You know her as the author of YA bestsellers The fault in our starsbut John Green’s recent book is a non-fiction defense of his title: in Everything is tuberculosishe argues that tuberculosis has shaped everything around us.
For example: When a hatmaker in the 1850s started coughing up blood, his doctor told him to go west, where the dry air would cure him. Hats in the West, Green writes, “sucked”—they were either “bug-infested, vulgar kunkan caps” or “broadly stuffed straw hats that… leaked in the rain.”
So the user hatmaker – one John B. Stetson – designed the cowboy hat.
Upon finishing the book, I fired off an interview request to try to get an answer to my burning question: Can John Green make a connection between? Marketing And tuberculosis?
John Green
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On brand deals
When Green was invited to discuss a possible partnership with Dr Pepper, he was over the moon, so to speak. (He showed up 10 minutes early. To zoom in. Man Really The doctor likes pepper.)
He had a modest suggestion: that Doctor Pepper sponsor humanity’s relationship with the moon. (Pause for effect.)
Green will make videos about humanity’s relationship with the moon, sponsored by Dr. Pepper.
“I’ve always thought it was a ridiculous idea—that you can’t sponsor a celestial body, but you can sponsor humanity. relationship With the celestial body.
He did not get a follow-up meeting.
Green doesn’t mistake Dr Pepper (the missing period is not a typo – “it’s a big part of Dr Pepper’s brand identity, whether they know it or not”). This is a ridiculous idea.
But that’s the whole point: “I’m not particularly interested in doing a brand deal for the sake of doing a brand deal. I’m interested in brand deals that can add meaning and happiness to the world.“
On scaling passion projects
Passion is powerful fuel. Whether the endeavor is personal or professional, passion can give you wings and grow you — and it can bring you a little closer to the sun.
So I asked Green, who has successfully seen more passion projects than I could ever dream of, what his early warning system is. How do you know if your plan is too special to hit when growth is about to hit?
“I think the most important thing is to be the first person you hire who isn’t you,” he says. “Making sure their values fit, that they share your passion, that they want the same thing from your project.”
Along with Crash Course, the educational YouTube channel Greene co-founded with his brother, internet science guy Hank Greene, the first hire was “a guy who, like me, loves history, who, like me, loves online video. Who’s really passionate about trying to reach people with educational media. I don’t think he was able to market effectively. I think He was concerned with creating amazing videos that became undeniable and served a real purpose in the lives of those who consumed them..
Down to the marketing strategy
“In some ways the crash course, marketing took care of itself because kids would go into their high school history classes and say to their teacher, ‘Hey, I think you should watch this show. It’s really good. This is called a crash course.
“It was really kind of like that. The way we marketed it was essentially marketing it to students and then letting teachers discover it through their kids.”
On ROI and shared values
Green admits that he’s been very lucky in some business ventures, which has allowed him to take risks – it was a runaway success. The fault in our starshe says, that he and his brother spent two and a half years creating their YouTube channel Crash Course before seeing a single penny.
It’s an enviable position for any marketer, but his wisdom is budget-agnostic: “I believe in an ROI that unfolds over the long term, not an ROI that can be measured immediately.”
And “sometimes cotton gets in the way. You know, what you really want to do is have a core group of passionate consumers. And I think sometimes it’s a mistake to market to what you see demographically instead of marketing to a core group of passionate consumers.”
Take his coffee company, for example.
“There’s no specific demographic. It’s not like we sell coffee to 24- and 30-year-old women,” says Green.
Instead, the general dominator is “individuals who are interested in buying coffee at a coffee shop that is ethically sourced and where all profits go to charity. It’s not a demographic audience.” It’s more of a vibes-based, values-based audience.“
On risky marketing investments
Although he is best known for his young adult novels and recent nonfiction books, Greene is also something of a serial co-founder of small businesses.
There is a line of happiness in his business ventures. Helping small content creators fund and sustain their work, helping nurses pass anatomy and physiology exams, selling ethically grown coffee.
“I love working with brands that empower creators and that recognize the benefit of working with creators, which is that you get to go a little bit off the beaten path. That’s what I find most exciting. It is also the riskiest type of investment you can make as a marketer. And so I understand why a lot of people don’t make it.
Taking risks on authenticity and with your audience
Green has a remarkably devoted audience across platforms, from YA books to YouTube to Instagram to awesome socks. For someone who describes himself as “very risk-averse — especially when it comes to taking risks with (my) audience,” he sure has taken a lot of risks with his audience.
“It’s as much about answering my own call of inspiration as it is about him and then trusting that the audience will be there one way or another,” he explained. “I mean, if you had told me in 2015 that I was going to write a book about tuberculosis, I would have been very surprised. But that’s where my curiosity has led me over the last 10 years. And so I just have to respect that and hope that the audience will be there for me.”
Marketers call it authenticity, but Green prefers “creative honesty.” “Everyone talks about being authentic, but it’s actually a very difficult thing become,” he says.
“When you’re trying to be honest about your inspiration or your spark of curiosity, I think that’s something I find a little bit easier.”
On Marketing and Tuberculosis
So, back to tuberculosis, the world’s deadliest infectious disease (yes, even in 2025).
Green says a TB specialist once told him that the problem with eradicating the disease is that “tuberculosis doesn’t have a ring.”
Green’s first reaction was incredulity. “I was like Course Tuberculosis is a circle. There are 10 million people who survive it every year who would rather live in a world without it. And there are hundreds of millions of people who are affected by it, who don’t want to get sick from it. This is Obviously A disease with ring.
But what the expert meant, Greene thinks, is that Tuberculosis actually has a huge marketing problem. “Most people don’t even know it’s the world’s deadliest infectious disease, let alone that it’s treatable and treatable and has been since the 1950s. And so I think TB is the ultimate example of a disease in need of a marketing campaign.“
“Malaria,” he says, “in the early 2000s, malaria was not a number.
And, he added, “I don’t need to tell marketers that we live in a very fractured information environment. It’s hard to reach people with particularly strong messages.”
“So yes, I think (marketing and tuberculosis) are very closely related, because I think one of the reasons why 1.5 million people die from tuberculosis every year is because We in the rich world are not doing a good job of spreading the word about this disease.
Your move, marketers.
