I’m curious why you think some of these people are sell-outs. Selling out is generally taken to mean compromising one’s own morals, values or principles for personal gain. (ie; for money)

Cheryl Strayed’s Mom died, and part of dealing with the loss of her Mom was hiking the Pacific Coast trail. She wrote about it and the book sold well. How is that selling out? GaryVee — not sure how his books show selling out either.

James Frey doesn’t belong in the same article as Cheryl Strayed. And Ryan Holiday — lol — the whole book is the story of how he WAS a sellout, and how he wrote the book to come clean.

Maybe the whole piece is humor that I (clearly) didn’t get? Or is there some lingering idea that writers who do well are sell outs?

I dunno — I usually love your writing, but this piece confuses me. If it was just any old shmoe, I wouldn’t even comment. But it’s not. It’s you. So I’m curious about where this came from.