Lessons - How One Book About Naval Ravikant Built a Publishing Empire | Eric Jorgenson - Author & Angel Investor

Summary

Success Story Podcast: Lessons - How One Book About Naval Ravikant Built a Publishing Empire | Eric Jorgenson

Host: Scott D. Clary
Guest: Eric Jorgenson, Author & Angel Investor
Release Date: August 8, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of the Success Story Podcast, Scott D. Clary sits down with Eric Jorgenson, the author and angel investor behind the transformative book on Naval Ravikant. They delve deep into the meticulous process of distilling vast amounts of information into a compelling, universally applicable publication. Eric shares his experiences, challenges, and strategic approaches to both writing and marketing a successful book in today's competitive landscape.

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From a Million Words to a Masterpiece

Eric begins by outlining his unconventional approach to writing, emphasizing the importance of curating content that truly resonates with readers.

Eric Jorgenson [02:11]:
"I started with well over a million words of source material. Everything that Naval had ever shared publicly went into the pot, and I just tried to cook it all down."

He compares the process to assembling a giant jigsaw puzzle, meticulously selecting ideas that fit together cohesively. The initial draft ballooned to approximately 150,000 words, which Eric then pared down to a concise 40,000 to 50,000-word manuscript. This rigorous editing ensured that only the most impactful and relevant content remained.

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The Art of Selecting Universally Applicable Ideas

A significant challenge Eric faced was identifying which ideas from the extensive material would resonate universally. He emphasizes the necessity of removing niche or contemporary elements to maintain timeless relevance.

Eric Jorgenson [03:30]:
"Nobody gives a shit what you want them to know. They want what serves them. You're not prescribing, you're not lecturing."

This philosophy guided him to focus on universal desires and practical solutions that any reader could apply to improve their lives, regardless of their circumstances.

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Leveraging Audience Feedback for Refinement

Eric discusses the critical role of audience feedback in refining his book. Unlike authors who rely heavily on data metrics from social media or blogs, Eric took a more curated approach.

Eric Jorgenson [04:44]:
"I sent a snapshot version of the manuscript to 25 people. They all read the same thing, and I had calls with each of them to understand what they recalled and what excited them."

This method allowed him to gather diverse perspectives and make informed decisions about what to keep and what to discard. The iterative process of editing, based on genuine reader engagement, was pivotal in shaping the final product.

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Strategic Book Launch and Marketing

Transitioning from writing to launching, Eric outlines the similarities between self-publishing and traditional publishing, with the key difference being ownership of the upside.

Eric Jorgenson [09:28]:
"It's about gathering your people around you, preparing them for this book, asking for what you need, being organized."

He highlights the importance of a sustained marketing effort beyond the initial launch phase. Drawing parallels to the success of "Atomic Habits," Eric underscores the necessity of continuous promotion through podcasts, newsletters, and word-of-mouth to keep the momentum going.

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Building a Word-of-Mouth Flywheel

A crucial insight Eric shares is the power of creating a word-of-mouth flywheel to drive book sales and readership.

Eric Jorgenson [11:35]:
"Doing the work to start the flywheel of word of mouth and start people talking about your book, recommending it, that's the flywheel that has to get started and you just have to keep pushing to get that thing started, no matter how hard it is."

He emphasizes that genuine recommendations and personal endorsements are far more effective than traditional advertising, as they tap into the reader's desire to solve real problems and improve their lives.

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Conclusion

Eric Jorgenson's journey in authoring a book about Naval Ravikant exemplifies the meticulous process of content curation, audience engagement, and strategic marketing. His insights provide valuable lessons for aspiring authors and entrepreneurs alike, demonstrating that success lies in delivering genuine value and fostering authentic connections with readers.

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Notable Quotes:

• Eric Jorgenson [02:11]:
  "It was like doing a giant jigsaw puzzle."

• Eric Jorgenson [03:30]:
  "Nobody gives a shit what you want them to know. They want what serves them."

• Eric Jorgenson [04:44]:
  "I get to some point in the manuscript... send it to 25 people... see what they're excited to talk about."

• Eric Jorgenson [11:35]:
  "Doing the work to start the flywheel of word of mouth... you just have to keep pushing to get that thing started."

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For more insights and inspiring success stories, visit www.successstorypodcast.com.

Transcript

[Narrator]

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[Author Interviewer]

Hiring Indeed is all you need in this lessons episode. Learn how best selling authors refine massive bodies of work into timeless, useful books by focusing only on what truly resonates. Learn how audience feedback, from tweets to beta readers helps shape what stays and what gets cut. And learn why the best books solve real problems quickly, making them worthy of your time and attention. What was the what do you think you know when you look at all the different ideas that you brought into this book? What how did you select the universally, universally applicable ones? And maybe just some wisdom for other authors that are trying to figure out what to put in their body of work versus what to leave out so that it has the highest chance of like commercial success.

[Author]

Yeah, so I think my process is weird because I'm starting with a huge body of work, but I started my napkin. Math is like there were well over a million words of source material that I worked from. Everything that Naval had ever shared publicly went into the pot and I just tried to cook it all down and cook it all down and the final book is like 40, maybe 50,000 words and it just is like doing a giant jigsaw puzzle. And so it's trying to pick up every idea, understand it, figure out which ideas it connects to, how to create a thread through them, and My first draft, it's, like, funny in retrospect. My first draft was like 150,000 words. It was a massive thing. And I sent it to my friends and I was like, tell me what you think of the book. And they're like, they're. All of them were like, I really liked what I read, but I did not. I was like, okay, okay, thank you. Which parts did you jump to? What did you skip? Like, where. You know, where were you excited to flip to? And it was just a process of, like, cutting out anything that didn't really vibe with people. And that was heartbreaking because there's a bunch of stuff in there that I thought was really interesting, that I loved, that I wanted people to know. And Tucker has got great lines that I've now adopted on this, which is like, nobody gives a shit what you want them to know. Like, they want what serves them. Like, who are you to. You're not prescribing, you're not lecturing. Like, nobody wants to be on the receiving end of a lecture. Deliver things that the reader wants. And so much of so many of Naval's ideas really speak to, like, universal desires, as you said. And so it was really a process of, like, getting rid of niche things, getting rid of anything contemporary and making sure that it was, you know, I truly think we got this book to a point where any human being on earth can pick it up and take away at least one useful idea from it that can. That, if applied, can change their life. Truly, like, no matter what your circumstances are, this book can do something for you.

[Author Interviewer]

Did you have a process for testing which ideas resonated with an audience? That again, somebody. Again, so someone like me. I have a huge body of work. I don't know what to put into a book. I have my own thoughts. I have. You know, I could do some Tools of Titan type stuff like Tim Ferriss did. Pretty easy to do that. But is there. Is there a framework or a process or even like a focus group? I don't know if people still do those, but maybe the focus group or just hit up your friends and texted them and we're like, hey, does this idea hit awesome? I'm going to include it.

[Author]

Yeah. I mean, dude, I think this is the. The open secret of, like, so many of the greatest authors of this sort of decade. Like, James Clear was a blogger. He spent years writing that book, tweeting, seeing the responses to different tweets, putting things in newsletters, talking to people, doing talks, seeing what resonated in different blog posts and he was so methodical about that book itself. This is also Morgan Housel's story. This is also Tim Ferriss's story. In a way this is Naval's right. Like the Internet had already made Naval popular for these ideas and I wasn't systematic in like, I'm going to make sure all of the most liked tweets are in this book. That's not how I approached it. It was much more curatorial of like, what's the most useful thing, how do they all fit together? And then just removing things that people found boring. And so I think process wise to your point, like you have a lot of data, you have a lot of information already just based on historical behavior, what people have found interesting. You could look at replays on the YouTube, on your YouTube, like thing. You could look at what clips are performing. You can look at your open rates, you could look at. On different subject lines. You could look at, you can export your whole tweet history and look at the likes and retweets on those things. There's so much data available to you as a creator who's like gone through this for years and years and years and, and then once you're in book form, I really, I've become a believer in the, like the, you know, beta readers. And so I, I get to some point in the manuscript where I'm like, I don't know how I'm gonna, I, I'm reaching my crossroads of like, I'm not, I don't have high conviction in the decisions I'm about to make. But I think this is getting good. But I feel like I'm slowing down on edits. So I'm gonna take a snapshot version of this manuscript. I'm gonna stop working on it. I'm gonna send it to 25 people. They're all going to read the same version of the manuscript. I'm going to have a call with each of them, I'm going to ask them all the same questions and I'm going to see what they recall. I'm going to see what they're excited to talk about. I'm going to see what parts they skipped. I'm going to. And then, you know, you can't overweight on any one person and you want them all to read the same thing. And then you just use your judgment to process all of that and try to get a, you know, diverse ish group of people so that you got a different set of opinions. And I found that to be a really, really good way and then just frankly having the balls to edit and edit and edit and keep cutting and remember that nothing's wasted. You know, maybe, maybe you're writing two books at once and your scrap goes into the start of the next book. Maybe it goes into the blog, maybe it goes into marketing. But it really helps to know that you're not just, you know, lighting that work on fire when you pull it out of the manuscript, but you're doing a favor to the core book and you're building something. You're getting another asset out of the sawdust, basically.

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[Author]

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[Author]

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[Author Interviewer]

How do you launch a book that's self published, take it to market, sell it, all of that?

[Author]

It's pretty simple. I mean it's the same things you do if it's traditionally published. The difference is just that you own the whole upside. It is a process of gathering your people around you, preparing them for this book that's coming, asking for what you need, being organized. There's some things that you do that are, it depends a lot on the book and the goal. And now in my role at Scribe, I've gotten to take more and more authors through this and it's always a process of trying to understand what each individual author is trying to achieve with their book. And the tactics, the specific tactics are changing sometimes like year to year or quarter to quarter. But it's a really, you know, you get listed on a few distribution platforms, you sort of inventory your assets where your audience is, come up with compelling offers, come up with messaging, and you try to orchestrate a big launch. But then the real game is like, do you just keep marching and keep driving impressions on this book for weeks and months and years down the line? I think a lot of authors made mistake is like over index on the launch and then never talk about their book again after, you know, a month after they launch it. And it's like how many times do you have to hear about a book before you actually buy it, let alone read it?

[Author Interviewer]

A lot.

[Author]

A lot. Yeah, a lot.

[Author Interviewer]

And like, I mean like Atomic Habits has been around for forever but now like people after hearing about it on 10 podcasts, like finally they'll go and get it. So I mean it takes a, to convince because you're, you're, it's somebody's time and energy, right? And, and that's really what you're tapping into. It's not the 25 bucks or the 30 bucks. It's like a week of somebody's life or a month of somebody's life or you know, the, the, the barometer I use for, for me, whether or not I want to consume a book is like, okay, is it worth me downloading this on Audible for like my 5 hour flight? Is that worth it to me? Is this what I want to spend my flight doing? And there's a lot of options, There's a lot of options out there. So you. Again, it's going to take a lot to convince somebody to actually consume that content. Was there any. You're going to say something or no?

[Author]

Oh, I can if you want me to. I think that goes back exactly. Go for it. Exactly to go for it.

[Author Interviewer]

Go for it.

[Author]

Yeah, dude, that comes back exactly to like, what is the reader's benefit? Like, nobody's going to sit down and spend six hours reading a book that you think they should read. They're going to send six hours, they're going to choose the book that they think makes their life the most better the soonest. Right. Like, what problem are you trying to solve? If this book is going to help me solve that problem, I'm going to pick that up right now, I'm going to take it to my flight and I'm going to listen to this thing and hopefully I got new ideas for how to solve this problem and improve my life by the time I land. Like, if that's how your book feels to people and you've trimmed out all the other bullshit, like, it'll go, you know, I think, you know, you asked how to launch a book and I ultimately, like, I don't know how to sell books. Like, I only know how to write books that people sell to each other. Like, when you read a book, it's rarely because you saw an advertisement for the book or were just randomly scrolling and saw one impression out of it. It's because your friend who read it said, this book is fucking awesome. It talks about solving exactly the problems that we were just talking about last week. I just read it. You should read it. Here it is. So in that way, doing the work to start the flywheel of word of mouth and start people talking about your book, recommending it, you know, getting as an author invited on a podcast or newsletters and just it, that's the flywheel that has to get started and you just have to keep pushing to get that thing started, no matter how hard it is.

[Author Interviewer]

Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.

[Narrator]

This is the story of the One. He's responsible for keeping a leading healthcare facility clean and safe. And he trusts Granger's high quality H vac cleaning and safety products combined with their world class supply chain to consistently deliver, ensuring he's covered inside and out so he can focus on keeping his facility clean to help protect the health of everyone inside. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickranger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

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