- WHAT WE DOCommand+Z Content is an editorial and content services agencyfor authors and creatives.
Our editors and writers specialize in story, structure, and style.
Together we work with clients to bring their ideas the last mile.
Here are some of the projects we've worked on...by Tucker Max#1 New York Times Bestseller, 2+ million copies soldWhen Tucker decided to turn the stories from his incredibly popular website into a book, we did three things: (1) we tightened a lot of the writing that was good for the internet but not necessarily great for books, (2) we honed in on a type and style of humor that was truest to Tucker's voice and made sure it was consistent across all the stories, and (3) we consulted on story selection and story order to maximize the impact and readability of the book as a whole.
by James Altucher100,000+ copies soldJames is a prolific writer and blogger and one of the sharpest thinkers in the entrepreneurial and motivational spaces. He's written multiple books and started nearly two dozen companies. When James decided to write Choose Yourself!, it was his goal to take all his ideas about happiness and success in the New Economy that he'd written about extensively on his blog and put them in one book. We worked with James to harness his ideas and focus them in service of one larger idea. We honed in on James' voice and made sure it was consistent across chapters. And most importantly, we were careful to apply the key elements of James' unique and popular blogging style to his prose in the book. Choose Yourself! hit the Wall Street Journal Bestseller list in its first week of release.by Tucker MaxNew York Times BestsellerHilarity Ensues represented a return to his classic style of storytelling for Tucker. He wanted to write a book with fewer weighty stories and get back to stories about pure, unadulterated craziness and fun. Our job was to take the new stories and mesh the classic elements that made IHTSBIH so popular with the growth of Tucker's writing abilities and style. Mixing old and new is never easy, but we did it, stayed true to Tucker's voice and it turned into yet another New York Times Bestseller.by Kamal RavikantAmazon BestsellerKamal's second book is a meditation on life, truth and personal happiness. He wrote it while visiting a Buddhist monastery for a week and spent the next few months cutting and honing and tightening. When Kamal brought the manuscript to us, it was incredibly tight and pithy. There were no wasted words. Our job was to give the prose as much additional air as it needed while nipping and tucking judiciously elsewhere. In addition, we reviewed Kamal's highly stylized writing and applied it consistently to all aspects of the book--Preface, book jacket, book description, new chapters, etc. Live Your Truth has spread quickly and continues to help people on a daily basis all over the world.by Ryan HolidayWall Street Journal BestsellerAs a voracious reader and autodidact, Ryan is as gifted as they come when it comes to drilling into an idea and exploring it in depth. His work at times can verge on true scholarship. Trust Me, I'm Lying, however, was an expose and cultural document, not a piece of academic scholarship. Our job was to help Ryan find the narrative that unified each anecdote, each piece of evidence, each chapter, in order to paint the picture of a broken media system that connected with readers on a personal level. TMIL debuted on the Wall Street Journal Bestseller list.by John HeffronAmazon Education BestsellerI Come to You From the Future is a compendium of all the lessons John Heffron learned in his 30s that he wanted to share with people in their 20s, now that he was in his 40s. A lot of the material for the book was derived directly from John's stand-up act, going as far back as the material he developed immediately after he won Season 2 of NBC's "Last Comic Standing." Our job was to mold that content--which was already successful in its own right--for the page while maintaining John's accessible, blue collar voice. Additionally, we created a structure for the book that suited the tone and subject matter, making the lessons John wanted to convey as clear as possible. I Come to You From the Future shot to the top of Amazon's Education & Problem Solving category and boasts a virtually unanimous 5-star rating.by Tucker MaxNew York Times BestsellerAssholes Finish First presented an interesting and difficult problem. On the one hand, Tucker wanted to write a book with the same kinds of stories from his first book that his fans loved. On the other, half the stories he wrote came from a period in his life where he was dealing with new-found fame and all its implications. There were darker, more personal and serious notes in his stories that did not exist to the same degree in IHTSBIH. The strategy we developed was to employ a rough chronology to the stories and split the book in half (pre- and post-fame). The result: the book debuted at #2 on the New York Times Bestseller List.by Charlie HoehnAmazon Self-Help BestsellerTo get Play it Away where he wanted it to be, Charlie did something very interesting and even more effective: he crowdsourced the editing process. He sent copies to dozens of people who wanted to help with the book and then collated their notes to identify the areas that needed the most work. What he found was that this process got him 95% of the way there, but the last 5% was giving him fits. That's when he came to us. Very quickly we identified two sections Charlie loved, to which he was very attached, but that did not fit within the narrative structure of Play It Away. When we cut them and smoothed out the new transitions, everything fell into place. Today, Charlie is a highly sought-after public speaker and his book is read by people all over the world.by Ryan HolidayPre-Order on AmazonThe Obstacle is the Way is Ryan's third book and the closest to his heart. A life-long devotee to Stoic philosophy, Ryan has been working toward this book since he was 19 years old. So when we took this on at the very early stages in the book's development, we paid careful attention to the stories Ryan wanted to tell, the lessons he wanted to convey, and the tone with which it was all conveyed. We went back and forth about structure, both within the book and within each chapter, which set a template that helped him complete this sharp, incisive, story-packed book of practical philosophy in less than three months. This book came in ahead of schedule and under budget in large part because Ryan enlisted editing help from the very beginning. - WHO WE ARENils ParkerFounder, Editor-in-ChiefNils has edited or contributed to more than a half-dozen bestselling books, several feature-length motion pictures, and dozens of popular articles by recognized writers and commentators.Ann MaynardManaging Editor, Head of ProductAnn is a specialist in narrative structure. Prior to joining Command+Z, she was the managing editor of BookHacker, the bestselling digital study guide for classic books. Ann majored in English and Classics at Cornell University.
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