Making money as a writer...

I recently came across an interview by Ali Abdaal (a doctor turned productivity guru) with Nicolas Cole (a popular online writer).

The title of the video is “5 Ways to Make $1 Million as a Writer”.

As someone who has written a lot over the years for fun on my own website and elsewhere, I sometimes play with the idea of monetizing it. How, exactly? No idea.

It isn’t by monetizing this newsletter. And it definitely isn’t by doing more freelance content writing for coffee websites.

If you didn’t know, I currently write informational articles for coffee websites trying to rank higher on Google. It’s not a passion of mine, but it helps pay the bills. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m super thankful for that and feel fortunate.)

As much as I love roasting and drinking specialty coffee, I don’t actually love writing about it, especially when I’m writing an article comparing the “8 Best Semi-Automatic Espresso Machines You Should Buy in 2023”.

A part of me wants to have a big enough audience to pursue different passions as I change my mind, provide valuable resources, and have fun making content online while also making that money. What kind of content? That changes every few weeks to few months that I’m asked. Some writing, a website, startup, videos, etc… depends on how the wind is blowing. 😉

For any of this to work, I would have to position myself as an “authority” in a specific space. A great way to do this is by publishing loads of written work.

Enter this interview that caught my attention. I love Ali’s work and personality on camera, so I gave it a watch.

It’s about 2 hours long, so here’s a quick summary of what I found useful if this topic strikes a chord with you.

Note: This advice is strictly for people who want to make money with their writing. If you simply want to write to write (like this newsletter for me, right now), then it doesn’t really apply.

Key Takeaways

• Don’t just write what you want to write about. The reader is the main character. Start with, “What answer are you looking for?” And, “Can I provide it?”
• Be honest with yourself: understand your underlying goals for writing. If you don’t care about making money with your writing, treating it like a business, or building an audience, then you can’t also be upset when nobody reads your blog posts or articles.
• Give away 99% of your resources and knowledge for free. People that become true fans don’t necessarily pay for more information… they pay for access (to you), convenience, and accountability (when providing a course or service, for example).

Nicolas Cole does not believe in starting a blog when starting to write.

This struck a chord with me, as I started off writing by making my own website and publishing blog posts. Isn’t it the best way to truly own your own content?

Nicolas says no.

I was literally in the process of redoing my website when I stumbled across this video. Now, I’m pressing pause to think a bit more about my goals with that.

Blogging is inherently centered on the writer, and people want to read things that resonate with them.

He recommends anyone looking to get into writing on a regular basis to start with social platforms. Medium, Twitter, and yes, even LinkedIn. The reason why? An instant feedback loop and the ability to measure data.

When you publish a blog post on your new website, you have no real traffic other than your mom, brother, and maybe two supportive friends.

On the other hand, these social platforms already have algorithms in place to present your material to many new readers every time you hit “publish”.

Plus, they give you data. You can see how many people engaged with your article, left comments, etc. Medium even provides demographics on the people reading your content.

There’s no reason you can’t also cross-post to your own website, but Nicolas has me convinced this is the faster way to gain an audience via writing online.

Write where people already are (social networks), and make content for them that resonates. Nobody cares about your blog.

For Who, So That

I love this framework and plan on using it from now on.

Reframe every title/headline of an article by asking yourself, “Who is this article for, and how can it help them?” Then, get writing. Tie everything back to this point. Keep the article as short as possible, since our attention spans diminish every single year.

Let's say I want to write an article about the debit/credit cards I recommend while traveling long-term. I may go with something like:

The best credit cards for digital nomads so that they avoid fees and extra costs when traveling.

Not the best example, but you get the point. I deeply know and understand the reader (a digital nomad) because I have been one myself since 2017. I could pretty much write this article to a slightly younger version of myself when I was overwhelmed with research and all of the options available.

If I start to write about anything other than these cards helping the reader avoid unnecessary fees, I can delete that and put it in a different article. It’s outside the scope (and promise) of this article.

Keep it short, sweet, and helpful. (I definitely struggle with the “short” part…)

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Did this resonate with you at all? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Nicolas Cole also has a book if you want to dive deeper into the topic.

Thanks for reading,
Alex 🙃

[sent from my 🚐 on the border of El Salvador and Honduras]

113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205
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