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Comment by camillomiller | Hacker News Reader

Quick guide to Americans writing for a European public (or who want to make business with Europe, especially Germany).

Writing something like this:

>“I’ve interviewed more than 70 of the world’s most interesting people on my North Star Podcast, built a weekly email newsletter with almost 10,000 subscribers, and my most popular articles, such as What the Hell is Going On?, have been read more than 100,000 times. I’ve done all this in just a couple of years.“

will attract contempt and make you look like a moron. Boasting your achievements in such a straightforward way might be ok for a US public, but in Europe everyone just thinks “so what” and then “what the hell is this person trying to sell me”?

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European here, you nailed it. I stopped reading because of this, unfortunately. Americans, why does everything have to sound like a cheap TV commercial from the 90s ?

Its a shame that you stopped reading -- it is an excellent article.

> it is an excellent article

About self/online marketing, not so much about writing.

Neither an European nor an American here (born in India actually), and I too stopped reading for the same reason.

I hadn't even started reading at that point. By the third sentence I was skimming. I slowed down at the heading "Age of Leverage" but didn't start actually reading till the bullet points

1. A Start Here page

2. A curated list of your favorite articles

At that point I thought the advice on bootstrapping a blog was quite worthwhile. I think the reading strategy of rejecting articles that start slow is not as good as skimming over what isn't interesting to get to what is.

Plenty of Americans hate it too. Just not the ones that are likely to remain in this person's social environment.

I'm an American and I completely agree, but I think some context might be useful. Americans are trained from a young age that you have to sell yourself. You need to toot your own horn because no one else will. It is a component of the hustler culture in America. You always need to be fighting for the smallest advantage and overselling is a popular mechanism. Its incredibly dehumanizing, but thats never stopped America before.

Thank you. As a European who has spent a lot of time in America (and is married to an American, even), I appreciate you recognising and articulating this.

I don't know if it's exclusive to us - I hope not - but I am German and that's pretty much what I thought.

I'm aware that people have to make a living. I'm much more open for advertising at the end of an enjoyable piece, if I have developed an appetite for more.

It's exclusive to non-American, ie, doing this "always marketing yourself" thing whenever you talk or write or communicate in any way is kinda exclusive to Americans (as being acceptable and normal). The "sell yourself" culture is pretty deeply ingrained in this country in almost all personal communication, except with very close and trusted friends, and even then you'll often find inclinations to sell themselves socially.

I think your armchair anthropology ignores the diversity of speakers and cultures in the United States. Could you share more about your methodology?

Also, the OP _is_ selling something. If you opened your eyelids slightly, you could see his mentioning of an online ‘course.’ This article is itself “content marketing” so the OP is likely fishing for customers from this HN post.

Checking OP's posting history, it appears to be all his own articles/blog posts/whatever. Yep, shameless self-promoting spammer. That's enough to guarantee I will not be reading (let alone purchasing) anything from him.

This makes me want to move to Germany

I'm Asian (Indian to be specific) and yes I ignored that line as fluff. Marketing though influences a lot of our decisions, sometimes inadvertently.

Hi, Belgian here. Normally I also don't like people boasting. But in such articles, I like to have a background about the person.

I'm not going to waste my time reading advice from someone who posted 5 articles and has 10 subscribers.". And if they don't tell me why I have to listen to them, I won't.

> And if they don't tell me why I have to listen to them, I won't.

They might just be lying. "But they wrote in their intro that they are an expert" isn't a good way to determine whether they are an expert on the topic imho.

That sort of thing also puts off many Americans, but is expected from job applicants.

Do those same rules apply to writing cover letters for job applications?

It depends on the sector or the industry but so far all cover letters I saw were more about the applicant's qualities and personality than work achievements.

Job applicants might be expected to list relevant achievements, but there are ways to do that which convey the message "I can substantiate that I get shit done, and think I could do more in your organization" rather than "I think my blog is amazing, and now I'm going to show you how you could hit those heights".

To be fair to the author, he's writing a content piece for clicks through to a $699+ course rather than a cover letter for a job so he probably wants the hyperbolic "I've done all this in just two years. And now I'm going to teach you" tone rather than the "Over two years I've built...which is relevant because...". People that are put off by hyperbole generally aren't going to buy his course anyway.

I’m not European and stopped reading at this very paragraph. The feeling you describe must be more universal.

> what the hell is this person trying to sell me

He's selling sign-ups to a course. It's linked towards the end. The name is "Write of Passage."

This is the online trend of marketing eating itself, where they sell the I'M ACCOMPLISHED, IT'S EASY is followed by YOU CAN DO IT TO followed by a couple minor points of interest so it feels substantial, then a long-winded rehash how important everything is and how capable you are of doing it, and oh look there happens to be an intensive course for learning all of this but if you REALLY want to be a superstar marketer there is an ultra-special course...

It's kind of like a pyramid scheme of skills/accomplishments where every person in the system is spending all their energy teaching everyone else how to sell their skills and accomplishments as the first step without anyone actually saying or doing anything of value. I would say Tony Robbins is the kingpin of this, where he has built a career out of successfully telling people how they can be just like Tony Robbins with just a sprinkle of substance to make it feel like a meal.

He is giving some weight to his advice on writing online, not just boasting, is my impression.

“70 of the most interesting people in the world”

Then you get to check the list and it’s random professionals who are mostly unknown outside of their respective professional field.

Sure, that’s not boasting.

Also, the other two bits:

10k subscribers to a mailing list. Oh wow! So impressive. I managed niche newsletters with up to 35.000 subscribers in the past, built by the company I was freelancing for. In Italian. I didn’t have the reach of English. I consider it a very average work and achievement, frankly. If I’d ever put that in a CV here in Germany, companies would LAUGH at me and even be upset about such formulation.

100.000 views. Again, So what? A column I wrote last month had 120.000 views and 800 comments. I also think it’s good but not impressive.

So now, the problem is either I can’t really market myself, (or I don’t care) or it’s just a very profound cultural difference here between America and the rest of the World.

>> I managed niche newsletters with up to 35.000 subscribers in the past, built by the company I was freelancing for.

>> 100.000 views. Again, So what? A column I wrote last month had 120.000 views and 800 comments

Here is the difference: You can inherit a million dollars from your dad and buy a Lamborghini. But it is more impressive if you start from nothing and buy your own Kia.

Similarly, when you say a "column you wrote" without mentioning the crucial bit: on whose platform? - without any context, it is actually very hard to say if it was a big deal. Also, can you do it consistently? (I suppose the author thinks he can). Can you follow a process and help others do the same (which presumably is what the author has tried to do)? It is the difference between winning the lottery and making a million dollars, versus building a business system and making an impressive 6 figure profit. Clearly, there is nothing to learn from the former. And usually there is something to learn from the latter.

Whether or not you think his credentials are impressive is one thing. But the data you are using to back up the criticism isn't making a lot of sense TBH.

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