Hapitalist: Weekly Digest

[DIGEST] Not goodbye, just smell you later.

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 15:36:54 GMT

Hi friends,

Lots of milestones happening at The Author Stack these days. This week marks the end of our serialized book, Magic, which we’ve been syndicating for over a year with over 1.25 million views. That’s wild.

Additionally, I’ve been testing out a daily version of our weekly digest called Authoresque, and I just hired a sponsorship team to help me …

[DIGEST] "What if somebody steals my work?"

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 08 Jun 2024 15:15:45 GMT

Hi friends,

One of the most common questions I get asked by new authors is some version of “How do I protect my work from getting stolen?”

While this assuredly does happen sometimes, in almost every case an author should worry much more about nobody reading your book than somebody stealing it.

This is mainly because people don’t want to steal stuff that …

[DIGEST] Success = intention + time

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 14:42:57 GMT

Hi friends,

If you have intention, you will move forward, taking in that which makes you stronger, shedding that which doesn’t, and moving closer to whatever success means to you.

It is incorrect, or at least not wholly correct, that you can manifest anything you want just by saying it.

However, you can manifest many things you want by speaking with inten…

[DIGEST] Feeding people poisonous ice cream is prolly a bad business decision...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 25 May 2024 15:16:41 GMT

Hi friends,

If you opened an ice cream store, there are rules you must and should follow to have success. There are building codes, employment laws, health codes, and that’s before you get into actually making ice cream.

If you want to make ice cream in your basement for yourself, your family, your friends, that’s a different story.

If you want to sell it…

[DIGEST] Free vs. paid

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 18 May 2024 15:53:44 GMT

Hi friends,

The debate between paid vs. free articles on Substack is also the debate between growth and monetization eating at Silicon Valley.

If you want to grow, then you should make everything free and pay as much as possible to acquire a metric ton of subscribers.

“Eliminate friction points” is what they say in order to maximize your potential audienc…

[DIGEST] The four main stages of Substack growth...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 11 May 2024 15:46:06 GMT

Hi friends,

There are four main stages of Substack growth that I’ve identified during my time here. These are very broad categories, but pretty much every human I know has gone through them at one point, or is currently in one of them.

Figure your publication out. Spend as long as you need to just write whatever, flit around, pretend, explore, get good,…

[DIGEST] My bet...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 04 May 2024 15:56:37 GMT

Hi friends,

My bet as a creative has always been pretty simple:

I am not lucky enough to make one thing and make it blow up and become massively successful. I am good enough, though, to make many different things and have a few of them make a splash based on the sheer volume of my material alone.

I know other creatives who have doubled down on one single …

[DIGEST] Do books make money?

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 27 Apr 2024 15:19:37 GMT

Hi friends,

The main publishing story this week is about whether books actually make money…which I can’t believe we are having this debate in 2024. There are a ton of think pieces on both sides, so I’m just pulling them all up here to the top. I had a lovely piece here until yesterday, when everything spiraled out of control and I scrapped it for this f…

[DIGEST] If all else fails, you are not a failure...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 20 Apr 2024 15:26:43 GMT

Hi friends,

I’ve been doing this a long time, and have learned so much, but if I had to boil it down to a top 10 list, these are the most important things that I’ve learned in my life.

Bad luck can tank a career. I have seen it happen many times. They were in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and the universe screwed them unfairly. It's heartbreaking e…

[DIGEST] Home, work, and play

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 13 Apr 2024 15:26:47 GMT

Hi friends,

I don’t talk about craft much, but there is one thing I learned as a screenwriter that I don’t ever see mentioned in writing prose.

If you want to get empathy for your main character, or yourself if you’re writing memoir, then you need to show them in three places.

Home, work, and play.

Three scenes as early in your piece as possible where the…

[DIGEST] Do Substack economics work for most writers?

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 06 Apr 2024 15:06:03 GMT

Do Substack economics work for most writers? No.

I’m very pro Substack, but no, they don’t work for most writers.

The only robust study on this is ’s Substack Income Transparency Project. Out of 174 participants, I counted 17 with income over $20,000 (which is what I would consider the poverty line).

Of those, 6 made over $50,000 and 3 made over $100,000.

T…

[DIGEST] Will you do it, though?

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 30 Mar 2024 15:29:56 GMT

Hi friends,

I feel like I’ve hit a deep nerve last week, so I’m going to tell you the #1 productivity hack when it comes to author growth…

…will you do it, though?

Every single time you see something come along, the #1 way to know if it will help is whether you will do it.

If it’s a perfect stategy you won’t do…then it’s actually terrible.

If it’s awkward a…

[DIGEST] Walking through hummus...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 14:45:11 GMT

Hi friends,

I’ve been feeling pretty good the last couple of weeks, living on the high of the Future of Publishing Mastermind and launching Writer MBA Con. Then, a series of professional and personal setbacks kept slowing me down until I now feel stuck in my tracks. I don’t feel like I’m going backward, and I am still much further than I thought I would…

[DIGEST] Pure, unadulterated joy

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 15:07:17 GMT

Hi friends,

People asked me the best part of The Future of Publishing Mastermind, and easily it was the moments of pure joy that came over everyone around 11 am on the first day.

I was inside the camera lens and literally saw the tension break and everyone started having these joyous outbursts everywhere.

It happened near the second round of our first bre…

[DIGEST] The Future of Publishing...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 16:50:13 GMT

Hi friends,

I’ve had a week to recover and gather my thoughts about The Future of Publishing Mastermind, and the only thing I know for sure right now is that my head is still spinning. I kept looking at , Mel Jolly, and Tawdra Kandle (our founding team) during the event and saying “I can’t believe we manifested this out of nothing”.

I know manifesting i…

[DIGEST] NOLA...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 02 Mar 2024 14:15:12 GMT

Hi friends,

This week is the culmination of something we’ve been working on for over a year. and I launched our first in-person conference, The Future of Publishing Mastermind in New Orleans back in February of 2023, and it unfolded live this past week.

I’ve exhibited at almost 200 shows during my career and spoken at over 100. Monica’s also done a ton…

[DIGEST] Gaslighting yourself...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 24 Feb 2024 16:06:43 GMT

Hi friends,

I was talking to somebody last week who was very stressed about their very stressful job.

They kept trying to play down their stress. Eventually, I asked them why they were trying to gaslight themselves.

The truth was their job was very stressful. They had stepped into a new role at a new company and tasked them with building a whole departmen…

[DIGEST] Cyborgs vs scabs

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 17 Feb 2024 16:41:07 GMT

Hi friends,

With our Future of Publishing Mastermind kicking off at the end of the month, I’ve been thinking a lot about AI and specifically our relationship with it.

Talking with a lot of creatives brought me to one overall conclusion.

I am generally pro-AI when it makes you a cyborg and anti-AI when it makes you a scab.

What does that mean?

If you are…

[DIGEST] Wanna hear something wild?

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 16:40:28 GMT

Hi friends,

Wanna hear something wild?

Nobody who meets you after today will know any of the dumb stuff you did before today. They will read your bio, accept the good things, not check the stuff you regret, and experience your brand as if you knew what you were doing all along.

I have been a USA Today bestselling author for years. It only happened once, a…

[DIGEST] Dog day afternoons...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 03 Feb 2024 16:14:13 GMT

Hi friends,

Our youngest dog, Cocoa, will almost never choose to come hang out with you, but over the last few months we’ve noticed that if he is lying somewhere and we go to him, whether by the window or on the bed, he is at worst grudgingly accepting of it and at best very excited to have us there.

This is very exciting because Cocoa is a very aloof p…

[DIGEST] Would it be so bad if the world owed us something?

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 16:04:24 GMT

Hi friends,

I grew up believing the world owed us nothing, but the older I get the more I think that’s not true. The universe might not give us anything, but being given and being owed are two different things. I have friends who have owed me money for years but have never given it back to me.

Lack of repayment even after decades does not cancel out tho…

[DIGEST] Night terrors...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 16:33:27 GMT

I forgot how horrifying night terrors were until Monday night, when I spent a lovely several hours gasping for air and freaking the heck out as I dozed in and out of sleep, trying to break its hold on me. Honestly, I could have gone the whole of my life without remembering that feeling. I’ve been chronically ill since my 20s, and while I often feel terr…

[DIGEST] 600...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 13 Jan 2024 15:58:33 GMT

Hi friends,

This week the paid archive hit 600 posts. I’ve uploaded over 400 new articles, interviews, and courses there since the beginning of the year. It was super fun going through my whole computer and pulling new material that I hadn’t thought about for a long time. Since the beginning of the year I have added:

RESOURCES:

Create Profitable Facebook…

[DIGEST] I never asked for a whole new year...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 06 Jan 2024 16:31:17 GMT

Hi friends,

Well, it finally happened. 2024 has been threatening for months. I didn’t believe it at first, but now, in the heart of it, I have to accept this is a new year. Does anyone else remember having to write checks and messing them up for months before you got the year right? Or am I alone in my willful refusal to accept a new year?

I want to stat…

[DIGEST] Dead week...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 16:07:22 GMT

Hi friends,

I learned a new term this week for the time between Christmas and New Years…Dead Week. It sounds like a very campy horror movie, but I love the sentiment of embracing the nothing of this week to devolve into a slug and become mud.

I do not rest by resting. I rest by fidgeting with stuff, and that’s what I have been doing all week. I tested ou…

[DIGEST] It's Christmas Tim...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 23 Dec 2023 16:26:09 GMT

Hi friends,

It’s almost time for Christmas, which means I get a chance to talk about one of my favorite holiday characters, Christmas Tim. Oh, you don’t know Christmas Tim? I’m not surprised. While most children are told stories of Santa, Rudolph, Mrs. Claus, and even Santa Elf, nobody pays any mind to ole Christmas Tim.

And that’s just the way Tim likes…

[DIGEST] Home alone...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 16 Dec 2023 16:21:06 GMT

Hi friends,

This week Karen was gone for work, so I was at home alone from Wednesday afternoon until this morning. What’s fun about my chronic conditions is that my heart rate is wildly high and inconsistently so, but there is one constant. In general, the only time my heart rate is under control and I’m calm is when my wife is around.

I know she has a c…

[DIGEST] Couch potato...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 09 Dec 2023 16:07:26 GMT

Hi friends,

Last weekend I went on an impromptu overnight trip to Palm Springs to attend a friend’s tree trimming at their new house. Okay, it wasn’t really new, but they bought it during the pandemic so it was new to me.

I love Palm Springs in the winter. For as hellish as it is during the summer, it’s just as green, verdant, and lovely in the winter. W…

[DIGEST] The "off" season...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 02 Dec 2023 16:13:37 GMT

Hi friends,

I take December “off” every year, so I’ve been scrambling to spend all the money and do all the final things I need to do to make that happen. I’ll still be writing here, because I consider this a necessary part of relaxation. Many people relax by doing nothing, but I relax by fiddling with things. I noodle with a thing here, I futz with a th…

[DIGEST] Happy Ke$hagivings...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 25 Nov 2023 16:54:34 GMT

This year I went from zero Kesha experiences to three. First, I went to the activation where she screened her whole album before release. Then, we met Kesha when she came to a signing in Long Beach. Last week, we saw Kesha at the Hollywood Palladium, and it was amazing. This has truly been the year of Kesha.

We got VIP tickets that overlooked the whole …

[DIGEST] Catchup and catnaps...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 18 Nov 2023 16:47:18 GMT

If last week was a wrecking ball of excitement and experiences, this week was all about catching up from all the things that happened last week, and trying to get ahead a little bit before the holidays. I’ve been talking with a lot of amazing writers about writing for my publication, and I locked down a couple of awesome ones at 20books.

This week we ha…

[DIGEST] 20books

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 11 Nov 2023 17:23:56 GMT

This was one of the biggest weeks of the year in the self-publishing world, where close to 2,000 authors gather in Vegas for what will be the last 20books before it gets rebranded next year as Author Nation.

I’ve met with the organizers of the new conference and the stuff they have planned is very, very exciting.

WriterMBA has leveled up a lot since las…

[DIGEST] Gimme some candy

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 04 Nov 2023 15:14:17 GMT

In the least surprising news of the week, I like Halloween. No, I don’t eat many sweets, and no I don’t like dressing up, and no, I don’t particularly enjoy random people coming to my house, but there’s something about those three things in concert with each other that I do like. Maybe it’s the fact that everyone agrees for one night that you can be wei…

[DIGEST] Golden time in The Golden City

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 28 Oct 2023 15:20:22 GMT

Did you know that San Fransisco was nicknamed The Golden City? I didn’t, and I’ve lived in California longer than anywhere else in my life. It makes The Golden Gate Bridge’s name make more sense since it’s clearly red. I knew California was The Golden State, but not San Fransisco’s nickname.

More than just being a fun party fact, I learned that because …

[DIGEST] Tattoos that cure the blues...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 21 Oct 2023 15:40:13 GMT

When you’re feeling blue, get a tattoo. I love that little old time diddy…

…wait…that’s not a thing? I just made it up? Well, I still like it, so just cut me some slack, okay? Existence is futile.

Anyway, so I got a tattoo last Friday, and it’s a really special one to me because it represents my favorite series, The Obsidian Spindle Saga. That is the hea…

[DIGEST] At one with nature...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 14 Oct 2023 15:39:55 GMT

This week has been all about taking stuff off my to-do list. A couple of months ago I made a bunch of promises that came due in the last two weeks, right when I was trying to recover from NINC. Combined with being in pretty much constant launch mode since May, I’m spent. I get a couple of weeks of light work, combined with a trip to Oakland to see frien…

[DIGEST] Fair Faire Fare...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 15:23:11 GMT

After spending the week recovering from NINC, what better way to celebrate than to do another show? Last Sunday, I was at OC Kid’s Book Festival talking about our book Cthulhu is Hard to Spell.

It was super fun, but I didn’t quite realize that kids were kiiiiiiiiiiiiiids. Like, picture book kids, not early reader kids. We have books for early readers, b…

[DIGEST] Recovery...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 15:08:19 GMT

This week has been all about recovery. I got home from NINC on Monday night, and have been taking it as easy as I am able. I had a great time talking to so many of you down in Tampa, and the one thing that kept coming up was that you felt overwhelmed by having to do all the things.

This is very relatable. Monica and I often feel the need to do all the t…

[DIGEST] Ninc...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 23 Sep 2023 12:53:20 GMT

I’m at NINC this week, talking about Author Ecosystems and the Future of Publishing Mastermind. I have basically back to back to back meetings all week, but it’s been a blast.

I’ve been trying to become a member of NINC for 7 years. Even though I’ve been a seven-figure author since 2017, because I mostly work in comics, and selling on Kickstarter and co…

[DIGEST] Wizarding...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 16 Sep 2023 16:23:14 GMT

For the first time in several months, I don’t have any pictures of far-off places or cute dogs to share. If you are just joining us, then you probably don’t know what to do with this information, and neither do I. As I’m preparing for NINC next week, I’ve been running headlong into a million meetings, which prevented me from doing anything else. We have…

[DIGEST] This was 40...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 09 Sep 2023 14:58:07 GMT

This past Thursday was my 41st birthday. I usually take a minute to reflect on the previous year, but I find it impossible to even conceive of how much has happened in the past 12 months. Some of my greatest achievements have happened during that time…and many of my biggest disappointments, too.

I founded this Substack, cofounded a conference, cofounded…

[DIGEST] Song 2...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 02 Sep 2023 15:11:19 GMT

Woo-hoo, this week has been a blur. My head feels like heavy metal and I’ve been on pins and needles waiting for September to start.

For the six people reading this who remember the 1997 hit “Song 2” from Blur, that was for you.

Literally, whenever I hear the word blur, that song runs through my head. If you were born after 1990, you probably have no ide…

[DIGEST] Woof so hard...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 26 Aug 2023 15:35:58 GMT

We’re done with my safari. If you want to see a roundup of everything I learned and saw during my trip, read about it here.

I didn’t think I would have any pictures to share with you this week, but then my brother-in-law asked us to petsit his very photogenic dog, Wolfie, and now I have a billion pictures of him hanging out. These aren’t the best pictur…

[DIGEST] The long way home...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 19 Aug 2023 15:13:04 GMT

This is it. We’re on our way home this week, and my safari is over. What should I talk about next week? I have no idea.

Our final stop was Grumeti in the northwest of the country, where we took a night safari and saw a lion feed with her cubs. The first picture below is the only time on the whole safari that I was truly terrified. It all ended up okay i…

[DIGEST] The Great Migration...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 12 Aug 2023 15:26:07 GMT

We’re nearing the end of my safari. If you haven’t had a chance to check out my whole rundown with loads of pictures, then make sure to do that before it goes behind the paywall.

We’re staying in the Serengeti this week, where we took a balloon ride, hung out with all sorts of animals, and tracked The Great Migration. Every year over a million wildebeest…

[DIGEST] Big cats and endless plains...

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 05 Aug 2023 15:45:01 GMT

We’re been talking about my safari for a month and are just now finally getting to the Serengeti. In Maasai, Serengeti means endless plains, and I found that an apt description of it. You could drive forever and see very little, or you could drive for an hour and see two bucket list items within an hour of getting into the park.

We had both experiences,…

[DIGEST] Maasai guys (and women and nbs, too)

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 15:06:05 GMT

I’ve been reading Life and National Geographic since I was a kid, and I remember being transfixed by photos of the Maasai from the first time I saw them in a magazine. I used to be a professional photographer, and my specific love is portrait/fashion photography. So, when we had a chance to visit a Maasai village, I was so frigging excited. I also have …

[DIGEST] Lyin' eyes lionize lion eyes

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 22 Jul 2023 16:07:53 GMT

We’re staying in Ngorogoro this week, but focusing on just one of the big cats…the female lion. I thought we might see one or two lions, but we got so many lions in so many situations it was bonkers. We saw two lions sleeping in the middle of the street, lions sharing a meal with their cubs, and even lions using our SUVs to hunt zebra. It was so many li…

[DIGEST] Hi Ena, hyena

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 15 Jul 2023 16:03:02 GMT

Who’s Ena? No idea. I just like how it sounds. Say Hi ena, hyena five times fast and fall slowly into a state of madness with me, won’t you?

No? That’s probably for the best, actually. Still, did you know hyenas would slaughter whole herds of zebras just for fun if they had their druthers? Big cats (save for leopards who hunt for the lolz) mostly kill a …

[DIGEST] It's elephant time

Russell Nohelty — Sat, 08 Jul 2023 15:37:02 GMT

I’m still keyed up from people lighting off fireworks in my neighborhood for 48 straight hours, but I’m able to keep my sanity by looking at all the elephants we hung out with at Tarangire National Park. Look at these amazing buddies.

If you want to share how you are doing this week, then there are two ways to interact with this post.

1 - If you don’t wa…