This chapter discusses the concept of creating a niche or category for oneself rather than trying to compete in a saturated market. It emphasizes the importance of standing out and offering something unique and different, using the analogy of a party. The chapter also explores the pitfalls of seeking fame and attention and highlights the need for quality content over a large number of followers.
“Writers without niches are starving artists. Because again, they’re just competing in these massive competitions. Writers with niches are category kings.” — Nicolas Cole
Nicolas Cole shares the lessons he’s learned as one of the internet’s most-read writers, including why he’s fascinated with reverse engineering written work—from James Patterson novels to Twitter threads—into templates writers can use, why all great writing changes the reader, why his superpower is his ability to endure boring things for longer than others, and so much more.
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CHAPTERS
- (00:00:00) - Introduction
- (00:07:37) - Service Businesses, Linear vs Infinite Scaling, and Picking a Bag of Problems
- (00:10:02) - Ship 30 for 30 and Finding Your Niche
- (00:17:01) - The Origin Story of Category Pirates and Snow Leopard
- (00:20:13) - Category Creation, Competition, and Being Different vs Better
- (00:28:48) - Content-Free Content and Blinding Glimpses of the Obvious
- (00:35:34) - The Content Pyramid: Levels One, Two, and Three
- (00:49:44) - The Content Pyramid: Level Four (Making Non-Obvious Connections)
- (00:55:32) - Debunking Common Myths About Writing and Category Creation
- (01:04:10) - The Difference Between More Views and More Dollars
- (01:11:37) - What is Category Creation?
- (01:14:27) - How to Create a Category: Weird Problem + Weird Solution
ABOUT THE BOOK
Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One by Category Pirates (Nicolas Cole, Christopher Lochhead, and Eddie Yoon) shares why all legendary writers who stand the test of time create a category of one. In decades past, David Ogilvy, Gary Halbert, Leo Burnett, Gary Bencivenga, Al Ries & Jack Trout, and many more master communicators have all written about the psychology behind how messages spread. Snow Leopard builds on their work with dozens of new insights and frameworks, and brings category creation and design into the digital age.
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