Nicolas ColeCo-Founder Ship 30 for 30, Premium Ghostwriting Academy

Most Writers Get This Backwards #nonfiction

1 May 2026 · 0 min

Watch on YouTube

0:27

In this segment, Nicolas Cole critiques the common writer habit of over‑engineering how to showcase value to a reader. He argues that the correct approach is to start by asking, “What does the reader value?” and determining what the writer is giving the reader. Only after this fundamental decision should a writer consider sentence structure, word choice, or judgments about the quality of the prose. This end‑in‑mind, reader‑centric mindset is presented as the essential first step in effective nonfiction writing.

A lot of times writers get lost in, "I have to do this massive song and dance to somehow articulate value to the other person," and that's the wrong way to think about it. Instead, you should think with the end in mind and go, "What does the person value?" Before you get into the writing, before you start debating sentence structure, before you start picking different adjectives, before you decide whether the writing is good or bad, all of that comes second to this fundamental decision, which is literally, "What am I giving the reader?"