Ryan Holiday Reveals How Much Best Selling Authors Make, Crazy P…
About This Episode
Sam Parr interviews author Ryan Holiday about the surprisingly lucrative economics of the book publishing industry and the business strategies of mega-successful authors. They explore the 'quality vs. quantity' debate in content creation, Holiday's investment in the ghost town Cerro Gordo, and the psychological dangers of entrepreneurial success.
Episode Description
Show Notes
- 03:55- Does the bestseller list still matter?
- 05:30- Breaking down the #s of the publishing industry
- 29:20- How big is your team?
- 35:10- Who do you admire?
- 44:40- The pros and cons of reality distortion fields
- 50:40- Ryan's ghost town
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- Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more.
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- Additional episodes you might enjoy:
- #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits
- #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future
- #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto
- * #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett
- #218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates
- Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More
- How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More
Links
- * Ryan Holiday
- * Trust Me I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator
- * Brass Check
- * The Painted Porch Bookshop
- * Vinyl Me, Please
- * Ghost Town Living
- * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel.
- * Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter.
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Key Takeaways
The 'Paperback Trap': Authors often make 15% royalties on hardcovers but only 12.5% on paperbacks; since paperbacks cost significantly less, an author must sell roughly 30% more copies to earn the same income.
The Bob Dylan Model: High-quality output and high-frequency quantity are not mutually exclusive; producing work at volume is often the most reliable path to discovering a 'breakout' hit or masterpiece.
The 'Manifest Cowboy' Danger: Early success can lead entrepreneurs to believe they can bend all reality to their will, causing them to ignore sound advice and eventually crash their businesses due to ego.