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- Move Beyond Fear: Find and Keep Your Writing Voice in 10 Steps
This guest post is by Sean M. Madden of Mindful Living Guide.
I've been teaching creative writing, along with mindful living, for years now. And I can say, without hesitation, that fear is ubiquitous. Its presence, more than anything else, stops writers in their tracks.
All seems to be going along beautifully, words and ideas are flowing, characters and plots are taking shape, and wham! a certain self-consciousness seeps in. The flow slows to a trickle, we begin to falter, and, worst of all, we judge ourselves harshly, comparing our present writing to our glory days. Or we compare ourselves against other writers, those in our midst, or literary greats of times past.
Just a few minutes ago, I finished up an informal discussion which I was leading on the web. The talk shared the exact title of this article, and one of the participants is a long-time student of mine. He's the sort of guy you'd never guess would be fearful of losing his writing voice. He's a confident and successful middle-aged businessman, and he's led an unusually creative life. He's gigged as a singer-songwriter, owned and managed art galleries in London, has a lovely family, and travels widely.
Yet Alex has a lingering concern—the very one detailed above, whereby his writing seems to get off-track, falters and he starts doubting his abilities, whether he'll manage to write with ease as he once did.
Fortunately, there are steps we can take which, if heeded, will do more than help us to find and keep our writing voice. These steps can help us to move beyond fear and to live more creatively.
Ten steps to help you move beyond fear and find and keep your writing voice
- Acknowledge your fears: don't pretend they're not lurking there behind the scenes.
- Face them: Face your fears with a simple, uncomplicated awareness of the corresponding bodily sensations. In other words, notice how your fears (and thoughts generally) make you feel, physically.
- But don't feed them: As with online trolls who get their jollies trying to wreak havoc, your fears will lessen and eventually fade away if you stop engaging with them on their terms.
- Recognize that your fears are illusory: You can smile at their devilish innocence.
- Simply put pen to paper: Write through your fears. Write down whatever comes up.
- Notice our tendency to negatively compare ourselves with others: These crippling, judgmental thoughts are another illusion, another trick our minds play to limit our naturally creative selves.
- Realize that action trumps fear: When things get tough, go for a good long walk, take a yoga class, return to your breath. Do such things as these on a daily basis and things will not get so tough so often.
- Write down your inner truths: Do this with great courage and honesty. You'll thereby find your voice.
- Take heart knowing you're not alone: We, all of us, feel these fears. Don't believe otherwise.
- Trust in the process: Nurture an awareness that everything, even fear, can be a great teacher!
What fears tend to squelch your writing voice, and what strategies do you use to overcome these fears? Please leave your comments below. Let's get the conversation flowing.
As a Creative Writing & Mindful Living Guide, Sean M. Madden offers Writing, Literature & Mindful Living courses and workshops — and one-to-one guidance — worldwide. He's also the creator of the new #mlmon and #wpthu communities. To keep apprised of Sean's live web-based writing workshops (Next Up: April 8 & 15) and other online and in-person offerings, sign up to the MLG newsletter. You can also follow (@SeanMMadden) or email him.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Move Beyond Fear: Find and Keep Your Writing Voice in 10 Steps
Переслать - Plagiarism … or Inspiration?
This guest post is by Dawn Walnoha of Brandsplat.
In all writing, blogging being no exception, there is a fine line between borrowing ideas and plagiarizing content. Since the issue is not clearly defined the same way everywhere, it is open to interpretation. And that means the line is somewhere in a gray area between the black and white of honest content and dishonest theft.
One area that has been a perennial gray zone is that of borrowing another writer’s structure or approach to their writing style, while not borrowing their content. This is absolutely, in no way shape or form, plagiarizing. But because of the nature of ideas and how they originate and propagate through society as memes, there are people who take this kind of structural borrowing as a theft of ideas.
So how does one evaluate the matter to be sure they’re simply using a reasonable approach, rather than stealing from another writer?
Comparing content
Let’s take a look at two very popular television series, two of my personal favorites in fact: ABC’s Castle and Fox’s Bones.
Castle, which first aired as a mid-season replacement in 2009, features a male and female partnership duo heading up an ensemble style cast of quirky police detectives. Rick Castle, an author who is tagging along on police investigations in order to do research for his books, often clashes with the experienced police detective Kate Beckett. Castle lacks any kind of police training and can’t protect himself like a cop could, but their personality clashes hide a growing and intensifying attraction to one another.
Compare that to Bones, which first aired in 2005. Temperence Brennan and Agent Seeley Booth head up an ensemble cast of quirky characters. Brennan (who is an author) is working with the experienced FBI field agent Booth. Booth often clashes with her over decorum in the field because she wants to get close to the action but lacks the training of an experienced officer. However, their clashes hide a growing and intensifying… you can see where I’m going with this, I’m sure.
On the surface, these two shows look very much alike. Just looking at the facts as presented, you would probably excuse someone for making the initial assumption that Castle ripped Bones off. But looking a bit more in depth, you’ll see that it is not the case.
Bones is a show focused on forensic anthropology based out of a lab in the “Jeffersonian” institute (a Smithsonian analog) working with the FBI on high profile cases. It showcases the very real concerns of the interactions between specialists who are civilians and actual agents invested with police powers.
Castle, on the other hand, shows a rich playboy author who does a “ride along” with Detective Beckett and becomes fascinated with her. He decides to base a novel character on her, and uses his pull with the mayor to get assigned to her cases. This scenario is well into the realm of fanciful whimsy, rather than the situation in Bones, which at least attempts to illustrate the actual way two different agencies might interact.
Further, before Bones could make a claim against Castle, one has to remember that Bones is simply a retread of the tried and true “buddy cop” formula itself, which dates back much further than either series.
Both shows use a very similar format, but Castle is not a copy of Bones. They simply start from a similar premise, and follow the creators’ logic and own unique creative processes from there.
Borrowing format
So it is with blogging. Perhaps one day you come across a format from a favorite blogger that you can see will work for you. Maybe the way they present their research and conclusions appeals to you in an organizational sense, and you borrow the format. This does not mean you’re borrowing the ideas, nor are you stealing actual content. Thus, it should not be considered plagiarism or intellectual property infringement.
Maybe it even goes further than that. A blogger could write about a specific topic you find interesting, and you decide to use the topic as a starting point. So long as you do your own research and do not simply take their article and rewrite it, again you are not plagiarizing.
Ideas are very fluid concepts. It is very difficult to demonstrate exactly where any one meme began in most cases. You should not be afraid of reading your favorite blogs and drawing ideas on what to write about from them. On their road to success, Bones and Castle weren’t afraid to revisit the buddy cop series idea, borrowing liberally from CSI and, yes, each other along the way. (The creators of Castle have even acknowledged that the relationship between Beckett and Castle has similarities to the one between Booth and Brennan.)
Don’t be afraid to look for ideas anywhere, so long as you are honestly willing and able to do the work yourself to flesh those ideas out.
Dawn Walnoha is the VP of Production at Brandsplat. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles and social media in the voice of our client’s brand. Click here for the Brandsplat Report or visit our blog at www.ibrandcasting.com.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Переслать - How to Create a Website and Sell it for $200,000
This guest post is by Patrick Meninga of Make Money with No Work.
Over the last four years, I created a single website that exceeded $2,000 in monthly income, and sold for six figures to one of my direct advertisers.
When I started this journey, I had no idea what I was doing. I wasted a great deal of time using actions that were inefficient, wasteful, and unprofitable. Looking back, it is easy to see which actions produced the most income.
My action checklist for creating a website and selling it for $200,000 looked like this:
- selected the perfect topic
- published a high volume of content
- created premium content to attract organic links
- pitched premium quality guest posts
- cultivated a community of fans
- negotiated direct advertising deals
- persisted through any setbacks
- sold when the right offer came along.
Select the perfect topic
I chose the perfect topic for my website. The subject of addiction worked because:
- I had expert knowledge and first-hand experience in it.
- There was sufficient traffic and interest in the topic on the web.
- There was money to made from related products and services.
If you want to creating a six-figure website, you’ll need to meet all three of these requirements.
How can you find the perfect topic?
Think carefully about where your expertise lies. What have you done, what have you learned, and what could you teach others? Brainstorm a list of potential topics based on your experiences. ProBlogger has some helpful suggestions on how to do this.
Next, filter your list of potential topics by profitability. ProBlogger has a detailed guide on how to do this.
Then, filter your list of topics based on potential volume. ProBlogger explores the idea of considering your niche’s volume in detail.
It is not enough to choose a topic in which you are an expert. You need to find the intersection between:
- your expertise
- sufficient traffic volumes and interest on the web
- profit potential.
Publish a high volume of content
I sold my website for six figures because I published a large number of articles. This is how I attracted large volumes of search engine traffic.
My success stemmed from a mountain of content. Over the life of my website, I averaged three new articles per day, resulting in over a thousand new articles each year.
My website sold for six figures because it had a lot of quality content on it.
One of the most important things to implement is a daily quota for publishing new articles. Build a big website. Publish regularly. Writing multiple articles per day will result in the fastest growth. Volume matters. Ninety percent of my effort went into content creation.
Create premium content to attract organic links
One action I took was to create premium content. What is “premium content?” It is content that beats the competition on the web.
Search for you topic online, and glance through the top sites. Analyze the quality, depth, and usefulness of this content. Your goal is to write and publish content that exceeds the quality of what’s already out there. Create a better resource that is useful to your audience.
These are the actions I took to accomplish this with my website:
- I designed custom infographics (even though I did not know exactly what I was doing!).
- I published several free ebooks.
- I helped anyone with personal questions via email for free.
- I created videos to give the audience a choice of content formats.
- I created a discussion forum where people could ask questions, get advice, or seek feedback from each other.
Few of my competitors were implementing these tactics, and many of these strategies generated organic links and word-of-mouth exposure for me.
Pitch premium quality guest posts
My website sold for six figures because it had enough authority to rank for many keywords. The site was pulling in over eighty thousand unique visits per month because it had a combination of lots of articles and enough authority to rank well. That authority was created through a handful of guest posts.
While ProBlogger already explores how to get your first guest post published, I want to highlight a couple of points that many people may not realize.
Firstly, because guest posting can be difficult, many people will turn to chasing easy, manufactured links. Don’t do this! While some links are very easy to get, they won't be as powerful as a real guest post. Recognize that quality links are difficult to achieve but are well worth the added effort.
Secondly, with most topics on the web, you only need a few guest posts to create powerful authority. Do not be discouraged. Just start with a single guest post. Give things time. If you are not getting the results you want, add another guest post. This is part of a long-term strategy: give new links time to produce results.
Cultivate a community of fans
I created a fan base in a simple two-step process on my website:
- I engaged my readers by opening discussions with them about my articles, encouraging them to leave comments, and having conversations with them.
- I gave them a platform in which a community formed and took hold. For my site, this meant adding a discussion forum.
This approach was so successful that some of the fans spread the new forum via word of mouth, bringing in friends and growing the community naturally.
Thus, the action of cultivating fans must begin by engaging your readers. Start a discussion, have conversations, and build from that.
Negotiated direct advertising deals
While I built my site and earned decent money from it, I asked myself, “What if I could monetize more efficiently?”
I was using Google AdSense, so I set out with the goal to make a direct advertising deal. I made a list of each advertiser, then contacted them and inquired about going direct. This was my basic pitch:
“Look, you are already purchasing traffic from my website via Google. What if we were to cut out the middleman, do a direct deal, and both come out ahead for it? Is that something that interests you?”
After contacting about 20 advertisers, five replied, and I struck three different ad deals. Each of these ran separately, and they had mildly successful results. In all three cases, AdSense delivered better results. There were two problems. First, our advertising contract was too short: there was not enough time to measure real results. Also, the advertisers didn’t have enough control over my website, and couldn’t fine-tune things to their needs.
Even though these direct advertising deals didn’t pan out, they were still valuable because I learned from them. Most importantly, the last direct deal that I made resulted in an unsolicited offer to purchase the website. This would not have happened had I not experimented with new forms of monetization.
Persist through any setbacks
During my journey to create a full-time income online, I experienced a few setbacks. The reason that my website sold for such a large amount is because I persisted through these setbacks and continued to improve the website.
In one instance, a Google algorithm update reduced my traffic by about 40%. I quickly made corrective actions and improved the quality of my content. This particular setback helped in that it raised my standard of quality for future posts. Instead of producing "good enough" articles, I tried to redefine what "premium content" meant to me. I challenged myself to be original, insightful, and helpful with each new article I published.
Sell when the right offer comes along
As I stated above, my last direct advertising deal resulted in an offer I could not refuse. $200,000 was a life-changing amount of money for me. I also had the knowledge and skill to build another profitable website.
Think carefully about your selling price, and keep it in the back of your head. If your website is earning $1,000 per month, would you sell the website for $30,000? Why or why not?
My website sold for an outrageous premium because it was “best in class” in terms of original content, epic resource articles, and lots of free ebooks. The strength of the content and the community will allow the site to remain profitable long into the future.
Review your action list
To increase monthly income or sell your site for a huge premium, review the actions I’ve suggested in this article and make sure that you are addressing each of them. Six figures does not just fall into your lap, but if you are determined to work hard for your success, these actions can get you there.
Any questions? Let me know in the comments!
Patrick Meninga runs Make Money with No Work. Patrick recently sold his flagship website for $200,000 dollars and has since taken to sipping cold beverages on white sandy beaches. He also recently launched a free eBook titled "Ninjanomics – This Changes Everything."
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
How to Create a Website and Sell it for $200,000
Переслать
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