Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins

0:01 so I've been getting bombarded with these ads

0:04 on YouTube lately all the hustle culture passive income work

0:08 from your garage goulash of multi-level marketing investment scams

0:13 cryptocurrency and business Guru nonsense you know the stuff

0:20 here outside my garage just bought this new Lamborghini

0:24 want to know the best way of making a big

0:27 income online it's making a lot of small incomes

0:30 online I'm here within 400 feet of an elementary

0:33 school to prove the haters wrong and to tell

0:36 you about an unmissable business opportunity if you

0:39 give me your money I will use my magic

0:42 powers to guarantee 500 apy but there was one

0:48 in particular that's under my skin that's got

0:50 my undies in a bunch because I and a friend

0:53 kept getting it and that's for these goddamn Mickelson

0:56 twins the new best way to make money online

0:59 that nobody's talking about is something you've never heard

1:01 of before it's using audibles I've been getting paid

1:05 a thousand dollars a month if not more just

1:08 from this app on my phone and I don't know if you can see this but it's called

1:11 audible these guys are part of the class of online

1:14 parasite we'll be calling entrepreneurs a mix of con

1:19 artist and entrepreneur the kind of thought fluencing bootstrapper

1:23 who shows you his Lambo before he shows

1:25 you his bookshelf to Prime you for a pitch on how he can teach you how to be

1:29 the best small business Hustler you could be if only

1:31 you can put yourself into the right grind set

1:34 the phrase that we're going to be hearing a lot

1:36 as we cover the subject is passive income that's

1:39 the thing that's being promised a source of income

1:41 that requires little or no active upkeep in order

1:44 to maintain like dividends residuals and royalties you put

1:48 in a couple thousand hours writing a book

1:50 or making a movie and then once it's out there

1:53 you keep making money as long as people keep

1:55 buying it and getting people to buy it is

1:58 someone else's job the concept in and of itself

2:01 is not fraudulent it is in fact a pretty sweet

2:04 deal and that's why we should support Universal

2:06 basic income as a political policy but passive income

2:10 in a rhetorical context becomes a red flag because

2:14 of how it's deployed as a very effective lure into fraudulent

2:18 businesses entrepreneurs are a dime a dozen there's mountains

2:24 of these people out there because as we'll explore

2:27 it's pretty cheap and it's reasonably legal we'll get

2:31 into more detail later but as opposed to an outright

2:35 fraud where you sell something that doesn't exist

2:37 or is deeply misrepresented the trick of the entrepreneur is

2:41 to convince you to massively overpay for something

2:45 with already extremely nebulous value advice now if we evaluate

2:51 the Griff by its own logical mechanisms this is

2:53 a sound strategy like let's set aside morality

2:57 or ethics and just evaluate it as a business

2:59 advice costs very little to manufacture requires no raw materials

3:04 weighs nothing and is evaluated in hindsight so

3:08 you have very low production costs on one hand

3:11 and a heavily obfuscated value proposition where you get

3:15 to collect payment for a product long before a naive

3:17 buyer could ever realize the value and on the ethical

3:21 slash legal side as long as the advice

3:24 you produce isn't constructed about right lies and falsehoods

3:27 you've not explicitly conned anyone shallow advice packaging common widely

3:32 known broadly available ineffective or out of date information

3:35 is still real advice so who's to say what

3:41 it's actually worth me I'm the one who gets

3:44 to decide what it's worth I've got a certificate

3:46 from the Brad Defoe presidential Academy that says so

3:51 [Music] thank you styling themselves as burnouts turned publishing

4:00 gurus these Dollar General winklevi are the villain

4:03 of today's video but I do really want to stress

4:06 that these guys are not the end boss

4:08 by any metric they're not particularly successful they're not big

4:13 names in the business they're only notorious in one

4:16 niche of the internet and they're not just clones

4:18 of each other but of thousands of other similar

4:20 Hustlers I want to talk about them not because

4:23 they specifically need to be stopped though they do

4:26 need to be stopped that's they should stop but because

4:30 they are of a type they are a representative

4:33 sample of a category of grift and also because

4:36 they're kind of incompetent and that makes them entertaining

4:40 like they're just a little too honest about the nature

4:43 of the scam well they do utilize a lot

4:45 of the standard smoke screen vocabulary and Hard Sell

4:48 tactics they are also often extremely straightforward with how

4:52 bad the whole scheme is which goes to the nature

4:55 of their grift they promise to train you how

4:58 to become a grifter the Mickelson twins are Christian

5:10 and the other one God I never remember

5:15 his name Christian is the point man in their relationship

5:19 he's the one who does all the Talking in their videos he's the one who does all

5:22 the talking on their podcast and he's the one

5:24 whose name is on all of the spam emails Rasmus

5:28 his name is Rasmus they're twins I don't even

5:31 know if I blurred the right one for this joke

5:33 in their personal mythology they were underachieving burnouts

5:37 drifting through Community College and working part-time at various

5:40 low-paying jobs like receptionist and takeout delivery driver while

5:43 smoking the weed every day anyway we only lasted

5:47 about four months there because we couldn't stand it

5:50 I find it funny how we didn't have the balls

5:54 to quit or tell our parents so we just

5:57 stopped showing up one day good times not we

6:01 spent the next three months smoking pot every single

6:05 day what percent of the stories they tell about

6:08 themselves are actually true is definitely questionable they do

6:12 not espouse reliability as narrators and are openly willing

6:17 to just make stuff up I feel like you're wondering if you can do this too I tell

6:24 Charlotte she nods her head one sec I take

6:27 the backpack off my shoulders lay it on the ground

6:30 and unzip it I reach my hand in and take

6:33 out a mint condition copy of the freedom

6:35 shortcut by the Mickelson twins take this it'll

6:40 tell you everything the only part of that story

6:43 that isn't true is when I pulled out a copy

6:46 of this book and handed it to Charlotte although

6:49 if this book had existed at that time that's

6:52 definitely what would have happened that said it's also

6:56 kind and not worth parsing in any meaningful detail

6:59 they're not noteworthy enough to Merit an intense background

7:03 check and even their obvious Fabrications are pretty low

7:06 rent and unambitious who cares if they hand out

7:10 copies of their book like business cards how else

7:14 are they going to get rid of them like they

7:16 have a whole thing about turning their life around

7:18 in community college and busting ass to get straight

7:20 A's but also admit that all the courses they

7:23 took were low stakes filler if not outright attendance

7:26 based and then they complained that they didn't actually

7:28 learn anything at college but you know It's gotta

7:32 be at least a little bit above board since

7:34 they were featured in well-respected business Focus Magazine Forbes wait

7:39 sorry there's a footnote featured in a Forbes contributor

7:42 post written by Celine DeCosta a hustle culture Guru

7:45 who sells online courses on brand narrative building Forbes

7:48 contributors are unpaid opinion bloggers with functionally no editorial

7:52 oversight and seeing as to how DeCosta is herself

7:55 a hustle Guru with a specialty in building narrative

7:57 and here she's writing an article building brand narrative

8:00 for these guys on a platform that has the adjacency

8:04 to editorial Prestige I don't want to accuse anyone

8:07 of anything I'm not saying there's impropriety at play

8:10 here but those facts placed adjacent to each other

8:13 might suggest to an observer that there may maybe

8:18 be the silhouette of impropriety that the possibility exists

8:22 that this may or may not have actually been

8:25 a paid promotional piece for the purpose of search

8:27 engine optimization and legitimization right so there's a couple

8:34 different layers to the scheme that they've got going

8:38 so I built this grift map to help us through it get it perfect get it beautiful

8:47 at the top are the Mickelson twins they're running what

8:51 we'll call grift a grift a is a guru

8:55 Workshop book seminar series private Facebook group where the twins

8:59 promise that they will teach you how to unlock

9:01 passive income this is ultimately a pretty straightforward Workshop

9:05 grift and in this layer we can find all

9:08 the things that you would expect when you visit

9:10 the website there's a fake countdown timer and the assertion

9:13 that space is limited the workshop is implied

9:16 to be live with meaningful time slots but the presentation

9:19 itself is of course pre-recorded and Slots are

9:22 available 24 hours a day Christian references things that just

9:26 happened like a certain number of slots filling up

9:28 despite the fact that it's pre-recorded and thus

9:31 that thing obviously didn't just happen okay guys do we

9:35 have a deal there's a chat function on your screen

9:38 please go into the chat and type deal

9:40 if we have a deal if you promise that you stick around to the end and just hear

9:43 what this is all about all caps spam all

9:46 right amazing thank you so much you have to hurry

9:49 and lock in your spot as soon as I

9:51 reveal the button to join it's all high pressure

9:54 sales tactics upselling a subscription service predictable to the point

9:58 that I would call this a grift regardless

10:00 of what their product actually was and that's where

10:03 it gets interesting because what they're selling is grift

10:07 B grift B is called Made For You audio

10:11 books done for you audiobooks done for you audio

10:14 books now a done for you audiobook or dfy for short is an audiobook that you own

10:21 and makes you money but is written and narrated

10:24 by someone else so I want to be super clear

10:26 on this we call these done for you audiobooks

10:29 because all the work is done for you so

10:32 with these you do not need to narrate anything

10:35 yourself you do not need to write anything yourself you

10:38 do not need to design any cover yourself you

10:41 do next to nothing when it comes to actually

10:43 creating your you're done for you audiobook the idea

10:46 is that you scour Amazon and Audible for trending

10:49 topics specifically non-fiction topics with very low standards

10:53 of evidence or ones favored by people who are hostile

10:56 towards science pick a couple that you can smash

10:58 together into a one sentence summary hire a Ghostwriter

11:02 to turn that sentence into a short book

11:04 hire a voice actor to turn that short book

11:06 into a three-hour audio book then hire the cheapest graphic

11:10 designer you can find to make a cover and spam

11:13 the resulting package on every ebook and audiobook platform

11:15 you can get access to for example you might

11:18 see that keto dieting and self-hypnosis are trending both

11:21 subjects with dubious real world value and extremely low

11:25 standards of evidence where you can say basically

11:28 anything you want and decide to combine the two

11:30 into a single book offloading the effort of that nonsense

11:33 task onto someone else and then aggressively spamming the resulting

11:37 product on every platform available and that is

11:40 in and of itself a grift the seminar series

11:43 their trying to sell you is it self-teaching you

11:47 to become a grifter whose product is low quality exploitative

11:51 spam and then of course grift B feeds back

11:54 into grift a because the highest performers get recruited

11:57 as coaches and the expectation is that you utilize

12:01 their private Facebook groups to review trade in order

12:03 to maximize the visibility of your spam they don't

12:06 outright call this review trading but they do tell

12:09 you to do all the individual steps that constitute

12:13 review trading the next bonus you're getting is free access

12:16 to the private AIA audiobook reviews group you

12:19 go in you make a post like this saying that you have a new audiobook on Audible

12:24 and that you want to do some code swaps and leave

12:26 it on as a review on each other's

12:27 audiobook and then what will happen is you'll get

12:30 a bunch of responses from people who are happy

12:32 to leave an honest review on your audiobook and then

12:36 boom now you have a good starting point

12:38 for your reviews and once you have 50 you now

12:43 qualify for the 500 cash bonus okay so this whole

12:47 Arrangement is kind of extremely weird in a whole

12:50 bunch of ways the twins are just barely successful

12:53 enough at this to have a presence that people

12:55 have noticed but they haven't learned how to make

12:58 good use of euphemisms and innuendos well the core

13:01 of it is low effort low quality a lot

13:04 of what they're telling you to do is actually

13:06 violating the terms of service for the platforms

13:09 that you're using basically they're not smart enough to disguise

13:12 the fraudulent parts of their system and have

13:15 a habit of saying the quiet part out loud so

13:18 there are a lot of ways to get reviews

13:19 but the most important thing is to always do it

13:22 ethically and buy the books and honestly that can

13:25 sometimes be a bit of a pain I know I just admitted that you need to do work

13:31 to make this happen but don't let that scare

13:34 you I have yet to find another model

13:36 that requires less effort money time and skill to be

13:41 successful and that's because I'm going to show you

13:44 how to get professionals to do most of the hard

13:48 work for you the seminar on the whole is

13:51 just a really good example of quality filtering where

13:54 the pitch is bad which causes the targets to self-select

13:57 for a lower standard of quality it's the same

13:59 dynamic as the classic 419 fraud the Nigerian prince

14:03 scam like small details of deranged framing like when

14:07 they call audible Amazon's best kept secret well it's

14:11 now time then to introduce to you Amazon's best

14:15 kept secret audible basically that one line is

14:19 going to filter out so so many people because

14:22 the only people who are going to hear

14:24 that and just accept it at face value are people who

14:26 just aren't that familiar with you know a lot

14:31 of things a word from our sponsors audible leave

14:34 this scenario in the past by signing up for audible

14:37 which is why I am most pleased to introduce

14:40 you to audible brought to you by audible audible

14:42 audible's audible audible audible audible audible audible audible.com thank

14:47 you to Audible for sponsoring this video and like

14:51 this is mean I feel mean saying it but really

14:54 Christian said it first their target market is openly

14:57 people who are unskilled and aren't interested in learning

15:01 new skills like the kind of person who would

15:04 say I wrote a book after doing the absolute

15:06 bare minimum in hiring someone else to write

15:09 a book that they then put a fake name on that's why this is truly for beginners

15:15 with no prior experience or skills with making money online

15:18 or for people who just don't have the time

15:20 or desire to learn any new skills because this is

15:23 something literally anyone can do including a few case

15:27 studies or testimonials make sense in just about any

15:29 business pitch but there's diminishing returns with each additional

15:33 one you include and at a certain point it

15:36 takes on a character of desperate insecurity now I

15:40 don't know that anyone can say you know mathematically

15:42 where that precise line is but for sure

15:46 this is over it here we have Sarah Sarah is a new mom here we have have an email

15:52 that we received from Patrick and here we have

15:54 Tim from the Netherlands here we have Chase here

15:57 we have Eric what you're about to see was

15:59 Trevor's Escape here we have Pierre Sean Richard Kim

16:03 Brandon here Gerald's results Destiny Carmen here who's a Limon

16:06 from Bangladesh Ricardo Rob Gary here like Yvonne here

16:10 Solomon Dane and here we have Kyle here we

16:12 have Tom here we have Abhishek Rick here Henny

16:14 like our no here Quan here who Amina like

16:16 Alessandro from Italy like Ed Juan Matthias Mel

16:19 Yvonne here hey Jack here Juan here came here

16:22 from Ahmad savera Judy Jasmine Stacy Alex also like

16:26 there's something fishy going on here here we have Kelly

16:29 Rhodes award-winning narrator of about 100 audiobooks female

16:32 from New York there's a picture of her as well

16:34 as some audio samples that you can listen

16:36 to okay but like I'm sorry what there's some hijinks

16:41 at play that says female that says male

16:45 the samples sound like this the majority of individuals react

16:49 to new ideas with apprehension suspicion that even denial

16:53 and an image search tells me that this is

16:56 a photo of audiobook actress Christina Delaine who is

16:59 the voice of valiona in World of Warcraft cataclysm you

17:04 as the master commands thoralium kill them cool okay

17:09 the point is what is the point of this lie

17:12 this has been manipulated effort went into creating

17:16 this lie but to what end okay my my theory

17:20 is that this entire seminar is a Frankenstein creation

17:23 that they update bits and pieces of every couple

17:25 of months I recently went back to watch it

17:28 again in order to try and interact with the live

17:30 moderator that is in theory on hand to answer

17:34 questions and got an entirely different introduction YouTuber

17:38 Emma Thorne did a video about the twins back

17:40 in September for 2021 and the version of the seminar

17:43 she got is also substantially the same with some

17:47 very funny differences you'll just say hey Don

17:50 I went through a few of your samples

17:52 and they were great I'd love for you to narrate

17:53 my audiobook wait so they're asking him to do

17:56 it less there's already all sorts of audio Jank throughout

18:00 the video very obvious splices from completely different recording

18:03 environments and so my original theory was maybe what

18:07 happened was at one point this said Christina Delaine

18:11 and she had to tell them to piss off

18:12 because they were sending her low quality garbage clients

18:16 but I reached out to her and she said

18:19 she'd never heard of these guys before and so

18:22 it turns out that I don't know what's up it's

18:24 a level of deception where the reasons for the deception

18:28 don't make any sense and the longer I think about it the more I feel like I'm

18:33 going crazy like it's all just intended to wear

18:36 you down the excessive use of shallow testimonials is

18:39 there to overload your critical thinking wear down your skepticism

18:42 and push past your concerns so that when it

18:45 comes time for the Hard Sell they can literally

18:48 tell you to push past your concerns even if you're a tiny bit unsure I need you

18:53 to go there and secure your spot what we've

18:56 learned is the people we want to work with are

18:58 those of you who take not just fast action

19:01 but instant action so when you want something you

19:04 take it because that tells us you're a big

19:06 time action taker the seminar actually does include a few

19:10 really amazing morsels of information not information about

19:14 the publishing industry or how to succeed in any legitimate

19:17 industry but for sure some deeply entertaining insights

19:21 into the Twins and their operation for example Christian drops

19:25 this this right here is just a fraction

19:27 of our audiobooks that I could fit on one screen

19:29 and most of these aren't even on Audible yet

19:31 just because I've been too busy which is exactly

19:34 why we're looking for partners to do this with now

19:37 this is maybe initially impressive until you spend

19:40 literally anytime actively looking at it because if you

19:43 actually try and ingest the information the details rather

19:47 than accepting the initial impact at face value

19:49 then you realize that most of these are repeats

19:52 of the 60 books shown there's only 25 unique titles

19:57 stoicism for is up there three times how to make

20:01 your is on there twice and we've even got

20:05 two copies of now why these were blurred out

20:09 I have no clue I don't know what they're

20:12 hiding there it could be anything all right one

20:20 sec [Music] all right how to make your wireless

20:31 sex fantasies Come True by Molly Harrison it's worth

20:34 noting that the stock photo used is like one

20:37 of the top 20 hits on Shutterstock just by searching

20:40 the term bondage 69 sex Secrets every man

20:43 needs to know by Frank Jameson and then last

20:46 but hardly least we've got stoicism for[ __] by Stanley

20:53 Barnes now unfortunately I wasn't able to track down

20:56 copies of any of these because despite what Christian

20:59 said earlier this right here is just a fraction

21:01 of our audiobooks that I could fit on one

21:02 screen and most of these aren't even on Audible

21:04 yet these are not books they hadn't published yet

21:07 when recording the seminar in early 2022 but rather

21:11 books they had already published in 2018 and 2019

21:16 which have since been taken down in fact

21:19 of the 40 some odd books they are listed

21:21 as the publisher for on Google Books a scant few

21:24 of them are still available in any capacity and even

21:27 then it seems to be mainly because I forgot

21:30 to check audible.com and instead checked audible.ca now

21:35 there's a good chance that there's more out there

21:38 that I just didn't find across 45 different titles

21:41 they used 43 different pen names and the only reason

21:44 I found all these is because they listed themselves

21:47 as the publisher and there's titles that I did

21:50 find that didn't come up in the publisher search

21:52 but came about through direct searches it's all just boring

21:56 details to say that this is probably an incomplete

21:59 list and sadly I wasn't able to get my hands

22:02 on a copy of stoicism for[ __] or how

22:04 to make your wildest sex fantasies come true not

22:06 that it would matter if we did because we

22:10 know these two Ding Dongs didn't actually write them

22:13 so without access to any of these books how

22:16 are we to discover what comes out of this Sausage

22:19 Factory why we give it a go ourselves obviously

22:22 now I didn't bother signing up for their actual

22:25 paid content because it is transparently not going

22:28 to be worth the money what they promise is part

22:31 of that are some one-on-one calls with their coaches

22:34 who are just some people who have worked their way

22:36 up the recruitment ranks MLM style access to a case

22:39 study that I'll talk about in a second

22:41 here and the big thing they claim they will

22:45 basically hand you your first book subject saving you

22:48 the step of scouring audible trending topics for something

22:51 to copy we are going to choose the topic

22:54 of your first audiobook for you that way results

22:57 for you are much faster much easier and most

23:00 importantly predictable the case study is also pretty

23:03 questionable since in the seminar they already summarize what

23:06 this guy did to see his audiobook success when

23:09 which hilariously isn't even the Mickelson method he just

23:14 took a bunch of books he had already written

23:15 years and years ago and got them turned into audio

23:18 books that's not made for you audiobooks that's just

23:22 audio books so it was tempting purely to see just how bad I'd get screwed on all

23:27 this stuff especially the one-on-one calls but the cost was

23:31 just too high they're asking for over two thousand

23:34 dollars and that's before the inevitable upsells and I

23:37 know it's not worth this much because I'm

23:39 a certified worth decider what I did decide to do

23:51 was follow their method I went on Audible I

23:54 looked up some keywords I pretended to care about

23:56 rankings and I smashed a bunch of them together

23:58 in an incredibly tasteless combination because I figured hey if

24:03 we're going to prod this system we might

24:05 as well test its limits now the Mickelson's recommend

24:07 a specific ghost writing service the urban writers

24:10 to the point that in the seminar Christian says they're friends

24:13 with the owners and teases that buying the premium

24:16 AIA package gets you access to things like discount

24:19 codes we've worked out an exclusive deal with our favorite

24:23 ghost riding company to provide you with the lowest

24:25 ghost riding prices humanly possible it's the same

24:29 deal normally only we can get because we're friends

24:32 with the CEO following all of Christian's advice minus

24:35 the options that no longer exist I picked the cheapest

24:38 package available 25 000 words and let the urban

24:42 writers make as many decisions for me as possible

24:44 so what did I give them I wanted to test

24:47 the ethical limits of the system by presenting something

24:50 that was just ever so slightly over the line

24:53 because the hitch in this is that once

24:55 you submit your pitch to the urban writers there's

24:57 a whole back end where the writers basically compete

25:00 to take posted projects obviously if I cooked up

25:04 something very deliberately offensive there's a good chance that no

25:08 one would take it on as a project

25:09 and I wouldn't consider that to be an ethical success

25:12 of the system and on the off chance someone

25:15 behind the scenes did take the job that's either

25:17 because they're so desperate that they're willing to write

25:20 hate speech or they just already comfortable writing hate speech

25:25 and I didn't want to be party to either

25:28 of those possibilities so let's keep it at least

25:31 a little bit lighter what if we make some just

25:34 truly irresponsible Health claims and use that as the basis

25:39 to create a book that's not hateful but still

25:42 really shouldn't exist can self-hypnosis treat epilepsy can

25:48 it may be even cure it we don't have the answer to that but we have a lot

25:53 of leading questions that'll let you come to that conclusion

25:56 on your own in treating epilepsy with self-hypnosis

26:00 a guide to a free and Healthy You by Brad Defoe I cooked up the title came up

26:05 with a pen name threw together an outline that felt

26:07 like it would at least be able to hit

26:09 25 000 words mashed in keto dieting and something

26:13 about prions just to cover my bases tag wise

26:16 and submitted it now the urban writers as an outfit

26:20 is worth some scrutiny in their own right

26:22 the urban writers is the creation of Marco and Natasha

26:25 moutinho a husband and wife team of Canadian entrepreneurs

26:31 what's up everyone I'm Marco and I'm Natasha

26:34 and we're the martinos the urban writers was founded

26:37 in 2017 as a division of Dibley Inc alongside

26:40 Dibley publishing both also creations of the matinos no I

26:44 don't know why their own name is misspelled

26:46 on their own website the urban writers manages to look

26:49 mostly legit at first blush if you don't know

26:52 anything about the industry of ghost writing then it

26:54 all sounds normal the urban writers functions as a job

26:58 posting board for ghost writing contract in the Mickelson

27:01 presentation it is postured as though there's the option

27:04 to just like submit something and walk away

27:07 let tuw assign a writer and then just come

27:10 back and pick up the deliverables when it's all

27:12 done maybe that was the case in the past

27:14 but that was not accurate to my experience and I

27:17 suspect I know why see the critical word

27:20 in there was a sign if the urban writers

27:23 are assigning projects to specific writers then that's not

27:26 a contractor relationship that person is an employee so

27:32 and you probably already guessed this the urban writers

27:35 is in fact a post Uber gig economy nightmare

27:38 where Freelancers are treated like employees to the maximum

27:43 extent the owners can get away with what makes us

27:45 unique is the culture we have fostered within

27:48 our community yeah sure so my pitch gets picked up

27:52 by Scott Scott is not his real name because

27:54 writers at tuw are not permitted to use anything

27:57 other than a pen name and are subject

28:00 to disciplinary action if they use their real names disclose

28:03 their real names or provide a means of being

28:05 contacted outside the platform they're also not free to negotiate

28:09 their own rates but we'll get back to that later

28:12 Scott is a champion Scott took all Brad's

28:15 insane ideas about prions and keto and self-hypnosis and epilepsy

28:19 and very delicately tie them together into a somewhat

28:23 morally defensible product just to really drive this point

28:26 we like Scott the end result is not

28:29 good it's more or less exactly what you would

28:31 expect but it exists and was delivered on time

28:34 and that alone is something of a miracle before

28:36 I get into some of the details about the book

28:38 I want to talk a bit about those expectations

28:40 and kind of broadly about ghost writing itself I

28:44 do not mean for this to be in any way an impunment of ghost writing as a craft

28:48 it's a niche of writing that requires professionalism

28:52 and a set of specific skills ghost writers need to be

28:55 able to adopt the voice of their subject

28:57 and typically need to work under particularly rigorous delivery timelines

29:01 something not all writers can do so a bunch

29:05 of the flaws and failings that we're going to go

29:07 into are not strictly the result of ghost

29:09 writing in and of itself but are the product

29:11 of the overall environment that is curated so when

29:14 I say it's exactly what you would expect I mean that if you know a thing or two

29:18 about writing long-form nonfiction then you can probably look

29:22 at the expectations and draw a few natural conclusions about

29:25 what the end product more or less needs to look

29:28 like the deliverable is 25 000 words the turnaround

29:32 is 30 days with a few days in there

29:35 for administrative slop so basically 25 days of actual

29:39 writing average of 1 000 words per day that's

29:43 a pretty stiff Pace but not an absurd requirement

29:46 of a professional the big hitch there is research

29:49 the main thing that slows down a non-fiction writer

29:52 is the need to look stuff up source quotes

29:54 and fact check claims depending on the subject it

29:58 might take a really long time just to find

30:00 a couple useful sources and often the way that you

30:03 discover a source is garbage is by spending hours

30:06 and hours processing it nothing stings quite as much

30:10 as spending a whole bunch of time tracking down

30:12 some obscure 19th century text only to then spend

30:15 several more hours reading it only to then come

30:18 to the conclusion that it contains no insights no

30:22 new information and is incredibly poorly written and not

30:25 worth quoting so with these constraints in mind the number

30:28 one prediction we can make is that the final

30:31 product is more likely than not going to be

30:33 quite shallow and repetitive leaning heavily on easily available

30:37 sources the timelines are just too tight to really

30:40 delve into the subject or worry about being creative

30:44 and clever and you just have to imagine

30:46 that the emotional investment is going to be pretty low

30:50 if you are reading this you a friend

30:53 or a loved one have likely been diagnosed with epilepsy

30:57 perhaps it's a recent diagnosis or you've been living

31:01 with it for years regardless you are no doubt

31:04 familiar with the challenges that come with this disease

31:08 however there are limits to Conventional medicine epilepsy treatments

31:13 don't work for everyone sometimes they are ineffective other

31:17 times they are too time consuming in the search

31:21 for respite from epilepsy sometimes the remedy comes with its

31:25 own set of caveats I've studied hypnotherapy for years

31:29 and have been a firm believer in the power

31:32 of self-hypnosis let's pause for a second and talk

31:35 about ethics I said one of my goals

31:38 in this was to push the ethical boundaries of the system

31:40 but shockingly the system doesn't have any

31:43 from the urban writer Zone training materials do books need

31:47 to be objective the short answer is not always

31:51 many of our non-fiction customers have books written because

31:55 they want to Market their business product or to further

31:59 their business interests they do not necessarily want

32:02 both sides of the story told especially when

32:06 an objective book might harm their business interests sales potential

32:10 customer base a customer might not be too pleased

32:14 if our writers point out that they're actually selling

32:17 something that's ineffective to their clients or that their business

32:21 claims are unsubstantiated so just openly if the customer

32:25 wants you to lie misrepresent facts or make

32:28 fraudulent claims your job is to facilitate that they're

32:31 the one taking credit for it just you know

32:34 lower your standards there's nothing legal about that per se

32:38 but it's it's telling it's indicative of the internal

32:42 culture of the company that they're like oh yeah

32:44 this is just what we do now I don't

32:47 want to make too much fun of treating epilepsy

32:50 with self-hypnosis a guide to a free and Healthy

32:52 You by Brad Defoe because ultimately it's a product

32:56 that I got someone else to make the insane

32:59 claims like sexual activity increases your prion score

33:02 and thus impedes self-hypnosis and makes you more susceptible

33:05 to epilepsy is not some organic nonsense it is

33:09 entirely synthetic even if the person doing the actual

33:12 writing needed to behave as though the request was sincere

33:15 and for the most part somewhat predictably Scott minimized

33:19 the presence of this Insanity mostly leaning on shallow

33:22 easily available information in order to meet word count

33:25 most of the book like approaching two-thirds is just

33:29 defining stuff or Loosely summarizing very basic history

33:33 the end result is pretty much what we were expecting

33:36 which would support our hypothesis about what needs to be

33:38 done to get something like this done but I'm

33:42 not satisfied with that that feels too distant too

33:46 sterile like sure I know what it's like to write

33:49 thousands of words of non-fiction I know what it's

33:51 like to do research and I even vaguely remember

33:54 what it's like to have meaningful deadlines but that's

33:57 not the same thing the only way to really

34:00 properly visualize what it means to try and churn

34:03 out this kind of content militridus is if we actually

34:07 did it ourselves and then documented the whole

34:10 process it's fine it's fine so I've been digging

34:19 into these ghost writing outfits and really looking

34:22 at the numbers that are involved so I'm commissioning this book

34:27 from the undergrad writers and then in parallel

34:31 with that I am going to try to also write a book at the same pace and the topic

34:39 that I've selected for myself at the moment is

34:44 a skeptic's guide to hypnosis so the book is

34:47 going to be 25 000 words I'm giving myself

34:50 a month to do it they assume a thousand

34:53 words per day so that's 25 writing days plus

34:57 five days for like editing an administrative slop and then

35:01 delivery to the client so I want to try

35:05 to keep Pace with that so I'm gonna try to do a thousand words per day for 25

35:11 days on the subject of hypnosis okay got

35:18 some developments just from last night so I've got

35:23 the outline and I have instinctively just structured it

35:27 the same as I structured the outlines for scripts

35:29 and I could just try to write it

35:32 the way that I normally would and then afterwards uh

35:39 try to bulk up the word count basically

35:43 that that once it's once it's done done once it's like

35:48 drafted then just try to make it longer until it uh until it hits word count now

35:53 my worry about that is that if I do

35:58 it that way I will write myself into too many

36:02 corners my normal style will get in the way

36:06 of accomplishing the accomplishing the task so that's what

36:09 I'm worried about the the other approach would be

36:13 to just try to brute force it more or less

36:17 from the beginning and just like beginning to end

36:20 plow forward through it like what chapter are you

36:23 on you're writing that chapter of course many people

36:25 outright dismiss hypnosis has a thing entirely insisting that it's

36:28 all in at Rod hoax and the motivations

36:30 for making this claim aren't without justification there's a lot

36:33 of conflicting sometimes incoherent information out there people claiming

36:36 that hypnosis is the best way to quit smoking

36:38 or rewire your eating habits incredulous claims about hypnotic

36:41 regression and of course famous Tales of hypnosis being

36:43 used to unlock the truth about alien abductions oh

36:50 boy okay so uh so I'm I'm behind I'm

36:54 already like uh 4 000 words behind so that's

37:01 not a great uh that's not a great rate

37:03 even just having to like answer emails in the morning

37:06 on a different subject um can like really delay

37:14 how quickly I can get into a mindset

37:18 to think about this this book project that's a me

37:21 problem yeah so I think I'm going to stop

37:25 this find one of these Mickelson books um and like

37:31 just like read the free excerpts whatever like just

37:34 get the voice just try to get the get

37:37 that writing voice and then go back and try

37:41 and stretch what I've got like taffy okay today

37:49 was fun but I think my batteries are dying so I'm gonna try to be quick here uh

37:53 I managed to get through over 2500 words today

37:56 I learned some like really weird interesting historical facts

38:03 in uh in writing about the history of hypnosis

38:05 turns out that Mesmer uh was a real strange

38:11 guy yeah I'm feeling good about today went well

38:17 foreign where we're halfway through we're more or less halfway

38:28 through the uh writing period um we're not

38:33 not quite half done the book we're behind any

38:38 part where I need to do like synthesis research

38:42 is is substantially more difficult so my normal worry

38:47 with my method is that I end up

38:49 with these like weird Junctions and weird repetitions and blah

38:53 blah blah maybe that's just not a problem now

38:55 yeah it's um it's getting harder I don't know I

38:59 don't know there's some things that I'm worried about

39:02 um and I'm behind okay oh Okay so yesterday

39:13 was intensely frustrating I was in I was

39:16 in a bad mood I couldn't Focus nothing was happening

39:20 and I think the big thing was is that I was doing sort of the math on things

39:27 and that's what was making me like kind of acutely

39:31 angry I just didn't feel like I was making

39:33 like sufficient progress that like my like I was

39:36 not doing enough to overcome my my style and instincts

39:42 I had made what felt like a lot

39:44 of progress um and it was still just like basically

39:47 like almost like half as long as it needed

39:50 to be however I'm trying to pad them it's

39:53 just not enough and I realized two key strategies

39:59 two key techniques for padding word count that that would

40:04 meet my criteria so the first one definitions Define

40:10 words spend a lot of time defining words you can eat up a lot of word count

40:14 and like at very low effort by just including more

40:18 definitions classic classic coping technique of the the stressed

40:25 freshmen just include more definitions the other is quotations

40:32 use use more quotations and uh over quote

40:37 the ghost writing company that that I've uh commissioned uh

40:44 won't allow their writers to have more than 10

40:46 percent of a book be quotation okay so we'll

40:51 take that as a baseline ten percent of a book is a lot of the book so that's

40:57 like five pages because there's an entire like two

41:01 days of writing that you can are just gimmies

41:08 so rather than treating that ten percent as a limit

41:12 treat it as a budget use it or lose

41:15 it Canadian magicians and Skeptics Penn and Teller

41:18 on their 2004 program[ __] dismiss stage hypnosis as me

41:21 leave Collective imagination which does strike me but it's

41:24 dismissing a sandwich as mainly a collection of bread

41:26 fillings and condiments perhaps the most fascinating thing about

41:29 hypnosis demonstrated by the state hypnotist is the mundanity

41:32 of it the persuasive power of set and setting

41:34 the power of suggestion in a collaborative negotiated relationship

41:37 the Amplified state of being open to being persuaded

41:40 and the ways in which that is in and of itself

41:42 interesting foreign I want to get this done

41:48 with it's pretty bad from uh from a structural

41:51 standpoint and there's not really a clear Focus so

41:57 it's all right that's all right um we're over

42:01 halfway we're halfway there we got 10 days

42:07 to do the remaining half so is what it is

42:28 okay I have eight days remaining I have somehow

42:37 managed to find it within me after two days

42:41 of writer's block to to not not merely get

42:47 caught up but actually get fully completely ahead of quota

42:55 I wrote over 4 000 words today there's walking

43:00 immediately above me which uh amounts to two whole

43:05 chapters based off of our 2000 words per chapter

43:10 uh uh uh original original plan there's there's eight

43:15 days remaining and my words per day is now

43:19 under a thousand we're ahead at this moment I

43:25 feel just completely drained of ideas but but I

43:32 have yet to write the introduction and the conclusion

43:38 which which can be a lot more autobiographical

43:44 those those are the ones that I can very easily

43:48 pad by just telling stories about myself and and the journey

43:53 that I have now taken I was I

43:58 was feeling overwhelmed this morning and now now I'm

44:01 in a good mood oh that could come crumbling

44:06 down real fast I'm so close I'm so close

44:12 to done I've got 3 500 Words remaining where

44:17 do I put them as I get closer to the end it both gets easier because it's like

44:21 the the about the amount that I need to write

44:23 gets less but I'm also like kind of closing

44:29 off like where where I can just put large

44:31 blocks of new stuff it's getting easier and it's

44:35 getting harder I just gotta figure out like where

44:37 where can I get those it's just that simple

44:40 it's that simple and that hard twenty five thousand

44:47 and nine words these last these last 2 000

44:53 words have been so stressful just just like not

44:57 not neces I don't want to say not hard

45:00 because it was clearly hard it was it was just it was like but it is it's just

45:04 it's a process of going through and figuring out

45:08 like what you can cram in that's not going

45:11 to really involve like new research because research absolutely

45:21 murders the the like pay per hour okay so

45:27 I want to do a numbers breakdown let's get

45:28 let's get some charts in here okay the standard rate

45:42 for a ghost writer at this level is about

45:44 10 cents per word or ten dollars per 100

45:46 words at that rate twenty five thousand words should

45:50 cost about twenty five hundred dollars that may seem

45:54 expensive at first blush but let's really break

45:56 it down on a 25-day writing cycle that's only

45:59 a hundred dollars per day if you constrain it

46:02 to eight hours of work a day that's only 12.50

46:04 an hour not the worst but it's not really

46:07 anything to write home about that 25-day cycle also

46:11 comes with the expectation of writing 1 000 words

46:13 per day which as has been demonstrated is a pretty

46:17 substantial ask if the process of writing also includes

46:20 meaningful amounts of research it is by no means

46:23 impossible if you have the luxury of treating it

46:26 as a full-time job which 10 cents per word

46:28 kinda just barely crosses the line on and this 25-day

46:33 expectation doesn't include slack for the editing process

46:36 if you maintain this pace and do one book

46:39 a month you're only making 3 thirty thousand per

46:42 year before taxes depending on what city you live

46:45 in that might be an honest modest living or barely

46:48 covering for your half of the bunk bed

46:50 in my own writing exercise I kept track of all

46:53 the hours I was spending doing research the hours

46:55 I was spending physically writing and all in all

46:58 it took me a little over 84 hours

47:00 to throw together a very low quality very repetitive book

47:04 and while those hours reflect the time I was

47:07 spending at the computer actively working with a stopwatch

47:09 running they don't reflect the time I spent worrying

47:13 about it thinking about it in the shower looking up

47:15 information on my phone at the grocery store

47:17 and generally letting it ruin my life even the days

47:21 where I wasn't sitting down and working on it

47:23 the days where I was burnt out and miserable

47:25 those days were still about the book avoiding working

47:29 on the book takes almost as much energy as working

47:33 on it in fact the reason the time spent

47:36 actively writing is so low is because I was

47:39 actively trying to keep it low because I

47:42 and Scott were not being paid 10 cents per word

47:46 for the rising package with the urban writers I

47:49 paid 603.75 to cover both writing and editing my writer

47:55 was paid one cent per word 250 dollars for 25 000 words 250 of that 603 goes

48:04 to the writer the rest is a split almost

48:06 50 50 between the editor and tuw itself in one

48:10 sense I spent only 84 hours writing a skeptic's

48:14 guide to hypnosis honestly not that absurd in another

48:18 sense I spent 84 hours writing it at this pay rate at one cent per word that's

48:27 2.97 cents an hour the urban writers don't just

48:30 need to do 1000 words per day in order

48:33 to make something even resembling a living they need

48:36 to do one thousand words per hour and all

48:45 of this I'm just I'm I'm just sitting here

48:48 thinking about the fact that this is the most

48:53 like this as an exercise is so comically stacked

48:58 in my favor because I know exactly what it is

49:02 I know what my standards are and I I

49:08 know that I as the commissioning person have I'm

49:18 I'm not going to read a submission that I

49:23 make and go Oh no you're taking this the completely

49:26 wrong direction that I want you know no I

49:29 don't want you to talk about like this aspect

49:31 I don't want you to frame it this way

49:33 I don't want you to discuss these elements I'm

49:37 I'm not going to surprise myself with those kind

49:42 of constraints because I am the person who would

49:45 be the source of those constraints um which means

49:48 that you know there's there's no real stress and while

49:53 I was tracking while I was tracking my like

49:59 theoretical pay no one is actually going to pay

50:02 me 250 bucks now that the book's done so

50:07 that's not a stressor that was hanging over my head

50:11 all of the stressors that I needed to deal

50:13 with in this exercise are purely self-inflicted it's trying

50:17 to stay to a schedule it's trying to maximize

50:23 words per hour in order to keep a derived

50:29 theoretical number from getting just awful they're fake rules

50:34 that I have self-imposed as a creative exercise in order

50:39 to get a glimpse at like what is required in order to do this thing and in order

50:45 to like have a material have material to use as I work through the rest of uh

50:52 the rest of the process of this ecosystem

50:54 and and that's not you know authentic um so I

50:59 just I I am keenly aware of the ways

51:04 in which my interaction with this is just very

51:09 very emotionally different from someone who is relying

51:16 on this for income uh if I actually had the threat

51:23 of losing you know my grocery money if I

51:29 didn't have this done in two more days I

51:38 I don't think I would be able to work at all I think that would be just like

51:42 a paralyzing amount of extra stress like if I

51:46 needed this money if I needed that 250 dollars

51:50 then I would absolutely be doing you know whatever

51:55 whatever it took if I can write this whole

51:58 thing in three weeks that gives me a week

52:03 of slop for revisions and changes and getting sick

52:07 and just dealing with life if I can write it in two weeks then I I like it

52:12 doesn't it doesn't matter that my words per hour

52:17 and my pay per hour got bad I'm just

52:20 I'm just done it that much faster and in theory if I can turn it in and they

52:25 can sign off on it and we can deliver I can start the next project and I might

52:30 make 500 bucks this month that's this miserable that's

52:33 nightmarish because it's it's terrible it's just an awful awful

52:38 awful arrangement so I'm I'm under No Illusion

52:44 that what I did is comparable to the bad deal

52:52 that um others are are actually operating under and you

53:01 know what this makes some sense in the scope

53:03 of things because at the end of the day

53:05 this is what the urban writers was founded

53:08 to do dibly publishing the thing the motinos made

53:11 shortly before making the urban writers let's take a look

53:14 at their output a complete guide to mining cryptocurrency

53:19 a stoic's journey mindfulness for beginners how to stop

53:24 procrastinating manifesting how to use the law of attraction

53:29 to manifest your dreams why this all sounds like

53:33 the Mickelson method in March 2017 Marco and Natasha

53:38 decided to start a self-publishing business in the pursuit

53:41 of earning passive income this evolved into the urban

53:45 writers we know and love today the urban writers exist

53:49 specifically because this grift needed a steady source

53:53 of cheap writers the numbers just don't work out if

53:57 you have to pay writers twenty five hundred dollars

53:59 per book which as we've already pointed out is

54:03 still not great pay bringing this all back

54:06 to the Grift map we've got the Mickelson's doing grift

54:09 a which is teaching you how to do grift

54:12 B which involves utilizing outfits like the urban writers who

54:17 are themselves engaged in grift C which is basically

54:22 the whole of the gig economy all of this is

54:26 just trying to exploit the next person down

54:28 the chain readers and actual creatives the people who

54:32 actually make stuff are just gristle to be churned

54:36 through let's actually just for a bit not talk

54:44 about audiobook income Academy the seminar level grift

54:47 but the actual merits of the material that they teach like

54:51 let's evaluate it as though it were a real

54:54 class that was actually trying to teach you

54:57 to do something there are in my mind two

55:00 major outstanding problems with the Mickelson method the first is

55:05 that it makes you into the worst kind

55:09 of client possible Brad Defoe was not a good client

55:13 but he also didn't take the Mickelson method 100

55:15 seriously as a character Brad wanted a book about

55:19 a subject that he cared about even if he

55:22 had kooky ideas low standards a propensity for lying

55:25 and a gullibility for any woo that crosses his path

55:28 it can get so much worse the ideal client

55:32 for someone at the urban writers is someone

55:34 who is to one degree or another an expert

55:37 in their field but not a writer they can provide

55:40 the writer with sources explain Concepts correct mistakes and help

55:43 structure and focus the product we can express

55:46 their relationship like this a writer slash expert that's just

55:51 an author it's going to be someone like Carl

55:53 Sagan both unaccomplished scientist and a compelling and prolific

55:56 Communicator non writer slash expert this is someone who

56:00 hires a Ghostwriter will represent that one with JFK

56:04 a talented man and skilled orator who wrote basically

56:07 nothing with his name on it really this one

56:09 extends to most politicians actors and athletes and the majority

56:13 of autobiographies fall into this category a writer

56:16 slash non-expert that's a ghost writer Mickelson students are

56:20 the worst Square on the board neither writers nor

56:23 experts clients who specifically don't know much of anything

56:27 about their chosen subjects and don't care they didn't

56:30 decide to write a book about a subject that they're

56:32 interested in they chose a subject that had favorable

56:35 metrics on the storefront if the writer runs

56:38 into problems with the client's outline the client can't

56:41 help combined with the urban writer's internal structure

56:44 the arrangement is basically guaranteed to produce boring inaccurate junk

56:49 that leans very heavily on endlessly rewording shallow dives

56:53 into widely available information at every stage of their process

56:57 they tell you to take the cheapest option

57:00 and wherever possible to haggle the price down even lower

57:03 the most important part is that you do not

57:07 use a mainstream ghost riding company like this because

57:11 we don't want to pay this much for our manuscript

57:14 why because we simply don't have to and because

57:18 most narrators are just trying to build their portfolio

57:21 so they will narrate audiobooks for almost any price

57:24 you'll just say hey Don I went through a few

57:26 of your samples and they were great I'd love

57:28 for you to narrate my audiobook would you do

57:29 it for a 30 per finished hour rate they

57:32 are training their students to be nightmare clients

57:35 the second is that it just doesn't actually work very

57:39 well part of that is because it's self-defeating people

57:43 who are willing to shamelessly commission a book about

57:45 a nonsense subject that they know nothing about purely

57:48 because it shows up in a word cloud of popular

57:51 subjects they like the entire thing is so openly

57:56 allergic to work and expertise the that the personality

57:59 Matrix needed to succeed basically eliminates people who

58:03 aren't sociopaths by definition this stuff is low effort

58:07 to produce which means there's a ton of competition

58:09 and while corporations like Amazon clearly have an incredible

58:13 tolerance for spam trash and misinformation they do still

58:18 have their limits taken as a whole the method is

58:21 a machine structure to produce low quality low content

58:24 junk that will only attract legitimate readers and listeners

58:27 by deception and like you you know things are

58:32 just dire when I'm telling you that the crystal

58:34 healing crowd deserves better than what they're getting

58:38 from these guys the thing is that they know it

58:42 doesn't work they don't use their own method at least

58:45 not anymore remember all these this right here is

58:49 just a fraction of our audiobooks that I could

58:51 fit on one screen and most of these aren't

58:52 even on Audible yet just because I've been too

58:54 busy and remember this little tidbit these are not

58:58 books they hadn't published yet when recording the seminar

59:01 in early 2022 but rather books they had already

59:05 published in 2018 and 2019 which have since been

59:09 taken down all their junk is from 2018 and 2019.

59:13 they were doing this they were making low quality audiobook

59:17 spam but they don't do it anymore they've stopped and pivoted

59:22 to selling the method instead word on the street is

59:27 that they started trying to post Spanish versions of their books

59:30 by running them through Google translate and Amazon nuked their entire

59:34 ACX account and banned them from the platform for Life

59:37 the twins aren't selling you a method that they're using they're

59:40 selling you a method that they've already used up they ran

59:44 the grift all the way to its natural conclusion there

59:47 was a narrow window of time where audible's Gates were wide

59:50 open but there wasn't a lot of competition yet that first

59:53 Movers On generating SEO spam could in fact make a pretty

59:57 tidy profit without it being too much of a gamble

1:00:00 but that window is closed now the time has passed because

1:00:04 when it comes to making money online as a beginner

1:00:06 you want to find something that has low competition and audible

1:00:10 is that new thing it's so new that there's not

1:00:14 many people doing this the well isn't dry strictly speaking low

1:00:18 quality dieting Wellness new age and crypto garbage will always

1:00:22 be a viable Niche to some degree but there's a hell

1:00:25 of a a lot of people lined up around it

1:00:27 because they are right about one thing it's easy it's not

1:00:31 easy for the Scots of the world to crank out

1:00:34 25 000 words a month on nonsense for less than three

1:00:37 dollars an hour Scott's life sucks but it's pretty easy

1:00:41 to find a Scott to inflict that on because there's

1:00:44 a whole ecosystem of people willing to trick people like Scott

1:00:48 into thinking they're getting a good deal and to some degree

1:00:51 it's a sign of the times these kinds of griffs

1:00:53 never go away they're always somewhere in the background but guys

1:00:57 like this come out of the woodwork when times are tough

1:01:00 what really gets to me what really makes me angry is

1:01:04 that they always hit on the same button where they

1:01:07 shift the blame self-publishing as a concept has incredible power

1:01:13 to allow voices that big publishing corporations didn't see as widely

1:01:19 marketable in the past to get their stories out there

1:01:22 to the people who want to read them what's up my fellow

1:01:25 small business supporters that's how I greet everyone on my channel

1:01:29 Savvy writes books Dan thank you so much for having

1:01:32 me on your Channel today to talk about the very important

1:01:35 topic of publishing industry scams especially in relation to the Mickelson

1:01:40 twins who are out here making an absolute mockery

1:01:44 of my industry with the rise of self-publishing has of course

1:01:47 come the people who want to cash in on the shovels

1:01:51 that they can sell to aspiring authors who see gold

1:01:55 available through selling books on a top online retailer like Amazon

1:01:59 as a result there is nothing that annoys me more than

1:02:03 people like the Mickelson twins who take the concept of self-publishing

1:02:07 which should be a groundbreak taking form of Industry disruption

1:02:11 for small presses and turn it into a multi-level marketing style

1:02:15 grift for example take their podcast episode is Amazon publishing

1:02:19 guaranteed to work which is full of MLM adjacent dog whistles

1:02:23 and some of the worst elements of toxic work culture

1:02:26 you know you hear those people they come to us

1:02:29 and say listen I've tried eight different things online before you

1:02:34 know they always have tears in their eyes I've done eight

1:02:36 courses and they were all scams none of them worked

1:02:41 and it's because they have their understanding is that when you

1:02:45 jump into the business model it just makes money for you

1:02:48 when they say Amazon publishing they're talking about their specific

1:02:52 methods of publishing on Amazon that you can pay them

1:02:56 for it it's as close to a foolproof business as it

1:03:02 gets as long as you actually do the work it's very

1:03:06 very hard to lose money this is how many business gurus

1:03:09 and MLM scammers alike tend to block themselves off

1:03:12 from criticism by Framing any failure as your fault rather than

1:03:17 a flaw in the system itself from the start the Mickelson

1:03:21 twins set us up with this expectation they start telling you

1:03:24 that what you need to do in order to work

1:03:27 hard enough and not give up your dream they tell us

1:03:30 success is guaranteed if you allow it to be guaranteed how

1:03:35 you fail is you quit this mentality plays into the way

1:03:39 that many mlms business gurus and overall entrepreneurial grifters prey

1:03:44 on our tendency to give in to the sunk cost fallacy

1:03:47 if we've come this far we'd be failures to quit

1:03:50 right even if the next step involves paying someone else even

1:03:53 more money plus it has a little bit of that manifestation

1:03:57 BS slid in there as a treat success is guaranteed

1:04:01 if you allow it to be guaranteed because I'm the only

1:04:04 thing holding myself back right of course I'm just scared

1:04:08 of success everyone who isn't a billionaire must have manifested

1:04:12 their failures by being too scared to work hard those things

1:04:15 you need to do to work hard of course include

1:04:18 investing more money in yourself which is really code for investing

1:04:22 more money with them people who have been listening to us

1:04:25 for a while have heard us say this many times

1:04:27 I 100 subscribe to the belief that and I mean

1:04:30 this literally is that success is inevitable guaranteed it is guaranteed if

1:04:38 you allow it to be guaranteed it is a choice

1:04:43 that is on that is in your control how you fail

1:04:47 is you quit and quitting is a decision that you made

1:04:52 and then I know what some people are going to think

1:04:54 they say no I ran out of money so that was

1:04:57 not me quitting I just didn't have a choice[ __]

1:05:00 get a second job a third job do whatever you

1:05:03 need to do start saving money stop spending your money then

1:05:06 boom now you have your money back now and then

1:05:08 get back to work and you know what really sucks about

1:05:11 all this a lot of the things they're saying

1:05:13 in this episode are factually true in a vacuum but when applied

1:05:18 to their business model which like an MLM is basically

1:05:22 a course on how to sell shovels to other people who

1:05:25 hope to dig up the gold the same language becomes manipulative

1:05:28 because it's not meant to work in that context if you

1:05:32 made your own lipstick at home and it made people's

1:05:35 lips swell up 10 sizes and break out in hives you'd

1:05:38 also lose money and that would be your own fault

1:05:41 but if you join Mary Kay and lose money that's the company's

1:05:44 fault because that company thrusts you into an oversaturated industry

1:05:49 with an unsustainable long-term model the same applies here for months

1:05:57 now since signing up for their mailing list I've been

1:05:59 getting the most amazing spam minutes after finishing the seminar I

1:06:05 received an email ominously titled Dan I warned you guaranteed

1:06:10 plan for staying broke always hang around with broke people what

1:06:15 to do with your family and friends aren't supportive spoiler

1:06:19 the answer is give them money to join their private Facebook

1:06:22 group what do I do if my parents partner friends

1:06:25 aren't being supportive of my decision to pursue audiobooks you're not

1:06:31 pursuing you're not you're not pursuing audiobooks you're you're building

1:06:35 a business generating spam in the form of audio books there is

1:06:40 this truly beautiful double think exercise the Mickelson's play

1:06:44 in all of this which is to assert on one hand

1:06:46 that this is a process that requires very very little input

1:06:49 from you the operator that you get to kick back and literally

1:06:53 just gleefully exploit the labor of others as they turn

1:06:55 out low quality trash credited to a dozen different pen names

1:06:59 on your behalf but also that doing all of this will

1:07:03 bring you the same Pride respect and Prestige from family

1:07:07 and peers that you would get from actually writing a book

1:07:11 or even just meaningfully contributing to a ghost written book

1:07:16 about a subject that you actually know something about and care

1:07:19 about and put your name on we sell books and audiobooks

1:07:23 online oh you're writers that's very cool we both laugh

1:07:28 to ourselves flattered that he had mistaken us for professional writers

1:07:32 definitely not far from it Christian says we don't write

1:07:37 our books ourselves we hire professionals to do that for us

1:07:41 we just published the books and audiobooks and get sent

1:07:45 the earnings at the end of every month you can do

1:07:49 that but you have to split profits with them right

1:07:52 he asks no they work for a one-time fee says Christian

1:07:56 I own the book 100 and only split profits with Amazon

1:08:02 so you're telling me you literally have no writing skills

1:08:06 yet it's what you do for a living and how

1:08:10 you're able to live in Bali exactly so this right here

1:08:15 is Don Jacobson he is an experienced jazz radio and live

1:08:19 narrator imagine having a radio broadcaster narrate your audiobook imagine

1:08:25 showing that's off to your friends and family when they ask

1:08:28 you how is it you were able to quit your job

1:08:30 again and do what you want then you just showed

1:08:32 them your audiobook narrated by Don Jacobson the radio broadcaster

1:08:36 and that's something you can be really proud of there's

1:08:38 this bit that kind of makes me laugh the Christian is talking

1:08:41 about how proud will you be when you tell your family

1:08:43 that you've got a you know a DJ narrating your book

1:08:47 that you didn't write and I'm like why would you

1:08:49 feel proud of that all you've done is send a message

1:08:51 saying can I pay you less than your rate there's

1:08:53 a large percentage of people that believe that buying the course

1:08:59 and going through the content is equivalent to actually building

1:09:04 the business we are switching from a do-it-yourself course which is

1:09:08 what AIA was to a proven and all-inclusive done for you

1:09:13 partnership where we do all the heavy lifting for you

1:09:16 so you no longer have to rely on yourself to have

1:09:20 success now you're getting us the people that don't have

1:09:24 good results I can say with the utmost certainty with no

1:09:30 hesitation whatsoever their books are not good but now we're

1:09:34 taking it a step further by doing things like straight up

1:09:37 giving you a winning audiobook topic to go out and list

1:09:41 on Audible and multiply with do you want to dominate

1:09:45 social media in 2019 would you like to learn all about

1:09:49 social media marketing are you looking to take your business

1:09:53 to new heights with up-to-date social media marketing but that's not

1:09:57 the case with publishing to fail at publishing is incredibly

1:10:02 challenging challenging with the caveat as long as you do

1:10:05 the work in other words someone else does the work

1:10:09 but we get paid that's how the whole model works the biggest

1:10:12 Mantra the Golden Rule with publishing is what you put

1:10:16 out is what you get back if you garbage in garbage

1:10:19 out if you put in poor quality work you're going

1:10:23 to get a poor quality result you do not need

1:10:25 to narrate anything yourself you do not need to write

1:10:28 anything yourself you do not need to design any cover yourself

1:10:32 you do next to nothing when it comes to actually creating

1:10:35 your done for you audiobook and we need you to show

1:10:39 your commitment because if you aren't committed then we shouldn't

1:10:43 invest our time our money our team our everything in you

1:10:47 because we're in this together now[ __] get a second job

1:10:52 a third job do whatever you need to do start saving

1:10:54 money stop spending your money then boom now you have

1:10:57 your money back now and then get back to work let's

1:11:00 close this out the mickelsons are not unique as I said

1:11:04 before they are simply an entertaining example of a type they're

1:11:08 not alone and they're not even Flying Solo in their own

1:11:11 Venture this thing that they're doing is part of a whole

1:11:14 ecosystem it relies to some degree on the complicity

1:11:17 of the platforms Amazon has an incredibly high tolerance for low

1:11:21 value repetitive spam though to give Amazon an absolutely microscopic

1:11:26 amount of credit they do have their limits and people are

1:11:30 of actively evading the rules more directly the mickelsons rely

1:11:34 on gig economy Arrangements like the urban writers because the only

1:11:38 way the economics work out is if you can underpay

1:11:40 your writer 90 the urban writers in turn use the Uber

1:11:45 model they onboard far far more writers than they have

1:11:48 clients to service and make writers compete with each other ensuring

1:11:51 that anyone looking to turn out content Mill gristle will

1:11:54 enjoy quick turnarounds and low prices now I didn't post treating

1:11:58 epilepsy with self-hypnosis a guide to a free and healthy you

1:12:01 on to Kindle or audible because like I just don't want

1:12:05 it wandering free it's a book that shouldn't exist but I

1:12:09 did post a skeptic's guide to hypnosis since that one

1:12:12 is just a little sloppy caveats on that I didn't

1:12:16 do any review trading I didn't spam it anywhere and definitionally

1:12:19 I think a book with skeptic in the title is not

1:12:22 going to hit the typical target market but at the root

1:12:25 I actually just took the Mickelson's at their word and pushed

1:12:28 it out onto Amazon to make me some passive income

1:12:31 in the months that a skeptic's guide to hypnosis has

1:12:34 been available it has sold one copy they hedge their pitch

1:12:39 by saying that their results are real but not indicative nor

1:12:42 a promise and that's legally accurate but not spiritually the implication

1:12:47 that they allow to follow that disclaimer is that while

1:12:49 their success and the success of all the testimonials they include

1:12:52 is exceptional your success will probably be proportional if you're

1:12:58 making even 10 percent of their highest performers a mere one-tenth

1:13:02 then that's still a few hundred dollars a month right

1:13:05 what they don't cover is that your success can be

1:13:08 and most likely will be zero that you will in fact

1:13:13 end up down hundreds of dollars from underpaying some overworked gig

1:13:17 writer and thousands of dollars from buying their course they

1:13:21 say it's worth thousands they say it's worth tens of thousands

1:13:24 with numbers they pulled right out of their ass

1:13:26 and that the thousands they charge is a bargain so good that it's

1:13:31 practically theft what you're getting today is all the bonuses

1:13:34 right here you know what they are for a bonus

1:13:37 value of over twenty one thousand dollars bringing the total

1:13:42 value of everything you're getting today to fifty six thousand dollars

1:13:47 and you can get it all right now for just one

1:13:51 small investment of nineteen ninety five they tell you that it's

1:13:55 so valuable so worthwhile that you shouldn't even think about

1:13:58 it you shouldn't pause you should just pull out your credit

1:14:01 card and do it do it now think later even

1:14:03 if you're a tiny bit unsure I need you to go

1:14:06 there and secure your spot in fact if you can't

1:14:09 afford it if you don't have two thousand dollars to give

1:14:12 them if you don't have six hundred dollars to pay

1:14:14 their friends at the urban writers for your first second third

1:14:17 manuscript what you need is some debt and if your card

1:14:21 gets declined which is completely normal try again or just give

1:14:24 a quick call to your bank and approve of the transaction

1:14:27 and it'll go through so guys there's a good debt

1:14:30 and there's bad debt this here is taking on good debt

1:14:35 because the thing is saying yes to this is a mental

1:14:38 game you know you want it you know you need

1:14:41 it what they're offering is less than worthless it's predatory it

1:14:45 is actively harmful and I'm qualified to say that because

1:14:48 I'm the worth decider [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music]