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How to NOT Get Paid to Write Online (And Make Money Doing It)

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Fresh out of college, I landed a job writing one-page sell sheets for a marketing company for $50 each. On a rare excellent day, I might do as many as two of these. Soon after, I found a freelance gig that would pay me $300 per article I wrote for an inter-organizational newsletter. I got to interview people for that one. It was more work, but better money. Eventually, I hooked up with a pretty big industry magazine and was being paid $1300 for 2000-word feature articles. That was the big money. Magazine pay doesn’t go much higher until you get into the really big-name publications. I could often get two of those assignments at a time, but I needed to coordinate and interview around ten people for each article, so doing two in a month was a hell of a task. Today, I’m doing much better in my writing career. Since I started blogging, I’ve written hundreds of posts, both for myself and for other blogs. I don’t have to interview people anymore, so it goes much faster and I can write much more. The combined total I’ve been paid for all of those posts (including what I’ve been paid for writing sales copy, promotional emails, and so on) is zero dollars. And really, it pays the bills better than my magazine writing ever did. How to make “not getting paid” pay off I just recorded a call with Copyblogger Associate Editor Jon Morrow entitled “How We Make $2000 per Guest Post,” and the funny thing about that call was that I’d had the idea to write the post you’re currently reading before Jon came up with the hook for the call. I guess great minds think alike. See, newbie online entrepreneurs often want to “make money blogging,” and seasoned writers often come to the internet to expand their freelance businesses by doing online what they do offline: selling words for dollars. Both of those approaches assume a straight line between composing paragraphs and getting a check, but that straight line hasn’t reflected my experience in the blogosphere (and I’m in good company ). To put it succinctly, I don’t make money writing. I make money through a business, and that business does its marketing almost exclusively through writing. Writing for me is a means to an end. It’s a way to gain exposure, gain popularity and authority, and build trust. Once you have enough exposure, trust, and authority with your audience, they’ll consider buying products and services from you if what you offer them is good. The cool part? It almost doesn’t matter which category or niche those products or services fall into. It works like this: Writing -> Readers -> Exposure, popularity, authority, and trust -> The ability to sell stuff. Need a fancy term to make it legit? Call it content marketing . Notice that I’ve used the very specific noun “stuff” to describe what you’re able to sell to a well-matched, receptive audience with enough of those preceding magic ingredients. Information products? Yep. Software and services of all kinds? Yep. Hats? Maybe. Want to sell hats? Then write enough, in places where people who like hats congregate, to become a popular and trustworthy personality who happens to sell hats. Or makes hats. Or wears interesting hats. Or at least likes hats, and talks about hats a lot. Your audience has to be willing to pay for hats, but if they are, they’re going to buy from someone. If your writing has put you in front of them, and made you popular and trustworthy, they’ll buy from you. It works for just about anything. This is all about thinking outside of the nine dots. I came to the blogosphere as a humorist, but what I found was that people wouldn’t pay for humor. So what could I do with my funny writing? Why, sell consulting and website services, of course. I remember asking my readers at the time, “Can I be the funny guy who writes about business, and also build websites somehow?” Give what attracts, sell what people want to buy And the answer was apparently that yes, I could write humorously about business — and tattoos, and unschooling, and The Matrix — and build a large readership who seemed to like and trust me. And at that point, I could offer websites. And consulting. And info products. And likely waffles. If those folks needed a site and/or were hungry, they’d work with me rather than finding their website guy or waffle house on Google. When Jon and I did that call about making $2000 per guest post, what we meant was that guest posting is our primary (almost our exclusive) marketing strategy, and that on average, each post — each performance in front of a blog audience to build trust and exposure — resulted in around $2000 of income. That’s income that was created through writing, but wasn’t income we received for completing a writing assignment. You want to be a writer? Well, don’t confine your thinking to the obvious example of putting words together for pay. There’s a whole world of ways out there to make money as a writer… and the interesting part is that most of them mean you’ll be writing for free. About the Author: Johnny B. Truant is apparently a writer or something and is one of the two guys behind The Charlie and Johnny Jam Sessions . If you’d like personal help on getting paid to write for free, he’s got you covered .

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How to NOT Get Paid to Write Online (And Make Money Doing It)

How to Write Your Ass Off

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My name is not Johnny B. Truant. This isn’t meant to be any kind of a coming out . Based on my informal survey (so informal that nobody has been asked any questions), most people assume that the moniker is too preposterous to be real anyway. I could tell you the name I was born with, but there wouldn’t be any point. That’s not the person you know. Everything written in the blogosphere was written by Johnny. Everything said in an interview or a course was spoken by Johnny. Johnny built the business I have today. Without Johnny, that business doesn’t exist. So you may ask: Who am I, really? And I’d answer without hesitation that regardless of the name on my birth certificate, I’m Johnny B. Truant. He’s who you see here — who you’re reading right now. He’s who I always was, deep down — even before that part of me had ever seen the light of day. Here’s what any of this has to do with you With any writer, or any creative person. People ask how I write so much, and how I’ve been able to capture a decent amount of attention in a short period of time. The people who ask me this are stuck. They’re spinning their wheels, unable to get past a block in their own creative process. My advice to those people is this: Look deep inside yourself. Find the equivalent of your own Johnny. Then, lend him your keyboard or whatever you use to create, and see what happens. How to write what’s real Johnny B. Truant was born in late 2008, out of necessity. Financially, emotionally, and professionally, my life has never been worse than it was at that time. I was hemorrhaging money due to bad investments. My old business was beginning a relatively quick and tidy collapse. I couldn’t sleep much, and I was close to panic pretty much constantly. Something had to change. Something new and different was required . . . I just wasn’t sure what it should be. I’ve always sort of known that I was supposed to be a writer. And in the eyes of anyone who knew me, I was a writer even then. I wrote regular features for an international human resources magazine. I had an unpublished novel in my closet. I’d written a few dozen email newsletters for friends and family. Of the magazine articles, the novel, and the newsletters, my assessment was: boring , unsuccessful , and vanilla . When the walls were crumbling in 2008, a deep part of me knew that the only way out was to write — but to do it differently than I ever had before. If I was going to really make a go of writing , I had to do it without the editor over my shoulder. I had to stop wondering what my grandmother would think when she read what I wrote. I had to stop thinking of John or Jill from high school, who might come across one of my missives and file it in their mental folder about the person they grew up with. So I picked a name that nobody knew, in order to start fresh as someone else. And as soon as I had done that, something fantastic happened: The false name allowed me to stop writing false copy. And the minute I ceased using my real name, I started writing what was true and genuine. Care and feeding of your split personality Apparently, loud and brash radio personality Howard Stern is very quiet and polite off the air. The people who know him personally hear his show and say, “That’s not the real Howard.” But Howard disagrees. The guy on the radio is real. The guy off the radio is the careful social mask. You could say that Johnny B. Truant isn’t who I really am. Or you could understand the truth: that Johnny is more “me” than I am myself. If you’re stuck in your writing, I’d bet almost anything that it’s because deep inside, you’re hung up on what’s dying to be said versus what “should” be said in the eyes of your family, your friends, the world, or even yourself. You hesitate on topics, on phrasing, on fears that your grammar is bad . Take your pick of an excuse, but what’s stopping you is you . You may not need a full-on alter ego to let go of your self-censorship, but you do need to let go if you expect to write with any fire. Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz uses her real name but says that “Naomi the brand” is the 150% version of “Naomi the person.” Her public Naomi is just like my public Johnny. Both are distilled, “enhanced id” versions of the people we are day to day. If you’re not ballsy, find that part of yourself inside that is ballsy. If you can do that under your real name, then more power to you. Or if a new name helps you to define that personality, then try one on. Whatever it takes. Johnny is to me what Tyler Durden was to the narrator of Fight Club . Johnny, like Tyler, would say the things that I wouldn’t. He could do the things I couldn’t. Johnny didn’t just ignore the inner critic; he kicked the critic in the face and pushed him into an open sewer. I’ve said many times that successful, creative people are crazy, so realize the truth of what I’m saying here. I’m not suggesting simply penning under a different name. I’m suggesting becoming a different person. I’m suggesting letting two people live inside your one body. If that scares you a little, good. If you’re never nervous or scared, you’re safe. And I doubt you could find one successful artist of any kind who says that their best stuff comes from safety. How to be brave At this point, a lot of folks who don’t totally get the concept will go all nutty and write a profanity- or pornography-laced piece totally unlike their “normal self” and make the world cringe with embarrassment. A handful of others will think that I’m saying that you need to find a way to be shocking or crude. Neither of those things is true. Your written art doesn’t need to offend the ladies at the social club. Your stuff can be filled with kittens and rainbows, for that matter. Your best pieces don’t have to be totally unlike your day-to-day personality, and none of it has to be surprising or shocking to your mother or your neighborhood friends. The point of unleashing your inner Johnny or Tyler Durden isn’t to be jarring. The point is to be brave. Without question, the things I’ve written that have gotten the most positive attention have been the pieces that took the most courage to write and publish. In the depth of my financial horrors, I wrote about being mad as hell . Further down the road, I wrote about learning to have faith and doing everything wrong in my business. Even the post you’re reading right now feels either brave or foolish to me. (Time is the only determinant of which it is, by the way. That’s part of being brave.) I’m formally admitting to my pseudonym, and I’m apparently congratulating myself on being brave. That’s enough to make me want to stop writing it right now, actually. But see, Johnny writes these posts. And lucky for me, he’s got sizable cojones. Without Johnny, those posts don’t get written. Or they get written but not published. Or they get published, but I don’t tell people about them, mention them on Twitter, ask for retweets, or link to them later. Without Johnny, maybe I even write and publish them, but then wallow in what they contain rather than being hungry enough to grow, to leverage the lessons they contain, to build a seminar or a course around what I learned. Without Johnny, I may think that what I write is good, but then second-guess myself, saying, “Who am I to say it’s so great? Who am I to assume anyone would care, or would want to read it?” Having a second personality can give you the courage to answer to those questions. So . . . who am I to assume anyone would care, or would want to read this? I’m Johnny B. F***ing Truant, that’s who. About the Author: Johnny B. Truant subverts the guy he shares a body with via his blog at JohnnyBTruant.com and his flagship course Question the Rules .

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11 Smart Tips for Brilliant Writing

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Do you sound smarter when you use big words? According to a study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology , the answer is no. In fact, complex writing makes you sound small-minded. Just consider the title of the study: Consequences of erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity: problems with using long words needlessly. Wouldn’t it be better to title this study something like The effect of using big words when you don’t need them? To sound smart, you must stop trying to sound smart. Brilliant writing is simple writing, a relevant idea delivered clearly and directly. Here are 11 ways you can start sounding brilliant: 1. Have something to say This makes writing easier and faster. When you have nothing to say, you are forced to write sentences that sound meaningful but deliver nothing. Read widely. Take notes. Choose your subjects wisely. Then share your information with readers. 2. Be specific Consider two sentences: I grow lots of flowers in my back yard. I grow 34 varieties of flowers in my back yard, including pink coneflowers, purple asters, yellow daylilies, Shasta daisies, and climbing clematis. Which is more interesting? Which helps you see my back yard? 3. Choose simple words Write use instead of utilize , near instead of close proximity , help instead of facilitate , for instead of in the amount of , start instead of commence . Use longer words only if your meaning is so specific no other words will do. 4. Write short sentences You should keep sentences short for the same reason you keep paragraphs short: they’re easier to read and understand. Each sentence should have one simple thought. More than that creates complexity and invites confusion. 5. Use the active voice In English, readers prefer the SVO sentence sequence: Subject, Verb, Object. This is the active voice. For example: Passive sentences bore people. When you reverse the active sequence, you have the OVS or passive sequence: Object, Verb, Subject. For example: People are bored by passive sentences. You can’t always use the active voice, but most writers should use it more often. 6. Keep paragraphs short Look at any newspaper and notice the short paragraphs. That’s done to make reading easier, because our brains take in information better when it’s broken into small chunks. In academic writing, each paragraph develops one idea and often includes many sentences. But in casual, everyday writing, the style is less formal and paragraphs may be as short as a single sentence or even a single word. See? 7. Eliminate fluff words Qualifying words, such as very , little , and rather , add nothing to your meaning and suck the life out of your sentences. For example: It is very important to basically avoid fluff words because they are rather empty and sometimes a little distracting. Mark Twain suggested that you should “Substitute damn every time you’re inclined to write very ; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” 8. Don’t ramble Rambling is a big problem for many writers. Not as big as some other problems, such as affordable health insurance or the Middle East, which has been a problem for many decades because of disputes over territory. Speaking of which, the word “territory” has an interesting word origin from terra , meaning earth. But the point is, don’t ramble. 9. Don’t be redundant or repeat yourself Also, don’t keep writing the same thing over and over and over. In other words, say something once rather than several times. Because when you repeat yourself or keep writing the same thing, your readers go to sleep. 10. Don’t over write This is a symptom of having too little to say or too much ego . Put your reader first. Put yourself in the background. Focus on the message. For example: You can instantly and dramatically improve your blog writing skills and immediately explode your profits and skyrocket your online success by following the spectacular, simple, and practical tips found in this groundbreaking new free blog post. 11. Edit ruthlessly Shorten, delete, and rewrite anything that does not add to the meaning. It’s okay to write in a casual style, but don’t inject extra words without good reason. To make this easier, break your writing into three steps: 1) Write the entire text. 2) Set your text aside for a few hours or days. 3) Return to your text fresh and edit. None of us can ever be perfect writers, and no one expects us to be. However, we can all improve our style and sound smarter by following these tips and writing naturally. About the Author: Dean Rieck delivers brilliant writing to his clients and shares copywriting tips for smart copywriters like you at Pro Copy Tips .

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