Nicolas Cole 🚢 Profile picture
Sep 24, 2021 27 tweets 7 min read Read on X
Attention Writing Twitter 📢

Only 7 days left to join the LAST Ship 30 for 30 cohort of the year.

...and it's looking to be our BIGGEST cohort yet.

In celebration, let's play a game.

1 RT = 1 digital writing tip we share inside the course.

Ready, go.
You can join the last Ship 30 for 30 cohort of the year here 👇

ship30for30.com
Digital Writing Tip #1: It's your content. You can do anything you want with it.

Atomic Essays can become:

• Newsletters
• Landing page copy
• eBooks
• Digital Products
• Course material
• Scripts for podcast episodes
• Etc.
Digital Writing Tip #2: You make your headlines more compelling by increasing the voltage ⚡️⚡️⚡️

You can do this to your:

• WHAT?
• WHO?
• FEELING
• PROMISE

More description in any one of these parts of your headline = ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️ Image
Digital Writing Tip #3: You are not the main character. Your reader is.

This means, even if you're telling "your story" or sharing "your insights," you have to find a way for it to relate to the reader's wants, needs, questions, and desires.

They should see themselves in you.
Digital Writing Tip #4: All content can be reverse-engineered in 4 buckets.

• Actionable
• Analytical
• Aspirational
• Anthropological

We call this The 4A Framework.

Start here, and your writing will have 10x more clarity. Image
Digital Writing Tip #5: DO NOT START A BLOG.

A huge reason we started #Ship30for30 was to help writers avoid making the BIGGEST mistake when writing online.

Your blog has zero distribution.

Instead, we help writers start their own Social Blog.

typeshare.co
Digital Writing Tip #6: Write for the version of yourself 6+ months ago.

So many people want to write, but aren't sure what to write ABOUT.

Here's an easy framework:

Write for the version of you who didn't know what you know today.

Help that person.
Digital Writing Tip #7: Not sure how to structure your writing? Use a proven approach.

"Lists" have a bad reputation, but they're a terrific way to organize ideas.

You can organize just about anything into a list. Image
Digital Writing Tip #8: It's only clickbait if you fail to keep your promise to the reader.

If you write an amazing headline but the content is sub-par, you "tricked" the reader.

They call that clickbait.

But if DELIVER on the promise, guess what?

*Bookmarked*
Digital Writing Tip #9: Credibility can come in many forms.

Don't feel like you're "the expert" on anything?

Go out and curate what experts have to say about X.

Congrats!

You're now "the expert of curating experts on X." Image
Digital Writing Tip #10: Volume wins.

What makes a successful writer in 2021+ is not one single piece.

It's their body of work.

Their LIBRARY.

Don't obsess over the performance of any one piece.

Focus on building a library of assets.

📈📈📈📈📈
Digital Writing Tip #11: Don't compete in someone else's category. Create your own.

The book, "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" was the first self-help book with a "IDGAF" voice.

And it has sold millions of copies.

What happened next?

Lots of sub-par copycats. Image
Digital Writing Tip #12: The cost of reading your writing is TIME off someone's life.

Think about that.

When you write something, you're asking someone to *pay* with 30 seconds or 3 minutes of their LIFE.

Keep that urgency in mind when writing.

Make every word matter.
Digital Writing Tip #13: The easiest way to stand out? Use languaging.

Languaging = the strategic use of language to change thinking.

It's not a book. It's an e-book.

It's not art. It's digital art.

The word you pick to MODIFY the existing word changes how people *see* it.
Digital Writing Tip #14: The more you write, the more you write.

You'll only have so many ideas before you begin the journey of writing online.

But once you start, your flywheel will spin.

Everything you write gives you data on what ELSE you can write.

And so on, and so on.
Digital Writing Tip #15: When you find something that works, repeat it.

For example, I've written dozens of "101" threads.

Why? Because they get 10x more engagement than anything else I write.

Find patterns & repeat them.

Digital Writing Tip #16: Feel like you've run out of ideas? Use our Endless Idea Generator

• What topic do you want to write about?
• Choose a proven approach
• Tell the reader why they should trust you

This is how you turn 1 topic into 100 different variations. Image
Digital Writing Tip #17: You can't know what your niche is until you start publishing.

Every writer begins their journey with assumptions.

"I assume readers want X."

It's not until they hit PUBLISH that they realize what they thought readers wanted, readers didn't want.
Digital Writing Tip #18: The most important thing you will ever write on Twitter is your Lead-In tweet.

This is what *hooks* readers.

And if your Lead-In tweet doesn't share a Story, Framework, or hint at the Actionable Advice to come, nobody is going to click and read. Image
Digital Writing Tip #19: Don't delete past work.

All writers have this fear:

"What if someone sees my early work and thinks it's bad!"

But guess what?

Your old work gets more valuable as time goes on.

It becomes your origin story.
Digital Writing Tip #20: Everything you write that performs well gives you the OPTION to explore new territory.

This is the best part about being a data-driven writer.

As things perform well, you now have a choice:

• "Do I want to write more of this?"
• "Or don't I?"
Digital Writing Tip #21: Write where people already are.

Our favorite platforms are:

• Twitter
• Quora
• Medium
• Reddit
• (sometimes) LinkedIn
• Anywhere with an EXISTING userbase
Digital Writing Tip #22: Don't worry about editing.

In your first year of writing online, there's 0 point in editing your work beyond checking for spelling errors.

Because you don't know what to edit FOR yet.

Instead, ship as many ideas as you can.

Learn what readers want.
Digital Writing Tip #23: The size of the question dictates the size of the audience.

Most writers think, "I want to write about X," and THEN, "How do I get X in front of millions of people?"

Instead, start in reverse.

"What question do millions of people have?"

Answer that. Image
Digital Writing Tip #24: You can't steer a stationary ship.

There is very little to be gained strategizing about hypotheticals.

The truth is, you don't know what is going to resonate.

You don't know what readers are going to grab onto.

So, just start.

And pivot as you go.
Digital Writing Tip #25: When writing for niche audiences, GET SPECIFIC.

The more specific you are about WHO the piece is for and what outcome they can unlock, the more readers will see themselves in your writing.

If you're not specific, they won't know it's for them. Image

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More from @Nicolascole77

Feb 1
January is over.

So there's no better time than February 1st to start writing online.

Use these 25 prompts to write & publish every day for the next 25 days:🧵 Image
1. What was your first job, and what's 1 lesson you learned you'll remember forever?

2. Who was your first mentor, and what's something they taught you that changed the way you saw the world (and yourself)?
3. What was the biggest mistake you made as a young adult, what did it teach you, and how has it shaped your life since?

4. What's 1 weird interest/hobby of yours that everyone around you misunderstands, but makes perfect sense to you—and what has it taught you?
Read 22 tweets
Jan 31
This man was Steve Jobs's secret weapon in creating Apple's iconic brand.

He turned 'Think Different' into $3 trillion, crafted the iMac story, and helped save Apple from bankruptcy.

Here's how ONE writer transformed Apple into the world's most valuable brand: 🧵 Image
When Ken Segall joined Apple's ad agency in 1997, Apple was 90 days from bankruptcy.

Apple wasn't just failing financially—its brand message was a mess. Image
Jobs needed someone who could turn complex tech into simple stories.

Enter Ken Segall, the creative director who'd write the words to define Apple.

His first task? Create a campaign to tell the world Apple was back.
Read 17 tweets
Jan 17
J.R.R. Tolkien spent 60 years creating over 15 languages while writing The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Roverandom, etc.

Some called it madness. But now Pixar, Universal, and Marvel use his ideas.

Here's Tolkien's 4-part framework for world-building and storytelling: 🧵 Image
At Oxford, Tolkien was obsessed with languages.

By day, he taught Old English and Norse mythology & literature.

By night, he created entire linguistic systems from scratch—and shared his ideas with friends, including C.S. Lewis, who encouraged his creativity.
Before writing The Hobbit, Tolkien had already created:

• Thousands of words
• Multiple writing scripts
• 15 different Elvish dialects
• Complete grammatical systems

This obsession would later become his secret weapon.
Read 12 tweets
Jan 10
This is Shonda Rhimes.

She's the legendary TV writer behind Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, & Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.

From unemployed scriptwriter in Hollywood, she is now worth $240M. Her storytelling is why Netflix gave her a $450M deal.

Here's her philosophy:🧵 Image
When Rhimes first pitched Grey's Anatomy, ABC executives said:

"No one would watch a show about a woman sleeping with a man the night before starting a new job."

16.25M viewers tuned in for the pilot.

This wasn’t luck—it was science.

Rhimes followed 10 storytelling rules: Image
1. "Start in the middle of the story."

Look at the Grey's pilot: We meet Meredith Grey waking up after a one-night stand, late for her first day as a surgeon.

No backstory. No setup. Just drama.

This hooks viewers instantly.
Read 17 tweets
Dec 31, 2024
I write 5,000 words every day.

How?

By treating writing like a mental sport.

9 simple habits I use to stay mentally fit as a pro writer:🧵 Image
1/ Read 1-2 pages of a thesaurus

This takes me 15 minutes every morning.

It’s a great brain exercise and teaches you a lot about language.

Words are your tools, so keep adding to your toolbox.

Here's how I fit it into my routine:
2/ Journal daily

90% of being a writer is understanding your own journey.

Journaling helps you process life events, see your progress, & visualize your future.

With it, you write from the scar, not the wound.
Read 13 tweets
Dec 27, 2024
I can write a 60,000-word book in 30 days.

Here's how I write a 5,000-word chapter in 90 minutes (in 3 simple steps): Image
Before you start writing, you need to have two items in place:

1. Your title
2. Your outline

If you don't have these, you don't know what you're writing about.

Check the end of the thread—there are 2 extra resources to help you.

Before we dive in, let's do some quick math:
Here's how to break down your 60,000-word book:

• 10 chapters at 5,000 words each
• Each chapter has 5 to 7 sub-questions
• These sections are then only 700 to 1,000 words long

Each section is the length of a blog post or a newsletter.

And this is the biggest takeaway here:
Read 12 tweets

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