the outlier №286
unfinished work, london falling and staying silent
I’m Ben Mercer and welcome to The Outlier. This letter covers a lot of ground — taking in my move from pro rugby player to author and online man of letters — with reflections on books, interesting individuals, cross-cultural connections and the odd detour.
This week, paid subscribers received a video edition of In Progress:
You can also listen to it at The Outlier private podcast feed here.
the books📖
I’m having a fascinating time using AI to build the back of house bits of my business. This week, using Claude and a bit of ChatGPT, I’ve done the following:
started using Amazon ads to sell more copies of my books
I was always a little wary of beginning to do paid promotions of this kind but having the AI to talk me through it, screenshotting whatever is unclear and getting it to explain along the way, makes it feel much less daunting.
And the results are pretty good! With Fringes, I’ve returned £3 for every £1 spent. With Endgame, the low price of the ebook has ruined any prospect of profitability so I’ve increased it.
The amount of money I’m putting into ads is very small right now, it’s mostly a data-gathering exercise, but you can see how a bigger portfolio of books and audio would quickly provide mount up into meaningful profit.
redoing benmercer.me
It’s a strange happenstance that most author websites are awful. They’re usually quite tasteless or way too long or too vague.
(I actually went looking for ‘big’ authors with good websites and was most impressed by Salman Rushdie’s which is basically a tapestry of all his books – it’s easier to do this when you’re him I suppose)
And I’m not different. My hoary old website feels a little unwieldy and out of date so I’m doing something I’ve been meaning to do for a while and scaling it right back. I’ve upgraded to a higher tier of Claude in order to custom code the site and include some fun touches I’ve found in other places.
I don’t think websites are particularly important these days but given the breadth of my work, I do like there being a place that explains it all (like Clarissa). It’s also going to be somewhere to showcase my wares and house my shop. By moving off of Squarespace, which is due for renewal before too long, I’ll save some money as well.
making a flyer for The Outlier
I’d love to dish this out in lieu of a business card but it’s just a bit of fun really. My first effort is inspired by a recent read, mocked up with ChatGPT and given some design expertise from my friend Josh. I think it’s pretty cool and will share
a big month for boys’ literacy
One of the reasons this letter is late is that today I had a long call with some inspirational and experienced operators in the nonprofit/charity space who could give me some advice about the Boys’ Literacy Project.
Someone was asking me what i want to do and I thought about how every time I spend time speaking to boys about reading books, I come away lit up. I know I like the work, I know it works and I know I’d be happy doing more of it.
This month is an exciting one as not only is the funding document ready, I’ve got some exciting meetings lined up, one in tandem with the National Year of Reading at then Houses of Parliament. Ideally, I get some money from somewhere and get to run more programs in more schools and see if we can replicate our encouraging early results.
Sometimes though, scaling up doesn’t mean you do more of the work you want to do. It can mean you do lots more new and different work that you never imagined you would, like a lawyer who makes partner at their firm and accidentally becomes a salesperson. I want to avoid this kind of fate so whatever happens, I want to keep the operation as lean as I can. This here be a pirate ship.
the studio is becoming real
I’ve had some enquiries about coming to chat in the studio and it’s the push I needed to get the final bits and pieces down. Soon I’ll be receiving guests, some distinguished and some otherwise, and it feels for the first time in a while that I’ll be doing something new. As I said during In Progress,
It’s why I got the space. It’s one of the reasons I committed to this.
I got the space to focus but also to expand. Stone walls do not a prison make and this light-fileld box feels a little unbounded right now. I’ve got plenty more ideas, some of them are even quite outlandish, but I finally feel like the next stages of my work are in sight.
There’s even a short story in the works. Because that was the other reason I began doing all these things after writing Fringes. I wanted to tell more stories.
for your interest
staying silent
I’m yet to read Careless People by the Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams – it does feel a little like one of those important things that you already know in your heart of hearts is just real and therefore don’t need to read – and it turns out Facebook really don’t want people to read it.
And like Manchester City running delay tactics on the Premier League, Wynn-Williams is being besieged in that most modern of ways, lawfare.
On the eve of publication, Meta obtained a legal order preventing her from publicly discussing aspects of the book. If she does so, she faces fines of £37,000 for each instance.
The problem with lawfare is that it can backfire in creative and striking ways.
In 2003, Barbra Streisand sued the photographer, Kenneth Adelman, and Pictopia.com for US$50 million for invasion of privacy. Adelman had taken an aerial photo of the Malibu coastline to document coastal erosion which included her house in the shot and Streisand wanted it removed from the internet. She lost the lawsuit and had to pay Adelman’s legal costs.
She also did lose her privacy. It just wasn’t Adelman’s fault.
Until her intervention, the photo of Streisand’s house had been viewed 6 times, two of which were her own lawyers. In the month after she filed her suit, Streisand’s house was viewed by 420,000 people.
Similarly, Wynn-Williams was at the Hay Festival to speak about her book on a panel. She’d usually speak for 40 minutes or so, take some audience questions and then head to the festival bookshop to sign and sell a few copies and meet readers face to face.
Instead, due to Facebook’s legal action, Wynn-Williams sat on stage for the duration of the discussion, unable to speak or to respond in any way, not even able to nod or shake her head. Afterwards, she was unable to head to the bookshop, as Hay had withdrawn her book from sale in order that the author not breach the legal order.
Anyway, the act of her silencing said more than she ever could. At the end of the session, Wynn-Williams received a standing ovation.
a read
London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe has been everywhere. It’s about the mysterious death of a young man Zach Brettler, who jumped off the balcony of a luxury flat by the Thames in London.
Radden Keefe does a huge deep dive on all the main protagonists, investigating how they all came to be in that flat on that fateful night and what their various journeys say about London itself. I like Michael Lewis a lot and this reminds me of that, even if it’s perhaps not quite as compelling as his best stuff.
I’ll definitely be reading more by Radden Keefe though. If you’ve got a particular recommendation then let me know.
a listen
It’s been a long while since I’ve really loved listening to a conversation like I have this one. David Perell interviews the wonderful nature writer Robert Macfarlane and the guy is erudite, learned and lovely.
a quote
‘We are standing in our dreams.’
― Bukayo Saka
lastly
Thanks for reading! My work is made possible by you so if you’d like to support me you can buy my books, hire me to do something or you can become a paid subscriber using the button below.
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I’ll see you next time.
I was surprised and shocked with Careless People. The audiobook is a good listen, getting to hear her tell her story. Her silence at Hay speaks volumes.