KI: Das Ende der Selbsthilfe-Bücher?

Tim Ferriss ist bekannt für Self-Help Bücher. Und auf seinem Blog beschreibt er, wie seit ChatGPT die Nachfrage danach sukzessive einbricht:

For the first three months of 2026, Publishers Weekly reported that “adult nonfiction” was down 9% from Q1 2025. Who knows… maybe in line with historical fluctuations?

But looking more closely, Self-help had the steepest subcategory decline, with units down 26.3% year-over-year. Only two of 16 subcategories—crafts/hobbies/antiques/games and religion—grew at all (9.6% and 1.6%, respectively). The exceptions alone could make an interesting blog post for another time.

Let that sink in for a minute.

ChatGPT, powered by the updated GPT-3.5 model, launched on November 30, 2022.

There was a gentle -5% slip in 2023, then -13% in 2024, and then the floor disappears: -46% in 2025, followed by an even steeper -57% pace this year. If the run-rate holds, my catalog will sell roughly 80% fewer print copies in 2026 than it did in 2022, with almost all of that happening since LLMs like Claude and ChatGPT exploded in use

Statt ein Buch darüber zu lesen, wie man abnimmt, fragt man ChatGPT.

Will anything survive in roughly its current form?

Probably. Experience that isn’t solely information: comedy, entertainment, storytelling, fiction, etc. You don’t ask an AI to summarize a stand-up special, and a synopsis of a great novel is not a great novel. Voice, taste, and personality may end up being the only durable moats. But “give me the 5 steps to X”? That’s a tough business that’s about to get a lot tougher.

Die eigene Stimme. Der Blick auf die Welt. Der Geschmack. Die Einschätzung, die man abgibt. Das gewinnt relativ massiv an Bedeutung.

Ferris schreibt: Ihm ist das egal. Er wird weiter Bücher schreiben. Denn:

my books, at least, the secret sauce is in the sequencing—the logical ordering of things—plus the deeply personal stories (e.g., The Harajuku Moment in The 4-Hour Body) that actually catalyze people to change long-standing habits.

The viral sensation of ChatGPT took the world by storm in late 2022. But well before that, in 2010, The 4-Hour Body was first published. It clocked in at 608 pages and hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Millions ultimately bought it, but a lot of my smart friends texted me some version of this: “I love you, but I’m too busy to read that monster. Could you send me a handful of quick bullets for losing 20 pounds?”

Some of them were pre-diabetic, about to get married, or had some other reason to take this seriously. How many acted upon the bullet points I sent?

Precisely zero—none of them—implemented the advice. In contrast, thousands of readers—who were led along a carefully designed path—lost 100+ pounds (see some before-and-after photos here) after failing other diets their entire lives.

Why? There’s still plenty of magic in meticulously planned journeys and real stories from real people.

So here’s where I’ve landed, at least for now:

I’d rather write books for 10,000 people than make short-form video clips for 10,000,000.

Adding a little more, I’d say:

I’d rather write books for 10,000 people who are genuinely changed by them than crank out short-form videos for 10 million people who forget about them within days or minutes.

Sein ganzer Beitrag.