[Book Review] Snow Leopard
A personal opinion on "Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One", by Nicolas Cole, Christopher Lochhead, and Eddie Yoon.
Ahoi, knowledge engineers!
The choice of a greeting for this issue is not a coincidence. We’re covering one of the “Category Pirates” instalments. You’re unlikely to be greeted here this way ever again.
I slid into the
well-lubricated sales funnel through ’s “The Art and Business of Online Writing”. And, since this was my first read on the topic, it did help me lose my online writing virginity (even if it felt like I’d lost it to a hooker).
I was looking at Substack for a while. Cole’s perspective on social networks’ lifecycles and optimal moments of entry for an author of my calibre tilted the weight scale in this platform’s favour, and I love it so far.
Although both of these books are average, they influenced a few of my decisions in a good way. I had no issues with “The Art and Business of Online Writing.” I even recommended it to someone from my entourage as food for thought and a means to challenge undisputed beliefs about the publishing world.
“Snow Leopard”, however, did make me cringe a bit, and not only for constantly roasting Gary Vee and praising
.As a free thinker, don’t take my word for it. To form your own opinion, the following link might be the best place to do that:
The Positive
Seeds
All books, even lousy ones, offer gems. One of many, novel or obvious, actionable or theoretical. I consider an oeuvre good if gems’ density per thousand words is high. This one’s not too packed, but there are some. For example, going through a genre-mixing ideation exercise to create a new category resulted in a sleepless night of taking fleeting notes.
Of course, you always need to judge the book through the lens of the target reader. I would consider “Snow Leopard” to have been written for mediors with decent writing experience who aren’t well-known prolific writers.
Framework
The book offers a flowchart equivalent to help you decide if you like frameworks to guide you. Should you go with an individual or a topic-centric manuscript? What category should you pigeonhole it in? How should you use creative wording as a powerful weapon?
Many of these questions get gradually answered when you subscribe to their newsletter, but this part of the book packages them nicely as a reference should you need it.
The Negative
Opportunism
Perhaps the biggest issue with “The Art and Business of Online Writing” + “Snow Leopard” combo is that they preach opposing approaches but are written by the same people. The former will entice you to crank out as much accessible stuff as possible and be ubiquitous; the latter suggests you prioritise quality over quantity and write non-obvious books looking down on content-free content. Whoever you are, you’ll prefer one book to the other. Sprite or Fanta, it all goes to Nicolas “Coke”.
Sometimes, I wonder if the choice of imagery is a coincidence or a creative pun because pirates are opportunists who will do whatever it takes to get to the treasure chest. There’s nothing Malcolm Gladwellish about how
speak, write and operate, even if that’s what this book claims to be.Pico Bello
The book and accompanying newsletter issues consistently sound like a seasoned pirate. Still, “Rrrs” and “Ahois” are the equivalent of a thick Italian accent in anecdotes. Francis Ford Coppola carved out all of these “Italians who-a tok-a lik-a dat” gimmicks from the original “The Godfather” manuscript, allowing it to become a “category of one” movie.
But the book claims coined wording will resonate with consumers, much like “Grandé Latté” makes it sound like it’s worth its ridiculous price.
Collage
Many of the book’s chapters are repurposed newsletter issues. By the way, not paid ones. This is by design. They, and most authors of popular newsletters, agree that the best content should be published for free. It’s the storefront that makes you cross the door. The authors also recommend content repurposing either across platforms or anything you’ll be publishing.
To be fair, this could be massaged into “The Positives” section, as repurposing is a broad term. For example, one of the most prolific writers in history, Niklas Luhmann, was “reusing” thoughts and concepts from his Zettelkasten, or a slip-box. According to him, books were writing themselves.
I’m not against this technique at all. It felt like several déjà-vus throughout the book, with a slight “not getting my money’s worth” aftertaste. If this book is the only “pirated” product you’ve consumed, you surely haven’t noticed this bit.
Concluding Thoughts
I err on the quality over quantity extremity of the spectrum, even if it statistically predicts lower traction and engagement. This is a conscious choice I make. I don’t have to make a living from my writing; shallow content spam decreases my productivity. Therefore, I choose to write the way I want to read.
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change
—MICHAEL JACKSON
Help me out, friends.
I want this publication to be a no-brainer, and I want you to recommend it to your peers exclusively for its quality. I promise no jargon or technical terminology, but I feel that dumbing things down would insult your intellect. But I might be wrong, and I need your help figuring it out.
It’s good to start with a goal in mind: what are you hoping to achieve with your publication? Who do you want to help do what? It’s not an easy decision, but it probably should be a decision. Unless you go for total emergence, a fun adventure and see where it gets you. Also, maybe it’s not an either/or situation, but rather one that can tap into the both/and?