The Art and Business of Online Writing by Nicolas Cole

My Thoughts

I had a lot of fun reading this book. It was easy to read and easy to understand. Now, the only thing left is to actually start implementing the learnings.

One thing that surprised me is the recommendation agianst publishing on one own’s site. But it definintely makes sense if you main goal is reach. I will try a form of this. I will start writing and if I’m proud of the written piece I will publish it on my own site and then federate. If not, I will post it elsewhere and federate everywhere.

Nicolas’s life story was very interesting and motivating. In fact, it seems that in the books I have been reading lately, the parts with personal stories were the most engaging. That just goes to show that people like to hear stories and AI won’t take over good writing.

Learnings

Core Writing Strategy

• Don’t start a blog - focus on writing where audiences already exist (social platforms)
• Writing on your own platform hoping for audience is “Blogging”, bringing voice to existing audience is “Online Writing”
• Focus on writing first, SEO/marketing later
• Consistency beats talent - successful writers are the most consistent ones
• Aim to publish at least every other week (2x per month minimum)
• The internet favors what’s fast - optimize for speed and skimmability

Content Structure

• Every post should follow: Introduction → Main Points → Conclusion
• First sentence should be short, clear, and capture the point in 10 words or less
• Use 1/3/1 or 1/5/1 paragraph structure (one opener, three/five supporting sentences, one conclusion)
• Break up text into small, digestible chunks
• Remove anything that isn’t absolutely necessary
• Optimize for “Rate of Revelation” - how quickly you deliver value

Headlines

• Must answer 3 questions:
  1. What is this about?
  2. Who is this for?
  3. What’s the promise/outcome?
• Start with numbers when possible (creates clear expectation)
• Make promises specific and emotional
• Remove unnecessary connecting words
• First 2-3 words are most important

Content Categories

• Define your 3 main “content buckets”:
  1. General Audience (universal topics)
  2. Niche Audience (your expertise)
  3. Company/Industry Audience
• Focus on timeless content over timely content
• Use 5 main content forms:
  1. Actionable Guide
  2. Opinion
  3. Curated List
  4. Story
  5. Credible Talking Head

Growth Strategy

• Gather data for first 6 months to see what resonates
• Study top performers in your category
• Repurpose successful content into longer “Pillar Pieces”
• Syndicate content across multiple platforms
• Build email list with specific, valuable offers
• Focus on building a large library of content
• Use collaboration and cross-promotion with similar-sized creators

Monetization

• Give away 99% of content for free
• Monetize through:
  • Premium content
  • Courses/workshops
  • Consulting/services
  • Books/products
  • Speaking/teaching
• Think like an entrepreneur, not just a writer
• Focus on building loyal audience over quick views

The most important takeaway is that success requires consistent execution and implementation of these principles over time. Just knowing them isn’t enough - you have to actually do the work consistently.

Highlights

The Game Of Online Writing

But over time, I started to realize it wasn’t the informative stuff that made the front page—it was drama.

I had tried starting a blog during college, called Nothin’ But A Notepad, but it was largely unsuccessful. I never once surpassed more than 100 views on any of my posts. I was using a standard blogging platform, called Blogger, and even had my own profile and URL. I could customize the color of the header and a few of the design elements. But it was missing the most important piece of the puzzle: there was no social component, no way for readers to explore and discover new, interesting writers. And without this discovery feature, the likelihood of someone coming across my blog was slim to none.

There was no “game.”

all I did was read answers on Quora. My feed was filled with a never-ending stream of questions—and attached to them, answers written like short stories. That’s what hooked me. Someone would ask the question, “What’s it like to be a serial entrepreneur?” and the most popular answer wasn’t a formal definition of entrepreneurship. It was an answer that started with, “When I was 20 years old, I sold my first company for a million dollars.” And before I could even decide whether or not I wanted to keep reading the thing in front of me, I was already flying through the second paragraph, dying to know what happened next.

Every single question on Quora was a creative writing prompt.

At least, that’s the way I saw it.

Note: People want tell stories. Could be dreams, could be success stories, could be just a story but it must be real.

My first Quora answer received a whopping 37 views.

Now, this is where most people would have given up. Notoriously, human beings spend an awful lot of time imagining the big achievement we want for ourselves at the end of the journey, but struggle tremendously getting through the beginning—where we suck.

Gamers, on the other hand, know that you have to play Level 1 over and over again in order to reach Level 2. And then you have to play Level 2 over and over again before you can reach Level 3. And if you can just keep on keeping on your journey, learning and mastering each level, you will eventually climb all the way to the top of the ladder.

That’s how you “beat the game.”

My short, three-paragraph post had gone massively viral. Every time I refreshed my Quora profile, I had another few hundred followers and another ten thousand views on the post. By the end of the night, it had crossed more than 300,000 views. And by the end of the week, it had reached 1,000,000.

That’s when I launched www.nicolascole.com

Knowing I had a limited window of time to capitalize, I spent that entire weekend putting together a personal website.

Note: Most people do all the prep work to go viral but never do. We focus on the wrong things.

Quora’s print anthology (a compilation of the platform’s most unique works for that year, in print form).

Chapter 1 - Want To Start Writing Online? Don’t Start A Blog

The truth is, blogging, having your own website, and writing online are three completely different things. You can blog without having your own website. You can have your own website without ever blogging. And you can write things online that millions upon millions of people read without having your own website or your own blog.

• If you are writing on your own platform hoping an audience will come to you, that’s Blogging. • And if you are bringing your voice to a platform where an audience already exists, that’s Online Writing.

The reason I am so wholeheartedly against blogging as a writing strategy is because starting a blog means starting a new website, and starting a new website means starting with zero traffic.

But here’s the thing: none of the above have anything to do with sharing your thoughts, stories, opinions, and insights at scale. Ads, SEO, and social media marketing are very different skills than the art of writing and the science of attracting organic attention.

Note: It you want to learn to write SEO should be the last thing in your mind

Kindlepreneur with Dave Chesson.

When Manson crossed over into the world of Online Writing was the moment he started using data to inform decisions that brought him outside of his personal website. As the story goes, The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck was actually one of Manson’s most popular blog posts, which was then expanded on and turned into a book (the logic being: “If millions of people resonate with a blog post on this topic, surely they would enjoy a longer version.”). The Subtle Art went on to become a #1 New York Times best seller with more than six million copies sold.

Again, the difference here comes down to what you want to get out of your writing. Do you want to build a company and brand, making money selling ads, products, and/or services? Then a website and “blog” makes sense. But if you enjoy writing and want to build a personal brand, position yourself as an authentic voice in your industry, and share your thoughts, stories, opinions, and insights at scale, then do not start a blog.

The Online Writing approach was made for you.

Chapter 3 - How The Online Writing Game Works: 7 Levels Of Success

the real reason most people aren’t successful writing online has very little to do with all the bells and whistles that surround the writing.

Their biggest problem is the writing itself.

They don’t understand how the game works.

The entire—and I mean this quite literally, the ENTIRE—art and business and “game” of online writing is rooted in understanding what category you’re actually competing within. Unless you can consciously name the category, you will never have a firm grasp as to whether your work is “Better” or “Worse” than the competition. It isn’t until you understand the category, and see “The Ladder” that exists within your category, that you can begin climbing your way to the top.

Note: I can give AI list of articles from my blog, or mey tweets if that is possible and help me determine my category.

Tags: askai

Level 1: Conscious vs Unconscious

Now, some people like to believe they are not playing “the game.” The way they rationalize this is by saying, “I don’t really care what people think of what I post. I just share things I care about.” What they fail to realize, however, is that posting a picture of them and their grandma, and an Instagram model posing in front of a lime green Lamborghini, are the exact same “thing.” They are both representations of the creator’s self, expressed digitally. The only difference is: one person is playing the game consciously, and the other is playing the game unconsciously.

I would just like to point out that whether we like it or not, we are all playing “the game” as long as we’re on the internet. Which means, Level 1 is all about answering the question, “Am I playing this game consciously? Am I achieving my goal? Or am I playing this game unconsciously, and do I not care where I end up?”

Successful writers play the game of Online Writing consciously. Unsuccessful writers play the game unconsciously—and then wonder why they aren’t succeeding.

on social media sites, these categories are created intuitively—the more you scroll, the more your algorithm knows what “categories” you like, and so on.

This is what makes writing online a strategy game.

Think of every category as its own playing field with its own rules. What’s considered kosher in one category may seem completely unconventional in another. What one category calls “innovative,” another might see as boring. Your job is to take the time to read, observe, and study your chosen category to the point where you understand its native language. You should be able to hear the nuances in how people communicate, know which formats have become tried and true, and most importantly, name the dominant writers within the category you are aiming to surpass.

However, if your goal is to be better tomorrow than you are today, you have to play the game consciously.

You have to start opening your eyes to the way the game is played, who your competition is, and what they’re doing that is capturing (and keeping) people’s attention—so that you can do the same.

I’m not asking you to compromise your authentic writing voice for clickbait trash.

I’m telling you that by playing the game with intention, and paying attention to the data, you will discover and amplify your most authentic writing voice ten times faster.

Level 2: Choose A Category

Creating a unique, memorable, and “different” writing style is nothing more than a deliberate choice to sit somewhere unexpected on this Writing Spectrum. The more unexpected the style, in the context of your category, the more likely you are to stand out. On the other hand, the more expected the style, in the context of your category, the more likely you are to sound like everyone else—and blend into the noise.

Note: Style referring to education vs. entertainment

If you want to know why every company in a specific industry sounds the same, it’s because all their messaging is “expected.” But when a new company comes along and their messaging is “unexpected,” suddenly they stand out.

The secret to creating a unique writing style is by doing what would be considered “unexpected” in your chosen category.

Note: Posthog comes to mind!

Would love to replicate this in Readwise.

ategories are how we organize information in our minds. Know your category and you’ll know where readers “fit” you into their own minds.

Categories are also how we decide what it is we want to buy—or at the very least, give our attention.

Chances are, where you end up won’t be what you had originally thought people wanted.

And that’s a good thing.

Level 3: Define Your “Style” (Where Do You Sit On The Writing Spectrum?)

All writing exists on a spectrum, and that spectrum looks something like this.

Educating <<<>>> Entertaining

On the left-hand side you have writing that informs and explains (textbooks, news, nonfiction, etc.) and on the right-hand side you have writing that captivates and entertains (true stories, fiction stories, etc.).

Level 4: Optimize Your Writing Style For Speed

We can debate all day long about what makes “Good” writing (remember though, “Good” is subjective and an inefficient way of measuring effectiveness), but the one thing I can tell you is the internet does not always favor what’s “Good.”

The internet favors what’s fast.

When people read online, they don’t actually “read.” What they do is skim. Browse. Scroll. They let their eyes gloss over the words, and if something compelling catches their eye in the first two, five, maybe ten seconds (a word, a subhead, a phrase), then they’ll stop skimming and start reading. But you better believe as soon as momentum in the writing starts to slow, they’re gone. They’ll swipe back to their social media feed and be neck deep in Memeville in a millisecond.

When I was in college, one of my teachers used to say all the time, “If your story is reliant on the reader making it past the first few pages, then chances are, your story doesn’t need those pages.”

I’m advocating for here isn’t to “dumb your writing down.” Some writing styles actually stand out because of their slow Rate of Revelation. And so the answer isn’t just to go “faster.” The point is to understand that the internet moves fast, and then reflect on the role “speed” can play in your writing style, in the context of your chosen category.

Level 5: Specificity Is The Secret

Once you decide to play the online writing game consciously…

Once you know what category you’re competing in…

Once you see where your style sits on the Writing Spectrum…

Once you become aware of your Rate of Revelation…

The only thing left to do is be the most specific writer in your chosen category.

The inverse rule of “Specificity is the Secret,” is “The Broader You Are, The More Confusing You Are.”

Once you understand the role specificity plays in highly effective writing, you will start to see it everywhere.

• “I want to learn how to cook” is broad. “I want to learn how to cook Chicken Tikka Masala” is more specific. • “I’m looking to buy a car” is broad. “I’m looking to buy an electric car” is more specific. • “I like writing about sports” is broad. “I like writing about basketball and the qualities all great players have in common” is more specific. • “She walked into the store” is broad. “She dragged her feet as she walked into the bodega” is more specific. • “He saved his money every day” is broad. “He saved his money by placing a single dollar bill in a shoebox under his bed every night before bed” is more specific.

By “niching down,” you will eventually uncover one small piece of the overarching category to call your own. For example, one of the overarching categories I write about often is Marketing. But there are a lot of different forms of marketing: content marketing, guerilla marketing, Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, the list goes on and on. So which niche category am I actually competing in? Which “Ladder” am I going to try to climb? Instead of trying to be “something for everyone” by writing broadly about all of these categories at once, I am better off “niching down” until I find one (or a few) categories I can dominate.

For example:

• “Marketing” is broad. “Content Marketing” is more specific. • “Content Marketing” is still too broad. “Content Marketing For High-Growth Businesses” is more specific. • “Content Marketing For High-Growth Businesses” is still too broad. “Content Marketing For Founders And Executives Of High-Growth Businesses” is more specific.

Notice, the more specific I get, the more I am forcing potential readers to make a choice. Either this is going to be exactly what they’re looking for, or they’re going to know right away I’m not the right writer for them. In addition, the more specific I am, the more I as a writer also gain clarity around what it is I’m actually writing about—which, in turn, makes the reader feel like they’ve found the exact writer they’ve been looking for.

It’s this level of attention to detail that makes one writer “Better” than another. This is what I mean when I say “Good” and “Bad” are unproductive ways of looking at writing. The real question you should never stop asking yourself is, “Could this be more specific?” Because the more specific you can be, the more likely you are to resonate with your target reader MORE than your competition.

Start within a niche, and then expand from there.

Level 6: Engineering Credibility

The first layer is Implied Credibility.

You probably don’t realize it, but whenever you consume something on the internet, it’s really not the person you judge first.

It’s the content.

Note: You increase your credibility by creating quality content which will speak for you, loude rthan you can ever do.

The second layer is Perceived Credibility.

This is the layer of credibility 99% of people want for themselves.

They want to be able to say, “I’ve been featured in Forbes.” They want to hack the Amazon algorithm so they can say they have a #1 best-selling book. They want to sign with a major publisher to be seen as “professional.” They want to take a picture with Tony Robbins. They want a testimonial from Arianna Huffington. They want as many signals as possible to tell people, “I am an incredibly CREDIBLE person,” with the hopes that then people will listen to what they have to say.

Now, the truth is, these signals do work. There’s a reason why every company on earth has a banner on the front page of their site with a bunch of logos of major publications they’ve been mentioned in. There’s a reason why every big-name book has one or two quotes on the front cover from other credible people (including this one). These signals can be extremely powerful in getting people’s attention.

Note: Feels sleezy… Not something I’m after. Well, I am but in a different way, from different people. So essentially its the same.

When you go to great lengths to acquire and leverage Perceived Credibility signals, you are making a promise to your readers. You’re saying, “Look at all these people who think I’m credible. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.”

If you skip straight to this step in the game (and so, so, so many people do), chances are, every person whose attention you capture is going to be disappointed. They’re going to know, within the first three paragraphs of reading your writing, whether or not they’ve been tricked.

Note: Be genuine. Try to avoid shortcuts.

The third layer is Earned Credibility.

This is the most undervalued form of credibility on the internet.

It’s also the easiest to acquire.

Earned Credibility is nothing more than a signal of experience. The way I like to describe Earned Credibility is: imagine you stumble across someone’s Instagram page. There’s a clean profile picture. There’s a great bio. And then there are four pictures, all posted from three years ago.

Immediately, you are going to think to yourself, “Ah, this is nobody.” Their lack of effort, lack of consistency, and lack of content tells you everything you need to know about how seriously they’re “playing the game.”

Now, imagine you stumble onto someone’s Instagram page and their most recent picture was posted 36 minutes ago. You keep scrolling, and you see content going back weeks, months, even years. When you scroll back to the top, you see this person has 6,000 followers. They aren’t “Insta-famous,” but they’re certainly “playing the game” with intention.

You decide to follow.

Whether we realize it or not, the reason we choose to pay attention to some people and choose not to pay attention to other people is not because of Perceived Credibility. It’s really not their fancy titles, badges of approval, or press logos that attract us into their vortex. It’s actually their Implied Credibility (quality of content) and Earned Credibility (proof they’re “playing and winning the game”). What hooks us is their consistency, their improvement over time, and most importantly, their ability to create something that resonates with us in that particular category. By “following” them, what we’re really saying is we believe what they create tomorrow will be “As Great” or “Better” than what they created today—and we want to be there to experience it.

The moment you have even one signal of Earned Credibility, you should start leveraging it. If one of your articles gets 10,000 views, you should have a link in your bio saying, “Read my most-popular article with more than 10,000 views.” If something you write gets Tweeted by a prominent person in your industry, use that to your advantage: “Mark Cuban loved this article of mine—I think you will too.” If you’ve been writing online for five years straight, why isn’t that in your bio? “Writing every single day online since 2015. Read my most-popular articles here.”

There are an infinite number of credibility signals that exist on the internet.

Unfortunately, most writers don’t use these signals to their advantage. They have them, or they very easily could have them, they just choose not to leverage them.

As a result, they don’t “appear” very credible at all.

Level 7: Create Your Own Category

Competing in other people’s categories sucks.

It’s actually very, very difficult to become the “Category King” of someone else’s category.

What I am about to share with you is the most under-discussed aspect of writing, and yet it is also the secret to why some writers miraculously “come out of nowhere” and become massive success stories—and others sound like the same old, same old.

Mega-successful writers (in both big ways, like selling millions of copies of books, and small ways, in going viral on the internet), don’t compete within existing categories. What they do, intuitively, accidentally, or intentionally, is create a new category for themselves.

As writers, we all start out imitating each other, wanting to “be like” the person who inspired us to write. But at a certain point, once the fundamentals have been learned and the lessons have started to crystalize, a fork in the road presents itself. “Do I want to keep trying to be a ‘Better’ version of someone else? Or is it time I become a new and DIFFERENT version of myself?”

And DIFFERENT always beats “Better.”

So, how do you create a category?

Categories are created at unlikely intersections, spotted by writers with an intimate understanding of one or multiple sub-categories.

Your job as a writer—once you’ve found your strengths, your high-performing topic areas (validated by data), and where you prefer to sit on the Writing Spectrum—is to match different audiences, genres, and writing styles to create a new and DIFFERENT category.

AUDIENCE x GENRE: Let’s say you’re a history buff, and you love writing historical fiction. The only problem is, adult historical fiction has a ton of competition. That’s a massive category, and a tough one for you to compete in. So, leaving the genre the same, how can you adjust the AUDIENCE to make the genre something entirely new? An example of this would be: historical fiction for kids, or historical fiction for war veterans, or historical fiction for immigrants? These might sound like “small” categories, but remember, Specificity Is The Secret. By going all-in on a new and DIFFERENT category, you are forcing readers to make a choice. If you’re a war vet and you love historical fiction that doesn’t read like bubblegum but speaks in the lingo only a true war vet would understand, that genre is going to be your JAM.

GENRE x GENRE: Take two genres that don’t typically go together and all of a sudden you might have an interesting new category on your hands. What would it look like to combine the sci-fi genre with the memoir genre? Or what about the How To genre with the fiction genre? The more unexpected the pairing, the more likely it is for you to stumble onto something radically DIFFERENT and uniquely interesting.

AUDIENCE/GENRE x TONE: In one category, where you sit on the Writing Spectrum could be expected and boring. But in a different category, it could be exciting and refreshing. Jen Sincero’s, You Are A Badass, is a terrific example of how a tone shift created a whole new niche in the Self-Help category. (Ask most people, though, and they’ll say, “The book was popular because it had a great title” or “It was really well written.” They fail to see the category it created, and the choice it forced readers to make: “Do I want to read a self-help book that sounds warm and comforting? Or do I want to read a self-help book that slaps me in the face and tells me to wake the fuck up?”).

This is where, again, Specificity Is The Secret. The more specific you can be about why your new category is exactly what your target readers are looking for, the more likely it is readers will see this category of yours as unique and SEPARATE from any and all competition. Notice: I am not talking about your “brand” as a writer, or the title of your book, eBook, article, etc. I’m talking about marketing the defining characteristics of the category itself—leading readers to ask the most important question of all. “If this is the category I’m interested in, then who should I be reading? Who is the #1 writer here?”

And if you’re the one who created and educated them on this new category, who are they going to see as the expert?

That’s right.

You.

Chapter 4 - Where You Should Be Writing Online—And Where You Should Not

Another unfortunate stat is that the average amount of time a reader spends reading an article on a major publication is less than 60 seconds—with a 70-90% bounce rate (meaning once a reader starts reading an article on a major publication, less than 10% click to read a second).

The average column on a major publication receives less than 1,000 views.

The articles that “go viral” only fall into three categories:

• They are about an insanely successful company (Apple). • They provide an unexpected perspective on a controversial and trending topic. • They focus on personal development/life advice.

Out of my top 10 performing columns of 2017 for Inc Magazine, 9 had to do with personal development. The one that had to do with a company was about Facebook in the news.

People read major publications for three reasons: opinions, news, or to learn how to do something. That’s it.

When you write for a publication, all your control goes out the window. Once an article goes live, it’s not yours anymore—it belongs to the site. After a certain period of time (Inc requires a week, Forbes asks for two weeks, etc.), you’re allowed to republish the article on your website, your blog, social media, etc., as long as you provide a link at the bottom stating, “This article was originally published on Inc Magazine.”

Note: That’s why Ryan kulp is adding this to his posts. In case it gets possibly twisted

All you need to know is that the primary benefit of writing for a publication is the Perceived Credibility that comes with it—and many, if not all of these sites use this to their advantage. You write for free, and in exchange you get to leverage their logo for your own credibility. And while the other benefits, such as SEO, social exposure, and money can certainly be nice, there are far better ways to achieve those same ends without having to play the role of “opinion journalist” for a publication or industry website.

Which is why I firmly believe the single best place to begin writing online is on some sort of social media platform.

Before you can even begin entertaining the thought of writing for a major publication, let alone authoring a book, you still need to go through the steps of figuring out your category, discovering what makes your voice unique, and proving your writing has an audience.

In order to do these three things as quickly as possible, it’s best to begin writing on a social media site that 1) already has a significant user base, 2) is relevant to your chosen category, and most importantly, 3) provides you with analytics into your target readers’ behaviors. This is where writing on your own blog, or even someone else’s website, falls short. The whole idea isn’t to just hit publish and then pat yourself on the back. The idea is to hit publish and start gathering data. What are people Liking? What are people Upvoting? What are people Commenting? What are people Sharing?

The turning point for most emerging platforms is the point at which early users start becoming “internet celebrities” that represent the platform.

This has happened on every single social platform in history. YouTube gave rise to “YouTubers.” Instagram power-users became “Instagram influencers.” Whenever a platform starts growing exponentially and popular content creators begin to separate themselves from the pack, the “game” is unveiled to the general public. Suddenly, anyone new to the platform realizes there is a hierarchy, a ladder they can climb—and if they are willing to “play the game,” they can build an audience for themselves too.

Note: 🤢

In hindsight, I joined Quora at the perfect time.

I was early enough in the sense that the hierarchy had only recently been established, but late enough to have confidence that time invested on this platform wouldn’t be for nothing. Quora was clearly growing fast, and the platform would be alive for at least another five years—maybe even more than a decade. Seeing both of these qualities is what made me feel comfortable beginning to build myself there, and make Quora my primary writing platform.

Whenever I look for new platforms to leverage as a writer, this is the “window” I look for. Because this “window” provides maximum upside for content creators.

As soon as advertising begins on a platform, you can expect your reach to fall.

Most people don’t know why this happens, so let me explain.

When a platform monetizes with ads, what happens is they have to start picking and choosing which content to show users in their feeds. Without ads, you might have seen 20 potential pieces of content in the three minutes you spent scrolling. But with ads, you might only see 15 pieces of content, with 5 ads sprinkled in. Well, where did the other 5 pieces of content go? They’re still somewhere on the site, they’re just not being prioritized—which means those content creators are getting less views.

Once a social platform has fully integrated advertising into its model, organic reach will only continue to decline.

If you started investing in a platform early, or joined at a time where you were able to climb the ranks and become one of its power users, then you will forever have an advantage over other, newer users. For example, I contribute new content to Quora far less now than I did in 2015. However, my audience is still intact, meaning my organic exposure is going to be dramatically higher than someone who is just starting on the platform today.

As you can see, this lifecycle occurs on all types of social platforms.

This is what I mean when I say, whichever platform is “where you should be writing” today, won’t necessarily be “where you should be writing” tomorrow. For example, Medium launched in 2012, and I didn’t start writing there until 2017. Why? Because the platform hadn’t matured enough yet.

In Phase 1 and 2, Medium was extremely small, niche, and invite-only—primarily focusing on attracting high-level journalism talent. Around 2014 was when the site started to open up and attract more “everyday” writers. And by 2015, the company had raised $57 million in Series B, followed by another $50 million in Series C a year after. The “window” of opportunity had begun, and as a writer, I felt confident that time invested in the platform wouldn’t go to waste.

I was right.

Between 2017 and today, I have accumulated more than 55,000 followers on the platform, and generated more than 20,000,000 views on my writing on Medium alone. The important nuance here is that I have written very little new material on Medium—55,000 followers and 20 million views have come as a result of simply republishing all my old Quora content, as well as my 409 Inc Magazine columns (crediting the publication at the bottom of each post, of course) on a daily basis.

In addition, when Medium launched its paid program in 2018, incentivizing writers to publish their writing behind the platform’s paywall, I started republishing all my old content behind their paywall. “Maybe this will be like earning royalties on work I’ve already written,” I thought. Nobody said I could or couldn’t do this—I just decided to test the rules of the game on my own. To date, I’ve generated close to $100,000 from Medium alone (averaging $2,500 to $5,000 per month), all from republishing old content.

Will this last forever?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Substack is still in Phase 1.

In 2019, the platform raised $15.3 million from one of the most well-known venture capital firms in Silicon Valley—Andreesen Horowitz (a16z). This means some very smart people are betting on the growth of the category of “paid newsletters” for writers and media creators. If this category continues to grow, and Substack is the creator of this category, then you better believe the platform is going to grow exponentially over the next five plus years.

For this reason, I’ve already moved my own newsletter over to Substack.

Chapter 5 - How Writing On Social Platforms Works (And How To Not Give Up)

Second, and I’m going to be brutally honest with you here, unless you really love the craft and process of writing, the path to becoming an independent, successful, widely read writer on the internet is going to frustrate the absolute shit out of you. Writing online requires an unrelenting commitment to consistency. Writing online means tolerating the fact that pieces you spend hours slaving over are going to go unnoticed, while pieces you write in twenty minutes are going to land on the front page of Reddit and go viral (which is what happened to me). On top of that, writing online (and the onslaught of feedback you will receive, both positive and negative) is not for the faint of heart. One of the very first comments I received on one of my earliest blogs as a teenager was, “This wasn’t worth reading, and you’re a terrible writer. I hope you get hit by a bus on your way to school.” How 17-year-old me internalized that as positive motivation, I’ll never know.

One of the biggest mistakes aspiring writers make is they spend hours and hours scrolling through social platforms and websites, looking at other writers and asking themselves who they’re supposed to “be.” This habit eventually evolves into an obsession with trying to find “the answer” by consuming other writers—instead of investing that time into exploring themselves.

The purpose of writing on social platforms and “Practicing in Public” is not to read. I don’t care what famous author or literature teacher said that in order to become a great writer, you have to read. Yes, that’s true. But there should be an asterisk that clarifies that stupid phrase and says, *BUT, the number of hours you spend consuming should never equal or exceed the number of hours you spend creating. You don’t become a writer by reading other writers.

You become a writer by writing—a lot.

When you start writing on a social platform, your goal is to “beat the game.” In order to beat the game, you need to actually play the game, get feedback from the game, and internalize that feedback to change your strategies over time and make your way up the ladder—in whatever form that means to you. The more you write, the more data you will accumulate, the better your skills will get, the faster you will learn. Conversely, the less you write, the less data you will accumulate, the longer it will take for your skills to improve, the slower you will learn.

The writers who become successful aren’t necessarily the most talented writers.

The writers who become successful are the most consistent writers.

Stage 1: Just Start Writing

Goal #1: See whether or not you can be consistent.

Nothing else matters unless you are writing on a regular basis.

Note: In the first six months of writing anywhere social on the internet, you have three primary goals

We are afraid of sharing who we are today—because we believe who we’ll be tomorrow will be “better.”

This is a vicious cycle.

If you are publishing once every two months, or once every six months, then you should not have any expectations for the performance of your writing. Don’t be surprised if nobody follows you. Don’t be upset if you don’t “rise up the ranks” on any of the platforms. Realize you are treating writing as a hobby, which means you are not actively playing (and competing within) “the game.”

Part of getting started writing online means acknowledging that whatever it is you publish today will not be the single greatest thing you ever write. In fact, if it was, I’d make the argument you have an even worse problem on your hands. Instead of getting better over time, you’re going to get worse.

My true “recommended minimum” however is to publish something once every other week.

In order to be taken seriously on the internet as an authority in your category and a leader in your industry, niche, or genre, you need to be writing and publishing new material 2x per month.

think of a social media algorithm as a roulette wheel. The more times you spin the wheel, the more chances you have of winning. Every time you create a new piece of content, you are pushing that content into the social platform’s algorithm and “spinning the wheel.” If you are only writing and publishing once per month, you are only spinning the wheel once every thirty days. But if you’re writing and publishing every single day, you’re spinning the wheel thirty times in thirty days. Compound this over the course of six months, and the former is only getting to play the game six times, while the latter is getting to play the game 180 times. Who do you think is going to win more often?

Every time I’ve started writing on a new platform online, I’ve found the beginning pattern to look something like this:

Post #1: “Hello! Thank you for having me. It’s truly an honor for me to be here, internet.”

Post #2: “Alright look, here’s the real deal. I’m going to give it to you straight.”

Post #3: “What is life, what am I doing here, and does any of this even matter?”

Right around Post #4 is where the first real checkpoint kicks in. The novelty of starting something new wears off, data begins revealing the truth of the situation—“I’m not an overnight success story, what?”—and subconsciously there is a realization that any and all success will be the product of hard work.

This is where the vast majority of people give up.

readers are fickle. So are viewers, listeners, and consumers of any type of content. We are developing more and more into a world of instant gratification. If my favorite content creator stops playing the game, I’m not going to sit around and wait for them to come back. I’m going to find someone new to pay attention to. For this reason alone, you have to understand that in order to be “seen” as a credible, consistent source of information, you need to prove to audience members you’re going to be there for them and with them, day in and day out.

Stage 2: Write Consistently For 6 Months And Then Make A Decision

Goal #2: Start gathering data about what your most popular categories are.

In your first six months of writing online, you should be less concerned with “establishing” yourself and more focused on “discovering” yourself.

The way we would engineer this process for our clients at Digital Press is we would come up with three categories (“Content Buckets”) that represented who they were and what they wanted to write about. One category might be their industry (Biotech), the second might be related to their position within their company (Marketing), and the third might be a personal interest (Mountain Biking & Self-Discipline).

We would then begin writing and publishing content in all three of these different categories, alternating back and forth until we started to see patterns emerge. We were running an experiment. And what we usually found was, the topics they thought people would want to hear about from them weren’t actually the topics data told us were most engaging. In this example, these were the buckets of a client of ours who is the CEO of a publicly traded biotech company. Turns out, his most popular articles weren’t academic takes on the biotech industry. His most popular articles were stories about the mountain biking trips he would take with his friends, and the lessons he learned about self-discipline in the process.

Note: In the first six months of writing anywhere social on the internet, you have three primary goals

If you start writing about marketing strategies, but data tells you it’s your stories about being an angel investor people love reading most, you should pay attention to that. If you start writing sci-fi, but you discover it’s actually your historical fiction people are flocking to, data is trying to tell you something. If you start writing poetry, but you find your morning meditations are what get dozens of people to comment and engage with your writing, what are you going to do? Keep writing poetry?

Data doesn’t lie. But data is also a reflection of the external crowd, and not necessarily your internal compass.

Goal #3: Pay close attention to writers at the top of the hierarchy of the social platform—and constantly measure yourself against their performance.

People make “the game” of social media so much more complicated than it really is.

If you want to surpass even the most popular, highest-performing writers within an existing category, all you have to do is everything they’re doing, more consistently.

Note: In the first six months of writing anywhere social on the internet, you have three primary goals

Your job is to study the competition and understand exactly why they are succeeding in the first place.

If they title their articles in all caps, why are they doing that? Was there a point in time when they weren’t doing that? What happened to their engagement once they started doing that? Have their Likes, Comments, Views, etc., increased since then?

If they make each sentence of their post its own paragraph, why are they doing that? What’s the effect it has on you, the reader? Was there a point in time when they weren’t doing that? What happened to their engagement once they started doing that?

If they post a high-quality photo at the top of every article, why are they doing that? What do you think they’re trying to achieve? Was there a point in time when they weren’t doing that? What happened to their engagement once they started doing that?

Question everything. Nothing a creator does repeatedly is accidental.

The creator might not be fully conscious of how or why they decided to start using shorter paragraphs, or why they intuitively stopped using as many sub-heads, but if it’s a pattern that means something about it is working. It’s your job to spot those patterns, mimic them, and then slowly shape them into your own style.

These unspoken “rules of the game” exist on every single platform.

All the most-popular Twitter writers share things in common. All the most-popular YouTubers share things in common. All the most-popular Medium writers share things in common. All the most-popular Quora writers share things in common.

Your job is to find the common threads, make them part of your own strategy, and then slowly over time create a style and category of your own.

Stage 3: Once You’ve Proven You Can Be Consistent, Pour Some Gasoline On Your Fire And Go KABOOM!

If you can make it through Stage 1 and 2, chances are, you’ll start to see a very clear path forward for yourself as a writer.

However, if you’re unable to be consistent for six months, if you’re incapable (no matter how hard you try) to write on a regular basis, I have some bad news for you:

You’re not a writer.

So, if you can’t be consistent for six months, either realize you love the idea of being seen as a writer more than you love sitting down and writing and move on to something else, OR, try again.

Audience Hacking means collaborating with another writer who has a similar audience to you—introducing your audience to them and their audience to you. The reason I encourage you to target writers with a similar sized audience though is because it’s unlikely you’re going to get someone with 10x more followers to want to power-level you—but people who are around your level tend to see it as an even trade. This writer could be within your chosen category, however I would actually encourage you to find ways to collaborate with writers outside of your category as well—so you can widen your net.

Collaborations could include:

• Co-authoring an article together • You interviewing them, and them interviewing you • You sharing one of their articles, them sharing one of your articles • You both meeting up in real life, taking a picture or shooting a short video clip together, posting it and tagging each other • You giving them a testimonial, and them giving you a testimonial • Basically you both creating or sharing content of any kind together, and sharing it with your respective audiences

For example: the testimonial on the cover of this book is from Dr. Benjamin Hardy. Ben became the #1 most-read writer on Medium right around the same time I became the #1 most-read writer on Quora. We were connected through a mutual friend, and because we had both climbed up our respective ranks in very similar ways, we became friends too. As I was getting ready to publish this book, I thought, “What writers around my level would be willing to collaborate?” I reached out to him, and he offered to give me a testimonial for my book if I gave him a testimonial for his.

Trend Jacking is probably the easiest, most common growth hack on the internet.

Whenever something big happens in the news, it becomes a “trend” for a month, a week, a day, or sometimes even a couple of hours. When a celebrity makes headlines, when a public company makes a big mistake, when an everyday person goes viral, these “trends” spark a crazy amount of engagement on social media—which you can use to your advantage.

Trend Jacking is where you hop on someone else’s train in order to bring some of that heightened attention back to yourself.

The only time you should be worrying about duplicate content (which means: the same exact content appearing on multiple, different websites) is if you are writing with a heavy focus on SEO—meaning you are running a website and blog, which is your business, and you are competing for very specific search terms.

If this is the case, then going back to what I explained at the very beginning of this book, you are not “writing online.” You are blogging. For example, let’s say you’re a life insurance company that wants to rank for the keyphrase “life insurance for seniors.” The goal here would be to write a blog post that ranks for that specific keyphrase, so when a potential customer goes to Google and searches “life insurance for seniors,” your blog post pops up first.

The reason you wouldn’t want this sort of blog post to be syndicated elsewhere is because the entire purpose of writing in this context is to drive sales for the company. You don’t really care how many people read this poetic excursion of yours on the benefits of “life insurance for seniors.” All you care about is converting potential customers into paying customers. If this is the goal, you’re actually going to spend less time writing and publishing new content, and more time getting other websites to backlink to that one individual post, telling Google it is “the best” article on the internet for that particular topic and keyphrase. This is how SEO works.

if you aren’t actively optimizing one single post for search, then you gain almost nothing keeping it exclusively on your site—because you are never going to out-compete other blogs (businesses) for the keywords and keyphrases in your article.

In short: writers who fear “duplicate content” think they’re doing the right thing, not realizing they’re actually playing a completely different game.

Knowing I was never trying to write the #1 ranking blog post for any given keyword or keyphrase, I threw my “duplicate content” fears out the window and went all-in on optimizing for reach. I wanted as many different platforms, with as many different types of audiences, sharing and consuming my content. Whether they read my article on Quora or Inc Magazine or my website didn’t matter.

Note: Never looked at it that way

The beginner version of this strategy is to post every single article you write on every single social platform you can. Every time I write an answer on Quora, for example, I will copy/paste that answer, give it a headline, and also publish it on Medium. Then I’ll take that Medium article, copy/paste it, and publish it on LinkedIn. And I’ll keep doing this with as many social platforms as I can, where publishing articles of that quality is acceptable. (You can also take this a step further, group articles together, and publish them as eBooks on Wattpad and Amazon, so long as the content is yours.)

Yes, the headlines can be the exact same. No, you don’t need to do anything special like change any of the content for SEO purposes—since you aren’t playing the SEO game to begin with. All you’re doing is sharing your article in different environments, each of which have different ecosystems and audiences.

and Twitter, and sometimes have entire departments dedicated to syndicating content onto their sites. They are going to be the most receptive to your outreach—especially if you are writing content that speaks directly to their audience, and you have metrics to prove readership.

This strategy is how I was able to get nearly one hundred articles syndicated from Quora into major publications such as Forbes, Fortune, TIME, The Chicago Tribune, etc. And, this strategy is how I have continued to extend my reach as a writer years later. Thrive Global actively syndicates my Medium content. So does The Ladders.

All you have to do is build the partnership yourself.

copy/paste that answer and publish it as an article on Medium. You can copy/paste that article and publish it again on LinkedIn, and then you can copy/paste that article on LinkedIn onto your brand-new publication, before passing the link along to your point of contact at a major publication, eager to syndicate your content. The best part about this strategy is that you can create as many syndication partnerships as you want. So, in theory, five major publications can all syndicate with your website, and all five can syndicate the exact same article—which can also appear on your social platforms as well.

This is how you quadruple dip in the world of online publishing.

To recap:

• You can publish anything you write in infinite social environments (Quora, Medium, LinkedIn, Wattpad, excerpts on Twitter and Facebook, etc.). • You can publish articles in infinite social environments and forge partnerships with publications to syndicate your content directly (content originally published on Quora can be syndicated into major publications like Inc, Forbes, TIME, etc., IF you facilitate it yourself by reaching out to someone on their syndication/partnerships team). • You can publish articles in infinite social environments, and publish them on a website/publication you own, and syndicate them to infinite publications you have partnerships with. • If you author an article on a major publication first, that article can be republished on your own social profiles (so long as you include a link at the bottom to the original). • If you author an article on a major publication first, that article can be republished on your own publication (so long as you include a link at the bottom to the original), allowing it to be syndicated to other publications you have partnerships with. Some publications are OK with this, some aren’t.

Chapter 6 - How To Always Write Something People Will Want To Read: 5 Forms Of Proven Writing

There are five types of writing on the internet.

Form #1: Actionable Guide

Form #2: Opinion

Form #3: Curated List

Form #4: Story

Form #5: Credible Talking Head

The way you “win” the game of online writing is by creating the single best possible version of whatever form of writing you’re using in your chosen category.

In order to create the single best resource, you do not need to write a book. In fact, I have always argued that length is a poor judge of value (the only time this backfired was when a hot-shot restaurateur and potential client said to me, “That’s not what my girlfriend thinks,” but that’s a story for another time). You aren’t aiming for a word count. What you’re aiming for is the most value you can possibly deliver WITHOUT 1) confusing the reader, or 2) wasting their time.

Instead of writing the single best article on “How To Land Your First Client As A Freelance Photographer,” they write an article that touches a bit on clients, and a bit on lenses, and a bit on accounting, and a bit on photo editing. Even though the title is telling the reader, “I’m about to give you an Actionable Guide,” they’ve unconsciously written a Curated List instead—leaving their reader confused and unfulfilled.

Anytime you fail to deliver on your promise to a reader, you’ve lost them.

Instead, you should write one article exclusively about “How To Land Your First Client As A Freelance Photographer.” If any thought, insight, opinion, statistic, story, or random anecdote doesn’t have to do with that one specific topic, it shouldn’t be in the piece. Period. “How To Choose Your First Lens As A Freelance Photographer” should be a second, separate article. “How To Handle Your Own Accounting As A Freelance Photographer” should be a third, separate article. And so on, ensuring the promise you make to your reader is delivered on to the very best of your ability.

Actionable Guide of any kind is to get someone to bookmark it.

The reason I like to set this as a “mental goal” is because if you can write something someone is willing to bookmark, that means you’ve written a resource the reader doesn’t want to just read once—but wants to come back to again and again (and not just to that individual piece, but to you as a writer).

Stories aren’t just for fiction writers.

Stories are one of the most powerful ways to “hook” a reader into your piece of writing. The goal of any story should be to move a reader’s eyes along the page so quickly that before they can even think to themselves, “Do I want to read this?” they’re already off and running.

Why people read certain things on the internet and not others is often a reflection of its headline. That string of five to fifteen words at the very top of the page tells the reader whether the piece of writing in front of them is going to be worth their time—and what they can expect in exchange for reading it.

What makes a great headline is getting someone to understand three things at the exact same time:

1. What this piece of writing is about
2. Who this piece of writing is for
3. The PROMISE: the problem that will be solved, and/or the solution being offered

The Curiosity Gap is what tells the reader what this piece of writing is about, who it’s for, and what it’s promising—all without revealing the answer.

Chapter 7 - The Perfect Post: How To Write Headlines People Can’t Help But Read

Before you start writing anything, the very first thing you should do is think deeply about the headline, the frame, and the focal point you are presenting to your reader.

Even if you’re writing a 100-character Tweet, I encourage you to question, “What would be the headline of this Tweet?”

To be honest, I used to write my headlines last. A younger me believed what mattered more was the content of what I was saying, and that the headline was basically just the bow I placed on top. Seven years later, I realized this was not only incorrect, but incredibly unproductive. Your headline isn’t just a headline. Your headline is, quite literally, a micro-version of your entire Actionable Guide, Opinion, Curated List, Story, or Credible Talking Head monologue.

If you can’t clearly communicate what it is you want to say in a twelve-word headline, chances are, you won’t clearly communicate what it is you want to say in an 800-word post (or a 60,000-word book).

The first question I encourage you to ask yourself is, “Who is this piece of writing for?”

One of the biggest ironies when it comes to online writing is that people think Audience and Subject Matter are two completely separate variables. They sit down to write whatever it is they want to write, and then, after the fact, they say, “Ok now how do I get this in front of a billion people?”

What these writers fail to realize is that Subject Matter is actually what defines the size of their Audience.

The size of your audience is a direct reflection of the size of the question you’re answering.

Now, there is a way for you to get the best of both worlds, and that’s by using niche topics to answer universal questions.

For example, an article titled, “How To Be A Better Writer” answers two of our three questions. You know who this article is going to be for, and you know what it’s going to be about. Unfortunately, the PROMISE is a little weak. What does being a “better writer” really mean? What benefits do you receive by becoming a better writer? Why should someone want to become a “better writer” in the first place?

Here is where you have a decision to make. You can either make your PROMISE answer a niche question or a broad question—and depending on which you pick will dramatically change the size of your potential Audience. (It will also change the content of the piece.)

For example:

“How To Be A Better Writer Today, So You Can Start Writing Best-Selling Books Tomorrow” would be a title with a big PROMISE for aspiring authors. If you have no interest in becoming a best-selling author, you probably won’t want to read this piece of writing. It’s more specific, and will resonate more clearly with your target reader, but it won’t reach as many different types of readers. This is the pro/con.

“How To Become A Better Writer, Journal More Often, And Live A More Present Life,” on the other hand, has a completely different PROMISE. The question it’s answering is dramatically bigger (“How can I live a more present life?”). The Curiosity Gap here is saying that by becoming a better writer, and using writing as a habit, you can live a more present life.

This technique of tying niche topics to universal questions is a powerful way of tapping into new audiences and expanding your reach outside of your particular industry or category.

Here are a few more examples:

• “The Future Of The Biotechnology Industry” is niche (and vague), and can be expanded by changing it to “How The Future Of Biotechnology Is Going To Make All Of Us Happier, Healthier, And Live Longer.” • “The Girl Who Ran Away” is good, but it can be clarified and expanded by changing it to, “The Girl Who Ran Away: Family, Loss, And The Power Of Forgiving Those Who Hurt You Most.” • “7 Tips For Becoming Smarter” is clear, but a bigger PROMISE can help it reach more people. “7 Tips For Becoming Smarter, Achieving Chess-Master Memory, And Becoming The Most Interesting Person In The Room”

Here are some of the most proven headline formats in online writing:

• Big Numbers: For example, “3,000 People Just Filed For Unemployment In This Small Town In Arkansas. Here’s Why.” This is a great headline because “3,000 People” is concrete, definitive, easy to imagine, and yet an unexpectedly large number—and what’s unexpected is exciting. • Dollar Signs: Money is about as universal as a topic can get. “$400 Million Is How Much You Need To Make In Order To Afford This Insane Mansion In Malibu” is eye-catching because very few people have $400 million. Dollar signs make the Curiosity Gap wider and more interesting for readers. • Credible Names: Celebrities, CEOs, pop culture icons, anyone the world can easily recognize by name is a great way to hook readers’ attention. “Will Smith’s Advice On How To Live A Fulfilling Life Will Change The Way You See The World Forever” is a headline built on credibility. Yes, there’s a great PROMISE here, but the real “hook” comes from the fact that it’s advice from Will Smith. “Amazon, Apple, Tesla, And 4 Other Stocks That Have Made Early Investors Mega-Millionaires” is another example of how to leverage name credibility. • “This Just Happened”: Timeliness is a terrific mechanism for getting readers’ attention right now. Words like “Just, Recently, Today, Now,” etc., are what tell a reader that of all the things on the internet to read, “this thing” is high priority. For example, “Michael Jordan Just Gave A Press Conference And NBA Executives Are Furious.” The reason you would want to read that article is to feel in-the-know. • The Success Story: These headlines summarize an amazing event or rare occurrence that doesn’t happen every day. For example, “How This Small Team Managed To Secure A Six-Figure Investment In Less Than 1 Week” or “This 1 Group Activity Exercise Increased An Entire Office’s Productivity By 150%.” • Things That Shouldn’t Go Together: Combining two or more things in a headline that don’t typically sit next to each other is a great way to force readers to pause and take an interest. For example, “7 Things KFC And Miley Cyrus Have In Common,” or, “What Jay-Z, Pablo Escobar, And Oprah Can Teach Us About Leadership.” • For The Industry: These headlines work well when you’re writing for a very specific audience. So much so, that you want to call them out right in the title. The more specific you can be about who the piece is for, the better. For example, “3 Things All Successful Small Business Owners Do To Stay Profitable.” • The Topic Within The Topic: Some headlines benefit from a bit of added curiosity. This is a technique that can be applied to any of the other headline structures, and can be a great way of making readers feel like they’re getting the “inside scoop.” For example, “7 Ways The Real Estate Industry Is Changing (And How You Should Be Investing Your Money).” The first part of the headline is strong, but it’s the second part of the headline (inside parentheses) that gives the first part more context. • Question/Answer: These headlines start with a question and end with a hint at the answer. This style is best suited for articles with a big concept that’s difficult to cram into one headline—but when split in two, you’re able to give more context to the reader, faster. For example, “Can’t Be Productive In The Office? Try Organizing Your Calendar Like This” or “Don’t Know How To Track Your Goals? This New App Has The Answer.” • X Number: 1 Thing, 3 Ways, 5 Lessons, 9 Habits, etc. Placing a number at the beginning of a headline tells the reader, “This is all you’re signing up for—just 9 quick habits and then we’re done.” It makes the piece feel like there is a much lower barrier to entry, while at the same time setting a concrete expectation. The book, “13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do” became an international bestseller using the same headline style that has powered so many articles online.

And of course, you can combine any of these proven formats to make your headlines even stronger. For example, “The 1 Thing LeBron James Does Every Morning That Earns Him An Extra $10 Million Per Year.”

• Bigger Questions attract Bigger Audiences • Niche Questions attract Niche Audiences • Wider Audiences benefit from simple, universal language • Niche Audiences benefit from ultra-specific, niche language • Titles that only answer 1 of the 3 questions are weak. Titles that answer 2 of the 3 questions are good. Titles that answer all 3 of the questions are exceptional

The first two or three words of a headline are arguably the most important words of the sentence. When people are scrolling through titles, they really only look at the beginning and the end. They want to know what this “thing” is (the beginning), and what will happen (the end/the PROMISE) if they read it—all in a matter of milliseconds.

There are two reasons this technique of using a number at the beginning of a headline is so effective. First, it conveys conviction, which readers trust. It’s declarative, and anything that is declarative implies a strong stance or opinion (which people love). Second, it sounds short. You’re not asking the reader to read about 10 different points, or 100 different points. You’re saying, “You just need to know this 1 thing,” which feels like a very low barrier to entry for a reader.

“Meh, this will only take me a second to read,” they say to themselves, right before they click.

The first headline you write probably won’t be “it.” There’s a rewriting process that needs to happen in order to get rid of all the tiny words like “if, when, does, it, too, for,” etc., that get in the way of your headline achieving all three of its goals: 1) telling the reader what this piece is about, 2) whether it’s for them, and 3) whether the PROMISE is worth their time.

The way I write and rewrite headlines is I first try to say whatever it is I’m trying to say, in as many words as I need to say it.

“The 8 Things You Should Do On A Daily Basis In Order To Become The Best Person You Can Possibly Become, No Matter What Obstacles Are In Your Way”

Next, I think hard about whether or not I’ve really nailed down the PROMISE. Can I PROMISE more? What else does the reader want? What are their emotional wants, needs, and desires related to this specific problem or piece of advice?

“The 8 Things You Should Do On A Daily Basis In Order To Get More Done, Achieve Your Goals, And Start Living Your Best Life”

Then, once I feel like I have clarity around the PROMISE, I look for words that are still too vague. I want the reader’s eyes to skim my headline and latch on to two or three words that speak directly to the categories of their interests.

“The 8 Things You Should Do On A Daily Basis To Be More Productive, Achieve Success, And Gain True Financial Freedom”

Finally, I’ll go through my headline and edit out as many tiny connecting words as possible. Less is more.

“8 Daily Habits That Will Make You More Productive, Achieve Success, And Gain True Financial Freedom”

If I get to the end of the exercise and I like the headline in its final form, I’ll go and write the piece. And if I went through the steps and felt like I didn’t end up with something powerful enough, I’ll start back at the beginning.

The best way to come up with a compelling PROMISE is to think deeply about 1) outcomes your readers want to receive, or 2) outcomes your readers want to avoid.

For example:

• “…Become Rich” is a good outcome, but “…Become So Rich You Never Have To Think About Money Again” is a far more emotional and exciting outcome. • “…Not Lose Your Job” is a general outcome most people want to avoid, but “…Not Get Fired On Your First Day” is a more specific, more easily imaginable outcome a lot of people actively worry about. • “…Get Married” is a standard outcome, but “…Get Married And Stay Together For More Than 20 Years” is an outcome the reader can measure.

The more emotional you can make your PROMISE, the more likely a reader is to want to read, comment, and share your writing.

Because it speaks to a part of their identity.

Lastly, you always want to be thinking about what “POWER phrases” you can add to your headlines to clarify the urgency and importance of whatever it is you’re writing about.

For example, instead of saying “7 Ways…” you could say, “7 Little-Known Ways” or “7 Small But Powerful Ways.” These tiny tweaks are what tell readers that what they’re about to read is different from all the other articles on the same topic—and can also hint at a more meaningful or impactful PROMISE.

A few examples:

• 3 Crucial Lessons About Business You’ll Learn Working For A High-Growth Startup Founder • These Unforgettable Tips From Silicon Valley’s 10 Most Successful VC Firms Will Change The Way You Think About Business Forever • 9 Memorable Truths About Life They Don’t Teach You In School • This 1 Eye-Opening Takeaway From The 2019 TED Conference Will Inspire You To Be The Next Success Story In Your Industry • 11 Painful Mistakes Most Founders Make Right After Raising Their First Round Of Fundraising • 4 Emerging Biotech Trends You Should Know Are Quietly Changing The World

Chapter 8 - The Art Of Writing Online: How To Structure The Perfect Post

However, there are absolutely techniques the most popular writers use in order to cater to the consumption habits of today’s readers. We forget that art is always a reflection of society, and writers today are competing in a world where attention is in short supply. As a result, the writing styles that thrive in today’s environment are ones that move quickly, and respect the reader’s time as much as humanly possible.

If you can say it in three sentences instead of five, try to say it in two.

And if you can say it in two sentences, do your very best to say it in one.

Viral articles, Twitter threads, and any other effective piece of written content online follows this basic structure:

Section 1: Introduction

Section 2: X Main Points

Section 3: Conclusion

Right away in the introduction, your job is to answer all three of the reader’s preliminary questions:

1. What is this about?
2. Is this for me?
3. What are you PROMISING and how confident am I that you’re going to deliver on that PROMISE?

The very first sentence is arguably the most important sentence of the entire piece.

It should be a short sentence. It should be a clear sentence. It should be a sentence that a reader can fly through, giving them the feeling they’re off to a running start. You are successful if you can nail the entire “point” of the piece in ten words or less.

In 1/3/1, you have one strong opening sentence, three description sentences, and then one conclusion sentence. Visually, this is a powerful way to tell the reader you aren’t going to make them suffer through big blocks of text, and that you have their best interests in mind.

Here’s how it works:

This first sentence is your opener.

This second sentence clarifies your opener. This third sentence reinforces the point you’re making with some sort of credibility or amplified description. And this fourth sentence rounds out your argument, guiding the reader toward your conclusion.

This fifth sentence is your strong conclusion.

Once you learn these, you can then start to play with rhythm a bit more and elongate your introductions. I cannot stress enough how much you do not want to elongate your writing by cramming sentence after sentence into one paragraph. Online writing benefits from clearly separated thoughts and statements, which is why I recommend using variations of the 1/3/1 and 1/5/1 structure if you need the extra space.

Remember: you want to optimize for speed and Rate of Revelation.

Anything that isn’t absolutely necessary, delete it.

Once you’ve successfully framed what it is you’re writing about, it’s time to get into the Main Points of the piece.

Your Main Points are, quite literally, why the reader clicked on your headline to begin with. In fact, it’s very common for readers to skim (or skip) the introduction of a piece and just start reading at the first Main Point. And it’s even more common for readers to not even read the article in its entirety. What they’ll do instead is skim the Main Points and subheads, and then decide whether it’s worth going back and reading the article in full.

If the “sweet spot” of an online article is 800 to 1,200 words, then your job as a writer is to pack as much value into your Main Points as possible—without inflating the piece’s word count.

One of the biggest mistakes writers make when structuring their writing online is not thinking about how much “real estate” they’re giving each point.

Which is why I encourage you to write backwards.

Once you’ve written your introduction (or, even before you write your introduction), skeleton out your piece by listing your Main Points. If you are writing an Opinion article, your Main Points are most likely going to be sentences and statements. If you are writing an Actionable Guide, your Main Points are going to be either sentences or categories. And if you are writing a Curated List, your Main Points are going to be the things you are listing: habits, lessons, movies, book titles, etc.

Notice again how every single structure relies on a single opening sentence, and always ends with a single conclusion sentence. Pieces that open with two consecutive sentences in the first paragraph are weaker. And pieces that open with three or more sentences in the first paragraph are tiring for the reader. As much as possible, you want to crescendo and decrescendo your rhythms, starting with one sentence, then moving up to three, four, or five sentences, then back down to two sentences, then back down to one—and repeat.

This is what makes the reader feel like they’re riding a wave.

And waves feel good.

Chapter 9 - How To Talk About Yourself Without Making Your Writing All About “You”

The Golden Intersection is the single most effective way of talking about yourself without being self-promotional.

If I tell you I am a 4x Top Writer on Quora with tens of millions of views on my writing, and that’s the only thing I tell you, then I seem like a self-centered egomaniac.

But if I tell you I’m a 4x Top Writer on Quora with tens of millions of views on my writing, and I want to tell you how you can become a Top Writer with tens of millions of views on your own writing too, suddenly I don’t seem self-promotional. I’m just letting you know where my insights are coming from, and that I’m a credible source of information.

The difference between the former and the latter is that in the first example, I am the main character. I’m who is important, and I’m banking on the reader taking an interest in me.

In the latter, I am no longer the main character.

You are.

I’m telling you how you can achieve your goal of becoming a Top Writer on Quora—and, for context, here’s how I became a Top Writer on Quora myself.

When you put the reader first, suddenly the moments you talk about yourself aren’t really about yourself—they’re visual examples of the points you’re making for the reader’s benefit. You’re telling a story that is showing the answer to the reader’s question.

Here are a few examples of pieces you could write to “promote” this book:

• 7 Mistakes People Make When Trying To Grow Vegetables At Home For The First Time • How To Grow Tomatoes In Your Own Kitchen For Under $50 Per Month: 3 Easy Steps • The 1 Unforgettable Life Lesson You’ll Learn As Soon As You Stop Going Grocery Shopping—And Start Growing Your Own Food

Each of these titles speaks to a particular pain point the reader might be experiencing: a question they have, a result they want, a lifestyle they desire. Then, within each one of these pieces, you can (and should) talk about how you learned the very same thing the reader is looking to learn, so the reader can better imagine themselves moving forward on their own path.

The single most effective way to “promote” yourself without promoting yourself is to use you, your company, or your product as context to the thing you’re explaining to the reader.

If I want to hire content marketing experts, then my target reader is someone who is very knowledgeable about content marketing and someone who is looking for a certain type of work environment.

Here are a few examples of pieces I could write to attract those types of readers:

• 6 Tools Every Content Marketer Needs To Be Using In 2020 To Drive More Exposure, Convert More Customers, And Be 10x More Productive • 3 Reasons Why Every Digital Marketing Agency Should Have Their Own Internal Content Marketing Department • Are You A Freelance Content Marketer? Here Are 9 Clever Ways To Find More Clients

As a content marketer, these are the types of pieces you are most likely reading on a regular basis. Your desires are to make more money, have more freedom, work with better clients, improve your skills, etc. Which means, if these are the types of readers you want to reach, then these are the questions you need to be answering for the reader’s benefit.

Chapter 10 - Your Content Roadmap: Constructing A “Sticky Web” For Your Writing

Writers who succeed on the internet are the ones with the largest libraries of content. Sure, there are outliers who happen to find success with just a small batch of material, but 99% of the time, volume is what separates “good” from “great.” The more material you have, the more times you’re “spinning the wheel” of social algorithms, and the more likely new readers are to discover you and your work.

In the game of Online Writing, volume wins.

in the game of online writing, it’s not just that volume wins.

It’s that timeless volume wins.

To get the most “return on investment” from your writing, it’s important to have a roadmap for success.

I firmly believe the first six months on the internet, for any writer, should be spent exploring, practicing, and gathering data. Even for our clients at Digital Press, we would explain that the first three months were largely about gathering data. We’d then author a handful of pieces with them in a variety of categories, and as data told us what people were engaging with, we would narrow down their topic areas to clearly define their three “content buckets.”

The three types of “content buckets” I recommend are:

1. General Audience: You should have one bucket that is aimed at universal topics. Things like positive habits, life lessons, productivity topics, etc., are big, broad categories that resonate with the widest number of people. How you make them relevant to you is by approaching them through your own specific lens. Let’s say you’re the VP of Marketing at a software company. You should write about life lessons learned as the VP of Marketing at a software company, or time management techniques you use day in and day out as The VP of Marketing at a software company. This same logic applies no matter who you are. You could be a poet, a foodie, or a master salesman, and there is still massive benefit in targeting universal topics through your own specific lens.
2. Niche Audience: Your second content bucket should be hyper-relevant to your expertise. If you’re the VP of Marketing, then your niche audience would be “marketers”—and refined further, maybe “content marketers.” When speaking to this audience, you have the option of continuing to leverage universal topics to broaden your reach, or intentionally excluding general audiences by speaking directly to the intimate pain points your target reader is experiencing. My recommendation is to do both.
3. Company/Industry Audience: Your third content bucket is the environment and industry you exist within. If you’re a violinist, you should be writing about the violin industry. If you’re a music producer, you should be writing about the music production industry. If you own a SaaS business, you should be writing about software as a service and the SaaS industry at large. If you are a writer, you should be writing about writing (in your specific genre). This third bucket is usually the easiest to pinpoint, however it’s an important one to add into the mix in order to be “seen” as a leader in your chosen category.

For example, here are my three content buckets:

1. General Audience: Life advice, personal development, and self-mastery as it relates to my own life experiences as a writer and entrepreneur (and previously as a bodybuilder and professional gamer).
2. Niche Audience: Online writing advice, self-publishing, and content marketing.
3. Company/Industry Audience: Thought leadership and personal branding, specifically for executives, founders, investors, etc.

Anyone who says, “I don’t have that much to say,” doesn’t know the secret to coming up with endless ideas.

Writing anything on the internet follows a very simple 3-step process.

Step 1: What “Type” Of Writing Is This?

Form #1: Actionable Guide

Form #2: Opinion

Form #3: Curated List

Form #4: Story

Form #5: Credible Talking Head

Step 2: What “Idea” Am I Communicating Within This Piece Of Writing?

Idea #1: Explanation (When/Where/How/What/Why Something Happens)

Idea #2: Habits (To Achieve A Destination, Goal, Or State Of Being)

Idea #3: Mistakes (Keeping You From Achieving A Destination, Goal, Or State Of Being)

Idea #4: Lessons (Learned In Pursuit Of A Destination, Goal, Or State Of Being)

Idea #5: Tips (That Can Help You In Your Own Pursuit Of A Destination, Goal, Or State Of Being)

Idea #6: Stories (That Symbolize Or Explain Some Aspect Of The Pursuit Of A Destination, Goal, Or State Of Being)

Idea #7: Timely Events (That Are Relevant To The Target Reader’s Knowledge, Awareness, Or Pursuit Of A Destination, Goal, Or State Of Being)

If you notice, timely “this just happened” content is only one of seven types of ideas that are communicated in written content—and yet, writers disproportionately give them priority in their libraries. Instead, I recommend you give timely content the smallest allocation of your writing portfolio. Take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves, but invest the majority of your time in building timeless assets you will be able to repurpose and reuse (and will pay you dividends) years into the future.

Step 3: Why Me?

Credibility #1: “I am an expert on this topic. Here’s what I think.”

Credibility #2: “I went out and talked to all the trusted experts on this topic. Here are all their insights and opinions in one place.”

Credibility #3: “I’m just sharing my opinion, but my opinion is the most articulate one of all.”

When you combine these three steps together, you suddenly get a very easy (and replicable) equation for consistently writing high-quality, high-performing content.

For example:

• Curated List x Mistakes x 7 Industry Experts (Credibility #2) = the outline of an article titled, “7 Founders Share The Biggest Mistakes They Made Raising Money For Their First Startups” • Credibility x Explanation (Why) x Expert (Credibility #1) = the outline of an article titled, “I Was A Professional World Of Warcraft Gamer As A Teenager. Here’s Why eSports Is Going To Become A Multi-Billion- Dollar Industry” • Opinion x Lessons x My Perspective (Credibility #3) = the outline of an article titled, “Our Country’s Economy Is Falling Apart. Here’s What That Looks Like For Someone Living In A Low-Income Neighborhood”)

Go down the list, combine steps 1, 2, and 3, and you’ll have the outline of a piece of content just waiting to be written.

Once you’ve pinpointed three content buckets you want to start with, and you’ve come up with a handful of working headlines using the Endless Idea Generator, you just plug and play to create your Content Roadmap.

Step 1: List Your 3 Content Buckets

Each of these will be the categories you are looking to target over the long term.

• General Audience (Example: Productivity) • Niche Audience (Example: Project Management Software) • Company/Industry (Example: Software As A Service)

Step 2: List 3+ Topics Under Each Bucket

Within each bucket, pinpoint a few overarching topics you want to become an “influential voice” on, and write actively about.

• General Audience (Example: Productivity) • Productivity Tips • Time Management Techniques • Curated Productivity Insights • Niche Audience (Example: SaaS Startups) • Startup Advice • SaaS Insights • Founder Stories • Company/Industry (Example: Project Management Software) • History Of Project Management Software • Trends In Project Management Software • New Research / Data In Project Management

Step 3: Plug And Play Under Each Topic

Then, underneath each Audience, and then each Topic, use the Endless Idea Generator to come up with hundreds of working headlines.

• General Audience (Example: Productivity) • Productivity Tips • HOW TO be more productive • How X Startup Entrepreneurs, Pro Athletes, And Billionaires Stay Productive • How Anyone Can Be More Productive With These X Small Shifts In Their Morning Routine • How To Achieve Work-Life Balance Without Getting Fired • WAYS to be more productive • X Little-Known Ways To Make Yourself More Productive On A Daily Basis • X Unconventional Ways Stays Productive On A Daily Basis • X Unique Ways To Get More Work Done In 5x Less Time • X Inexpensive Software Products That Will Help You Be More Productive • THOUGHT LEADER RECOMMENDATIONS on how to be more productive • What Michael Jordan’s Training Schedule Can Teach Us About Productivity • Oprah’s Morning Routine Will Inspire You To Be More Productive. Here It Is • These X NYT Best-Selling Books Will Change The Way You Think About Productivity Forever • These X TED Talks Will Inspire You To Scrap Your Current Morning Routine And Do Things Differently—Right Now • BEST BOOKS on how to be more productive • This 1 Book On Productivity Will Inspire You To Stop Working After 3 p.m. • These X books Are Filled With Timeless Productivity Hacks Everyone Should Read (Or At Least Keep On Their Bookshelf) • If You Want To Be More Productive, You Absolutely Need To Read These X Books By The End Of The Year • PODCASTS to help you be more productive • X Podcasts You’ll Feel Productive Just Listening To • X Podcasts That Feature The World’s Leading Productivity Experts • These X Podcasts Will Teach You How To Simplify Your Life And Be More Productive • HABITS of highly productive people • X Habits Of Highly Productive People • X Horrible Habits That Will Keep You From Ever Becoming Your Most Productive Self • X Nighttime Habits That Ruin Your Sleep (And Your Productivity The Next Day) • X Networking Habits That Will Waste Your Time And Demolish Your Productivity At A Conference • These X Habits Might Sound Simple, But They’re The Single Best Way To Maximize Your Productivity Forever • MISTAKES people make when trying to be productive • X Mistakes People Make As Soon As They Start A New Routine • X Apps People Think Will Make Them More Productive, But Actually Make Their Productivity Worse • X Costly Mistakes Every Manager Makes When Trying To Maximize Team Productivity • MYTHS people listen to (that keep them from being productive) • X Things People Think Will Make Them More Productive, But Actually Won’t • X Productivity Hacks The World Loves To Preach, But Are Just Quick Fixes And Myths • X Obstacles Keeping Every Single One Of Us From Moving Productively Toward Our Dreams On A Daily Basis • X Types Of Conflict In The Workplace That Eat Up Our Most Productive Hours • DISTRACTIONS that ruin your productivity • X Types Of Distractions That Are Horrible For Productive Work • X Distractions That Need To Be Removed From Your Life Before You Start A New Routine • X Distractions That Will Kill Your Productivity • X Distracting Relationships In Your Life You Probably Don’t Realize Are Hurting Your Productivity • X Workplace Distractions We Can All Relate To • Niche Audience (Example: SaaS Startups) • Startup Advice • HOW TO build a startup • How To Build A SaaS Company With $0 • X Ways To Build A SaaS Product Without Raising Any Money • There Are X Different Types Of SaaS Startups. Which One Are You Trying To Build? • X Key Steps You Need To Take In Order To Build A Successful Startup • OPTIMIZING your startup and solving for inefficiencies • X Ways To Make The Culture Of Your New Startup More Productive • These Are The X Most Common Problems For New Startups. Here’s How To Solve Them • X Easy Ways To Spot What’s Keeping Your Startup From Reaching The Next Level • HIRING for your startup • X Hiring Mistakes Every Startup Founder Makes Over And Over Again • X Hires You Are Going To Need To Make When Your Startup Reaches $1M In Annual Revenue • These X Hires Will Be Crucial For Your Startup To Scale • Unless You Hire These X Types Of People, Your Startup Will Never Become Successful • X SaaS Products That Will Make Your Startup’s Hiring Process Faster, Easier, And More Efficient • SCALING your startup • X Obstacles Every Founder Runs Into When Scaling Their First Startup • X Ways To Scale Your Startup Without Raising Millions Of Dollars • X Scaling Challenges You’ll Experience After Crossing $1M In Revenue • X Types Of Managers You’ll Need In Place Before Your Startup Can Scale Efficiently • LESSONS you learn building a startup • X Unforgettable Lessons You’ll Learn Bootstrapping A Startup With $0 • X Lessons You Have To Learn The Hard Way As A Founder (That You Never, Ever Forget) • X Memorable Lessons I Learned Working For An Entrepreneur (Before Becoming A Startup Founder Myself) • X Life Lessons You’ll Learn About Yourself The Moment You Decide To Start Your Own Company • HABITS every successful startup should live by • X Morning Habits These X Successful Startup Founders Live By (And Have Made Them Millions Of Dollars) • If You’re Building A Startup, Here Are X Habits You And Your Employees Should Practice On A Daily Basis • X Simple But Powerful Habits You Need In Your Life—Especially As A Stressed-Out Startup Founder • WHY startups fail • X Reasons Startups Fail To Raise Their Next Round Of Funding • X Painful Reasons Only X% Of Startups Reach Their Series B • X Interesting Takeaways From The Harvard Business Review Study That Just Came Out About Startup Failure Rates In America • X Crucial Lessons I Learned Watching My First Startup Fail • X Little-Known Reasons Startups Fail (That No One Ever Talks About) • FUNDRAISING for your startup • X Simple Ways To Raise Money For Your Next Startup Venture • X Ways Founders Are Raising Money Today, Without Turnin

Something else I want to point out is that within this roadmap are some redundancies. Certain ideas could fall under different buckets. Others can exist within two buckets. Etc. Personally, I don’t see this as a bad thing. Part of establishing yourself as an “influential voice” within your chosen category is writing at-length about the same handful of topics, and continuing to find new ways to approach them. In this sense, repetition is a good thing—not a bad thing.

Lastly, every time you sit down to write, I encourage you to ask yourself these three questions:

1. “Does this idea fall within one of my three content buckets?” (If not, what can you tweak so that it makes more sense in the context of your library?)

2. “Will this piece stand the test of time?” (If not, what can you change to make it less timely and more timeless?)

3. “Have I already written about this?” (If yes, how can you re-tell those same stories, insights, opinions, etc., in a way that gives the reader a new and different experience?)

   I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written the phrase, “When I was 17 years old, I became one of the highest-ranked World of Warcraft players in North America.” And yet, every time I’ve told that story, I’ve told it through a slightly different lens. In one piece I wrote about how playing video games taught me about work ethic. In another, I wrote about the life lessons I learned being obsessed with something at such an early age. In another, I wrote about the fallacy of achievement, and how external rewards don’t last forever. In another, I wrote about my relationship with my parents as a teenager being obsessed with World of Warcraft.

   It’s the same “story,” but told hundreds of different ways.

Remember: repetition is how you reinforce who you are, what you know, and what life experiences are informing your writing, perspective, and unique point of view.

Repetition is how you get people to remember “you.”

Chapter 11 - Pillar Pieces: How To Turn Proven Online Writing Into Longer, More Valuable Assets

“Writing Data Flywheel”

Note: In “The Art and Business of Online Writing,” Nicolas Cole uses the term “Writing Data Flywheel” to describe a feedback-driven process that enables writers to continuously improve their craft by analyzing the performance of their content. This mechanism involves gathering insights on what resonates with readers, allowing writers to adapt their topics, styles, and formats accordingly, ultimately leading to greater audience engagement. As writers accumulate data over time, they can refine their narratives and establish a distinct online presence, turning their writing into a more effective and sustainable business model.

when you see that one of your articles, social media posts, or short stories is outperforming every other piece of content you’ve ever written, you shouldn’t just see that as a “win” and move on. You should question why this piece in particular is resonating with so many people—and how you can expand it into a longer, more valuable asset.

“But Cole, I’ve already said everything I wanted to say about this topic in the first article I wrote.”

No, you haven’t.

Here are five easy ways to take a proven topic and expand it into a timeless Pillar Piece.

• Combine Content: If you’ve written a dozen articles about “cold email outreach strategies,” combine the best parts of them all into one comprehensive guide. Or, if you’ve written hundreds of tweets about writing advice or cooking advice or fitness advice, you should combine them into a Pillar Piece titled, “100 Tweets That Will Teach You Everything You Need To Know About Cooking Gluten-Free At Home.” The benefit here for the reader is convenience. Instead of them having to scroll through three years of tweets, or hundreds and hundreds of Medium articles, you’ve done them the favor of curating all the best, most relevant pieces of information into one comprehensive piece that lives on your site. • Curate Expert Opinions: It’s one thing to share your own opinions and insights, but it’s even better if you can reinforce those insights from credible people. Interview experts in your industry and add quotes from them throughout your Pillar Piece. Pull from interviews they’ve given on podcasts and in major publications. You can even quote insights they share on their own websites or social content. The more helpful information you can curate, so long as it’s relevant to the reader, the better. • Add Statistics: Nothing makes a piece feel “more professional” than adding a few highly relevant stats or takeaways from credible studies. You can very easily elongate proven content by adding additional research the reader would have otherwise had to find for themselves. • Tell Personal Stories: If the target range of a piece of written content online is 800 – 1,200 words, then that doesn’t leave a lot of room to tell many in-depth stories. The beauty of turning proven material into Pillar Pieces, however, is that you can share much more with the reader—so long as it’s relevant. In each Main Point, explain to the reader how you learned this same lesson or piece of advice for yourself. Divulge interesting details. Give them the stuff they might not know about you—and wouldn’t normally come across in your other content. • Provide More Examples: This book is a great example. One version of this book could have been 800 words. Another version could have been 5,000 words. Another version could have been 25,000 words. The reason why this book ended up being as long as it did was because I wanted to give you (the reader) a ton of examples. I didn’t just want to explain a point and then move on—I wanted you to see first-hand how these writing strategies worked, so that you could integrate them into your own writing too. The same goes for Pillar Pieces. You can very easily turn an 800-word article into a 5,000 word “Ultimate Guide” by giving the reader dozens of concrete examples.

Notice, I am not encouraging you to inflate the word count and just “make the piece longer.”

I’m encouraging you to find ways to make this one individual piece, on one individual topic, as potent as possible.

Once you have a Pillar Piece written on a specific topic, you should then direct readers over and over again to this Pillar Piece in your relevant social content.

Give away 99% of your best writing for free.

So, if you’ve already written hundreds of articles on a given topic, and you’ve already created a handful of insanely valuable Pillar Pieces on your site, how do you keep pushing yourself to create even more valuable, even more relevant resources readers can download or opt-in and receive?

In addition to the ways I mentioned earlier (turning articles into Pillar Pieces), here are a few more:

• Speak To 1 Hyper-Specific Problem: Just like articles, the best email captures speak to highly sensitive issues within readers. For example, if you write often about building your real estate portfolio, you could create a 7-day email course titled, “7 Days To Buying Your First Rental Property.” Even though readers have consumed your other content, this feels like a hyper-specific solution to a problem they’re facing (“How do I buy my VERY FIRST rental property?”)—and the idea of being walked through the process over 7 days feels helpful. • Curate Credible Case Studies: Another proven opt-in format is to create your own case studies of well-known success stories in your industry. For example, let’s say you are a fiction writer, but you also write articles (and have a handful of Pillar Pieces) about how to earn a living as a fiction writer. You could create a downloadable PDF titled, “10 Fiction Writers Who Earn $100,000+ Per Year By Self-Publishing On Amazon.” Now you have a list of fiction writers who are not only interested in more of your “How To Write Fiction” content, but may also be interested in reading your own works of fiction as well. • Early/Exclusive Content: Can you capture email addresses as a storyteller? You bet. Allow readers to download the first chapter of your upcoming (not-yet-released) novel in advance. Or, allow readers to opt-in for access to additional storylines and side plots of the main characters from your books. Whatever it is, just make sure it is specific enough for the reader to imagine what they’re going to be receiving in return for giving away their email address. Saying, “Subscribe for more of my writing!” isn’t enough. • Different Levels Of Audience: As you learn more and more about your readers, you can (and should) create resources for each level of reader. For example, if you are a digital marketer and you regularly write about digital marketing strategies, all your readers aren’t going to fit within the same bucket. You’re going to want to create one free email course for beginners (“Getting Started: 5 Days To Setting Up Your First Profitable Facebook Ad”), another free email course for advanced marketers (“30 Days, 30 Examples Of How To Maximize Facebook Ad Revenue And Convert 10x More Leads Into Customers”), and another free email course for experts (“7 Days To $1 Million: Facebook Ad Strategies For Experts”). • Templates/Worksheets: Readers love things that are “plug and play.” For example, if you write about health and fitness, you can allow readers to download a handful of specialized workout routines. Or, if you’re a memoir writer, you can give readers on your website a template for them to write a memoir of their own. Or, if you’re a leadership coach, you can give readers a worksheet for them to facilitate their own team-building exercises at work.

The art of online writing is all about letting readers tell you what it is they want more of, and what they’re willing to pay for.

Then, once you’ve effectively captured and held their attention, you can present them with the next most relevant, most valuable piece of content in your library.

This is how you (finally) make money as a writer.

Chapter 12 - How To Make Money Online As A Writer

Instead of trying to make money off the attention of your writing, you can direct that attention to your YouTube channel, or your podcast, or your Instagram page, where you talk about writing, or share tutorial videos about writing, or post pictures of you traveling the world as a writer, etc. We are living in an age where sometimes the best path to making a living “doing what you love” is finding creative ways to monetize not necessarily the craft itself, but all the things that surround the craft: how you write, where you write, who you write with and learn from, your knowledge about writing, etc. You might discover you can make far more money as a YouTuber making writing tutorials than you ever could writing.

The advertising model has caused massive issues within our society (a topic for another time), primarily because it encourages the wrong behavior. It’s a model that rewards quantity over quality, and where “visibility” tends to trump “ability.” As a result, creators just sort of “spray and pray.” They pump out as much content as possible with the hopes of capturing eyeballs and increasing ad revenue. Paid content, on the other hand, incentivizes loyalty. If you are paying for access to something—especially on any sort of month-to-month basis—you have very high expectations as a consumer.

As a writer, part of making money off your craft means constantly keeping your finger on the pulse of what new platforms are emerging for you to leverage (and if you want to be the first to know what those opportunities are, then I highly recommend subscribing to my paid newsletter—SEE HOW THIS WORKS????).

For example, Wattpad recently launched Paid Stories. The way they describe it on their website, “Wattpad Paid Stories is our response to readers who want the opportunity to show support for the writers they love. Writers can now earn money for their work on Wattpad from readers who appreciate it.” How it works is readers buy “coins” within the platform/app, and then use those coins to unlock chapters or entire stories from their favorite writers.

If you want to become a successful, professional writer today, you have to become more than just a writer.

You have to also be an entrepreneur.

The pipedream that a publishing house is just going to swoop in, save the day, and bring you tea and crumpets all afternoon while you stare out the window working on the next great American novel is dead. It doesn’t exist. Hemingway had a good run, but as soon as the internet was invented, that era came to an end.

Chapter 13 - The 1 Habit Every Single Writer Needs To Master In Order To Become Successful

Most people who read this book aren’t going to implement any of the information shared here (hopefully you’re not one of them).

Note: That hits home. I feel like that’s the issue with reading. People (I) don’t implement any ideas.

the real issue, the “root of the root” that keeps talented writers from ever making their dream come true has nothing to do with writing.

It has to do with discipline.

It has to do with self-belief.