[THREAD]: Here are 10 (painful) lessons I've learned writing 3,000+ articles on the internet over the past 7 years.
On writing advice, growth hacks, going viral, and feeling fulfilled in the process 👇
1/ There is only 1 secret to online writing.
Volume wins.
There isn't a writing platform on the internet where this ISN'T the case. Social platforms. Major publications. Every growth period of my writing career happened during months/years of consistent volume.
Period.
2/ Growth hacks are overrated.
In my early 20s, I spent a LOT of time reading digital marketing blogs about how to get 50% more views here, or 20% more subscribers there.
A lot of it is mental masturbation.
You're far better off just consistently creating new content.
3/ Writing that engages/goes viral is emotional.
You don't have to "air your dirty laundry," but you do have to say something that makes the person on the other side of the screen pause, *feel you*, and engage.
This can be done through story, tone, before/after photos, etc.
4/ You don't go viral by getting lucky.
You go viral by publishing day after day, week after week, year after year.
My Quora dashboard is a great example. Out of 1,200+ Answers, less than 100 have gone viral.
That's not luck. That's rolling the dice 1,200+ times.
5/ Not everyone has something interesting to say.
This is a brutal truth, and one of the first big hurdles you have to overcome as a writer online. If your writing isn't engaging, you might not be saying anything unique/compelling/original.
So? Dig deeper.
6/ There is more than 1 way to "make it" ($$$) as a writer.
The publishing world celebrates best-selling authors. The reality? Most are broke.
The writers with the most creative AND financial freedom are all independent. They monetize in a variety of ways—not just book sales.
7/ Ghostwriting is gasoline for your career.
It's lucrative. It's a supercharger for building a powerful network. It teaches you how to write in different voices. It allows you to play with words all day long & practice your craft.
Every writer should also ghostwrite.
8/ Your personal projects will always give you the biggest ROI.
I became a ghostwriter after I had already built myself as a writer on Quora. Nobody paid me to write online. That was a personal investment in myself, and it changed my life.
Always always invest in yourself.
9/ Any writer can make $$ online. Not every writer can get rich.
The easiest ways to make $$ as a writer is by providing a service or teaching. Both, low barrier to entry.
Get here, first. THEN, once you're established as a full-time writer, chase the Great American Novel dream
10/ Being a Writer is not a destination. It's a habit.
Anyone who is actively writing is a writer.
Anyone no longer actively writing (IMO) is not. They're a "retired writer."
Don't wait for the accolade to tell you who you are.
Let your habits speak for you.
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🚢 Atomic Essay #21: “Find Your Niche” Is Terrible Advice
Creators who stand out don’t “find” their niche.
The reason why is hidden in the phrase above. 👆
Finding your niche is another way of saying “figuring out where you fit in.” And people who stand out don’t fit anywhere. Which is the whole reason why they capture and keep people’s attention.
🚢 Atomic Essay #18: “Nobody Makes A Living As A Writer”
My very last week of college, all my teachers ran through the same speech:
“Writing is thankless work. It’s hard. It doesn’t pay very well. When you do the math on the hours you spend writing and what you end up earning in the end, you’re making pennies on the dollar. Nobody makes a living as a writer.”
My name is Nicolas Cole, and I'm a writer, ghostwriter, and entrepreneur.
Want the full story? Start here 👇
I started writing online early on.
At 17 years old, I was one of the highest-ranked World of Warcraft players in North America, and one of the first e-famous gaming bloggers on the internet.
I wrote a book about it, called Confessions of a Teenage Gamer. amzn.to/3p7ffYc
After HS, I spent a year at University of Missouri studying journalism. Wasn't my thing.
My sophomore year, I transferred to @ColumbiaChi and studied Poetry, then Music Production, then Piano Performance, before finally settling in Fiction Writing.
- How to create new categories and redesign existing categories.
- Why "Product-Market Fit" is flawed & dangerous thinking, and what you should be focused on instead.
- Why category creators generate outsized returns for investors.
Through our research, we found that 21% of the 600ish companies on the Fortune 100 list are category creators. For 79% of fast-growing companies, $1.00 of revenue growth = $1.77 in market cap growth.
For the 21% category creators, $1.00 of revenue growth = $4.82—nearly 3x more
When I was 26 years old, I started my first company with one of my closest friends.
18 months later, we had 20 full-time employees & several million in revenue.
❌💸Here are the mistakes we made that cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars ❌💸👇👇👇
Mistake #1: Scaling the wrong product.
Our V1 offering was 12 ghostwritten articles per month for 1 executive/founder client. That level of output was absurd, but at the time I was used to writing 1 new article per DAY for myself.
Clients signed up, but many fell behind.
Every time a client fell behind, they would "pause" and then we'd be stuck with the balance of overdue articles, which ate into our profit margin heavily over time.
We scaled with that broken V1 product for months without even considering bringing the workload down.