313: The ghostwriter who ate lemons for dinner (with Taylin Simmonds)

Season 3, episode 13 is here!

I recently went live with Taylin John Simmonds to talk about the honest reality of making money as a writer, and afterwards I thought to myself, “Hey, this would make a great podcast episode!”, et voilà!

Taylin’s currently testing ghostwriting on Substack in public, shared his coldest cold email stats, and explained why books might be the worst way to make a living (but still worth doing).

What we covered:

- Why Taylin sent 10,000 cold emails for Substack ghostwriting clients and what happened next (he’s running the entire experiment in public to see if it’s actually viable)

- The credential commoditisation theory he’s been sitting on for six months (spoiler: it’s about why your programmer friends can’t find jobs)

- LinkedIn ghostwriting as the most lucrative platform right now, with clients paying $1,000-$5,000/month, and why Substack might be different

- The Mark Manson approach to writing books: test your chapters as blog posts first, let virality validate your ideas, and only use titles that have already proven themselves

- How to write about whatever you want while still serving your audience - the bridge technique that lets you sneak consciousness development into business content

- Why opening with mundane stories (lawnmowers, coffee steam, chopping onions) connects better than dramatic tales of spirit quests in Peru

- The painful pattern of spending six months building products nobody wants versus testing ideas in public after just a week or two

Make sure to subscribe to Taylin’s publication before you go!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thedavidmcilroy.substack.com/subscribe