The Art and Business of Online Writing

All the notes I took from "The Art and Business of Online Writing" by Nicolas Cole:

For an entire year straight, I challenged myself to write one Quora answer, every single day.
Instead, I doubled-down on my daily writing habit, and committed to writing one answer on Quora, and one article for Inc Magazine, every single day.
For six months straight, January to June of 2016, I kept up this writing routine—while still working nine hours per day as a copywriter, while commuting an hour on the train to and from work, and while eating five meals per day and hitting the gym for an hour and a half every night. I worked. I lifted. And I wrote. And then every night when I got home from the gym around 9:00 p.m., I’d make myself a plate of gluten-free pasta, asparagus, and chicken, and work on my first memoir, Confessions of a Teenage Gamer, until midnight.
By writing online, you elevate yourself. And when you elevate yourself, you open new doors of opportunity.
By investing in yourself, and using writing to share your insights, perspectives, and stories with the world, you will end up accelerating your professional career (and personal growth) in ways you couldn’t have achieved elsewhere.
The new way to think about being a writer in the digital age is to turn your writing into a data mining machine.
99% of people think they know what they should write about. They think they know who their audience is. They think they know what book they should write. They think they know which part of their story is going to resonate with the most people. They think they know “who they are”—and the brutal truth is, they don’t. They have assumptions. They have educated guesses. But they have zero data that can confirm whether or not they’re correct.
Practicing In Public is what separates aspiring writers from professional writers.
Successful writers play the game of Online Writing consciously. Unsuccessful writers play the game unconsciously—and then wonder why they aren’t succeeding.
The entire—and I mean this quite literally, the ENTIRE—art and business and “game” of online writing is rooted in understanding what category you’re actually competing within.
The secret to creating a unique writing style is by doing what would be considered “unexpected” in your chosen category.
be the most specific writer in your chosen category.
The Broader You Are, The More Confusing You Are.”
Start within a niche, and then expand from there.
And DIFFERENT always beats “Better.”
So, how do you create a category? Categories are created at unlikely intersections, spotted by writers with an intimate understanding of one or multiple sub-categories.
Your job as a writer—once you’ve found your strengths, your high-performing topic areas (validated by data), and where you prefer to sit on the Writing Spectrum—is to match different audiences, genres, and writing styles to create a new and DIFFERENT category.
I have a rule I live by, and it goes like this: “The number of hours I spend consuming should never equal or exceed the number of hours I spend creating.”
You become a writer by writing—a lot.
Write Consistently For 6 Months And Then Make A Decision
The writers who become successful are the most consistent writers.
Nothing else matters unless you are writing on a regular basis.
In order to be taken seriously on the internet as an authority in your category and a leader in your industry, niche, or genre, you need to be writing and publishing new material 2x per month.
And if you really want to beat the game of capturing and keeping attention, if you truly want the most guaranteed path to success, then you need to be writing and publishing something new several times per week—or ideally, every single day.
Question everything. Nothing a creator does repeatedly is accidental.
For example, if you wanted to “beat me” at the game of online writing, and acquire all the achievements I’ve acquired, all you would need to do is: Publish something new every single day (because I publish something new every single day). Write fast-paced articles that use short paragraphs, declarative language, and subheads for every main point. Combine actionable advice for the reader with personal stories from your own life that illustrate how you gained the insight you’re sharing in the first place. Collaborate with professional photographers, build your personal brand, and attach pictures of yourself with the articles you write. Publish more than 3,000 articles online over the next five years. Contribute dozens of articles to Inc Magazine, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Business Insider, The Chicago Tribune, The Huffington Post, TIME, and more, to build your Perceived Credibility. Land a few speaking gigs, and capture pictures of you speaking to illustrate more Perceived Credibility. Speak on 100+ different podcasts, illustrating even more Perceived Credibility. Etc.
However, if you’re unable to be consistent for six months, if you’re incapable (no matter how hard you try) to write on a regular basis, I have some bad news for you: You’re not a writer. I’m intentionally being blunt here because if you struggle with self-doubt, then I really want this point to sink in. Being a writer is not a destination. There isn’t a point on the road at which you are, officially, someone worth following on the internet. Attention has to be earned, engagement has to be nurtured, and most of all, relevancy has to be maintained. Which means, if you truly want writing to be part of your life or career, then “being a writer” isn’t actually your goal. Your goal is to write (ACTION)—and it’s through writing that you will BE “a writer.”
Consistent output is the secret to every growth metric on the internet: Views, Comments, Likes, Shares, etc.
There are five types of writing on the internet.
- Form #1: Actionable Guide
- Form #2: Opinion
- Form #3: Curated List
- Form #4: Story
- Form #5: Credible Talking Head
The way you “win” the game of online writing is by creating the single best possible version of whatever form of writing you’re using in your chosen category.
The second question you should ask is, “How can I make this the ULTIMATE guide to writing online?” Your goal should be to create a guide so specific, so comprehensive, so informative, that the moment a reader starts reading what you’ve written, they will immediately 1) bookmark it, 2) share it with someone else, and 3) feel as though they don’t need to go read any other guides, articles, or eBooks on the same topic.
Nothing could possibly be “better” than what you’ve written.
make your piece of writing the single best resource on the entire internet for that particular topic
length is a poor judge of value
What you’re aiming for is the most value you can possibly deliver WITHOUT 1) confusing the reader, or 2) wasting their time.
Your goal as a writer is to always be looking for the topics, subject matters, and categories you are most qualified to write within. “Write what you know,” as the adage goes.
What makes a great headline is getting someone to understand three things at the exact same time: What this piece of writing is about Who this piece of writing is for The PROMISE: the problem that will be solved, and/or the solution being offered
The Curiosity Gap is what tells the reader what this piece of writing is about, who it’s for, and what it’s promising—all without revealing the answer.
The size of your audience is a direct reflection of the size of the question you’re answering.
Before you begin writing anything, you need to decide who you are writing for.
More Main Points = Less Explanation. Less Main Points = More Explanation
Speed is how you win on the internet.
Rule of thumb: if you’re not early, you’re late.
The Golden Intersection of great writing is: Answering The Reader’s Question x Telling Them An Entertaining Story.
If you’re writing about how to learn a skill, you should also tell the reader how you learned that skill.
The single most effective way to “promote” yourself without promoting yourself is to use you, your company, or your product as context to the thing you’re explaining to the reader.
there are outliers who happen to find success with just a small batch of material, but 99% of the time, volume is what separates “good” from “great.” The more material you have, the more times you’re “spinning the wheel” of social algorithms, and the more likely new readers are to discover you and your work.
In the game of Online Writing, volume wins.
Every time you write something online, your footprint gets bigger.
The more material you write within a given category, the more dominant your voice becomes.
And the longer you stick with it, new writers in your chosen category will start to compare themselves to you.
So, in the game of online writing, it’s not just that volume wins. It’s that timeless volume wins.
To get the most “return on investment” from your writing, it’s important to have a roadmap for success.
invest the majority of your time in building timeless assets you will be able to repurpose and reuse (and will pay you dividends) years into the future.
“Does this idea fall within one of my three content buckets?” (If not, what can you tweak so that it makes more sense in the context of your library?) “Will this piece stand the test of time?” (If not, what can you change to make it less timely and more timeless?) “Have I already written about this?” (If yes, how can you re-tell those same stories, insights, opinions, etc., in a way that gives the reader a new and different experience?)
Repetition is how you get people to remember “you.”
So, don’t just meet their expectations. Exceed them.
Give away 99% of your best writing for free. Play the long game. Become the most-read, most-valuable writer in your chosen category. Your goal should be for readers to tag you on Twitter and say, “I seriously can’t believe all this amazing content is free.”
People don’t buy products. They buy solutions to urgent problems.”
Basically, anything you know how to do, with an end result that other people want as well, can be sold as a service.
Unfortunately, most writers aren’t aware of the value of their own skills. To be honest, most people in life don’t know the value of their own skills. We all exist in our own little bubble, and get so used to the things we do and know, that we don’t even stop to consider how these skills or insights could be valuable for someone else. Since it’s “common knowledge” to us, we assume it’s “common knowledge” to everyone else—when that couldn’t be further from the truth.
If you want to become a successful, professional writer today, you have to become more than just a writer. You have to also be an entrepreneur.
So as my 8th grade math teacher used to say, “You can either get on the bus, or you can get off of the bus. Either way, we’re leaving.”