Seth Godin has been reshaping how we think about ideas, audiences, and the act of making things for over two decades. He’s the bestselling author of more than 20 books, the voice behind one of the longest-running daily blogs on the internet, and a kind of patron saint for anyone trying to build something real in a world obsessed with noise. If marketing has a conscience, it probably looks a lot like Seth.
Last week, Seth joined our Author Insider community for a live chat. As we soon discovered, spending an hour with Seth Godin is a bit like entering a Zen monastery run by a high-energy futurist. He speaks in startling, compressed truths—part koan, part business case, part dare. You ask a straightforward question, and he replies with something that reframes the question entirely, or reveals the unconscious assumptions underneath it.
In our Author Insider conversation, Seth dissected the myths of publishing, the cult of virality, and the perils of chasing attention over trust. For nonfiction writers trying to navigate the modern landscape—where AI is encroaching, platforms are performative, and obscurity is a bigger threat than piracy—his insights are as startling as they are inspiring.
Seth delivered so many provocative lines that I couldn’t resist sharing my 10 favorites. And so, here are 10 of the most remarkable things he said—insights, challenges, and sharp reframings that promise to stick with you. (To hear/watch the full conversation, just click on the video above.)
On self-publishing:
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