It's one of the first questions almost every author asks us, often before they've even signed on as a client. Not "how do I run these," since most authors have never opened Meta Ads Manager and have no plans to. The question is simpler and more pointed: Are ads worth it, or are we about to waste money we don't have to spare? It's a fair question, and there are plenty of opinions floating around on both sides. With so many marketing options competing for a limited budget, it's worth figuring...

A few weeks ago, I found myself in an email exchange that I haven't been able to stop thinking about... A friend of mine is an academic, author, and lifelong humanist who has been working with a fellow researcher, a bioethicist, to organize material for a reading guide. They'd been using AI to help capture their conversations and structure their thinking. While doing that work, they stumbled into something bigger: a genuinely uncanny exchange with Claude about its own nature, its own...

This post is for writers — specifically, those of you who have signed with a publisher of any kind. Whether you're with a major imprint, a mid-size independent, or a smaller hybrid press, the dynamics I'm going to describe will feel familiar. The operating models differ, but the core reality is the same. There's a conversation I have with nearly every published author I work with. It goes something like this.... I ask about what your publisher is doing for marketing. You tell me about the...