is cut off. The other, planted in a field with no barrier, receives full sunlight and grows faster. But the first one develops denser wood due to the slower rate of growth. There’s a natural growth rate in nature, and in creative pursuits.

20. Make your writing concise.

21. Concise does not mean short. It means a high density of value to words.

Okay, one more... Out of all our conversations, one interaction stands out because it so eloquently captures the essence of his approach. When I asked about his marketing strategy for selling books, he said: "Write a good book."

"Well, how do you do that?"

"Only write things that you personally find interesting."

[TreyVanCamp]

This is my new favorite podcast. As a pastor and author, this is GOLD.

[angelosleventis]

Hindsight is the new word in my vocabulary 😅 great content, so many golden nuggets.

[mariuslangeland]

What a great conversation full of gems!

[dawnfmEnthusiast]

I like the themeatic nature of your podcast. The fact that it's focused on writing gives it structure, in juxtaposition to other podcasts that are just interview shows.

[gabikoyenov]

What a great conversation! Full of value and very entertaining! Thank you ❤

[Daniel.Constantin]

Loves this episode. Resonates like a ton with the way I feel and think about reading and writing (thought I am not a writer). Highly appreciated 🙏

[gustavbrinkel]

I like the bit where they talk about writing.

[paulgherlit]

David, you should have Jon Acuff on. I bet you're going to have a great conversation!