If AI lets everyone publish a book, what is left to compete on once supply is way up and demand is only slightly up?A Note from James:One weekend I tried to write a vampire novel with AI.And by the end, I felt like I was rewriting almost everything it gave me.So eventually I thought: why did I even use AI?AI is very good at giving you the average answer.And for a lot of things, the average answer is exactly what you want.But with writing, the average answer usually isn’t the interesting answer.Chandler Bolt runs selfpublishing.com. They’ve helped publish thousands of books.And one of the examples he gave me was a book for mobile notaries.Mobile notaries.When they published it, even Chandler thought, “Who is going to read this?”It has something like 1,600 reviews on Amazon.That immediately got me thinking about what the moat is now.Because AI can help almost anyone create a book.But if I write a book on intimacy, somebody can reasonably say, “James, you’re on your third marriage. Why am I listening to you?”No moat.Then Chandler introduced me to something I’d somehow never heard before after writing roughly 25 books:The viral coefficient.How many additional book sales does one reader create?And why would you ever send somebody two copies of your book instead of one?For years, I’ve argued that self-publishing can outperform traditional publishing.Chandler corrected me a little.The average self-published book doesn’t necessarily outperform the average traditionally published book.But the authors making serious money?A lot of them are self-published.So we talked about books, AI, niche markets, distribution, audiobooks, Amazon, how people discover information now, and what still makes a book worth writing when anybody can generate 50,000 words before lunch.Here’s Chandler Bolt.What You’ll Learn:Why Chandler says book demand is holding up even as the number of books being published explodes.Why highly specific nonfiction can outperform broad books on leadership, success, or self-help.How AI changes the economics of writing without eliminating the need for expertise and originality.Why trust, discoverability, and distribution become stronger moats as content gets easier to produce.What Chandler means by a book’s viral coefficient and how authors can increase it.Why changing a reader’s behavior may be more valuable than simply teaching them information.How entrepreneurs can use a book to generate far more value than its royalties.Why Chandler believes books still have a role when AI can answer almost any surface-level question instantly.Timestamped Chapters:[02:47] A Note from JamesJames introduces his failed experiment writing a vampire novel with AI, Chandler’s niche-book strategy, and the concept of the viral coefficient.[03:42] What Changed in Publishing This Year?Chandler gives James an update on selfpublishing.com and explains how AI is changing both publishing and customer acquisition.[04:57] People Are Still Buying BooksChandler argues that demand remains resilient; the bigger change is the enormous increase in supply.[06:04] The Problem With Generic NonfictionJames and Chandler agree that another broad book about success or leadership has a difficult time competing unless it offers something genuinely different.[07:32] What Kinds of Self-Published Books Are Wor