The Power of Writing in Public
Writing in public was a powerful force long before the internet. It's how an unknown man, deeply interested in baseball statistics, became the definitive source of knowledge for generations of fantasy baseball players - and the Oakland A's.
Bill James began writing his thoughts while working as a security guard at a Stokely Van Camp pork and beans factory in the 1970s. A peculiar man, James took to writing as a way to convey the things he was too inept to communicate through conversation.
"Every form of strength is also a form of weakness," wrote James. "I learned to write because I am one of those people who somehow cannot manage the common communications of smiles and gestures, but must use words to get across things that other people would never need to say."
The more he wrote, the more James found he had nothing to say unless it pertained to baseball. So in 1977, he self published his first book titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 Categories of Statistical Information That You Just Can't Find Anywhere Else.
James' Baseball Abstract sounds insufferable. It was painfully precise. But, paradoxically, its precision attracted rather than alienated readers.
David Perell teaches the same concept - he calls it The Paradox of Specificity. If you write about general topics, your content will join the ocean of generic mediocrity - nobody will find it. But if you narrow your focus, you'll find other people who share your interests. This is the most valuable power of the internet.
For any topic, no matter how weird or unique, at least a few thousand people in the world will want to read about it. With the internet, they can find you. And as Kevin Kelly says, you only need 1,000 true fans to make a living as a writer.
When James published his first book in 1977, he also took out a one inch advertisement in The Sporting News. This single advertisement was the equivalent of sending a couple tweets today. The ad yielded 75 orders. James cashed the checks and mailed the books. Many of us would be discouraged if we wrote an article that only got 75 views, but James took the 75 orders as a success.
He published the second edition in 1978. This time 250 people bought a copy.
As Michael Lewis wrote in his book, Moneyball, "James's literary powers combined with his willingness to answer his mail to create a movement. Research scientists at big companies, university professors of physics and economics and life sciences, professional statisticians, Wall Street analysts, bored lawyers, math wizards unable to hold down regular jobs - all these people were soon mailing James their ideas, criticisms, models, and questions. His readership must have been one of the strangest groups of people ever assembled under one idea."
Among James' readers was Dan Okrent, a baseball writer and one of the 75 people who bought the original Baseball Abstract in 1977. After reading the abstract, Okrent wrote a piece about James for Sports Illustrated. The article catapulted James' readership in the baseball world. And in 1982, New York publisher Ballantine Books published that year's Baseball Abstract, making it a national bestseller.
Bill James' work eventually influenced Oakland A's general manager Sandy Alderson, and his successor, Billy Beane. Their successful recruiting strategies were informed by James' ideas - an outcome that couldn't have happened without two factors:
James writing publicly; and
James writing specifically.
Lewis again: "Right from the start Bill James assumed he had been writing for, not a mass audience, but a tiny group of people intensely interested in baseball." In writing for the intensely interested group, James influenced the game of baseball in a way he never would've imagined.
The Paradox of Specificity. The power of writing in public. The reason to start publishing your thoughts today.
