A fish swims up to an older fish and says, “I’m trying to find this thing they call the ocean.”
“The ocean?” the older fish says. “That’s what you’re in right now.”
“This?” says the young fish. “This is water. What I want is the ocean!”
This is something I have realized this week. I have been setting myself bigger and better goals (i.e., chasing the ocean) while losing sight of where I am right now (in the ocean).
Chasing dreams is good, but at the same time, we shouldn’t forget to enjoy, value, and celebrate what we’ve already achieved.
Some days it may feel like just a drop in the ocean – but that’s the point… it IS still a part of the ocean. Enjoy it!
Authorpreneur Journey Step 8
In the last week’s newsletter, How To Find First 100 Subscribers, I made a case to start your email list with the people you know.
Today, let’s start looking at how you can build a readership from the world wide web.
And the way to do this is to create something of value (called a lead magnet) to attract subscribers who can benefit from it.
In the early days of the internet, when only a handful of people were sending newsletters, one or two lead magnets would attract plenty of subscribers. Now, to keep people on your mailing list, you need to provide ongoing value. So your newsletter itself should carry enough value so that your readers look forward to it, open it and read it.
But how can you create something of value when you are just starting and have nothing to offer?
You do that with a shift in mindset.
Think of your work as a gift to this world and share it for free.
Creating something of value and is too daunting a task. A gift, on the other hand, is a joy to create. Even if it is not perfect, it is still a gift, just like this newsletter is a gift from me to my readers. Each week I devote 7 to 8 hours to create it, and when I am working on it, I am thrilled. I know there are thousands of mistakes in it, and I could do better research, draw better sketches, but I also know since it is a gift, I will be forgiven.
Of course, with time, you will get better. Everybody does. In the beginning, self-doubt freezes us, and we end up doubting the value of our work. When we create with a passion, we are relaxed in our creation. We don’t have to worry whether people will like it or not or whether it is valuable.
It may not be for everybody, but surely someone will find some value in it. We trust that if we do it well, the might make a difference in someone’s life. And when we do our work like this, when we offer it as a sincere and honest gift, people start taking notice.
Being generous is always the best way to get noticed, and it’s the only true path to creating real art.
Now the question is, what can you create as a gift. Here are some suggestions.
An ebook. They are easy to create. They can be of the length of a single article or several. Many beginners start with that. You can provide tips, checklists, manifestos, inspirational stories, case studies, a list of tools and resources, or tiny courses as ebooks.
A course. Darren Rowse of Problogger put together a blog post series “31 Days to Build a Better Blog” in 2005, and his subscriber numbers really jumped. It happened again when he did it in 2007 and also in 2009. He later turned that blog post series into a course, and it is still his number one lead magnet.
Audios and Videos. Authorpreneur Joanna Penn has Autor 2.0 Blueprint, an ebook and video series with an impressive list of writing, publishing, and marketing books. Alexandra Frazen has several audios and podcasts, and ebooks as lead magnets.
Don’t underestimate what you can offer. Your ideas might seem obvious to you, but it is genius to other people. Here is a video to inspire you.
Your homework this week:
Find one or two things you can use as lead magnets and turn them into gifts. Download my ebook 31 Tips To Unleash Your Creativity if you need more inspiration.
Writing Industry News
“There had two publishing worlds for the last decade. Traditional publishing and indie publishing. Up to a year ago, about 55% of the money was paid to indie authors. Last year, with the closure of so many bookstores and the COVID regulations, there has been an 18% increase in the number of sales in the indie market.” said David Farland in an interview.
For the past 10 years, traditional publishers have been demanding more rights from authors. So the advances have gotten smaller. And yet, at the same time, they're taking a large amount of the money that comes in from the digital rights. If you're selling as an indie author on Amazon, you can earn up to 70% of the money that's paid. Whereas with traditional publishers, you're usually only getting 15% of the sale. So authors who are publishing traditionally are taking a mighty big hit. And that money is keeping traditional publishers afloat. It seems that traditional publishers will keep demanding more and more rights pushing more and more authors to go indie.
What Am I Up to?
This week again, I concentrated on my novel. Two chapters are due for workshopping this Sunday, and I really wanted to nail the fiction writing at the sentence level. The first round of edit is finished, and I am pleased to report no (almost no) filter words or continuous tense left in the text. If you think writing is hard, wait till you get to the editing part. Like raising children, it is painful and enjoyable at the same time. You see your text getting better and better with each pass of editing. I still need to do two more rounds of edits in so in next two days, so wish me luck,
I have held publishing the article “Five Fiction Sentence Types” on Medium. I have decided to turn it into a free resource on my website instead. I am in the process of creating a new Resources page for writers. Hopefully, I will be able to finish it next week. Watch out for it.
This week I wrote three articles but published just one, How Pacing Trumps Every Other Productivity Strategy. If you are struggling with productivity issues, it is worth a read. I might be able to publish another one before the week is over.
What Intrigued Me This Week?
A friend of mine shared something on a forum. He used to create a list of topics he wanted to write and the date he would write them. But when it would come to writing the article on that date, he wouldn’t feel like writing it. It doesn’t matter how hard he tried; sometimes, he wouldn't feel excited to write that article.
He tried something else.
When it came to picking up a topic from the list, he would give each topic a rating from one to three. He called it The Excitement Index— how excited he was to write a particular topic on that day.
What a cool idea!
This way, when he writes something, he is infused with excitement.
If he comes up with a brand new idea and felt energetic about it, he wouldn’t leave it for six weeks. By that time, he may not sustain the same level of excitement for it.
I have struggled with certain topics at times. Rather than pursuing them while feeling deflated, I have learned to put them aside and return to them later. The Excitement Index is a new tool. Rate each topic from one to three based on how excited you are feeling to write it, and then pick the one with the top rating.
If some made a barometer for it, this is how it will look like.
That’s it from me this week.
Take care.
Neera Mahajan (www.neeramahajan.com)
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