Six Figure Writing

Can writers learn from musicians?

Here’s an extremely interesting take on how to be successful in a music career, which I think has a ton of great advice for writers as well.

Derek Sivers is a musician who built the business CD Baby. Last month he published a free ebook titled “How To Call Attention To Your Music” giving musicians really incredible, distilled advice about reaching a bigger audience.
I think this amazing doc has a really important message for writers who want to be successful into the future.

Writers need to grasp that the publishing industry is going the way of the music industry - decentralized, far less attention (meaning marketing muscle) given to the smaller artists in favor of the big, sure-thing blockbusters. But also, the tools to make a career are now in everyone’s hands thanks to the massive technloogy changes in the last 2 decades.

Since it’s really only been 20 years of technology, I can understand why some don’t feel the ground shifting yet. For example, I read a hilarious set of posts on a big writer’s forum recently (which were truly sincere and not trying to be funny) on a writer’s forum, where some posters seemed to say that in order to be published there was a lot of praying involved.

But look at Siver’s website: the technology gurus he bookmarks, the ideas. he generates.

Then think about how musicians are coping now that their dreams - of being picked up by the mega-music conglomerate for multi-multi-million record deals, massive international concert tours - you know, the next Beatles or Rolling Stones - are virtually gone, because it’s not viable in an iTunes world.

While those dreams might be fruitless, yet musicians’ options have dramatically multiplied - itjust takes a different mind set to be successful.

Can writers learn the same lesson? You’ll have to eventually. Why not figure it out sooner than later?

Posted in Writing general | 1 Comment »

Watch as I “spy” on these writer’s websites

A couple weeks ago, readers of my mailing list were invited to submit their home page URLs to be chosen as for a little project I am doing here on my blog: Reviewing websites to demonstrate the kinds of modifications, design considerations and other tweaks that can increase traffic to a site, enhance the user experience, and help sell more writing.

The selection criteria was simple: I was looking for sites that were writing-related, i.e., sites built by writers to promote their writing, whether fiction, nonfiction, freelance, or ghostwriting, and sites that had some basics in place, with potential to build upon (in my subjective determination!). Out of a few dozen submissions, I’ve chosen these three sites:

Two of the site owners have published books, two are freelance writers, and each site is in a slightly different stage of development and design.

I’ll be uploading video of each site at least twice: Once when I show you what to look for when assessing your site’s design elements, and next, when I describe the steps these site owners have taken to implement changes to enhance their results in terms of traffic and hopefully revenue generation.

I think as a reader of this blog you can benefit from these reviews regardless of the type of site you have, since many of these techniques are well-known and used by all kinds of online businesses and freelancers.

Take a look at these sites to see what you would do to enhance them, and if you have (constructive!) suggestions for these writers, post them here.

Posted in Business planning, Site Traffic, Site promotion, Web site design | No Comments »

Review of websites coming soon…

I sent a post to the SixFigureWriting mailing list a couple weeks ago, offering to give a web site review for selected readers who might be interested.  My review consists of offering ideas for (1) making the site more traffic-friendly, and (2) features to add to attract long-term visitors and add-on business.

Out of several dozen submissions, I chose three that I think show how different writers approach using the web, and each site is in a slightly different phase of development, from fairly basic to significant content.

For each site, I’ll be suggesting changes, and the site owners will select three to implement and track.  I’ll be posting all the details and progress here on SixFigureWriting, including videos and screen capture so you can follow right along with my analysis.  I’d be itnerested to hear reader’s comments too, things you’d have suggested instead, or questions that you think of when you see what I recommend.

Stay tuned!

Posted in Marketing, Site promotion, Web site design, Writing general | No Comments »

What can writers do in a down economy?

Freelance writers are, by definition, flexible, and that is going to be a very important trait indeed as we head into a rocky economic downturn.

I just read a truly wonderful post at Escape From Cubicle Nation, about how to be creative in your business during a downturn.  How can writers survive and even capitalize on rough economic times?  here are a few ideas:

• Try branching out into topics you haven’t tried before.  if you are a fiction writer, try a few nonfiction topics (they can help pay the bills).
• Expand your marketing into arenas you haven’t tried before - or just expand your marketing!  Tweak your blog (I’ll be demonstrating some ideas in a future post using sites my readers have volunteered).  Do a massive post across the web of press releases, articles or content about your topic, or your self, or your publications.  Automate this so you have consistent, and constant, PR  exposure.
• Find new audiences for your work: Are there discussion forums you haven’t yet joined? A new venue where you can advertise? A potential partner you haven’t yet approached?  Network more.
• Find ways to improve your efficiency, and increase your output. Can you outsource the drab tasks of paperwork and accounting or what have you, and use those hours to send out or rite more material?
• Education is always a good investment - so take a class about something you haven’t tried before, and don’t just learn the material but use the class to network with other writers.
• Find ways to connect with others to enhance ways to learn of new opportunities or good product ideas.

What are you doing to protect your business in a tough time, and take advantage of opportunities?

Posted in Writing general | No Comments »

Some quick items for your tool belt

Here are a couple things I’ve run across recently and am starting to have trouble living without:

• Jott. This is FREE. You set it up so you can call and leave yourself or anyone else a message, and you get a text and/or email reminder. I’m on the road a lot so I can’t always put a post-it on my desk. I can also Jott my virtual admin, partners, anyone else - Addictive!
• CrazyEgg: creates a “heatmap” of visitors to your site. Are they looking at the book covers and leaving? Are they going to the audio link first? Free limited access.
• FreeMind mind mapping software. This freeware lets you create “mind maps” or concept maps, which can be incredibly helpful in putting your ideas on paper in a (more) coherent way. Or the graphics are just fun to play with. I plan to post a video here soon showing how to use this, I use it for sites, books, articles, great for storyboarding too.
• Joe’s Goals. If you don’t already have something you use to goal-set, this might help. I liked it for the tag cloud too - a little insight into what people are obsessing about today!
• Twitter. OK it seems idiotic at first. Why not just use RSS? Because even THAT can be time consuming. Twitter lets you read quick hits from people you follow, or send out your own. Just fun to read sometimes if you read everything being posted at once… I’ve been using it a while and still trying to decide if it’s useful, fun, or just a waste of time.  Send me a tweet at 6figurewriting and let me know what you think.

What apps are you using we need to have right away?

Posted in Apps, Cool Tools, Goals, Web 2.0 Tactics, productivity | No Comments »

Are Freelance Writers Out Of Sync?

I’m reading Seth Godin’s excellent book, Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing Out Of Synch?, and it describes the ways some businesses are attempting to jump on the bandwagon of the new tools and services on the Internet but are not quite “getting it”. They’re trying to just layer the latest thing onto their business-as-usual product/marketing/advertising models, and guess what? It doesn’t work.

There are plenty of warnings too - some for freelance writers even. I keep asking the same questions here: Why oh why do writers not take advantage of what the Internet means for communication?? - after all, isn’t communicating our business? - and then complain and moan about how they have to choose between money and writing, between what they love and a living. Hogwash. They are just lazy about breaking out of their comfort zone, and want to stick to the dreams they dreamt years ago (seeing their name on the cover of XYZ magazine? In the window of Barnes and Noble? On Hoprah?) - while the world is changing around them. Yes, the game has changed. Publishers mostly haven’t. Neither have so many writers, I read about dozens and dozens of them on the forums. Here’s a quote (apologies to Mr. Godin for the lengthy selection), he’s talking about Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew who published a book on the Beatles - and made $300K doing it:

“What’s noteworthy about Recording The Beatles Is what the authors didn’t do. They didn’t give the rights to a traditional publisher. They didn’t fight hard for retail shelf space. They didn’t buy co-op ads with big book chains, and they didn’t try to get on Oprah..Instead, [they] managed to sell every single copy of their book (three thousand were printed) at the very profitable price of one hundred dollars per copy. And they did it by embracing the tactics of the New Marketing…

“By self-publishing, the authors were able to accomplish several things. First, they removed a substantial ‘tax’ (85 percent of the cover price) that a publisher charges to handle thing like retail distribution, advertising, printing risk and staffing…More important, self-publishing took them out of a meatball factory mindset. Instead of publishing yet another book, a book for an anonymous, unseen group of consumers who would somehow find the book they didn’t know they wanted, the authors found a book for the readers they already knew about…Recording the Beatles has generated more revenue than 97 percent of all books ever published. And unlike other books, most of this revenue goes to the authors.”

This book is an awesome read if you’re at all concerned about making a splash or even a ripple with your writing. Isn’t that WHY you are writing? To be read? To be heard? Well, now you can, where in the old-school ways of gatekeepers, it was pretty damn tough. I’m guilty of meatball thinking too, but it’s going to be a real fun ride making all the changes.

Let me know what you’re doing - or not doing - still waiting for that publisher/agent/magazine to call? Or are you growing beyond that?

Posted in Business planning, Creativity, Fiction writing, Marketing, Web 2.0 Tactics, blogs | No Comments »

Building a game plan… where are you in the process?

As a writer, I want to take advantage of more of what the Internet offers. I recently saw online a l-o-o-o-ng discussion about why a potential publisher sent a writer seemingly contradictory messages about why they were not accepting their submission for publication. The writer was baffled. And hundreds (I think) of people responded with similar experiences.

I always wonder why so many writers still choose to follow the traditional path, instead of jumping in to market and sell on the Web. I mean, for the writer who was posting to that forum, why not tell the publishers to shove it, and publish your own stuff, on your own site, for readers who WANT IT because you know there are there (and publishers aren’t generally in the niche or long-tail business)?

Anyway, I digress. If you are reading this blog, I hope it’s because you are looking for NEW ways to make money, and MORE ways to make money, and sticking to the query-wait-query-wait-small-sale method just isn’t cutting it for you. Next up, I am working on a multi-part “how to” for digging deeper into ways to sell your work on the web.

My question (after that long rant) is: People who read this, or subscribe to my list, are all over the map in terms of experience. Where do you think you fall in terms of knowing about writing, marketing and selling on the Web?

Ex., some of you probably already have subscriber lists, successful blogs, etc. My plan is to write up basics, in a shorter format (because there are SO MANY great resoruces about getting started, like Tiff Dow’s ebook which you can find on this page) and then let readers follow along as I venture into selling direct, using affilaites, Web 2.0 and the like.

Let’s get started real quick with a couple basic musts:

• If you don’t have your own domain name, get one. You can use your own name, but honestly, if you want to build search engine traffic, you should also register a name that represents your work - like “http://american-catfish-cooking,com” if you write catfish cookbooks, for example. No one is likely to be searching (yet) for your name. So use a domain name they ARE searching for.

• Get your own email. You want email that says “suec@american-catfish-cooking.com” not “suec@hotmail.com”. My fave host and registrar for ten years is Dreamhost.

• How to find what your readers are searching for? Visit SEO Book keyword search tool.

Let me know where you are in your process, building an online presence, marketing, using Web 2.0 successfully, etc. I’d like to feature some of the better responses in a future post.

Posted in Business planning, blogs, productivity | No Comments »

New Page of Free Stuff Added

We’ve just added a new page to the blog of free items we’re offering to our readers, plus useful tools for writers that we find on the web that are either free or low cost. Just click on the Freebies tab above. (Hint: If you want to get first crack at these, sign up for the mailing list on the right, since we post to our list first! )

This list will be updated on a regular basis as we find and create more great free stuff. Look for some video and other things shortly - right now, we’re working on some “spy” videos that show you what works - and doesn’t work - on writer websites, as well as more interviews with successful writers and much more.

Posted in Writing general | No Comments »

Here It Is, The Mega List of Online Freelance Jobs

Just released! The”Mega List” has 46 top ‘Net resources for finding jobs -job boards, market sites, and places to sell your own work direct to the public. Download your copy now!

Click Here To Download The
Mega List Of Online Freelance Jobs

This is a free PDF download. I’d be interested to hear from readers about additional sites, other resources they find useful that are not included here. I didn’t include any subscription services for example, these are all free resources for finding work.

Happy hunting!

Posted in Freelance Jobs, Income streams, productivity | 2 Comments »

“The List” of places to sell your work - not your typical list!

Tomorrow I’ll be releasing the list of all the places online you can go to find new freelance writing jobs, as well as places to sell your own work.  (If you want to get access first, you’ll have to join the list by signing up to the right - I’ll be sending out an announcement soon!)  While it lists many, many places to sell your work and writing services,  It’s not a traditional list, meaning just another list of websites that post freelance gigs and jobs.  I’m adding a whole section about places you can go to sell your own products, either direct to your audience/clients, or through affiliates.  I’m also posting links to sites like Elance where you can bid on specific jobs.

The best way to use this list is to not only look for places where you can send a submission or bid on a job posting.  Instead, when you read these postings, consider what the buyer is doing with the writing you produce:  Are they running a topical website in a niche you are passionate about? Are they hiring a bunch of writers to handle bulk tasks (like writing dozens of articles)? Are the looking for someone to ghostwrite an eBook - what do you imagine they would do with that?  Buyers aren’t hiring writers unless there is a market to resell the work at a nice profit, you can assume they are paying you a fraction of what they will make selling your work to their customers!  How can you cut out the middleman, and reachthose customers directly with your own product?

The sites I list are good places to find jobs, but also good places to research.  which bring me to my next offering - The Hidden Web - Exposed!  I’m also going to be posting a new eBook listing dozens of deep-web research sources, places you can find ideas, products, public domain materials, web partners, newsletters and email lists farbeyond what is accessible just through Google (think “500 TIMES” more material!)  If you are serious about creating content - and to reach six figures, you should be - you’ll want to get your hands on this ebook.

Look for more tomorrow and Thursday about these great offerings, plus some goodies too…

Posted in Freelance Jobs, Marketing, Profitable writing | 1 Comment »