Friday, December 12, 2014

The Simple Shift That Lets You Earn More from Your Writing
earn more from your writingYou think of yourself as a blogger…or copywriter…or fiction author…or some other specific kind of writer.
I must be psychic, right? :)
But even though you may be a talented writer, you’re probably wondering why you’re struggling to pay the bills.
Your prose leaps from the page, you offer amazing value, and you may even have some cool bribe to convince website visitors to join your mailing list.
And yet…you’re doing what you love and the money isn’t following.
What gives?
I’ll tell you what gives. Remember how I used my brilliant powers of deduction to guess that you think of yourself as a certain type of writer?
That’s the problem right there.
The simple shift we promise in the headline — the shift that will help you earn more as a writer, not to mention gain new readers — is a shift in mindset:

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

My Friend Trent Dyrsmid

I first became interested in Trent after a friend had forwarded Trent's groundbreaking  video to me. Trent is a matchless Internet marketer who has some really cutting edge ideas, well worth reading, if your Online business just is not getting off the ground. He shares many secrets for free and I believe it's that very reason, he has gone from strength to strength, turnin
A few days ago, a new client wrote to me to ask for some advice about getting started in a niche that he was looking at going after. I thought his question was such a good one that I decided to publish it here, along with the answer that I gave him.

My Client’s Question

To protect the privacy of my client, I have omitted certain keywords from his question below.
As I am doing the strategy work we talked about and cruising the web for places that [type of people] “hang out” I am finding that there seems to be a major gap in the Podcast area within [industry name].
I am looking for a place where I can listen to interviews of top salespeople or new salespeople who have had success and frankly not seeing anything worth my time.
Most of what is out there seems to be the “talking head” or  “talk at me” and “train me” type of content. I wonder if it might make sense to set up a “podcast” where I would interview top [type of person] and [other type of person] as will as newbies with a millennial type “start up” perspective coming into [industry name].
I am seeing some trends in the industry where people are beginning to think about [industry name] differently in more of a start up type of manner and also seeing it becoming more attractive to Millennials as a career. 
Any quick thoughts on the best way to validate my hypothesis? 

My Answer

The best way to test is to collect data. Here’s what to do.
1. Set up a landing page (use LeadPages.net) to describe the podcast (sales copy/headline must be tight) and see how many people opt in. To make this work, the sales copy must be all benefit, benefit, benefit. Treat the launch of the podcast like a launch of a movie or an apple product. Both make a big deal out of “coming soon!”
2. Use your list and/or Facebook or LinkedIn paid ads to drive traffic to the landing page.
If it converts, you are onto something. You may also want to run a split test while you are doing this. Optimizely is good for that.
The ‘manual’ way of doing this is to survey your list with survey monkey, or actual phone calls. You might want to start with 10 phone calls and if that goes well, then do 1 and 2 above. Your call.
If you really want to test demand, put a buy button on the page, that, when clicked, takes them to a “product not ready but launching soon, so get on the early bird list and you’ll get benefit, benefit, benefit”  If people click the buy button, that means they want it bad enough to pay for it.
Make sense?

5 REASONS TO WRITE THAT STORY NOW!

BookBaby’s top 5 articles on novel writing

(And a couple newer ones!)

TRASH EVERYTHING! JUST DO THIS

7 tips for finishing your first draft!




"Try this process that has guided me through 1700+ freelance articles and 6  ebooks. It took me some years to catch on. Nobody showed me how!"
1. Look at your purpose statement (taped to your monitor), read the chapter title, go through your notes, and just start writing.
2. Divide that chapter into logical points or questions. Explain or answer them. Interviews help.
3. Don’t edit as you write; forget about spelling; use punctuation if you remember. When inspiration or words flee, put the vague idea in brackets and define it later. Your goal is to finish that chapter or section at that sitting.
4. Do your in-depth research on your off hours or after the first, rough draft is done.
5. Don’t spend forever writing. Sit, start where you stopped yesterday, and quit when it gets boring. The rest of the day is for the rest of your life.
6. Edit your starter prose in draft two. Trim it; re-organize it; add in the details that will make it fun to read and valuable to own.
7. A final thing: What you write stays in your head or on your computer. Don’t show the rough stuff to spouses, secretaries, or anybody else. It’s not ready. It’ll get good later. If they gripe or peek, tell them you will report them to the prose police.