MARCH 28, 2025

Welcome to The Tilt, the newsletter for content entrepreneurs from Tilt Publishing. Together, we’re redefining what it means to be a publisher.

content entrepreneur spotlight

Traveling While Black: How Anthony and Marlie Love Are Redefining Inclusive Travel

Entrepreneurs: Anthony and Marlie Love

Biz: Traveling While Black

Tilt: Providing travel resources and historical context for Black travelers

Primary Channel: Website

Other Channels: YouTube (15.1K), Instagram (35.2K), TikTok (78K), newsletter

Time to First Dollar: Approximately one year (trade deal initially, paid gig in January 2021)

Rev Streams: Partnerships with destination marketing organizations, brand collaborations, television show production (Fox Soul), and merch

Our Favorite Actionable Advice:

Find a gap: After a move to Seattle for work, the Loves were traveling the region and wanted to know where Black people would feel comfortable visiting. They didn’t find much content to help them so they created their own.
Make it count: Anthony and Marlie use a consistent rating system, tackling comfort, fun, and the drive, which makes it easy for at-a-glance viewers to assess the destinations.
Change your budget: After four or five years traveling as a side business, the duo quickly ran out of their vacation time so they quit their full-time jobs and downsized to a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment to focus solely on the business. (They also had built up savings to give them a year to do it.)
Bring in the professionals: A PR professional and agent have helped them grow the business more quickly.

– Ann Gynn

Is your book on the list? … Want to know if your book is in the Library Genesis data set aka “Meta’s massive training book heist”? The Atlantic has a search by author feature so you can find out. [Author Guild and The Atlantic]
Too easy to publish? … Not so fast, Richard Goodwin writes. “The idea that self-publishing is the preserve of hopeless hobbyists producing books no one wants to read is at least a decade out of date.” [The Guardian]
What to write? … Steve Almond says if you ask yourself, “What kind of book should I write?” switch the question. Instead, ask “What kind of book do I want to write?” That’s because real curiosity leads to better questions and deeper inquiry. [Nieman Storyboard]
Ready to cry? … You won’t need to with this advice from Jane Friedman on how to write a nonfiction book without tears. Our favorite tip? “Each chapter should answer a question for the reader.”

AI manager: Brands can now find creators more easily in Meta’s Creator Marketplace with the addition of AI-enabled creator discovery and content recommendation tools. It includes keyword search, shows relevant Reels on creator cards, allows direct emails, and the creators’ partnership ad activities. [Adweek]
Tilt Take: Always good to have a promoter on your side (even if it’s AI).

More eyes: YouTube now counts a Short view by the number of times it starts to play or replay. It used to do it based on the number of seconds spent viewing. [Tech Crunch]
Tilt Take: View numbers will be bigger. (It kinda reminds us of when print media went from “subscribership” to “readership” so the numbers looked bigger to advertisers.)

X out: Meta’s Threads seems to be working on helping its users follow the same profiles in its app that they follow on X. [Social Media Today]
Tilt Take: One more reason to ensure your name and brand have the same identities on all platforms.

Waiting is …: New research from Interview Valet says it takes an average 83 days to be a guest on a podcast and over 100K podcasts actively seek interviews. [Podnews]
Tilt Take: Podcasts can be great PR tools, and if you can shorten the time it takes for the podcaster to land you as a guest, you’ll likely get booked more often.
New media: Substack positioned itself as a newsletter email service when it took off in 2020. “But in the years since, Substack has transformed into something else: a platform for live videos and podcasts, a burgeoning social-media network, and a starter pack for fledgling newsrooms.” [New York Magazine]
Tilt Take: Yes, content business – aka media businesses – don’t require the gatekeepers and investment that traditional media did and does.

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