How Scribe is Helping Experts and Entrepreneurs Write, Publish, and Market Their Book.

[00:00:03] Big Question, how can authors and innovators alike leverage technology to get their ideas out of their head and create a lasting impact, get those words on paper? What does the future hold for publishing in an increasingly digital world? Let's find out now. So a big warm welcome to the show. Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do?

[00:00:26] Sure. My name is Eric Jorgensen. I've sort of come out of the startup, the venture-backed startup world. I've always been interested in both tech and entrepreneurship, and that's led me down a whole bunch of different kind of quests through my career, which has been fun. So I've written a few books about tech and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. I've recently taken over a publishing company.

[00:00:50] So I'm now working to help other authors write and publish and market their books. And I'm also an investor in some crazy, futuristic, early-stage deep tech startups. So we can... I don't know. I like to go in any of those directions. I'm very happy to chat about any or all of them. Well, we are recording this at that magical time of year where I think many people will be starting 2025 thinking, this could be the year where I write my book.

[00:01:19] And it's almost a small window before real-life tech's over again and we can put it back until next year. But we'll get to that in a moment. So I'd love to find out more about you to begin with. Can you share your journey to becoming an author and what inspired you to write a book and how that process ultimately shaped you? Because that seems to be the catalyst where it all started. Sure. I mean, I was very lucky to grow up in a house of readers. You know, so we were surrounded by books we always read as a family.

[00:01:50] I've always enjoyed reading and, you know, being early on Twitter turned into kind of doing a lot of blogging, and then blogging turned into writing this book. And the first book I wrote was called The Almanac of Naval Ravikant. And it was really, I didn't so much write it as build it. I just, I'd been following Naval for years and I learned a lot from him.

[00:02:12] And I thought that his, the wisdom that he was sharing on social media and through these interviews that he was doing sort of deserved to be in a book and that readers would be better off for having been exposed to it. And I just believe in the medium of books and their ability to kind of reach people and be this very important, intimate experience that a reader gets to have. And so I set about building a book that I thought that I wanted to read and that I thought my younger self would want to read.

[00:02:39] And to my surprise, we've now had, you know, I think a million and a half copies sold and I've given away another four or five million digitally and, you know, published a second book and I'm working on a third. And I just, I find it so rewarding to work on building something that I know is going to, you know, outlive me and reach so many people and hopefully change some lives.

[00:03:00] And that's one of the reasons I invited you to join me on the podcast today, because I think there are a lot of myths and misconceptions around the world of self-publishing books. It's very widely regarded as it's great for your brand. It will look, make you look like the expert that you are, but you're not going to make no money from that. So as someone that's actually completely busted that myth, because you've sold what? Over a million copies. What lessons did you learn from that whole process though?

[00:03:27] Publishing, marketing and reaching the right audience. I assume there's a few mistakes made along the way, but what did you learn? Of course. Yeah. I mean, I think, um, I do not want to, I want to be very clear that like my experience is an outlier, right? Um, most authors we work with and we publish a few hundred books a year aren't going to sell a million copies. And I never promise anyone that they will, uh, even the people that have a very credible case and write a great book. Very few of them, you know, sell even a hundred thousand copies.

[00:03:56] Uh, but as you point out, you can make, you know, I would say a book does not have to make money to make you money. Yes. So a lot of the authors that we work with may only sell, you know, or give away a thousand copies or 5,000 copies. But if they write a great book that is highlights their experience and really demonstrates their expertise and builds trust with their reader. And they get it into the hands of the right, you know, thousand or 2000 people. And those people become, you know, their customers or their partners or their investors.

[00:04:25] Then it can have life-changing impacts and be this sort of multiplier effect, this tailwind for everything else that you ever do for your entire life. And, you know, you notice that in, um, you know, go to any conference and look at the speaker bios. About half of them have, you know, author in their bio. And I bet it's the first or second thing in that bio. Even if writing a book only took that person one year and they spent 10 years building the company that they're known for. Um, you know, a lot of times people have this perception that, you know, you have to scratch and claw and get to the top of the mountain.

[00:04:53] And, you know, then you write your book in the six months before you die. And there are people who do that, but it's much more common actually to see the person writing the book as the inflection point of people starting to recognize their, them as an expert in their field, invite them onto podcasts, bring them to conferences, put them on stages. They become the person sort of, um, known in that industry or, or for that particular thing. And writing a book is just an incredible way to do that. Still is always has been.

[00:05:22] Um, and self-publishing just really allows authors to have control over how they do it. They don't have to, you know, convince a traditional publisher and an agent and an editor and all of that, that they're the person and then cede control over it. They can really use the book to build the business or build a career in a way that hasn't been possible before. And of course, fast forward to present day, you're currently the CEO at Scribe Media. So what was it that motivated you to take that role?

[00:05:50] And again, how did your experience as an author maybe influence your decision and indeed leadership style? Yeah. I mean, this is, um, a company I have been a customer of, you know, I use Scribe to publish my books and I'm a huge fan of, of what they do. I think, you know, the founders, uh, Tucker Max and Zach Obrant, Tucker is an incredible author in his own right. One of the bestselling authors of all time. And one of the original sort of internet authors, I would say.

[00:06:14] Uh, and he started this company because he kept getting so many phone calls from friends about, you know, struggling with the traditional publishing process or knowing that they weren't a fit for it, but they still wanted a book. And they saw this opportunity and, you know, 10, even more than 10 years ago now, Tucker sort of planted a flag in the ground and said, this is the future of publishing. And I think he was totally correct. I had that experience as an author and, you know, as soon as you write a book, you know, all of your friends and, uh, and plenty of strangers sort of come out at the woodwork and ask for help and advice and recommendations.

[00:06:44] And I just had such a good experience with Scribe. I love the team. I think that they have the right sort of philosophy about the future of publishing and authors having full control, full rights and the full financial upside of their book. Um, so I, I've been a fan of the company for a long time and they went through this kind of turbulent period and I just saw a way to kind of give back to this company that I see saw as being having given me so much. Um, so I, I sort of worked as a volunteer for a while to help them through this, this tough period.

[00:07:13] And it ended up, um, that the new owners of the, the brand, the company hired me to join a CEO. And, um, you know, I try to bring an author's perspective still and keep that focus on the customer and understand, you know, every day when I come in as CEO and work with the team, what I still need and want as an author. And I'm still, you know, working as an author and publishing a book with Scribe as we speak.

[00:07:35] Um, so there is, there is always that, um, you'd be surprised how few people who work in publishing are actually writers and authors themselves. It's a lot of people that want to be sort of near it or want to be associated with it, but didn't actually ever do it. And so I find a lot of times talking to authors or aspiring authors that they get a sense of, uh, calm and peace and just, you know, a no bullshit straight up conversation with somebody who's like actually done the thing that they're trying to do.

[00:08:02] Instead of somebody that just sort of helps a bunch of other people do it or tries to help a bunch of other people do it. And one of the things that is so inspiring for me, I think reviving a company is no small feat. So I've got to ask, I, we make it sound so simple listening to your story here, but what were the biggest challenges that you faced in breathing new life into Scribe media? And how did you approach overcoming some of these challenges and, and taking them to that next level? I mean, no lies. Yeah, it's fucking brutal. It's hard.

[00:08:31] Um, it's hard, you know, financially, it's hard emotionally. Um, there's, there's dark days, you know, and, and you, uh, it's, you understand why, like a lot of people were, were hurt. Um, in these like turbulent, you know, this, the old company went bankrupt and a lot of people, uh, were personally affected by that. And a lot of people were, were even, um, sort of betrayed, felt personally, emotionally, like wounded by the way that it happened.

[00:08:56] The prior leaders really, and there's some, you know, I don't want to get too deep into it here, but there's some real, um, you know, that's a valid feeling. And the prior leaders did some really, um, unconscionable things in my view, but there's a great fundamental business here. And there's a very important idea that needs to stay alive, I think for the future of publishing. Um, so I think, you know, it's a, it's a lot of grit. It's a lot of, uh, being willing to kind of walk through the fire, even when, you know, you've got a long way to go.

[00:09:24] So, but, uh, when you see something that's important in the long-term view and that, you know, is doing good for people on the way, uh, you just got to keep at it. And, you know, I, I remind myself and the team that reputations are, are earned through quality work done well, repetitively over and over again. Um, you can't, you can't wish for that reputation to be better. You can only work for it to be better. Um, and that's what we, we know we need to do.

[00:09:51] And I think, you know, we're now 18 months and, um, well over a hundred books published and a couple hundred more still in the works. Um, and just, you know, waking up every day and being flawless on executing the fundamentals is going to rebuild that reputation, show people what we can do. And, uh, that's how, that's how we'll earn it back. And I think we're, we've made a ton of progress on that now. Um, I think internally the team is like very aligned and the tide is, is, is,

[00:10:18] definitely shifted and turned, uh, you know, the first probably six months, nine months were the hardest. Um, you just got to charge at those hard conversations, have as many of them as you can, uh, take the beatings that people are going to give you. Uh, you know, a lot of, a lot of times there's just buried anger that they need to place somewhere in, in, uh, the person in front of them. And that's, you'll learn to not take that personally and just roll with it. And there's an old saying, plant a tree, have a child and write a book, because these are the things that will live long after you've gone.

[00:10:46] And ultimately benefit others, at least if we do it the right way, of course. And ascribe media, you help busy professionals turn those ideas into great books. And these people are busy and I do a lot of ghostwriting for some of my clients. And I know getting those ideas out of their heads and onto paper, that is often the hardest part. There are so many different ways of doing it. Now a lot of people might dictate it and hand it on to somebody else or dictate it and then get it transcribed.

[00:11:15] There's so many different ways of doing that. But what advice would you give to someone who's maybe already always dreamed of writing that book, but they just don't know where to start? Yeah, I think this is very common. And there's a great unlock or when you realize that almost every, especially busy person that you see publishing a book has a team of experts with them. Yeah. The kind of fantasy of like, oh, I just need a year in a log cabin with a typewriter by myself, you know, smoking a pipe and going for long walks.

[00:11:44] Like that either doesn't happen or happens so vanishingly rarely that it's just not a realistic view. If you're a busy person, as most of the people we work with are actively entrepreneurs, executives, board members, speakers, coaches, consultants, like you got other stuff to do. You don't have a thousand hours to spend at a keyboard this year, you know, staring at a blank page and it's the wrong way to go about it. So, you know, this, this thing I love, this is a Tuckerism that I love to share.

[00:12:13] Uh, there's such thing as writer's block, but there's no such thing as talker's block, you know? And so if you just, you need to put yourself in, if you've struggled to write a book, you've struggled to make progress on this vision that you have, you need to change the context. You need to put yourself into a place where success is inevitable, where someone other than you is sort of pulling the plow every day. And all you need to do is like, wake up and do the task in front of you. You need to answer the question that someone asked you.

[00:12:40] You need to schedule the meeting with, you know, your publishing manager in scribe's case or, you know, your, your scribe, your writer. Um, and we, we have a, like a very well honed process, you know, dozens of processes. In fact, hundreds of individual steps that we know exactly what to do in what order. And you just need to show up and do work that we try to make easy for you.

[00:13:04] You know, if you can have a conversation, which all of those, all entrepreneurs, executives, coaches, speakers, consultants, they have already transformed hundreds of lives. They know that when they get up on a stage or sit across somebody, the table from somebody that they can help that person. They can answer their questions. They can deliver a transformation. It's the exact same thing to do that for a reader. You just need the team, the system to make that easy for you and make it, uh, an exhibition of the skills that you already know you have talking.

[00:13:33] Not trying to learn this whole new skill in this whole new format and this whole new medium, which is writing a book. Um, and once people go through this, you know, I see people get like addicted to it. Like, oh my God, that was, you know, you went from, I haven't started to, I've got a published book with my name on it. That's well-designed. It's well-crafted. I'm holding and handing out to people in 12 months. And they're like, oh my God, I have four more books than me. I have five more books than me. I'm going to do this every two years.

[00:13:57] Like feeling the momentum of having, like lifting the, the burden of writer's block or uncertainty or fear around just going through that whole process. Once, um, you see people's eyes just light up and what they thought they might do once in their life. They now, it becomes part of their routine, part of their business building, part of their marketing, part of their reputation. And it's a really incredible experience to go through. Um, it's, it's just so fun to meet such a, and work with such a wide variety of people and help them achieve the stream.

[00:14:27] And as this is a tech podcast, and I like talking about how technology can help people realize their dreams and unlock value, et cetera. I'm going to ask you a question now, which I'm sure you get asked a lot. It's going to divide the audience straight away, but where do you stand on AI being used in that process? Because I think on one side, people see Amazon filling up with books that are just churning out word salad without an authentic human voice. I don't think that is a good idea. I think we'll both agree on that.

[00:14:54] But for someone such as myself, for example, I've got 3,100 podcast interviews. There's probably enough gold in there for at least one book. Me going through that manually, it's going to take me forever. AI would be great for me. We'll probably have keynote speakers who could do the same thing with their speeches. But where do you stand on the use of AI in creating a book? Yeah, I think it is a great question. It's top of mind for a lot of people in the industry. I think broadly, it will create a lot of mediocrity.

[00:15:24] But the more important effect it will have is to unlock new levels of excellence or to make the currently excellent people more prolific. So I think the example you gave is a fantastic example. There are a lot of things that are unfeasible with manual efforts that become feasible with AI. And a lot of book, I think, types that will emerge. I think it's a great partner, actually. It's a great critique. It helps you brainstorm a lot.

[00:15:54] Come up with new ideas. It's a little counterintuitive compared to the manual effort. But I've got a friend who's articulated this really well on my podcast. Options are now free. And the judgment to choose the options and figure out which is the right one is still human and important. I think the longer the form, as far as directly generating prose for books, I think that's still a struggle. It really still needs to be broken down.

[00:16:22] AI can be pretty good at executing one sentence or one paragraph at a time. But it still takes someone with a very good understanding of the human response and the judgment and the context to thread all the ideas together in a really coherent, compelling, persuasive way. So I think long-term, these things change quickly. But I think it will create – I am hoping at least it creates more work from excellent people.

[00:16:50] It raises the bar for the kind of good and great authors and helps them become excellent. I know it will create a very long tail of crap, but it will also probably help us filter through it. And I think it will help a lot of authors that aren't necessarily like great writers. It will just give leverage to the process kind of throughout. So we are not using it directly on prose in any way that goes into books. I don't think it's quite there yet.

[00:17:19] We're using it for some internal processes and we're using it for some idea generation. But it hasn't taken a huge bite out of the work of writers themselves and the judgment and the expertise that it takes to just know what excellent looks like and how we get there.

[00:17:37] If we were to fast forward, what, five, ten years, do you think we'll ever reach that point where you maybe offer a service where you could take an RSS feed of an author's human-written magazine articles, videos, broadcasts, and then offer a service that would complement that, that would help them get those insights out of the material that they've already written? Yeah, absolutely. I think we already have some kind of internal tools that we're playing with to get started on that.

[00:18:04] I don't think you can reprogram all of the steps to get to an A-plus book from a ton of raw material. But I think you can go from an info dump to outlines, info dump to concepts, info dump to patterns, especially if you have feedback loops, quantitative feedback loops around what...

[00:18:26] If you take your entire Twitter export historically and look at the likes and look at the retweets and look at the comments and see what platforms have engaged with what ideas to different extents and use that to help you sort of prioritize. I think this is, to some extent, manually what the secret behind some of the best-selling books over the last couple of years. There's mine and Morgan Housels and James Clear.

[00:18:51] All of us are internet writers sort of first, and we have this sort of quick feedback loop with our newsletters and Twitter blogs and stuff like that. And then the ideas that are sort of validated as resonant and interesting make it into books, and those books then resonate with a lot of people and get recommended and get referred and continue to grow. So I think your intuition around, hey, there's a lot of information out there. How do we extract signal? How can we collect data that helps AI extract signal? And will AI help us do that?

[00:19:20] I think definitely. I think that last polish to really make it appealing to humans is going to be still a human craft for a long period of time. And that's really ultimately what's going to determine the outcome, right? The book's success exists on a power law outcome, so a very small number are going to be above the threshold that they're going to get a lot of attention and a lot of praise, and a lot of people are going to read them.

[00:19:47] And AI will raise the bar for that considerably. And I don't know if it actually will do more cost-lowering or bar-raising. I think that's a very interesting open question, but it behooves all authors to just understand your goal and what you're optimising for, and that helps you allocate the effort appropriately. And if we were to look beyond that creative process, I think books have gone beyond paper.

[00:20:12] And even e-readers now, I'm a big audible guy myself, so how important is it that the author read or create an audiobook, and how important is it that it's the author's voice rather than a professional voice coach? Anything you're learning around that? Yeah, audiobooks are very, I think, still a little underrated, actually, in particular in a nonfiction context or a business audience.

[00:20:37] There's a lot of people who are sort of falling into, they are one very specific type of book consumer. Some people are Kindle-only, some people are audiobook-only. And if your book doesn't exist in audio, it may as well not exist to some meaningful portion of the audience.

[00:20:53] But in my personal case and what I see amongst some other authors, it's like with a recent sample size, probably 25, in some cases up to maybe like a third of their royalties and unit sales are coming from Audible, which is a lot. That's more than I think people would expect, and it's been growing as a share over the last 10 years. So it's very important, you know, if you're somebody who's trying to optimize for your royalty income.

[00:21:18] It's also very important if you're someone who's trying to just reach a lot of important, in particular, kind of nonfiction business authors. As far as whether you narrate or not yourself as an author, I think that's up for sort of debate. Some people hate the sound of their own voice. Some people are not, you know, gifted speakers or eloquent, or they just hate the idea of, you know, locking themselves in a booth for three days and reading their book three times or having to repeat it.

[00:21:47] And that's okay. You know, that's what professionals are for. There are some people who, and I sort of coach a lot of people through this. If you are trying to build a reputation for credibility and being the expert in the space, in particular, if you're the one delivering the main value of the service you're selling.

[00:22:08] So if you are a high value consultant, if you are coach, if you are a speaker, then I really do encourage people to take the time to record their own audio book because the association is so important, right?

[00:22:22] If they hear you right next to, you know, they see your book next to Atomic Habits and you narrate it and they associate your voice with like the gravitas of this medium and the 10 hours that they spent listening to, you know, you teach them. And then they get on a call with you. There is a little bit of sort of a surreal feel to it. I don't know if surreal is the right word, but it helps build that credibility and it helps build that reputation.

[00:22:52] It helps you build that sort of relationship, you know, so much of what of that, the value that a book can bring is just building trust at scale. And, you know, if someone reads your whole book and really agrees with everything that you put out in there and your philosophy and here's your case studies and how you do business and why you do what you do. And they, you know, appreciated what you put in there. They're going to pick up the phone and call you and hire you. You know, I've seen so many stories, you know, lawyers write a book about their philosophy about trust and estate planning.

[00:23:21] And somebody's got a, you know, fear or problems around that. And so they pick up a book, they read the book and then they say, yep, that checks out. I'm calling this guy and I'm hiring him. Or I am a, one of the books, Paul Franco is an author with us and his business is buying financial planning firms from retiring financial planners. And so they go looking for a solution and like, how have I learned how to do this well? And they find Paul's book and they read about how he transitions people and what he thinks is important. And they say, yep, this is the guy. I trust him.

[00:23:51] I'm going to call him. I'm going to sell my business. And, you know, that's an extremely valuable level of trust to have. And it's hard to build that without five or 10 hours. But how do you do that at scale? You know, you, you write a book, you record an audio book, you put yourself out there in these, you know, these mediums. It can reach people and just have a really high quality, intimate experience with them, frankly, at scale. Yeah, I completely agree with you, especially at a time when people question what they read.

[00:24:19] Having that person's authentic voice tell you confidently every day. And as you said, then you can hop on a call at a later point. Yeah, 100%. And I also firmly believe everyone has got a story to tell. So at Scribe, how do you ensure that your books that you help your customers create connect with the right audience? Whether that audience be in a paper book or e-reader or even audiobook and leave that lasting desired impact on every aspect of the audience. How do you do that?

[00:24:47] Yeah, we've got a pretty well-honed system at this point. And different authors struggle with it to different degrees. But from the very, very beginning, you know, we put authors through a little bit of an exercise, a reflection, and have them put down on paper, you know, a lot of the, a lot of their vision about who their reader is very, very specifically. What transformation, what problems are they having? What transformation do we want them to go through? What behaviors do we want them to change as a result of reading this book? What actions do we want them to take as a result of reading this book?

[00:25:16] There's a very, and there's a wrong answers to that, but it really helps craft the approach to the book and who we're talking to. And one of the advantages of this process and Scribe's approach is, you know, we can target very specific problems that are important to the readers and important to the authors that might not, you know, ever sell 100,000 copies. And that's totally okay. You know, we're not trying to opt, we're not, the traditional publishers are trying to optimize for like the maximum number of hardcover book sales.

[00:25:45] And we are trying to optimize for solving readers problems and helping authors achieve their goals. And starting with that from the very beginning really changes how you think about your book. It changes, it pushes authors to be honest. It pushes them to, you know, envision just writing for one person who desperately wants to hear what you need.

[00:26:06] And that is, it really creates a different level of honesty and intimacy and a sort of tone change, a voice change when you're not trying to write to a big, you know, hypothetical audience that you don't even really know, but you're writing to a very specific single person. So we've got a pretty well-structured exercise for that. And it's one of the more interesting conversations that happens around the book early on.

[00:26:30] And there's a little bit of a creative collaboration that happens between, you know, the writer and the author and hopefully, you know, the readers that we try to represent by having a seat at the table. And a lot of authors feel stuck, you know, back to your earlier question about how to get started because they don't yet have a clear picture of what the book should be. And they don't necessarily realize that like, you know, you don't need to know step eight. Like we do steps one through four are designed to help you answer step eight.

[00:26:56] Right. So if you're working with a good team and a good writer, you don't have to have the answer to everything. You just need to be willing to start engaging with the process and let the answers emerge. You know, these action, action reveals information. And so if you just get started and you start on step one, you start talking to people, you start talking about the book, the book idea, you'll start getting feedback that helps shape it and helps your next step sort of get revealed and get clarified. And that's part of the process. And before you came on the podcast today, I was doing a little research on you.

[00:27:26] And if we look beyond authorship and publishing, I was reading you've also explored utopian investing. Can you tell me a bit more about that concept, how it ties into your work and what opportunities that presents for businesses and individuals too? Yeah, I like, uh, so I, I've done some early stage, you know, precedence seed, uh, venture investing.

[00:27:47] And I think I find it so fun and so rewarding, like almost spiritually rewarding, um, to think about what the future, you know, the far future, you know, not just 20 to 30 years in the future, but maybe a hundred years in the future. These are the timescales of like truly transformative mega cap companies.

[00:28:07] And it feels like living in a sci-fi book when you are meeting authors who are earnestly or sorry, founders who are earnestly working on ideas that will make a huge impact over a period of decades. Right. Um, so I started as an angel investor, just investing in sort of friends companies that I thought were likely to be successful.

[00:28:28] And once I started a fund and started, uh, reading, and I can take you through some of this list, but reading some of these like very optimistic, um, very futuristic looking sort of, uh, technologists. It really inspired me to get, you know, expand my scope and look even further. And so now the sort of summary of who we invest in and what we look for as, you know, our fund invests in obsessive geniuses, building utopian technologies.

[00:28:57] And so, you know, there may be a lot of money to be made in investing in sports gambling companies, but like, I don't actually think that that's particularly good for society. Um, and so our investments have focused on, you know, we've done, um, this, uh, all atomics, which is, uh, building fission micro reactors, uh, at scale to drastically reduce the price of electricity.

[00:29:18] Uh, some novel, uh, battery manufacturing with a new, new battery chemistry that'll increase the energy density of batteries and help us electrify the economy, help us, um, again, reduce energy costs and expand the scope of robotics. Um, robotic prosthetic limbs that'll help people augment bodies when, when they're necessary, um, and improve, improve their health span and lifespan. Um, well, a recent one we did that literally on the face of it sounds insane, but I promise you it's a real thing that's going to happen soon.

[00:29:47] Um, asteroid mining, you know, most people, when they hear that, think that that's 50 years away, maybe more. I actually think we'll see successful asteroid mission, um, mining missions in the next, in the next 10 years. Um, and they'll launch, you know, even sooner than that. And so these are the things, you know, the future is coming as technology accelerates, the future is coming faster and faster. Um, the changes are happening faster and the changes are getting bigger and the frontiers that humanity is, um, working on in every direction sort of, uh, feel a little bit closer.

[00:30:17] That's incredibly exciting and inspiring. And I think there's, uh, you know, we, we have the potential to live through another industrial revolution, you know, another 10 to 100 X change in our. The abundance of the material world, which is a little bit mind bending because most of us, you know, in our lifespans have really only seen advancements in computers and software. But if you think of the hundred year lifespans that came before that, you know, they were, they were born using an outhouse and they saw a man land on the moon. They saw flight.

[00:30:44] They saw imagine living through the electrification of a country and going from, you know, oil lamps to light bulbs and then appliances and then TVs. Um, there are, there are more physical miracles that await us. If we, uh, you get our shit together, get our resources allocated the right way, uh, fund science and engineering properly. And, um, you know, really support some of these, uh, some of these crazy visionaries, which is, you know, I find so rewarding and so fun.

[00:31:13] You had me at asteroid mining. I'm going to be going down that rabbit hole a little bit later. Before I let you go, I always like to give my listeners a little bit of a valuable takeaway. So for anyone listening, who's maybe aspiring to write their own book, what steps should they be taking to maybe just take that first step and begin turning that idea into a reality? And how can scribe media, scribe media support them along the way? Anything you can share around that? Sure.

[00:31:40] Uh, I mean, we would love to have a conversation with you if you're, if you're considering it strongly. Um, you know, you can go to scribe media.com and, uh, click schedule a consult and chat with somebody on our team. You know, we, we work with hundreds of authors to do exactly this. A lot of people come in with nothing more than a vague idea that they might like to have a book. Uh, and we can help you shape that and move forward. Um, there are a ton of free resources that we share, you know, our, our ethos as a company.

[00:32:06] Um, not everyone is in a financial position to make the investment to work with a company like scribe. And I totally understand and appreciate that. That's why we, you know, we've written a book called the scribe method that shares everything that we know and what we teach authors. Um, there's a, a very comprehensive blog. We have a podcast that, um, we share a lot of the stories of authors that we're going through.

[00:32:28] And so I, you know, whether or not you choose to work with us, whether or not you choose to start writing a book today, um, or try to get one out this year, there's something useful for you on scribe media.com. Awesome. What's the name of your podcast? I'll add a link to that as well. Oh, my podcast is called smart friends. Smart friends. Excellent. And one of the things I always say at the end of every podcast is technology works best when it brings people together.

[00:32:56] And when I think about writing a book, I think every single person listening to this has got a story to tell. And what I love about what you're doing is using technology to unlock the world's wisdom. I think your mission statement is we're obsessed with unlocking the world's wisdom. The absolute, uh, living and breathing what I talk about on this podcast. So just thank you for coming on today and sharing your story. Thanks again. Thank you so much for having me. Uh, it's an honor. And I couldn't agree more that, you know, everybody has something to teach something to share.

[00:33:24] I think books are this beautiful, sacred medium. And we are now in a place where, you know, anybody and everybody can do the work to put their books, to put their knowledge, their wisdom in a book and pass it on to the next generation. You know, it's, um, of everything else we do. I think, uh, books have a tendency to live on for so long. It's, it's a miracle that we're still reading books from, you know, 2000 years ago. And that we all as humans can make the effort to make that investment and pass it on to the next generation of our community, our industry, our family.

[00:33:55] Um, it's, it's a very, very rewarding thing to do. It's one of my, it's my favorite thing to do. And now to be able to help other people do it is immensely rewarding. As we wrap up our conversation with Eric today, it's clear that his journey as an author and CEO exemplifies the power of storytelling and innovation and the role of technology in that too. What are your thoughts on the future of book publishing and the role of technology?

[00:34:22] What it plays in unlocking the world's wisdom, getting those ideas out of your head and on paper. I'd love to hear your perspectives. Are you thinking of writing a book? Are you in the middle of doing it? Is something holding you back? Whatever it is, please join the conversation. Email me now tech blog writer outlook.com X Instagram, LinkedIn, just at Neil C Hughes, wherever you hang out. But don't just hit follow. Please send me a quick message. Let me know you listen to the podcast. But that's it.

[00:34:51] I'll return again tomorrow to discuss how storytelling and technology are changing the way we connect and share knowledge. And I've got another cracking guest lined up. Hopefully you'll join me again tomorrow. And I will speak with you all then.