If you’ve read Hungry Authors, then you know that we use James Clear’s Atomic Habits as a consistent example throughout the book, because it’s been one of the top selling books of the last decade and it so perfectly exemplifies many of the lessons we teach here. Well – today we have the honor of chatting with Blake Atwood, one of the editors who worked on an early draft of Atomic Habits! We ask him all of our questions about the book’s development: Was there a book map? Did James think about his Transformation Tale? What did the planning process look like?

Blake shares several fantastic lessons about James Clear’s writing journey that prescriptive nonfiction writers can apply to their own process, like:

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• When to build your platform
  
  
• How to balance the “how” and the “why” in your book
  
  
• Why and how you should learn from comp books
  
  
• How to find “the one thing” you want readers to learn
  
  
• Why you should use “you” rather than “we” in your prescriptive nonfiction book
  

Links mentioned in this conversation:

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• James Clear interview on the Tim Ferriss Show
  
  
• James Clear’s 3-2-1 Newsletter
  
  
• Billy Oppenheimer’s The 6 at 6 on Sunday Newsletter
  
  
• Jefferson Fisher
  
  
• Blake Atwood’s Every Word Tell Newsletter
  

Blake Atwood partners with nonfiction authors to craft life-changing books. He was an early developmental editor on Atomic Habits. More recently, he worked with Jefferson Fisher as a book coach for his upcoming release with Penguin Random House. You may learn more—or inquire about working with him—at BlakeAtwood.com.