“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” – Mark Twain

Can I tell you the truth?

Most advice about writing is b.s.

You’re not going to make “six figures in six weeks.” Ain’t gonna happen. Anyone promising to make you wealthy overnight is pulling the wool over your eyes.

You can, however, make a living writing. You can build an audience of thousands of fans who appreciate your work. It’s more than possible. But lets temper expectations a bit and talk about what it truly takes to succeed. No rose-colored glasses and Youtube videos with Lamborghinis, OK?

I’ve had what I consider modest success and I’m on the way to greater achievements. Today, I’m going to share everything I know from personal experience on taking your writing from a hobby and turning it into a real side project/career.

This is Obvious But I Have to Say It

I feel like I should put a disclaimer above every blog post I write that says, “the following strategies will not work if you don’t try them.”

I’m not sure if I can solve the problem of inaction. It’s so deep and internal for some people. They genuinely believe they’re trying when they’re not.

Taking someone’s advice, twisting it until it’s unrecognizable, and following your own erroneous version of what you were told isn’t trying — it’s arrogance.

Why? Becuase if you knew what you were doing you wouldn’t need advice, right?

Right.

I wasn’t able to grow my own writing career until I humbled myself and followed directions. If I read a post or took a class I simply did what I was told without questioning it too much. It wasn’t easy. I wanted to add my own twist to the advice. But I stopped myself, because I know I didn’t know more than the person teaching me.

So what about you? Are you ready to be the grasshopper?

Excellent.

Key to Writing Success # 1 – Audience

Some of the most successful bands in the world aren’t mainstream icons. In fact, you’ve never heard of many of them. A key to their success is the fact you don’t know about them. They have their own tribe, a cult following, a group of people who know their work inside and out.

This should be your goal when it comes to your own audience.

The landscape is fickle. Every day 1,000 new writers pop up wanting to start their own blogs, write their own books, and share their own messages.

It almost seems too daunting to really give it a go. Afterall, how are you going to stand out?

When you realize the goal isn’t to make everyone your biggest fan, you realize there’s more than enough space for you in your niche.

The entrepreneur Kevin Kelly says if you have 1,000 people who love your work so much they’ll buy anything you make, you’ll be able to make a living for the rest of your life.

Look at the number 1,000 compared to the population. If there are around 7 billion people in the world, you need about .00005 percent to be die-hard fans. That sounds doable, right? I like using this reference because, with the internet, you literally do have access to 7 billion people. And viewing audience building from that frame makes it seem much more achievable. I’ve come across people I’ve never heard of before who have their own dedicated tribes in supposedly crowded fields. I keep coming across them. Bottom line — there’s enough space on the internet for writers who actually try hard.

The 3 Step Method to Building Your Fan Base

You can build an audience for your writing without having to be on podcasts, or run ads, or do SEO.

Most of the tips and tricks for building your audience are either useless or too advanced.

Right now, you’re trying to get started.

I promise you if you do these three things you will begin to see your audience grow.

Step 1 – Start a Blog and Sign Up for an Email Marketing Software

If you don’t have a blog, start one today. You can do it for as little as $3.  I have full directions on how to do so here.

I’ve gone over the reasons why you need a blog multiple times, but here’s a quick recap.

• You need a home base on the internet – You need a place you have control over. If you rely solely on other platforms — like Facebook or Medium — you’re subject to their terms and conditions.
• Conversions – When you have your own website, you can offer readers the opportunity to join your email list.
• Professionalism – Would you trust a business that didn’t have a website? Why would your business be any different?

In addition to a blog, you need an email marketing software to collect emails and send them.

I use Converkit.

If you sign up for Convertkit through this link, I’ll give you a free 30 minute consultation on building your email list. Just send an email to ayodejiawosika@gmail.com when you’ve signed up.

Once you set both up, move to the next step.

Step 2 – Create a Lead Magnet

A lead magnet gives your reader an incentive to join your email list.

For my website, I’ve created multiple guides I offer in exchange for an email. In your case, you want to create something related to the subject you write about.

For example, let’s say you write about mindfulness and meditation.

Some lead magnets you could provide are:

• Breathing techniques checklist
• A guided meditation audio
• Morning stretches and poses to start your day

Once you create your lead magnet you need a way to deliver it.

I use a combination of landing pages and pop-ups to both receive emails and offer my incentive.

If I’m writing a guest post, I’ll create a dedicated landing page with the offer on it. If I want to offer the incentive from my site, I connect it to a pop up using the Sumo plugin.

For detailed explanations on set up, you can read this guide.

Step 3 – Write posts on popular websites and link to your lead magnet

I created a 4,000-word guide on guest posting and wrote another piece on finding sucess with Medium. Both discuss the wash, rinse, and repeat formula I’ve used to take my email list from zero to thousands.

All you need to do is:

• Find popular sites with high traffic to post on
• Write amazing posts for their site
• Link back to your landing page at the end of each post
• Share on social media 

That’s it. The guides go into depth on how to find places to post, pitch them, and write quality work people want to read, but the overarching theme is to avoid the “build it and they will come,” mentality. If you just post on your blog, nothing will happen.

Key to Writing Success # 2 – Influence

Audience and influence are closely related, but they’re a bit different.

See, if you build an audience of people who aren’t interested in your work, it’s the same as having no audience.

You need influence with your own audience and influence in your space to be a successful writer. Well, how do you go about doing that? Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Be Yourself

If you write your truth, people will respond to it. If you’re bullshitting, people will be able to tell.

I use marketing techniques to try to make my writing more appealing, but I never let marketing cloud my message. When I think you need encouragement, I’ll encourage you. When I think I need to be blunt with you, I won’t pull any punches.

Your job as a writer is to share your vision of the world. You’re unique, but you also have a ton in common with other people. The common ground between your uniqueness and the traits you share with others makes your message relatable and remarkable at the same time.

Lead Your Tribe

Writing does three things — educate, entertain, or inspire.

Your job is to lead your audience to one of these three outcomes.

How do you do this? By showing up often. The more you write and share with your audience, the more you can gauge their responses.

Even now, I’ll write posts that don’t go over as well as I’d hoped, but it’s another step closer to creating the message you want and/or need to hear.

You will probably have to write at least 100 blog posts to get a feel for your voice. Once you have a feel for your voice, it’ll sound familiar to your readers. They’ll know what they can expect from you and the ones who enjoy your voice will stay. Really, one of the biggest differentiators you have is your own style.

Key #3 – Income

Most writers make zero dollars. It’s not because they’re incapable of doing it. It has nothing to do with talent or skill.

If you don’t get parts one and two right, the money will never come.

Yan Girard, author and top writer on Medium, discusses this fact in his post on the difference between the short game and the long game.

Here’s a quote from the post:

The short game is when you write a book, put it on Amazon and expect people who’ve never heard of you to buy it.

Or when you make an online course and put it on Udemy.

Or Skillshare.

But the problem is that millions of other people do the exact same thing.

Millions of other people put their stuff on Amazon, Udemy or Skillshare [replace with any other platform out there, like Elance, Fiverr, etc].

And when you put your stuff on some of these platforms you’ll be competing with everybody else who’s competing with everybody else.

You’ll be competing with everybody else who’s playing the short game.

So what happens when you’re in such a tough competition?

You’ll end up losing.

In 99.99% of the cases.

The irony of shortcuts is the fact they always make the process harder. Trying to skip the hard parts thrusts you into the teeth of competition. Pardon the quasi-sexist terminology, but an analogy for standing out online is something like talking to the most beautiful girl in the room. The most beautiful woman in the room doesn’t get approached because she intimidates most men. Counterintuitively, she’s more approachable because she doesn’t get hit on as often as women men consider more attainable. The long game puts you at the top. There’s way more room at the top.

You can’t skip the hard parts. I wrote for a year before I got my first email subscriber because I didn’t even know email lists were a thing. Then, when I learned about building a list, I had the writing habit and motivation to do it. Only after I built a list and demonstrated my knowledge over and over again did I make any money.

That being said, here are the only ways to make money with your writing know of:

Write a Book

The people who tell you self-publishing doesn’t work don’t know what they’re talking about. I haven’t yet made a six-figure income from writing books (let’s talk again in 2018!), but I’ve made a five-figure one. Again, this is where having your own audience and playing the long game comes in. Yes, if you have no audience and self-publish a book on Amazon, it will be hard to succeed, but if you’re patient and launch your book with an audience to back it, the possibilities are endless. I know many authors who make a full time living solely through books. It takes a penchant for writing often — many have more than a dozen books out — but once you build a catalog to support you, the sales pile on top of one another.

Freelance

If you’re knowledgeable about a certain topic, you can freelance blog for other companies. While it isn’t a major income stream for me, I do freelance blog to supplement my income. Freelancing is perhaps the most straightforward way to earn a living with writing. There are countless numbers of business who need copy and blog posts written for them.

The same rules we’ve discussed apply to your freelance business — stay the course, demonstrate your expertise, and build your tribe.

Some great resources on freelancing  are:

• Make a Living Writing
• Elna Cain
• Be a Freelance Blogger

Offer Services or Products

This subject deserves a 2,000-word post of its own, but if you’ve built an audience of people who trust your knowledge, they’ll be willing to pay for it. You can create a course, launch a coaching program, or start a membership site.

Again, these are goals that won’t work well if you’re shortsighted about it. Pay attention to the way your audience responds to your work, send out surveys, track which posts are most popular. That’ll cue you into what they want and need.

In my case, I developed a coaching program for aspiring writers because there are so many steps between starting and accomplishing something worthwhile. I’ve found people need accountability more than anything else. I simply use the knowledge and experienced I’ve gained and transfer it to someone else.

The Bottom Line

Look, I’m not going to lie to you.

Is the blogosphere crowded? Yes. The good news, though? 99 percent of them will quit. This is a game of outlasting the competition, not necessarily being better than them.

Will you struggle along the way? Oh god yeah. But, remember, if you want to make income with your writing, you have a business. Just because your business is an artistic one doesn’t mean it lacks the perils that come with entrepreneurship.

Can you succeed? Yes. Unless you genuinely suck at writing (which I highly doubt you do), practice and patience are all you need. You’ll have to learn a long list of skills — email marketing, copywriting, tech, writing consistently, networking, hustle, just to name a few — but once you learn them, they’re yours.

If someone told me, in the beginning, everything I had to learn along the way, I don’t know if I would’ve started. So for now, don’t even think about the distant future. Put your ass in the chair and write something today, because I bet that’s where you need to start.

I get it.

Writing isn’t easy.

Building a writing career? That’s even more difficult.

You’re not always feeling it. You’re afraid of failure (or success). Maybe you feel like quitting altogether. I’ve been there.

I practically bathe in quotes to motivate myself in my writing career and my life.

Here are a few of my favorite, plus .02 on each quote from yours truly.

On Writer’s Block

“Writer’s block is a phony, made up, BS excuse for not doing your work” – Jerry Seinfield

Some days I’m just not feeling it. I don’t really know what to say. The words don’t come out the way I want them to.

Regardless, these are poor excuses for not doing the work.

The work separates amateurs and professionals. Write for joy, yes, but treat it like you would your current profession.

I bet you don’t always feel like going to work, but you like eating and having a roof over your head, so you go. You don’t get “employee’s block.”

I wrote a guide on defeating writer’s block. One of the main points in it is to simply get your fingers moving. Write 100 words of gibberish, delete it, and start over if you need to.

As Charles Bukowski said, “writing about a writer’s block is better than not writing at all”

The Taste Gap

Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great.  It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean? – Ira Glass

If you’re an avid reader, you know the feeling of being in the taste gap.

You look at your favorite writer and think, “There’s no way I can be like them.”

You want to be great, but you keep falling short.

Before the words make it onto the page, they sound so great don’t they? You have an idea of what you want to say but what ends up on the page almost never matches what was in your head.

It’s important to remember the taste gap can be closed. How do you do it? According to Glass, “the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work.”

I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve hit the wall. I remember multiple periods of writing tens of thousands of words I hated.

You will go through periods where you’ll feel like your writing will never improve enough to close the gap, but it will, as long as you do the work.

Quantity creates quality. It will take you years before you can spit out polished words. Keep a long-term view, do the work, and wait for your effort to bear fruit.

On Being a Fraud

“If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.” – Steven Pressfield

Many writers suffer from impostor syndrome. They feel like frauds, wannabe writers, fakes.

If you feel this way, it means a few things.

First, it means you care about creating great work. If you’re overly confident, it means you can do no wrong. If you can do no wrong, you won’t refine your work, because it’s already perfect.

Second, it means you’re moving in the right direction. If your dream doesn’t scare you a little bit, you need a new dream.

Putting your work out there is scary. Even though rejection and doubt present no physical danger, they’re two of the most fear inducing words in the world.

Great writers push through that wall. How do they do it?

I’m not sure if I have a great answer. You sort of have to just…do it.

Hit publish. Outline your book — the one you think is going to suck — and write it anyway.

When you face your fears, you’ll realize they’ll never go away, but you’ll also realize you can handle them.

If you write, you’re not a fraud.

If you write, you’re a writer, period.

On The Love of Writing

“Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” – Gloria Steinem

I’m glad I wasn’t seduced into writing by headlines like “Go from zero to six figures in six months by starting a blog.”

When I started, I had no idea there was any money in writing. A friend invited me to write for his website and it was love at first keystroke.

In my real life, I have a hard time empathizing with people. I can be selfish and arrogant. Writing is one of the ways I’m able to connect with people.

What about you? What do you love about writing? Is it the only thing that when you do it, you don’t feel you should be doing anything else?

If you want to write solely for fame, or because you read a blog post about getting rich from it, or you just think it’d be cool, you will fail.

Seriously, if any of the above statements describe you it’s best to save yourself the heartache.

Writing isn’t hard, per se, but you have to write incessantly to get good at it. You won’t write enough to succeed if you don’t love it.

Would you write even if you never made a penny from it? If the answer is yes, keep at it. Write through “the taste gap,” treat writer’s block as a “phony excuse for not doing your work,” and give yourself the label of a writer.

If the answer is yes, keep at it. Write through “the taste gap,” treat writer’s block as a “phony excuse for not doing your work,” and give yourself the label of a writer.

On Writing Inspiration

“I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes at nine every morning.” – William Faulkner

True writers make their work a habit.

Inspiration is only useful when coupled with work. You can read all the quotes you want, but quotes won’t turn you into a writer, an entrepreneur, or a successful person of any kind — no matter how much people on Instagram try to convince you they will.

I love quotes, but I also love making progress.

In my short writing career, it’s become clear to me the best writers — the ones we all look up to — are products of persistence and progress, nothing more.

They don’t have an inordinate amount of talent. They just show up, day after day after day.

How do you make writing a habit? I wrote a 4,000-word guide on the subject.

A few key points from the piece:

• Reframe the way you view writing – If you view it as daunting, it will be. If you view great writing as an achievable goal, you’ll achieve it (eventually)
• Make a minimum viable commitment – Just 30 minutes of daily writing is enough to write multiple books in a year
• Stop trying to be perfect – For every successful writer with a large body of (imperfect) work, there are 1,000 perfectionist writers with manuscripts collecting dust in a drawer

Now What?

I don’t want you to read these quotes, feel warm and fuzzy, and do nothing.

Write something.

Now.

Do you have any quotes about writing you love? Drop them in the comments below, post them somewhere in your writing space, and get to work.

“If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.” – Steven Pressfield

I know what you’re thinking. You write, but you don’t think you’re a real writer.

The gap between your work and the work of those you admire seems so wide you’ll never close it. They’re professionals and you’re just playing pretend.

Somewhere along the line, the people you looked up to probably felt the same way. We all start at zero. We all have to face the blank page for the first time.

How do you make the transition? How do you become like the writers you look up to?

You turn pro.

The Only Difference Between Amateurs and Professionals

“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit”

I’ve made friends with other bloggers and authors over the years. I keep tabs on what they’re doing and many do the same for me.

Sadly, after six months, a year, or two, I’ll come to find many have fizzled out or stopped writing completely. They fell prey to the amateur’s mindset. They didn’t turn pro.

Every once and a while someone will comment on a new post I write and say something along the lines of “Wow! You’re still showing up and putting in work. Good for you.”

What choice do I have? I’ve turned pro. Once you turn pro there’s no going back.

Turning pro simply means you’re done bullshitting with your craft. You’re done being inconsistent. You’re done half-assing it. Instead of treating your writing success as a pipe dream, you treat it as an inevitability.

In business, you turn pro when you stop “brainstorming” and start picking up the phone to land customers.

With art, you turn pro when you add pragmatism to match your romanticism and dedicate yourself to doing the work.

I hear that little voice in my mind telling me to quit every single day, but I do the work because I know the work will bear fruit.

Are you ready to turn pro? Here are some tips to help you get there.

Show Up When You Don’t Feel Like It

You’d think your best work comes during your “peaks” — when you’re in a great mood, the coffee buzz hits you just right, and the ideas are oozing out of you — but the writing you do when you’re not feeling it builds character.

Every so often, I’ll decide it’s time to quit writing altogether. This usually happens after I write thousands of words I find unusable. When I’m in a rut, it’s hard to imagine getting out of it. But I always do. How?

I decided for better or worse… I’m married to my keyboard. My relationship with writing is like a marriage. I love writing, but I don’t always like it. Sometimes the relationship gets stale and I feel like I’m going through the motions. But, like a good marriage, I work through the rough patches instead of abandoning the relationship.

Showing up is hard. Writing 1,000 words nobody will ever read is hard. Writing entire books that flop is painful. But showing up is the only way through.

I’ve written about all the tips and tricks to help you succeed with writing, but they all boil down to showing up.

There are many ways to feel like you’re showing up that aren’t showing up.

…like growing your social media following.

…like working on your about page.

…like getting your ducks in a row (whatever that means).

Busy work gets you nowhere. Real work gets you where you want to be.

If you stop reading this blog post right now and start writing one of your own, I’d love it, because I’d rather you create work then consume it.

Go.

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

It’s funny.

Certain people want others to invest in them, but they never invest in themselves.

You want to make money from your writing, right? You want people to buy your books, products, or services, don’t you?

How much money do you invest in your writing career?

Do you have your own self-hosted blog? Do you have an email service provider? Have you taken any online courses? Have you hired a coach? Taken a master class? Bought books for research?

If you can’t answer yes to any of these questions, I’d question whether you’re serious about your work.

Investing in yourself as many benefits. First, when you put your money where your mouth is, you take yourself more seriously. Many online courses provide information which technically could be found for free, but without putting some skin in the game, most people don’t hunt for that information.

Second, when you invest in other people, you’ll attract people who want to invest in you. If you don’t buy books regularly and support other authors, why should anyone buy your book? If you don’t take any courses or classes, why should anyone want to join yours?

If you don’t spend money on your education or to support other writers, you can’t empathize with your audience, because you know nothing other than trying to get freebies. Then, subconsciously, your own behavior will betray you because you’ll expect others to do the same to you.

When you turn pro, you treat your writing as a business. What business do you know of that has zero expenses?

Until you drop a pretty penny, you’re a pretender.

Win the War Between Your Ears

So many people in our lives have preached the need to be realistic or conservative or worse – to not rock the boat. This is an enormous disadvantage when it comes to trying big things. Because though our doubts (and self-doubts) feel real, they have very little bearing on what is and isn’t possible. – Ryan Holiday

I used to think writing a book was impossible. I’ve done it twice now.

I remember having two email subscribers. The thought of having 100 seemed unrealistic at the time. I have thousands now.

Each time I accomplish something new, I’m reminded of the fact my self-doubt has “no bearing on what is and isn’t possible.”

To overcome each hurdle and silence my inner critic I do a few things.

First, I realize the people who’ve done what I’m trying to do are human beings.

The writers I look up to are not super human. They don’t possess skills I can’t learn. They turned pro in their mind, committed to learning those skills, and persisted  — that’s it.

Second, I look back on things I once thought were difficult but find trivial now.

My audience increases weekly at a pace that used to take months or more.

After tons of practice, I can write 1,000 words in 30 minutes.

I now know how to put a book together, package it, and sell it to the tune of five figures. 

Turn Pro

I don’t say any of this to brag. I say it because I was once brand new, scared shitless, and thought building a writing career was improbable.

But I loved writing from the beginning. I knew it was what I wanted to do. I have one life to live and I want to pursue my purpose. So, instead of thinking I started doing.

When you act instead of think, your fear doesn’t go away, you just notice it less because you’re active.

If you can bring yourself to do — open up the word doc and just move your fingers, start haphazardly putting together your website, write a pitch to a guest blog — the results you want will follow.

I hammer this message home often because I know how you feel. I also know what’s on the other side of turning pro.

You’ll have experiences you’ll never forget like seeing your name on a cover of a book, checking your analytics to see thousands of people took time out of their day to read your work, and feeling the euphoria of knowing you finished something.

You don’t need a book deal to turn pro. Hell, you don’t even need anyone to read your writing to turn pro.

Make the switch in your mind and you’re a pro. It’s as simple as that.

Note: If you’re into audio books and haven’t tried audible by Amazon before, you can sign up here and get two free audiobooks with no obligation.

I eat people’s brains…

I love to crack open their skulls and peek into the inner workings of their mind.

Metaphorically, of course.

Reading feeds your brain, fosters creativity, and makes you a better writer.

“To be a great writer, you need to be a great reader.” – Thousands of writers.

Today I wanted to share some of the books that have helped me most in my writing career. Some taught me personal development skills, some taught me how to market my work, and all have taught me something simply through imagining the process the authors went through to create them.

I have dozens of books I’ve bought and haven’t read because I know how important they are to my career.

If any of these books look helpful, I encourage you to check them out.

Without further ado, here’s the list:

“The War of Art” – by Steven Pressfield

If this book doesn’t convince you to pursue your creative career–give up. It’s the most motivational creative manifesto in the history of writing. The book talks about the Evil Resistance, more commonly known as self-doubt, and gives you the weapons to defeat it.

I remember the day I went to the library to read this book. I was feeling a bit stuck and needed some motivation for my writing. After I read the book, I went into a blind range and wrote about 2,500 words in one hour.

Yeah, it’s that good.

I’d also check out his other books on creativity and writing because they’re all amazing and will give you the kick in the ass you need in your writing career.

Other books:

Do the Work

Turning Pro

Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: Why That Is and What You Can Do About It

“Steal Like an Artist” – by Austin Kleon

The book itself is beautiful. It’s worth buying just to have on your bookshelf. Austin Kleon is a writer/drawer and Steal Like an Artist is a combination of sage pieces of wisdom and interesting artwork.

The premise of the book is the idea that nobody’s original. You must steal from other artists and remix their work to create something unique.

This book taught me to study and borrow from masters to create something only I can make. The point isn’t to steal from one — it’s to steal from hundreds. Great artists honor those that came before them and stand on their shoulders.

Also, consider reading his other book, Show Your Work!, which is about building a loyal tribe of fans for your work by letting them get a glimpse into your process.

“The Obstacle Is the Way” – By Ryan Holiday

This book has nothing and everything to do with writing. It’s a modern rendition of the tenets of stoic philosophy. Holiday uses carefully selected stories and anecdotes to describe how some of the world’s most successful people found their success through their obstacles, not by trying to avoid them.

The book teaches you to accept your life as it is instead of the way you wish it was. It teaches you to stay level headed when you’re under pressure. It teaches you that perspective matters above all else, and that you’re always in control of your reaction to circumstances in your life.

The book has helped me when I face setbacks in my writing career. It’s also filled with damn good writing and storytelling, which is something I’m learning to improve every day.

The book is also the by-product of a research technique I learned from holiday, where you use note cards to collect quotes, facts, and anecdotes to use in your writing. I use this technique with every book I read and it’s quite helpful. You can read more about it here. 

“Contagious: Why Things Catch On” by Jonah Berger

Do you want your next blog post to go viral?

Read Contagious and the author will tell you how. Berger spent years researching the reasons why ideas spread and created a framework for creating things that catch on. The S.T.E.P.P.S. framework for creating contagious content, products, and ideas is as follows:

• Social Currency – People like looking smart in front of their friends. Create something that helps them do that and they will share it with others.
• Trigger – People share things that are top of mind and tip of the tongue, e.g., the terrible song “Friday” by Rebecca Black seeing a spike in views every Friday.
• Emotional – Create something that stirs people’s emotions and it will spread. They have to be high arousal emotions, e.g., anger, awe, and joy. Think Donald Trump. For better or worse, he’s a master at tapping into high arousal emotions, which is why you can’t escape hearing his name on a daily basis.
• Practical – People like helping people. This is why people share “how to,” type content.
• Public – Your content, product, or idea has to be visible for people to share and talk about it.
• Story – People learn through stories and love hearing them. If you’re able to master storytelling you have massive power and an unfair advantage.

I haven’t read this book in a while, but now I’m going to re-read it and try to follow the framework for everything I create.

As a writer, you can use the S.T.E.P.P.S framework with the blog posts and books you write. If you’re a creative trying to market your work, you can use these techniques to get your ideas to spread.

“Mastery” – by Robert Greene

Greene tells amazing stories. Mastery is about finding your life’s task and dedicating the time it requires to master that task.

If you want to learn to become a master writer — a true craftsman or woman — read this book.

More than anything I use this book as inspiration for creating amazing work. The book itself is a testament to painstaking care and patience, which is something I need to continue to learn in my writing career.

Ryan Holiday learned his research and note taking techniques from Greene while he was his assistant. Both of these authors have taught me the importance of leveling up my game and doing the necessary prep work before I even sit down to write something monumental like a book.

“Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” – By Robert Cialdini

It’s not enough to write well. You have to influence people with your writing and persuade them to read it.

This book teaches you how people influence one another by exploiting the cognitive biases we all have. For example, Social Proof is huge when it comes to decision making. The more we see people doing something, the more likely we are to do it ourselves.

It’s why marketers use testimonials to sell their products and bloggers put logos of the sites they’ve written for on their own sites. They’re utilizing the subtle cues our brains use to make decisions. There are tons of ways to use these techniques for either good or evil, and they’re being used on you all the time.

Learn how to use them yourself and it will improve the way you write and in the way you promote your writing. This is the only book I’d say is a must read if you haven’t read it already.

“Where Good Ideas Come From” – by Steven Johnson

Creativity comes from the adjacent possible. The adjacent possible is where the fringes of ideas meet.

If you want to be creative and come up with good ideas, treat everything around you as material and work to combine different ideas together.

Creativity also comes from collaboration. The author even says moving to a more populated area will increase your creativity because you’ll have more contributors to the adjacent possible around you. I’ve learned a ton by collaborating with other writers — things I wouldn’t have if I didn’t take the leap to reach out to them.

It’s important to read widely and deeply to become a great writer or be creative in general. You never know how your ideas will connect, so it’s in your best interest to gather as much information as possible.

The book makes crazy connections between ideas and tells stories about some of the world’s more important inventions. It’s another book to read and imbibe the language of the author and learn from it from a pure storytelling standpoint.

“I thought this was going to be a list of books about writing.”

None of these books are straightforward “how to write,” books, but they’ve been immensely helpful in my writing career for many reasons.

I encourage everyone, not just writers, to read as many books as possible because reading adds richness to your life in mysterious ways.

What about you?

If you have any suggestions for books you think I should read, leave me a comment, and I’ll buy them.

You can never have enough books. 

Did you know there’s a website called Medium.com you can use to make a full-time living writing, no strings attached? Get exclusive access to your free five-day email course on monetizing Medium.

I get it…

Some days you just don’t feel like writing. The inspiration isn’t there and you feel like you don’t have anything important to say.

Your writing career is on the back burner because you have so many other things to do with — your job, your kids, your life, everything.

You keep telling yourself you’re going to “get around to it” but you blink and days, weeks, even months have gone by without typing a single word.

How do you get back on the horse?

How do you push through when the motivation isn’t there?

I’ve learned some tips, tricks, and mindsets along the way. I’m using them right now because I don’t feel like writing this post. Good thing I had these tips handy.

The Diamond in the Rough

I was listening to a podcast the other day featuring author and former Navy Seal Jocko Willink. His book, Extreme Ownership, details his experience in the Iraq war and translates the leadership principles he learned during life or death situations into principles we all can use in various areas of our lives from business to creativity. As a leader of his troop, he was responsible for the lives of other people. If they died on his watch due to an error he made, he had to own that.

It was great hearing the perspective of someone who’s been able to stay accountable at the highest level and a question a listener asked him during the show provides a perfect answer to those who might be struggling with their writing.

A listener of the podcast asked him about finding motivation for pursuing a creative career. He explained that the concept of extreme ownership doesn’t change with field involved. As Jocko put it, “The book isn’t going to write itself. The paint brush isn’t going to pick itself up and stroke the canvas. You have to do the work.”

He told the reader to push through and write no matter what. He said even if you only get 50 solid words out of 1,000, you have 50 more than you had before. Those 50 words can be used as a foundation to create more.

I love that. And I know exactly what he’s talking about. I’ve written 1,000 crappy words just to get 50 or 100 great ones. It’s worth it.

Some writers say you must write 1,000,000 words before you can consider your writing publishable. Once you wrap your head around the idea that writing crappy words is an unavoidable part of the process, you’ll write more.

This especially important when you’re just starting out.

I can’t overstate this next sentence. When you’re a beginner, you’re supposed to suck. 

Don’t believe me? Here’s an excerpt of one of the first blog posts I ever wrote:

“I remember when I was young how thrilling, and terrifying it was to go walk up to a girl and talk to her. When I was young I would describe a girl with phrases like “she is really pretty” or “she is beautiful”. When I say young I mean grade school days, because not too long after that things began to change. I’m not sure exactly how old I was, but I estimate that around the age of 13 was when I first watched a pornographic film. I talk a lot about the cognitive functioning of the brain and how neural pathways are built constantly by one’s behaviors, especially is the behavior is repetitive.”

The guy who wrote that gloriously awful paragraph has now written two books.

Why did I just share that embarrassing piece of rubbish? Becuase I want you to know I sincerely believe you can get better. If I’m capable of ascending from the depths of suckiness, so are you.

Start With What

Bestselling author Simon Sinek wrote a book called Start With Why, which talks about coming up with a “why” for what you do to keep you motivated. When it comes to writing, however, the what can matter more than the why.

You need to know what you’re going to write about, what you’re going to do to attract attention, and what outcome you want your reader to have.

If you’re looking for a process you can use to get the words on the page, try the following steps.

Create a Reader Avatar

Some writers find it easier to write with one specific person in mind. It helps them narrow their focus. If you’re looking for direction on the message you want to communicate, a reader avatar gives you a clear picture of who you’re talking to.

Your reader avatar is a detailed profile of a member of your target audience. If you haven’t picked a niche yet, check out this post, but if you have you should be able to come up with an avatar.

Be specific when describing them. Here’s an example:

Jim is a 31-year-old marketing director at a nonprofit organization. He enjoys his work, but he feels like something’s missing. He took English for a year at University but switched his major because he wanted to find something more secure. At the time, writing for a living didn’t seem like a possibility, but now with the explosion of blogging and self-publishing, he’s curious. His main hangup is a lack of time. He has a wife and two kids and feels a great deal of responsibility for his family. He wonders if trying to become a writer would put his family at risk. Instead of going all in, he decided he’s going to start slow and write a blog post once a week to get his feet wet.

With this avatar handy, I can write directly to Jim, while reaching many members of my target audience at the same time.

Make Their Imaginary Day

People like outcomes. They want an easy win, to transform themselves, or to do something they’ve never done before.

When focusing on your reader, think of an outcome they’d benefit from.

Let’s use Jim as an example. Some possible positive outcomes could include:

• Writing his first 1,000-word blog post
• Landing his first guest post
• Writing for 7 days straight

Once you have some outcomes in mind, you can write a post around those outcomes.

For example, you can turn the aforementioned outcomes into headlines:

• The ultimate guide to writing your first 1,000-word post
• 5 Simple Steps to Landing Your First Guest Post
• Rapid Fire Writing – How to Write a Week Straight Without Quitting

Now you have a good idea what to write about. If you’re still feeling stuck, you can add an additional step.

Create a Blueprint

I use this technique for writing books, but it can be used for blog posts as well.

You can use a mind-map to get the ideas out of your head and onto the page. A mind-map works like this – you take your main idea or headline and write it down. Then, you branch off it with smaller subsets of ideas that support the main idea.

In my example of “How to Write a Week Straight Without Quitting” I could branch off the main idea with ideas such as:

• Create the right mindset
• Write at the same time every day
• De-clutter your writing space
• Prepare ideas beforehand
• Use the Pomodoro technique to stay focused

You can set a time for 10 minutes and brain-dump as many ideas as possible. Next, you group the ideas together into an outline and start writing.

A simple outline looks like this:

[Intro]

[Main idea 1]

[Main idea 2]

[Main idea 3]

[Close]

The simple essay structure works. You make the magic happen within the structure.

I just gave you a clear-cut takeaway you can use to get your words onto the page today. Will you use it?

Tips and tricks help, but success always comes down to following through.

The Key Secret to Staying Motivated As a Writer

You know how I stay motivated? I focus on other people. I know I have to show up for you.

Even if you have just one fan, you now owe that person. Write for them.

If you have no fans, I can show you how to find some, but remember that your words matter. Instead of making it about you, make it about the message you need to share and the people you need to serve.

If you do that, you’ll succeed.

That’s what writing is all about — pushing through and showing up.

Show up today, cmon, close this damn window, open up a word doc and get to work.

Admit it, you feel like a fraud. 

You have dreams of building a writing career you love, but when you compare yourself to real writers, you can’t help but feel like you’re just pretending to be one.

Sure, you write every day, but it doesn’t compare to the writers you admire — not even close.

You might have a few fans, but you don’t have the adoration of the masses like the big shots.

You have the dream, even the motivation, but deep down you feel the words you write will never strike the type of chord the greats are able to, and you consider quitting because you don’t think you’re cut from a true writer’s cloth.

My Fraud Story

I just published my second book. It has a nice handful of reviews. It has put thousands of dollars in my pocket. Still, in the back of my mind, I wonder if I’m a “real writer” or if I’m just some wannabe with a blog who got a bit lucky.

After all, I self-published the book. Random House or one of the other big publishers didn’t choose me.

I have a blog with good traffic and a decent subscriber base, but perhaps I’m “just a blogger” and not a real bonafide wordsmith.

Impostor syndrome – the feeling of never being good enough, experienced enough, or talented enough – affects people of all walks of life.

But us writers especially have the tendency to feel like frauds.

So what do you do? How do you keep on writing in spite of these feelings and build a career you’re proud of?

Stop Being Selfish

Maybe you feel like nobody needs your message. You feel like you’re writing for yourself only, and the world wouldn’t care if you quit.

That’s how Stephen King felt at one point.

King had just finished writing the first few pages of his soon-to-become-smash-hit Carrie. He thought it was no good. He thought he was a hack. King felt the impostor syndrome so badly he threw the pages in the trash.

Fortunately, his wife took the pages out of the trash and convinced him to keep working on the manuscript. Eventually, after 30 rejection letters, Carrie was published and King’s career flourished.

Maybe King isn’t Hemingway, but commercially he’s one of the most successful authors of all time. Many people I know say King is their favorite writer.

What if he decided nobody needed his words, or rather, what if his wife allowed him to?

The world wouldn’t have the dozens of riveting stories he crafted or the T.V. shows and movies that spawned from them.

See, when you sell yourself short, you don’t just rob yourself, you rob the rest of us.

Maybe you don’t think you’re good enough, but perhaps it isn’t about you.

Have you ever stopped to think that without your words, someone else would be missing out?

It’s hard to feel that way when you haven’t gotten traction. If you keep writing it’ll happen, just remember this next tip.

Flip Self-Doubt On Its Head

Self-doubt can benefit you if you use it the right way.

Maybe you feel like a fraud because you truly aren’t good enough yet.  If that happens to be the case, you can take one of two routes. You can quit — like 99 percent of frustrated aspiring writers. Or you can use your self-doubt as fuel like I do.

I’ve had people tell me I’m a good writer, even a great one. I don’t believe any of them.

Impostor syndrome creates a gap between others’ perception of you and your own. My writing career consists of trying to close that gap.

Instead of looking at your own self-doubt in a defeatist way, it can be a motivator, because you always have room to grow. Maybe your number one goal shouldn’t be contentment. Maybe you should never be satisfied with your work.

You don’t have to become a “tortured artist” but what’s wrong with keeping a healthy chip on your shoulder?

You’ll improve too.

When you practice often, your self-doubt transitions from the “I’ll always suck” feeling to “I’m getting there, but I still need to work at it” feeling.

You’ll begin to bridge the “taste gap” as poignantly described by Ira Glass:

“Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean?

A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, they quit.”

Glass also goes on to suggest the only way past these feelings is to “do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work.”

I’ve written two books and 300+ blog posts — maybe a half million words (not counting the ones I’ve scrapped). The gap is still wide open. In a way, I’ve developed a sort of masochistic affection for my creative self-doubt.

You have to fall in love with frustration to be great.

Fortunately, your work will begin to bear fruit.

Take Your Self Image to Court

Even the most intelligent and argumentatively gifted lawyer can’t refute massive amounts of hard evidence (except for Johnny Cochrane).

If you keep writing, hitting the publish button, and building a following, eventually you’ll have a ton of evidence that contradicts the notion of you being a wannabe writer.

When I’m feeling stuck or frustrated, I’ll read positive reviews of my books, emails people have sent, or comments on my blog posts.

Even if I don’t believe in myself, there seems to be a lot of people who do. I can’t argue against someone else’s view of me or my work. Enough people have said positive things about both that deep down I know I’m good enough.

The same will happen for you if you put in the work. As you progress, you’ll feel more comfortable, but never completely comfortable.

Start building your case now.

Remember the Call

I’m guessing your story is a lot like mine.

You’re drawn to words. You don’t even feel like you consciously decided to be a writer, per se, but the words lure you.

Even though I doubt myself often, I feel like I’m designed to write. I’m sticking with it because I don’t seem to be better at anything else.

If you feel the call, if words hypnotize you like sirens, you have to keep going.

Many people live life in monotony while letting their dreams die. The death of any dream is tragic, but the death of creative dreams are truly depressing.

You are going to die.

Do you really want to let something as trivial as self-doubt keep you from giving your gifts to the world?

It’s funny. Our feelings about ourselves seem so important in the present moment, but looking backward we always realize how unreliable they were. Yet we fall back into the trap of letting them take the reigns of our lives.

You’re not a fraud.

If you even have the slightest inkling you were meant to be a writer, you were meant to be a writer.

But you have to write. You have to write through sucking at writing. You have to write through the people around you telling you it’s impractical. Write when you’re sad, happy, angry, or depressed because each mood will paint a different brush stroke of emotion on the canvas that is your page.

I wish I could grab you by the shoulders, shake you, and force you to sit down to hit your word count for today.

But I can’t. I can only tell you that you belong.

I hope you remember the call.

Everybody wants to start a blog and be an online writer these days. Many people do start blogs — a few with success, and most with none.

If you’re in the beginning stages of building a blog, you have a ton to learn.

If you stay the course, you will learn, and you’ll be amazed by what you know. Before you, however, you’ll questions your progress, wonder if you’re headed in the right direction, and get frustrated with the process.

Without a roadmap telling you how well your online writing career is going, you’ll stay stuck, confused, and stagnant.

There are a few definitive milestones that let you know you’re on the right track, what to worry about, and when to move into the next phase. I’ve derived these milestones based on years of experience, observation, and experimentation.

Consider this your checklist to see where you are on the spectrum of “total newbie” to “professional wordsmith.”

Milestone 1 – Regularly Published Content

Most people who start blogs about the wrong things like the design of their website, about page, and social media presence.

None of these matter in the long run. Without a consistent publishing schedule, your blog has no foundation to stand on.

Before I even considered moving on to writing books and starting my own website to help other writers, I wrote more than 100 blog posts each containing 1,000 words or more.

I wrote so much because I love to write. I never had to deal with a lack of motivation once I started, because it felt right.

Does writing feel right to you?

Do you want to be a writer or do you want to write? They sound similar but are in different universes.

Writing isn’t about living in a cabin and smoking a pipe while you stare into the wilderness. It’s about banging your fingers against a keyboard daily, for the rest of your life.

That’s what it takes. Are you willing to pay that price? Be honest with yourself. If you are, get to work, and commit to writing every day.

I’ve created a few guides that’ll help you stay on track

• The Ultimate Guide to Building a Writing Habit (That Sticks Like Superglue)
• How to Destroy Writer’s Block For Good 

Consider this milestone reached once you’ve published one blog post per week for 90 days. 

Milestone 2 – Your First 100 Email Subscribers

You’ve probably heard you need to build an email list to be successful in the blogging world. It’s true.

The ones at the top — the type who publish a book and sell 10,000 copies in the first week — have hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

Then, there are a handful of people like me who reside between the spaces of the unknown newbie and the aforementioned mega author. We have a few thousand subscribers under our belts, and can consider ourselves pros because we’re committed to the long haul.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of writers and aspiring writers have little to no subscribers. I set 100 subscribers as the next milestone because most aspiring writers will never reach that point.

The sad part? It doesn’t have to be that way. I see many aspiring writers spinning their wheels, getting upset over their lack of fans, and ultimately quitting.

If only they’d follow through the simple pieces of advice that work.

I’ve shared these strategies over and over again. They work. But until you follow through with them, you’ll stay stuck where you are.

To grow your email list, you need three things:

• An email provider – I use convertkit. You can connect an email provider to your website as well as landing pages to collect email addresses from fans.
• A landing page provider – A landing page gives a visitor two distinct options — join your email list or leave. I use leadpages to create landing pages. It’s simple and easy to use. For a landing page to be effective, you want to offer something in exchange for a potential fan joining your email list. It could be a manifesto related to the mission behind your blog. You could provide a simple checklist that simplifies how-to steps. The guide I link to in the next point shows you how to create a landing page and offer an inventive.
• A way to get people to visit your landing page – Guest posts and republishing are the one-two punch you can use to drive readers to your landing page. I explain the process in detail here. This is the one key that seems to elude most aspiring writers. It is impossible to succeed by publishing work solely on your website.

Once you reach your first 100 subscribers, you’re off to the races. Reaching that seemingly small amount already puts you ahead of 99 percent of other aspiring writers.

Milestone 3 – Your First 1,000 Subscribers

Once you hit 1,000 subscribers, you’re in the rarified air. At this point, you can begin to focus on more advanced techniques to grow your platform online including things like SEO, paid ads, and influencer marketing.

You shouldn’t allow “shiny objects” to distract you whatsoever until you reach 1,000 subscribers because before that point you haven’t mastered the basics.

How do you reach your first 1,000 subscribers? By doubling down on what already works.

You continue to guest post and republish, but you do it more often. In the beginning, you’re trying to focus on being consistent and becoming a better writer. Most guest blogs won’t want to publish your work until you’re a decent writer. Once you crack 1,000 subscribers, the ratio of publishing on your own website vs. other websites should favor other websites more heavily.  At my most rampant, I published 4 guest posts per post I published on the website.

Your blog is important, but getting readers onto your email list is more important. Your blog serves the purpose of informing the reader and letting them get to know you. You then get them on your email list and use it to build a deeper relationship, which should ultimately lead to selling something to them.

What should you sell?

Milestone 4 – Your First Book

Books are the new business cards.

If you publish a book, you can demonstrate your expertise, increase your clout, and when done correctly help you earn money.

I made the mistake of writing my first book without an email list to speak of and the results showed. I profited from it, but the second book I published with an email list behind it is on pace to sell ten times as many copies.

If you’re patient enough to wait until you have a solid email list, write a good book, and market it properly, you’ll do well.

Some guides I’ve written on publishing books are:

• The Ultimate Guide to Writing Your First Book
• 4 Lessons Learned From Writing My Second Book

Regardless of how well your first book does, the process of publishing it gets the monkey off your back. Your first book is the hardest. If you can write, publish, and market a book, you’re in a very small class of people.

But it’s only the beginning….

Milestone 5 – Taking the Next Step

You’d think writing your first book would assure that you continue on with your career as an online writer, but it doesn’t.

I’ve seen writers fail miserably with their first book. It demoralizes them so badly they quit — I’m talking zero sales outside of their immediate family and friends.

You can find these books in the graveyards of different Amazon categories. Most self-published books fall into this category because the authors go about it the wrong way.

I went about it the wrong way at first. Fortunately, my book had mild success and perhaps I was delusional enough to think better things were ahead.

Now I’m two books deep. I’ve built some back-end ways to earn behind my writing. I know I’ll never quit because I have enough proof and money in my pocket to know a career as a highly successful online writer isn’t only possible, but inevitable.

Once you reach the milestone of knowing you’re never going to quit, you keep experimenting with new ideas. You write more books, find products you can promote, and dive into tangential careers like speaking.

You’ve done enough and earned enough to know you’re not just kidding yourself.

That’s where I want you to be, but you’ll never get there until you listen and apply what you’ve been told.

As far as what it takes to follow through, it’s a bit of a mystery to humankind.

What I do know is that once you make that breakthrough, nothing can stop you.

Just do it. 

I started this blog because I want to help aspiring writers like you — people who know they have the words inside them but need help in all phases of building their online writing career. This includes the writing itself, building consistent habits, marketing, and technical aspects.

I conducted a few surveys and was surprised to find out many of you don’t have blogs and are complete beginners. In focusing on the motivational aspects of writing — encouraging you to do the things I thought you already knew how to do — I failed to realize how early in the process many of you were.

So, to those in the community who have a decent amount of knowledge, I apologize, because we’re going back to the beginning.

Bit by bit, I’m going to discuss everything you need to know about writing online. Hopefully, by doing this, we’ll all be on the same page moving forward.

Today’s post will be about starting a blog and why it’s important to have one. We will soon hone in on picking a subject, writing post themselves, and building habits, but the blog starts first.

Why You Need Your Own Space On The Internet

Before we start, let’s make sure we’re clear on who this post is for.

If any of these sounds like you, you’re in the right place:

• You have dreams of becoming an author
• You’re in a non-fiction niche (sorry, I’m not a fiction guy)
• You have an interest in having fans and making money off your writing in the future

The first step in having a real writing career is having your own “home base” on the internet in the form of a self-hosted blog.

A self-hosted blog means you purchase your own unique domain name and hosting, which means you own the website. 

There are some free platforms you can blog on, but it’s important you have your own space for several reasons.

• It’s professional – If you have a blog labeled johnsmith.blogspot.com or janedoe.tumblr.com it screams of amateurism. Having a blog with that type of title makes it seem like writing is just a hobby to you. A self-hosted blog with your own unique domain name shows you’re serious about your craft and about making it a business instead of a hobby.
• Control – Beware of digital sharecropping. Digital sharecropping means you rent space on land you don’t own, which makes you subject to the terms of the owner. For example, I republish my work on Medium, which is a popular blogging website. This gives me tons of exposure and it’s a great strategy, but I make sure to keep my posts at home base. Reason being that sites like Medium can change on a whim without giving you notice. They could change their algorithm and adversely affect where your posts show up. Facebook made a change to their algorithm that drastically decreased the reach of fan pages because they wanted to promote their advertising services. Those who relied on facebook for their platform suffered. Keeping your entire blog on rented land leaves your neck on the line, better to own it.
• Audience – I advocate a two-pronged approach to blogging. You can build your audience through republishing your work on bigger sites and through guest posting. You do this by sending your readers to a landing page, where you can entice them to enter their email address in a variety of ways (I’ll explain later.) A landing page is a stand alone and helps aim people toward your email list, which is actually more important than sending them to your blog. You can, however, use links in republished work and guest posts to send traffic to your website, which when done right, can gain you ever more fans through the strategic use of email sign up forms on your blog. In future posts, I’ll show you how to set up a blog that catches new readers like a fish net.

How to Choose the Right Domain Name

Yesterday, we went over the process of discovering a topic to write about. Once you have that down, you can work on choosing a domain name.

I have one simple rule for choosing a domain name — don’t get cute.

If my name weren’t complicated to spell, I would’ve chosen ayodejiawosika.com. I went with ayothewriter.com instead because it spoke to who I was and the message I was trying to portray.

You want your domain name to relate to your niche. It doesn’t have to necessarily, e.g. Google, but you’re not Google.

There are a few techniques you can use to choose the right domain name:

• Browse other websites in your niche – Not to steal ideas from others, but to get an overall feel for what readers in that audience resonate with. If you see a theme that overlaps, use it to guide your thinking.
• Brainstorm 20 domain names – Let it fly here. Come up with as many names as possible. Sit on it for a bit, come back and narrow it down to three. You’ll want to make sure each domain name is available before choosing the final one. Searching for domain name availability will help eliminate choices too.
• Use your full name – This is a great option for 80 percent of writers.

Start Your Blog Today & Get FREE Coaching From Me

To set up your blog, you need to work with a hosting company.

I use Bluehost for my blog.

I am an affiliate for the company, which means I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you if you choose you to create a website using my link. If you decided to google Bluehost and went directly to the site, it’d be the same price.

To make the decision to use my link a no-brainer, I have a special offer for you.

Starting next month, I’m creating a free monthly coaching group for anyone with their own self-hosted blog. I will cover an important subject and have a Q & A session to answer everyone’s questions.

If you already have your own self-hosted blog, you’re in. Just send me an email at ayodejiawosika@gmail.com and I’ll add you to the group.

If you don’t have your own blog yet, sign up through my link, and I’ll add you to the group.

I created a page showing you exactly how to start a blog. Follow the directions shown, and you’ll be up and running in minutes.

This is the first of a series covering the nitty gritty you need to know to build your writing career. If you have any questions you want to be answered or topics you want covered, let me know in the comments.

Did you know there’s a website called Medium.com you can use to make a full-time living writing, no strings attached? Get exclusive access to your free five-day email course on monetizing Medium.

Odds are you’re falling into a trap.

I’ve seen many aspiring writers fall into it and I’ve written about many times, but it needs to be said again.

If you want to stand a chance at becoming successful as an online writer, you can’t start a blog that reads like a personal journal.

I get it. You have words you want to share and ideas stirring in your head. But if your writing topic is “random musings” it won’t be focused enough to attract and retain and audience of people, which is what you need to do to succeed.

I’m all for creative expression. If you want to keep a journal with the random thoughts in your mind, that’s great, but as far as writing online goes, the ones who rise to the top have a unique and consistent message to share.

So what type of message should you share?

How to Find the Right Writing Topic

Are you having trouble finding clarity on your writing topic?

Let me guess you either:

• Know you want to write, but have no idea what you should write about.
• Have too many ideas, and feel paralyzed because you can’t make a choice.

Both are equally painful because they both lead to you not writing.

Without writing, you can’t build a writing habit.

Without a writing habit, you can’t build a writing career.

You want to write about something you enjoy, but you also want to choose a subject people want to read about.

Everyone tells you to find the “perfect niche,” else your writing will fall on deaf ears (Although in this post I explain why the perfect niche isn’t as important as building a writing habit).

What should you do?

Today, I’m going to give you some strategies to help you find an idea, but I want you to remember this next sentence.

You’re not married to your topic.

My advice would be to choose a topic and stick with it for a trial run of 90 days. Why 90? Because it’s long enough to figure out whether it’s worth sticking to.

How to Mine for Mental Gold

Here’s what I want you to do. Answer the questions below. Once you’ve answered them, I want you to use those answers to come up with five ideas for topics you can write about.

What’s something others find difficult that you think is easy?

Example: I can write 1,000 words in 30 minutes.

What do you find yourself talking about with friends to the point you won’t shut up?

Example: I’m always talking about ways to create a life based on your strengths and coming up with unique solutions to create freedom and income.

What type of books do you love to read?

Example: I love books about entrepreneurship, self-help, health, psychology, creativity, and eastern philosophy.

What have you thought about choosing for a subject?

Example: Profiles of 19th-century business tycoons, personal development for millennials, book marketing for aspiring authors, how to start a yoga practice, copywriting for businesses.

Use the answers to those questions to come up with 5 promising topics you could write about (if you can’t narrow down to 5 it’s okay to add more)

Example:

• Personal development
• Entrepreneurship
• Writing tips
• Mindfulness and meditation
• Profiles of 19th-century business tycoons

I want you to order the topics you chose from 1-5. 1 being the one you’d enjoy writing about most and 5 the one you’d enjoy least out of the group.

Next, I want you to order them from 1-5 in terms of how popular you think they are with readers.

How do you figure out which topics will resonate with readers?

I think you’re smart, and you know intuitively, but there are some questions and metrics you can use to answer the question.

Try the ones below:

Can this form of writing be used to make a product?

There are several products based around “becoming a better writer,” and there aren’t very many products aside from books that can be made around “19th-century business tycoons.”

Why would anyone other than you care to read this?

Many people dream of becoming popular writers and published authors. I dreamed of doing it for six years before I started. I’m sure people love to learn about history, but the level of care is lower than people who want to build writing careers.

Which type of writing speaks to people’s needs and wants?

Using my example, people definitely want to learn about entrepreneurship, writing tips, and personal development. Mindfulness and meditation are on the rise, but still not quite as popular. 19th-century business tycoons come in last.

You can use tools like Google search, Amazon, and Quora if you need to do some extra digging.

After you’ve ordered your 5 topics in terms of how much you’d love to write about them and how popular you think they are, combine the scores.

Whichever one is the highest can be the topic you choose to start with. If you’re still unsure of your topic, you can look at the list of blog types below to find tried and true niches.

The 11 Most Popular Writing Topics

Some people choose truly unique writing topics or combinations of topics. Writing something super unique can work, but it can also leave you in a market too obscure to ever make an impact and an income with.

There are some styles that have been proven to resonate with readers. Check the list below, and see which one piques your interest most.

Credit: I learned about these categories from the Guest Blogging Certification Program run by Jon Morrow at Smart Blogger.

Self-Improvement

Self-improvement is probably the most popular category of them all. Writers create countless amounts of blog posts and books in this category. It comes with many different sub-genres — health and wellness, meditation and mindfulness, religion and spirituality, among others.

If you’re looking to inspire other people with your words, self-improvement is for you.

Parenting

Parents visit parenting blogs to learn tips and tricks to make parenting easier, read stories for cathartic release, and learn more about products for parents.

On the writer side, starting a parenting blog can help you work through your own emotions as a parent and connect with other parents who are experiencing the same struggles. You can also rave about products you’ve used and even create partnerships with companies if your blog grows large enough

Personal Finance

Are you a shrewd investor? Starting a personal finance blog might be for you. Personal finance blogs are popular because they deal with a subject that’s ubiquitous in all of our lives. Who doesn’t have money issues? If you’re looking to stand out in the personal finance space, look to add humor and engaging stories to what can be a rather dry subject.

Creativity

If you’re into design, arts & crafts, photography, or decorating, you’d likely fall into the creativity category. This category is a bit more open-ended, but the blogs tend to be visual and the words act as descriptors of the visuals rather than being the focus of the blog.

Business & Entrepreneurship

If you have some business expertise or industry experience to share, a business blog can help you distil your ideas and give others advice they need to build their own businesses. A caveat here — there’s been a rise of people starting business blogs without having any prior business experience. If you don’t have a ton of experience, you can still write about business, but do it from a more observational perspective, e.g., trends you notice in an industry, profiles of successful companies, things business do well, etc.

Marketing

Marketing blogs are a bit different from business blogs. They can cover topics like copywriting and persuasion, search engine optimization (SEO), and content marketing (which I talk about to a degree). If you’re hungry to learn, start a marketing blog because you can study and acquire the skills of a seasoned marketer without having any business experience yourself. The techniques and principles are time tested. Most don’t take the time to learn them. If you learn them, you’ll become a valuable asset.

Social Media and Blogging

This is the category my blog would fall into. I wrote a personal development blog for a year and published a book in the space. I still write personal development material and I focus on publishing books in that area (my second book is out now!), but after going through so much trial and error to figure out my own writing journey, I figured other people must need to know the information I learned.

Like the business blog section, blogging about blogging or writing about writing can be a slippery slope. From personal experience, it puts you in the position of really having to know your stuff if you’re going to share it with other people. Some writers, like Jeff Goins, started writing blogs simply started their blog to share their love of writing, which is something you can definitely do too.

Freelancing

If you’ve done freelance work, starting a freelance blog allows you to help others break into the industry. This is another type of blog that requires some experience in the field before you start writing about it. If you want to become a freelancer and document your journey along the way, that’d be a great place to start too. The freelance category can also include teaching others how to break into industries like publishing.

Careers

If you can add personality and flair to your writing, the career space can prove lucrative, but it’s crowded.

My friend Olivia Gamber runs a career blog that makes tens of thousands of dollars per month. She found success in her career and learned how to find great jobs that weren’t found on typical job boards. Others kept asking her how she landed great gigs and it led to her starting her own blog.

Career blogs work because the goal is straightforward — help people find amazing jobs.

If you do love your job and want to help others find great work, consider starting a career blog.

Gadgets & Technology

If you have a tech background, the skies the limit in terms of online writing. I publish a lot of my work on a site called Medium, and it’s dominated by tech-writing. Tech is fast paced and constantly changing, so the demand for quality writing on the subject is high. Tech writing involves tons of detail — the blog posts are usually long and informative with screen shots, visuals, etc.

If you’re into devices and gadgets, you can create blogs around product reviews and latest trends in the industry. My blogger buddy, Ahmad Imran, runs a blog that discusses the latest gadgets. Like tech blogs, these tend to be highly informative as well.

News, Culture, and Entertainment

This category is somewhat broad and could include subjects like celebrity gossip, travel, fantasy football, fashion, you name it.

If you have an interest that doesn’t quite fit any of the categories above, this might be the one for you. The message should stay consistent, but there’s a lot of room to play around.

Now What?

Hopefully, the information you’ve learned today will give you enough information to get started.

Once you’ve chosen a subject, it’s time to start your blog.

Start Your Blog Today & Get FREE Coaching From Me

To set up your blog, you need to work with a hosting company.

I use Bluehost for my blog.

I am an affiliate for the company, which means I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you if you choose you to create a website using my link. If you decided to google Bluehost and went directly to the site, it’d be the same price.

To make the decision to use my link a no-brainer, I have a special offer for you.

Starting next month, I’m creating a free monthly coaching group for anyone with their own self-hosted blog. I will cover an important subject and have a Q & A session to answer everyone’s questions.

If you already have your own self-hosted blog, you’re in. Just send me an email at ayodejiawosika@gmail.com and I’ll add you to the group.

If you don’t have your own blog yet, sign up through my link, and I’ll add you to the group.

I created a page showing you exactly how to start a blog.  Follow the directions shown, and you’ll be up and running in minutes.

This is the first of a series covering the nitty gritty you need to know to build your writing career. If you have any questions you want to be answered or topics you want to be covered, let me know in the comments.

As a writer, I look to a bevy of different influences for knowledge, style, and because I love to read. The magical powers of reading widely come into play when you find yourself remembering quotes, anecdotes, and pieces of ideas you can use to bolster your own writing. They are stored in your mind while you read, forgotten for a while, then seem to find their way to you when you need them most.

In my new book, You 2.0, I drew from a variety of different sources and authors to aid the formation of my own ideas and for inspiration in my writing career. Today I want to share a few of those books and the lessons learned from them.

Antifragile

Whether you like him or not, Nassim Taleb is one of the fascinating people you’ll ever come across. In fact, he does so many different things and has so many different interests he’s almost impossible, to sum up.

In the book antifragile, Taleb discusses how you can benefit from uncertain situations. A glass cup, for example, doesn’t like volatility — fragile. A piece of steel is indifferent to it — robust. Something antifragile actually likes volatility.

A way to become antifragile is to create scenarios where the potential loss is small and the potential upside is enormous. He did this in his career by slowly bleeding money through buying options and capitalizing on them when rare periods of volatility bankrupted the fragile. 

I try to practice antifragility in my career. With writing and publishing a book I have very little downside. At worst, I lose out on the investment it took to create the book — I can’t sell negative books. With the right swing of volatility in my favor — media exposure, the right person seeing the book at the right time, or something random I can’t control — sales can explode.

Also, Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness showed me that success can be attributed to pure luck.  I hope to put in enough continued work to get very very lucky, but knowing many factors are out of my hands gives me peace of mind. I intend to follow the best process possible so that I can look back at my work fondly regardless of the results.

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

Greene taught me a few lessons through his work that helped me both in writing my book and the attitude I have towards my career in general.

Lesson number one is to always move in silence and work diligently instead of trying to signal how great or important you are. Oftentimes when you enter a new path in life — becoming a writer, starting a business, “changing the world” – it’s easy to puff up your chest and tell everyone what you’re going to do, even though you haven’t done anything yet. He also taught me that unconventional ideas are better left for books or mediums other than day to day conversations because people don’t like hearing them. They don’t like hearing them because they don’t want your newfound enlightenment to act as a mirror that reveals their inferiority or inaction.

Shut up. Get to work. Accomplish first, run your mouth later.

On the Shortness of Life by Seneca

Seneca is a stoic philosopher. From him, I learned to be more frugal with my time. His teachings also wove themselves into the sentiment of my book.

My book is about reinventing yourself. An important component in doing that is realizing how fleeting time is.

For one, it helps reduce some neuroticism to know much of what you worry about is meaningless on a large scale because you’ll be six feet deep sooner than later. The same understanding of time keeps me motivated. I’m going to write my ass off as much as possible because I might die tomorrow. Through my work, I’m going to encourage readers to do as much as possible in their lives because they might die tomorrow. 

You might die tomorrow.

You can read the strategies in my book, implement them, and live a brand new life before it’s too late.