A set of initial cover designs for a book featuring COVID art was not working. To resolve this, a decision was made to personally fund a new cover by using a book advance. This choice was not about having design skills. It was about the willingness to ask uncomfortable questions to ensure the final product was better.

I'll pay for them. You can take it out of my advance. I will pay for a new cover to make this better. And that's exactly what happened. I'm not an illustrator, I'm not a graphic designer. I just asked the uncomfortable question.

Following a gut feeling to push back proved to be the right move. Audience testing later confirmed this intuition. These tests showed that simple changes in the creative process can have a massive impact on the final result. The version chosen through testing outperformed the original options by a significant margin.

Between 1998 and 2002, a small group of about 200 people at PayPal formed one of the most significant talent clusters in modern history. This group included household names like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, along with the future founders of YouTube, Yelp, and LinkedIn. Collectively, the members of this group have a net worth larger than the GDP of New Zealand. The investigation into this period focused on what was in the water during those four years that allowed such a high concentration of success to emerge from a single company.

I just was curious. I just said, wait. This seems to be an important, narrow slice of time in which a bunch of talent is in one place. Kind of like the American founding, or the Renaissance, or Bell Labs. That does not happen by accident. There might be part of it that is accidental, but there is a part of it that is actually cultural.

The experience of publishing the story of these founders highlighted significant flaws in the traditional publishing model. When designing the cover for the book, the publisher initially suggested using only Getty images of the most famous men involved. This approach ignored the many women and less famous contributors who were central to the PayPal story. When the publisher claimed they lacked the budget or photo rights to include these individuals, Jimmy decided to pay for custom illustrations out of his own book advance to ensure the cover was accurate.

To confirm this direction, Jimmy used A/B testing to compare his custom illustrated cover against the concepts provided by the publisher. The results showed that his version performed significantly better. This experience demonstrated that readers appreciate a cover that reflects the diverse reality of the team rather than just a collection of famous faces. These lessons about author agency and data-driven design now serve as the foundation for how Infinite Books approaches the publishing process.

Process improvements can make a huge difference in the final quality of a book. It is often difficult to implement these changes within large systems where such improvements are discouraged. Jimmy notes that the goal at Infinite Books is to ask uncomfortable questions at every stage of production to find ways to do things better. This approach does not require specialized skills like graphic design. It only requires the willingness to challenge the standard way of doing things.

Process improvements can make a huge difference in how a book finishes up. But if you are in a big system where process improvements are frowned upon, it is very hard to do them. I just ask the uncomfortable question.

Many authors face similar frustrations with the traditional publishing process, particularly regarding visual design. One example involves a book that was released with a poor cover. Despite the book's success, the publisher insisted on using the same low quality cover for later versions to speed up the release. It was only after a lot of pushback and a complete redesign that the publisher finally accepted a better version. This highlights a common trend where speed is prioritized over quality in traditional publishing.

They did a cover that was horrible. When the book took off with the bad cover, they immediately wanted a second edition. They used the same cover because they wanted to rush the second one out because it was selling really well.

Book cover design requires a high level of rigor because the way people buy books has changed. In the past, someone in a physical bookstore might spend a minute or two browsing a book. Today, with most sales happening online, a cover has only a few seconds to grab a shopper's attention. Because over 80 percent of books are purchased digitally, a cover must stand out during a quick scroll through an email or an Amazon listing. Jimmy notes that this window is very short and unforgiving.

You have to swallow your pride and understand that you are not the God of cover design. You gotta let the audience understand or give you feedback as to what they're gonna respond to. It might not be what you are gonna respond to, but when it overwhelms, it's just better data.

Jimmy highlights that A/B testing often challenges the intuition of even the most experienced teams. He references Tim Ferriss, who famously tested covers for his first book by putting fake jackets on physical books in stores to see how people reacted. Now, digital tools allow for even faster feedback from hundreds of potential readers. In one case, Jimmy's team preferred an artistic cover for a book called Dispatches from Grief, but every round of testing showed that the audience overwhelmingly preferred a simple selfie. Even if an author decides not to follow the data, having that information is essential for making an informed choice. Traditional publishers could easily copy these methods, and authors should feel empowered to use this data to push for better results.

Being labeled a problem author is actually a badge of honor. The industry only shifts when people push against established norms. One major point of friction is the use of data in design. Editors might be impressed by A/B testing results, but graphic designers often see science as an intrusion into their art. This tension ignores the basic reality that the goal is to sell more books. We should embrace any method that helps achieve that.

The editor I was working with was really impressed, was really happy. Their anxiety came in sending that A/B test to the graphic design department because that was the place where science wasn't welcome among the group of artists.

Testing covers online is natural because it mirrors how people shop on sites like Amazon. It allows publishers to meet the buyer where they are instead of working in a black box. Legacy publishers often struggle with this because they are still oriented toward physical bookstores. They focus on the world of atoms rather than the digital world where we now live. For authors who are not naturally entrepreneurial, this data-driven approach provides a necessary safety net.

Traditional publishers are not failing because of malice or incompetence. They suffer from a time famine. When a company publishes thousands of books a year, it is impossible to invest the necessary energy into every single project. A designer juggling dozens of titles simply does not have the time to run seven different tests for one cover. This creates a cycle where the lack of deep investment leads to lower profits, which then reinforces the need to publish more books at a higher volume.

I think it is actually just that the sheer volume of stuff that a graphic designer has to do in that current system is such that they don't have time to run seven A/B tests on a given cover.

The publishing world is built on prestige. It is centered in New York and revolves around big prizes like the Pulitzer or the National Book Award. This focus on status makes it difficult to innovate or point out when the system is not working. Historically, authors held very little power. They were expected to accept their contracts and work in isolation without questioning the publisher. This model is outdated but still persists in many places.

In prestige businesses, it becomes very hard to say, the emperor has no clothes or you're doing this wrong, or could we try doing it better? It becomes very hard. It's especially hard if you're the author because you are and have been historically the lowest on the totem pole.

Today, the dynamic has changed because authors often have more reach than the publishers themselves. An author might have an email list of 250,000 people or a million followers on social media. Even though they hold this leverage, many authors still do not realize it. Jimmy suggests that authors should be more willing to challenge the status quo and act as problem authors who push for better terms and recognize the options they now have.

Traditional marketing inside publishing houses is often a matter of survival. Marketers are frequently overwhelmed with dozens of releases at once. They naturally focus their limited resources on the few books that received massive advances. This leaves the vast majority of authors to handle their own promotion. By using technology to automate marketing and looking at the business through a different lens, new models can provide authors with significantly higher royalties.

In the current landscape, every author must be an entrepreneur. Traditional publishers often provide far less marketing support than writers expect. Many authors find themselves hiring their own PR agents or coaching others on tasks they assumed the publisher would handle. Even when a book receives the royal treatment, the support is often short lived. The reality is that authors are frequently treated as the lowest part of the totem pole, which makes little sense in a modern context.

The joke is just how little you actually get from a marketing perspective from your publisher. You are not actually supported. It's a little bit of just like, here is what we have got and the best we can do. Meanwhile, you have rockstar marketer authors who are coming in, looking at the system, scratching their heads and going, wait, really? That is it?

The digital age has changed the power dynamic between creators and institutions. Authors now have direct feedback loops through platforms like Substack and social media. They often understand their audience better than the publisher does. Jimmy notes that his team involves authors in every step, such as sharing data from A/B tests for book covers. This transparency helps build a partnership rather than a conflict.

There has to be a fundamental respect for an author's intuition about their audience and for an author's understanding of who their reader is. Because with the digital world being what it is, the author probably has that. Authors come armed with more knowledge than they know or appreciate.

One striking example of the disconnect in traditional publishing involves a book that landed a segment on Oprah. Despite the massive sales potential and the book selling out on Amazon, the publisher refused to print more copies. They had already recovered their advance and decided to move on. This illustrates why Jimmy believes publishing systems must be redesigned to align the interests of the author and the publisher through data sharing and constant communication.

Prestige industries often maintain a sense of mystery and opacity to build narratives that may no longer be true. In the world of authorship, there are more possibilities than ever before. While self-publishing is a robust ecosystem, many people are not built for the heavy lifting it requires. Traditional publishing models take a large percentage of royalties, but they offer essential services like professional editing, marketing, and design. These tasks, including copy editing, fact-checking, and layout, are often too cumbersome and expensive for a single author to manage alone while trying to focus on the writing itself.

Some can do it, but it is hard enough to write the book, let alone publish the book. Which is why we think there is still room for a new publisher because many people want to be guided through this experience.

Modern publishing can also benefit from data-driven experiments like AB testing book titles and subtitles. Every project informs the next, creating a body of knowledge that can be enhanced by AI to make the process more efficient. One experimental approach involves using a writers room, a concept borrowed from Hollywood. Instead of waiting until a five-hundred-page manuscript is finished, bringing a group together in the middle of the project allows for more creative flexibility. Authors are less attached to their work at this stage, so ideas are not yet sacred cows.

You are in the middle of your project and you said, no, let us get everybody together now and I am going to walk you through the plot and everybody poke holes, suggest ideas, suggest examples, say things so that we can make things better.

During these sessions, tools like NotebookLM can play an active role. By generating a conversation about specific chapters, the AI allows a group to hear high points of the plot and react to them without everyone needing to spend twenty hours reading the entire manuscript beforehand. This blend of human collaboration and AI creates a productive environment where feedback is immediate and actionable.

Authors often struggle with blind spots because they are too deep into the world building process. A writer's room model, borrowed from Hollywood, can solve this by bringing a team together to dissect a manuscript. Instead of relying on a single editor, a group spends a half or full day raising every possible objection and brainstorming new ideas. This process highlights conflicts between characters or logical gaps in the setting that the author might have missed.

You are so deep in it, you don't know your own blind spots. You don't know if you've got a conflict with the villain and the hero. Those things got highlighted immediately. But the great thing was I looked at them as pivot points, and we just got so many great ideas out of that.

This approach differs from traditional publishing where one editor champions a book. While that editor and author work as a team, they rarely pull in the entire editorial staff for a deep dive. Gathering a group to focus intensely on the work for a short period creates a different dynamic. It turns feedback into a collaborative event rather than a chore for a busy friend.

The in person aspect is crucial to the success of this model. Digital feedback often feels like a burden. Sending a long manuscript to friends is socially costly because people are busy with their own lives. In a physical room, participants are away from their phones and laptops. They can focus on a specific scene together without the distractions of different time zones or notifications. This creates a high level of engagement that is difficult to replicate online.

Asking a friend to read a 500 page book and give you feedback is socially very costly. People just don't have time. In this case, we were all together in person so that when we were talking about a specific scene, everybody could actually focus on that as opposed to focusing on that scene in a Google Doc from four different countries and 10 different time zones.

While the author still has the final say, the group environment accelerates the development process. It works for both fiction and nonfiction. For authors working independently, building a personal writer's room can provide the same benefits. It turns the isolated act of editing into a fun, high energy experience that improves the final product.

Finding the time to get feedback on a nonfiction book is difficult for most authors. Writing, research, and interviews are taxing. Many authors also balance these tasks with full time jobs. In the past, Jimmy paid professional editors or readers personally because he knew he would not receive that level of critique from his publisher. Now he advocates for a collaborative approach similar to a Hollywood writer's room. This involves gathering smart people in a room to examine a project and identify what works and what does not work.

Ultimately, what's interesting is we are just trying a bunch of tools and techniques to make the product better. It's not like we discovered some secret algorithm. We're just literally like, well, what if we collected a bunch of smart people, stuck them in a room, you were in the middle of your project, and we beat the hell out of the plot and tried to make the plot better.

This commitment to iteration extends to marketing. Many authors are afraid of making mistakes, but mistakes are often portals to better ideas and processes. One successful strategy involved targeted outreach for a biography on Claude Shannon. Since Shannon was a giant in electrical engineering, computer science, and mathematics, Jimmy scraped 14,000 public university email addresses for faculty in those specific fields.

I sent out 14,000 of those emails. Not a single one got a negative response. In fact, I had one that was really funny. One was really funny. Somebody wrote me back and the first line terrified me. This guy writes back, Jimmy, I thought this was spam, but then I read the rest of your note. Dr. Shannon is a hero of mine. Thanks for letting me know. I really, really appreciate it.

The campaign used a short, personalized note and included the book's preface and first chapter as a PDF. Even individuals who initially suspected the email was spam responded positively because the content was highly relevant to their professional interests. This kind of niche, high volume outreach can be more effective than broad, generic marketing campaigns.

Most book marketing follows a spray and pray strategy. Publishers and PR agencies often send the same generic email to everyone on a massive list, regardless of whether the recipient has an interest in the topic. This approach is dying because it tends to annoy people. Instead, Jimmy advocates for hyper targeting. By analyzing patterns of behavior and specific interests, marketers can reach people who will actually value the message. The goal is to move away from being a nuisance and toward creating a sense of delight.

The spray and pray just goes to everybody. And that pisses all of us off. We want people to go, oh, my God, I love this. If you have got like 1% annoyance and 99% delight, we've won. It is very rare to get a good, thoughtful, tailored, customized ask for your time or your attention.

Technology now allows for mass customization at scale. Jimmy explains that his team is building tools to automate this hyper targeting for every book they publish. While some might worry that such automated outreach could feel spammy, the early results suggest the opposite. Open rates and click through rates are significantly higher than industry standards because the content is relevant to the reader. This strategy replaces stale Excel files with a more human approach to communication. It ensures that when a person receives a book recommendation, it is because they are likely to love it.

Authors frequently undervalue smaller podcasts. While some might dismiss a show with only a thousand listeners, gathering that many people for a physical bookstore event is incredibly difficult even for famous writers. Every audience should be treated as sacred. If an author is invited onto a show, they should treat that time with extreme care because the podcaster has invested effort into reading the book and preparing for the interview.

You can find 45 minutes to an hour to do any podcast, and you never know who is listening. It does not mean that you just go hog wild, but it does mean every one of these hits counts.

Traditional publishing often focuses only on mainstream media, but the landscape has shifted. Success now involves identifying the perfect YouTube channel or Substack post for a specific book. Additionally, transparency is often lacking in the old model. Authors should have access to real-time dashboards showing exactly where books are selling. This data allows for immediate action, such as identifying a sales spike in a specific city and following up with local outreach.

The upcoming book by Jimmy, The Dao of Kobe, represents a shift in focus. Even for those who are not sports fans, the book provides a unique perspective on the athlete's mindset. Modern marketing for such a project relies on treating authors with humanity and providing them with the data they need to understand their own reach.

Jimmy faced a significant challenge at the start of the pandemic in New York. With schools closing, he realized that remote learning on an iPad would not work for his young daughter. He decided to take matters into his own hands by building a pod school. He organized a small group of families, hired a teacher, and turned his Brooklyn apartment into a classroom with flexible furniture.

I knew iPad education for my daughter as a kindergartner was never going to work. You got 26 kids on an iPad screen. The teacher's driving themselves crazy. But I knew if we had enough gumption, a little bit of elbow grease, we could probably assemble a pretty good school.

While managing the school and writing his book, Jimmy found inspiration in an unexpected place. He began starting his days by watching videos of Kobe Bryant. Although Jimmy is not an athlete, he found that Kobe's mindset during injury recovery applied perfectly to the difficult process of writing a book. This led him to discover a side of the basketball star that most people ignore.

Kobe was far more than an athlete. He was a deeply creative person who studied Joseph Campbell and journaled for ten years. He even won an Oscar and an Emmy for his work. After retiring from basketball, he launched Granity Studios with the goal of building a creative empire like Disney. He was constantly reading books and writing on planes between games. This intellectual curiosity was sparked early on by a high school writing teacher named Jane.

People think he's a jock. This is a nerd. He was friendly and actually close friends with many of his creative heroes. He actually befriended them as an exercise in understanding what creativity was.

Kobe Bryant was far more than a basketball player. He was a polymath and a super nerd who spoke at intellectual venues like the Aspen Institute and the Milken Institute, places where professional athletes typically do not go. Jimmy discovered a treasure trove of largely ignored appearances where Kobe discussed creativity, business, and art with a depth that transcended sports. This research led to a book titled The Dao of Kobe, which is designed to curate Kobe's assembled wisdom from across many different sources and make it digestible for a wider audience.

People around the world are drawn to Kobe not just for his basketball skills, but for his insights on navigating life's challenges. He viewed creative projects through the unique lens of an elite athlete, yet he often spoke in sophisticated metaphors that bypassed typical sports clichés. He would reference Joseph Campbell in interviews, leaving sports journalists confused, and he possessed the rare ability to conduct interviews in three languages.

One powerful example of his unique perspective is a story about his leadership style. During a walk along the River Seine in Paris, Kobe observed how flowers reacted to the sun and cloud cover. He realized that the sun's presence must be intermittent for the flowers to properly metabolize nutrients.

In that moment, I saw a metaphor for leadership. That season I had been too much like a bright sun, always on my team, never listening to them, never paying attention to what they wanted. I was just always in their face. I was so aggressive and I was badly disliked because I didn't actually understand what they needed. When I saw those flowers, I said my sun has to disappear for a while at different moments, and then it has to come back.

This realization shifted his approach from constant aggression to a more balanced leadership style. He understood that a leader must sometimes step back to allow their team the space to process and grow, rather than being an overwhelming presence at all times.

Kobe Bryant's transition from the basketball court to the creative studio was a deliberate attempt to build a legacy comparable to Walt Disney. Through Granity Studios, he achieved significant early success, including an Oscar and an Emmy. This second act was a serious pursuit of storytelling and creative leadership. He studied Disney's life deeply, aiming to be recognized primarily as a writer and creative rather than a former athlete. Jimmy notes that the book serves as a testament to this genius and provides the principles Kobe never got to fully document himself.

The great challenge in his life was that because any room he walked into, he was this guy who they knew in this one world, he had to often reject partnerships, reject even investment opportunities that might have been lucrative because they didn't see him as a serious person.

Shedding a global identity is a rare and difficult feat. Kobe faced the paradox of fame where doors opened easily because of his basketball career, yet his creative ideas were often treated as vanity projects. He specifically sought out partners who saw him as a creative peer rather than a celebrity endorser. This struggle mirrors the experience of successful authors who find themselves pigeonholed by publishers. Even with a proven track record, individuals are often forced into narrow categories that prevent them from exploring projects outside their established labels.

Jimmy observes a surprising reality in the publishing world: success does not always grant an author creative freedom. Publishers and agents often discourage writers from branching out of their established genres to keep them in their specific lanes. Jimmy shares a story of a bestselling nonfiction author whose memoir was rejected simply because the publisher did not see him as a memoir writer. This type of rejection can be psychologically damaging, often leading authors to abandon projects that might have been successful if given a chance.

Maybe there is limited resources and maybe there is limited time. Whatever the reasons they said no to him, it crushed a part of his creative life. He stuck it in a drawer. He has not revisited it because it is also hard to be an author. It is psychologically really difficult. Something like that can actually lead you, no matter how much success you have, to believe what your agent and publisher said.

Despite the relatively low financial risk involved in printing a book compared to other media like film, the industry has become increasingly risk averse. Jimmy argues that publishers should instead embrace projects from unexpected directions. If an author has proven their talent in one area, their voice deserves serious consideration in another, whether it is a novel or a memoir. Creative potential should not be limited by previous success.

Another major flaw in the traditional model is the brief marketing window. Most publishers focus their efforts on the two or three weeks surrounding a book release. However, external events can easily disrupt a launch. When Jimmy released his book about the founders of PayPal, Russia invaded Ukraine the day before the debut. This global event completely shifted public attention. If he had relied solely on the initial launch window, the book would have lost its momentum immediately.

The idea of a marketing window that is two to three weeks long after a book publication just does not make any sense. If I had only paid attention to the idea that the two or three week window for marketing and publishing is the only thing that matters, I never would have continued marketing my books later. Publishers are in a position where they have to move to the next book. Our view is if we do a book on grief, grief is relevant six months or a year from now.

Instead of viewing a book launch as a one-time event, it should be treated as a continuous process. Books on timeless topics remain relevant long after their release date. By using automation and ongoing effort, authors and publishers can turn a book into a long-term asset that provides value for years rather than a product that ceases to matter if it is not a hit in its first month.

Books have a fascinating history. When the printing press first started, books were novelty items sold by jewelers. They were beautiful objects encrusted with jewels and given as gifts. Today, technology provides an unprecedented opportunity to find creative people all over the world. Many talented writers are overlooked simply because of their geography or background. Now it is possible to find these voices on platforms like Substack and encourage them to create lasting work.

About once to three times a day, I am reaching out to somebody like that where I have just noticed something they are doing. And I think there is a book in what they are doing. And that is the way that you encourage people to create these Gutenberg era projects that still have lasting cultural value is you go find them and you say you can do this.

Jimmy explains that a unique part of their approach involves gut renovating books that the market previously missed. This means buying the rights to books that were marketed poorly, then re-titling and re-editing them to find the gem inside. Traditional publishers usually move on if a book does not succeed in its first two weeks. However, many classics like Slow Horses and Boys in the Boat struggled for a long time before they became hits. By using tools like AI to brainstorm titles and testing them with audiences, it is possible to give these projects a second life.

We are actively looking for things that the market missed when they first debuted, but only because the debut window was like two weeks of focus and then nobody bothered to pay attention after.

Long-term thinking changes how we perceive risk. In investing, people often make poor decisions because they focus on short-term market fluctuations. Their perspective collapses when they see temporary losses. However, if your time horizon is infinite, the market becomes one of the safest places to be. Data from the last century shows that a dollar in the stock market grows significantly more than a dollar in low-risk government bonds. This principle is not just for finance. It also applies to marketing and publishing books.

If your time horizons are infinite, the market goes from being a horribly risky thing to being the least risky thing you could do.

Many publishers face pressure to constantly fill their pipeline with new projects. They often fail to take full advantage of the books they have already released. A better approach is to publish fewer books but invest more in marketing them over a period of years. This strategy requires careful selection and a focus on quality. By providing higher royalty shares and focusing on taste, a publisher can build a portfolio of books that truly shape the culture. It is more valuable to have 200 successful books than 2000 books where only a few are winners.

I would rather have a portfolio of 200 books that are really on fire, that shape a cultural conversation, than 2000 books with a handful of winners.

Jimmy expected heavy skepticism from literary agents regarding his new publishing venture. In the traditional book business, authors find agents who then pitch to established publishers. Jimmy assumed agents would overlook a newer, smaller company. Instead, agents became the most enthusiastic partners. This interest stems from a willingness to entertain unique pitches and a generous royalty structure. The firm offers a 70% royalty split to the author, while the publisher takes 30%.

I would have thought there'd be a lot more skepticism from agents about our business model and about what we're doing. It turns out it's the exact opposite. Agents are coming to us with projects and saying, listen, people are turning this down for stupid reasons. You've got to take a look at this.

The traditional industry often overlooks high quality projects. An agent might pitch a proposal to a small list of contacts, and if those people pass, the project dies. This leaves many finished or near finished works without an audience. Jimmy aims to find these diamonds in the rough that were turned down for poor reasons and polish them for publication.

The publishing industry remains focused on physical books even though most readers have moved to digital formats. Two-thirds of modern readers use ebooks or audiobooks. In some categories, audio sales make up more than half of the total units sold. For Jimmy, audiobooks account for over 50% of his weekly sales. Despite this, audio has long been treated as a secondary part of the business.

Audiobooks for a long time have basically been regarded as the second class citizens of books. That has to change. We just need a revolution in audiobooks because they are the part of the business that time forgot.

There are several ways to improve the audio experience. One method is encouraging authors to narrate their own books. Authors know the correct pronunciations and where to place emotional stress. Another focus is reducing production costs. It can cost up to $10,000 to produce an audiobook, but modern equipment and AI can make it much cheaper. Finally, an audiobook does not have to be a perfect copy of the physical book. There is room to experiment with audio content that differs from the printed text.

Jimmy envisions a future where publishing is defined by the financial success of its creators. Making authors millionaires is a primary goal. This allows them to continue their work. Creativity is a struggle between time and resources. These resources include health, age, and money. When authors have money, they can focus on their specific interests. Writing books should not be a privilege reserved for wealthy people. It should be a sustainable career.

Creativity is ultimately a struggle of time versus resources. Resources can be health, resources can be your age, resources can be money. Money matters in the world of publishing. One North Star for me is, have we made an author a millionaire? Because if we have, they keep getting to be authors. That is the whole point.

Quality must remain the priority. A successful model avoids the trap of traditional publishing where only famous names receive support. Every book should get high quality editing and marketing. This requires a shift in how the business operates. By using a royalty split without an advance, both the publisher and the author must work hard to sell books. This creates a powerful alignment where everyone wins when the book succeeds.

Expanding into international markets is another major goal. The current process for foreign rights is broken. Jimmy believes the reading public is much larger than America alone. Using AI can help publishers reach global audiences. Jimmy encourages authors to be problem authors. These are the people who push their industry to change. People generally have more power than they realize.

Be a bit of a problem author. Actually be the person that pushes your industry to rethink how it has done things. It is only problem authors that get the industry to change. Authors have more power than they do, but people in any line of work generally have more power than they think they have.

Persistent stories that stay with you deserve your attention. If a story bothers you or if you feel annoyed that a certain topic has not been explored, it is a sign that you should create something about it. This could take the form of a book, a documentary, or even a simple email. Jimmy notes that his own books began as stories he simply could not ignore.

I was so annoyed that there wasn't something out there that I was like, I've got to do something about this.

This persistence can last for decades. An idea might start from a small event, like receiving a letter, and grow into a fictional treatment that remains in the back of your mind for thirty years. Even if the interpretation of the story changes over time, the fact that it remains indicates its importance. Taking action on these persistent thoughts is a way to find meaningful work.