Todd Brison, a journalist, turned Medium writer, told this story in an article:
36 days after Tomas Pueyo published a massively popular article about the coronavirus, he did an interview in which he said:
“I have no training in epidemiology. You should definitely not trust me.”
Tomas Pueyo needed the disclaimer because he was worried he might be taken as an authority on the subject. If not that, at least, well-informed, well-researched journalism kind of writer who should have gotten his facts right.
It wasn’t long ago that bloggers and online creators were considered a sidebar of information. Sure, you could find an insight or two, but the “real” stuff still came from the news networks.
Not anymore.
When the world got desperate and scared with the coronavirus, Trump’s stunts, China’s bullying of Hongkong, Myanmar’s coup, who did it look to?
Not the conglomerates, who have revealed their corruption in recent years. Not the politicians who have progressively lost the trust of their constituents. Not the news media, which are owned by the likes of Rupert Murdoch.
No, the world looked to the people who had earned their trust. It looked to the new world influencers—the bloggers.
It looked at you.
As an independent writer, you are at a great time and position in the history of the world to make a difference. You may not be able to see that; you might think you have a tiny following, but every word you write, every thought you put out there, have an impact.
That’s why you should write.
The world needs your authentic voice.
Authorpreneur Journey Step 11
Today’s tip is from Michael La Ronn, a prolific fiction and non-fiction writer, who got it from Kristine Kathryn Rusch, the writer of Discoverability, where she wrote, the business of being a writer is best described as asset management.
Start thinking about your work as a portfolio of assets, much like an investor would think of his share portfolio.
Your book is an asset, and like most assets, it appreciates over time. Your blog, articles, newsletter, and courses are assets, each of them giving dividends long after they have been created.
If you buy a house today, it might be worth twice in ten years.
Why?
Because the land value goes up, and demand for your neighborhood might go up too. Besides you might do some renovations that improve the house.
The same goes for your books, your articles, and your website.
You keep writing more articles, each giving more insight than the previous one. You build a knowledge base providing more value to your readers. And you update your books every few years, giving up-to-date information on the topic. All these things keep your assets income generating.
This is a mindset change.
Your own knowledge and skills increase with time, and you become an authority in your field.
The next time you write something, think long-term. Think about how an article can become a book and the book can become a course or vice versa.
When you look at your work as “assets,” your thinking change, you don’t feel your time is getting wasted while creating them. And you keep updating it so that it keeps on generating income for you.
This is a surprisingly simple concept to understand once you see it.
Your homework this week:
Create a spreadsheet to track the number of assets you have and their performance. Create a tab for each class of work you write (novels, short stories, nonfiction, online courses, etc.). Create the following columns:
Name of the work
Word Count
Date of Publication
Short-term plan
Long-term plan
Whether it's profitable
The goal is to make sure that every asset you have is working for you. It should be in the position to make you money.
Writing Industry News
A report, Immersive Media & Books 2020, has been released this week, which is considered the first study to capture critical data about how consumers “engage” with books within a “connected media ecosystem” that includes video games, TV, and movies. [Publishers Weekly]
The report highlights some interesting findings such as:
Reading for entertainment is still the #1 reason people buy books.
Men, millennials, and non-white people of all generations engage with more books than middle-class baby boomer women, except in book gifting.
Libraries, bookstores, and online channels "mutually reinforce" each other.
75% of respondents reported having library cards, with 30% saying they will choose to buy the book rather than wait when a book is stuck on a long holds list at the library.
What Am I Up to?
I have been publishing a series of articles on Medium. Click these links, and you can read them for free, without any Medium membership needed.
Five Pillars Of Authropreneurship (Part 1),
It has been almost two months since I have been publishing a sketch on social media every day. A really fruitful activity. The engagement from Facebook and Instagram has been amazing, and my LinkedIn contacts have swelled from 15 to 467. I even was approached by a writer to do the cover design for his book. Here is a peek of my daily sketches.
What Intrigued Me This Week?
An interesting story by Julia Kvach on Quora this week illustrates that all humans have one distinct mental flaw.
In the 70s, an American psychologist called B. F. Skinner designed a sensory deprivation box for pigeons, with nothing inside but a lone button.
When the pigeon pressed the button, however, a small hatch opened up and released grain. Quickly enough, even with his pea-sized brain, the pigeon got the trick: tap the button, collect grain. Tap the button, collect grain. Repeat.
But then Skinner had an idea: what if he took away the button and just released grain randomly?
The results defied all of his expectations.
Instead of just sitting there and waiting for grain, 3/4 of the pigeons started acting weird. Really weird. Some flapped their wings over and over, others turned on themselves in an endless twirl, while still more ran around the box counter-clockwise without stopping.
Why?
Because they associated the action with the release of grain.
This is something we humans understand as a “reward following an action.”
We expect a reward after we act.
That action could be as silly as wearing the same underwear to every big basketball game or using the same pen for every exam.
Even the concept of ‘karma’ - if you do good things, good things will happen to you and vice versa - is based on the same principle, “reward following an action.”
What’s to say the good and/or bad things wouldn’t have happened anyway?
And that intrigued me.
We humans like it when things make sense, so we attribute causes to events, even when there aren’t any.
That’s it from me this week.
Take care.
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