81–90 of 513 posts
Personally, I see the self-help industry dying because people are starting to realize that it’s just a network of individuals selling products, promoting each other’s products, and creating new avenues to sell more products. I refer to it as the “self-help mafia.” Tim Ferriss kind of created it.
Self-help non-fiction books killed themselves by focusing on entertainment, in the form of amusing anecdotes, rather than substance. Most self-help books could be reduced to a 3-by-5 card without losing any of the core information.
A lot of self-help books fall into this category. But if you go to a publisher and say that you're going to publish a 20-page book, they're going to laugh you out of the room.
Self-help non-fiction books killed themselves by focusing on entertainment, in the form of amusing anecdotes, rather than substance. Most self-help books could be reduced to a 3-by-5 card without losing any of the core information.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dale Carnegie -> Jim Rohn -> Tony Robbins -> [all hacks now]
the man leveraged the fact that his name was the same as Andrew Carnegie (having no relation) to launch a publishing empire. it was hacks from the beginning
https://bsky.app/profile/ifbookspod.bsky.social
It really is all the same book.
> How-to YouTube videos. Why scrub through a 24-minute video to find the 40 seconds you need, when an AI can watch it for you and hand you the steps? Why make a 24-minute Youtube video instead of an article with proper navigation? This is slightly off-topic, but this is a pet-peeve of mine. I believe that for most practical purposes hypertext beats video: - you can Ctrl-F through text (well, now you sort of can searc…
But as understandable as it may be, a clown whose job is to keep people entertained until the ad break can talk about a lot of things, but cannot be something else. This clown talks about math, the other one just rubs the microphone over materials and then says "smash that like button", but they all have the same purpose and can only differentiate themselves by how much engagement they create. The platform is the payload, the content is whatever.
I never understood how anyone could write more than 40 pages of “self help”. Especially not for a general audience. All self help boils down to the very foundation of your worldview, all other advice stems from it.
This stat is limited to print-books only. He talks about all sorts of other forms of content, but seems to mysteriously miss audio books. If this source [0] is true then 65% of audiobooks (in 2022) were non-fiction. Likewise that the audiobook industry has grown by nearly 3x since 2022. So, by my math, it's simply that people prefer to listen to self-help books (which matches my own experience). [0] - https://electro…
> Let that sink in for a minute.
Jesus Christ. Here is how AI relates to me—ooh, with suspense-driving one-sentence paragraphs and reflective commandments. Come on, in Q2 2026 this is still a thing?
The self-involved industry is in shambles.
> What’s actually going on?
Need the meander headlines. I told you what is going on. Now. Let me interpret what I just wrote for you.
It would be just boring if self-help books were down because people believe less in astrology and affirmations or something. Couldn’t write about the Zeitgeist that way.
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I’m not just a cynic. I lived a former life as well. And self-help is something ranging from entertainment to fantasy to small chance of personal transformation. And for books, it’s a cheap hobby compared to one-on-one pscyhology. So would it make sense to replace that with a language soup? Not really. The idiosyncracy is the whole point, jesus.
People might get taken in by it. That doesn’t mean that it will work in the long run.
This stat is limited to print-books only. He talks about all sorts of other forms of content, but seems to mysteriously miss audio books. If this source [0] is true then 65% of audiobooks (in 2022) were non-fiction. Likewise that the audiobook industry has grown by nearly 3x since 2022. So, by my math, it's simply that people prefer to listen to self-help books (which matches my own experience). [0] - https://electro…
> How-to YouTube videos. Why scrub through a 24-minute video to find the 40 seconds you need, when an AI can watch it for you and hand you the steps? Why make a 24-minute Youtube video instead of an article with proper navigation? This is slightly off-topic, but this is a pet-peeve of mine. I believe that for most practical purposes hypertext beats video: - you can Ctrl-F through text (well, now you sort of can searc…