James Clear on the business behind Atomic Habits

Nathan Barry got James Clear on stage at Craft + Commerce, years after the last time Clear spoke there — back when Atomic Habits hadn’t come out yet. Thirty million copies later, the conversation is about the four-million-subscriber email list…

A biographer on why Alice Coltrane’s moment took this long

Nate Chinen recorded fifty-four minutes with biographer Andy Beta on why Alice Coltrane’s moment took as long as it did. “I’m reluctant to classify Alice Coltrane as an example of a beloved artist going from obscurity to belated discovery,” [Beta]…

The people who arbitraged their traffic are done

The Rebooting talked to Vivian Schiller about what happens to publishers who spent a decade arbitraging search traffic. If that was your model and Google Zero killed it, you’re done — unless there’s a real community that comes looking for…

A Belfast punk band turned a protest song around in four days

Charlie Jane Anders wrote about Problem Patterns, a Belfast punk band who posted a protest song called Bodies four days after the anti-immigrant riots in Northern Ireland. Riots June 9 to 11, song out June 15, proceeds given away. Cancelled…

Netflix, Sony, and A24 are all bidding on Letterboxd

Netflix, Sony, A24 and Versant are all bidding for Letterboxd, and this newsletter covers the entertainment business with the numbers attached. Elizabeth Joyce has a counter-plan built on the public benefit corporation model, trying to hold social good and a…

You keep redesigning the routine instead of running it

Anne-Laure Le Cunff writes Ness Labs, a newsletter about experimenting your way through creative work, and runs a paid community alongside it. This one arrived in the September 10 edition, written the week she got back from Burning Man and…