Find Out Why Someone Will Buy Your Book

From 2015 to 2017, I worked part-time as a content strategist for Gap, Inc.

My job was to help the User Experience team create and improve messaging for the company’s websites. The gig sounded way fancier than it was. Most of my time was spent fixing error messages.

But that job was monumental because I learned how effective it can be to experiment and iterate based on data. This approach is completely the opposite of publishing, where decisions are still made based on the opinion of whoever is in charge or highest-ranking at any given moment. (Or when I pitched The Bro Code, which later became a huge New York Times bestseller, the opinion of that person’s teenage son.)

As entrepreneurs, looking at our data can be a hard pill to swallow, especially when it doesn’t reflect the way we think things “should” be. I know this personally. I’ve written emails that I think are amazing that no one replies to or even opens.

But I’ve also found remarkable insights in my data. For example, I was recently pleasantly surprised to see that emails about my personal life and experiences perform well with my readers and audience. They open those emails and respond positively, which indicates that I should write more emails like that.