# 5 Ways to Make $1 Million as a Writer - Nicolas Cole  ## About - Author: Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal - Title: 5 Ways to Make $1 Million as a Writer - Nicolas Cole - Tags: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/a8cf2fb6-3350-4be9-b3a2-4e649d6b65ea ## Highlights > The Writing Prompts of Quora Transcript: Speaker 1 Like, what is the writing equivalent? And he said, oh, you should check out this platform called Quora. And Quora was a question answer site. I'd never heard of it. It was 2013 and immediately fascinated. Like I spent hours reading on Quora. Speaker 3 And what I noticed is every question was the way I saw it. Every question was basically a writing prompt. Speaker 1 So it wasn't really a question answer site. It was a social question answer site. And every question was this jump off point. And all the highest performing Quora answers were stories. Speaker 5 So someone would be like, what is it like to be an entrepreneur? ([Time 0:10:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/96542047-af43-4b6f-9526-05b69d7e4a12)) --- > Realizing You Don't Need Permission to Succeed Transcript: Speaker 5 And you have to wait for permission or you have to have someone else give you permission. Speaker 1 And they have to validate you and you have to wait and you have to wait and you have to wait. And your success is based on someone else deciding when you're successful. Speaker 5 And the internet made me realize, well, no, I don't have to wait for anyone. I can just start writing. And if the quality of my writing reaches people, then we're good to go. Speaker 8 In that position, a lot of... ([Time 0:11:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7bb726e9-5cb0-401a-9511-713648a3478f)) --- > Making Money as a Writer: Finding Your Market Transcript: Speaker 1 And I had this aha moment where I was like, oh, you can make money as a writer. It's just you need to differentiate between are you saying I want to write this and then you go out into the world and go to the world. Speaker 3 And go who's willing to buy it? Or are you starting in the opposite direction and go, what do you need? Speaker 1 What answer are you looking for? What question do you have? Speaker 3 And can I provide it? Speaker 1 And that was the as soon as I realized that everything changed. ([Time 0:17:47](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9f5ed2c0-c25d-4969-a7f6-f78e6617f75b)) --- > Finding Your Niche: Serving Your Audience Transcript: Speaker 2 Come on. Where's the market? Where's where is there something that we can serve someone? Yeah. Speaker 5 I mean, the hardest thing I think to wrap your head around is your niche is not about you. Speaker 1 Your niche is about your reader or your viewer or your listener. Speaker 5 So where I notice a lot of writers go wrong is they spend their whole lives just going, well, I want to write what I want to write about. And you should. That's great. But also you are in service of the reader. ([Time 0:18:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dcad53d9-4f85-4714-99aa-b86b06c2d764)) --- > The Universal Skills Acquired by Gamers and Musicians Transcript: Speaker 1 So there's something about just committing to the process and enjoying the journey and trusting that whatever skill you gain, that skill is probably going to be universal. Speaker 3 It goes back to what we were talking about. Speaker 5 You said there's a theme of gamers, musicians, right? Speaker 3 Getting into, well, what is that? That's just acquiring other skills. It's not really the skill of being a gamer. Speaker 1 It's not really the skill of being a musician. It's all the underlying stuff. Work ethic, commitment, creativity, right? ([Time 0:29:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e73a7f6c-169f-4a90-a90d-19d52124260b)) --- > Importance of Skill Over Title Transcript: Speaker 3 It'll be fun when I get there, but I am way more obsessed and interested in mastering a skill, or knowing that if I'm in the same room with other people that are interested in mastering a skill, or knowing that if I'm in the same room with other people that are mastering skills, I want to know that I am able to play at that level, or that I'm able to surpass that level. For me, it's all about skill. It's not about some title, because titles are worth, you know, they matter for a moment, you know, and then two days later, everyone's like, oh, that title doesn't matter anymore. Speaker 5 Right, so it's not the title that you care about. ([Time 0:31:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b595bd1f-d6f1-4223-8448-bed31477110d)) --- > Creating at Unlikely Intersections Transcript: Speaker 1 You know, and most things actually are like that is if you take two things that shouldn't be in the same room and you put them together, all of a sudden you've created a new thing. The problem is we all say we want to stand out. We all say we want to be different, but deep down, we all just want to fit in. We all just want to be the same. Right. And so what's hard about creating at unlikely intersections is it requires you to be the first one. Right. ([Time 0:36:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/35558999-f420-4345-873f-97abac414d48)) --- > How to Be a Productivity YouTuber Transcript: Speaker 2 And suddenly no one in the world is able to do that. And he's carved out this niche for himself that's gotten like four million subscribers on YouTube and makes a business. And it's so hard, I think like to, yeah, if I just think of the YouTube example and I guess maybe similar for writing to just try and dominate a single word category. Speaker 8 Like it's really hard to be a productivity YouTuber. Speaker 2 It's a lot easier to be a productivity combined with gaming combined with health YouTuber, for example. Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, here's another way of framing it is, which game do you want to play? ([Time 0:38:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c6943f95-0c67-48e3-b395-a1dc397f76f6)) --- > The power in creating a new subcategory Transcript: Speaker 1 I'm better than you incremental improvement. Speaker 5 Or you can go, I'm a coder doctor or I'm a educator doctor, right. Speaker 1 And you combine it with a different category, you create a new subcategory and now you're not playing a competition game. Because everyone goes, well, all the doctors are over there and you're a coder doctor. So I can't put you guys in the same room. Right. Speaker 3 And when you do that, that allows you to then play a creativity game. And now you can go create all the opportunities that you want. ([Time 0:39:37](https://share.snipd.com/snip/59bfdbf1-61b4-41f6-858b-e82692beb972)) --- > Dealing with Self-Doubt and the Value of Surrounding Yourself with Like-minded People Transcript: Speaker 4 But at the same time, it's that tension between like, oh, but like, I don't want my colleagues to think of me as a loser or start of a YouTube channel, you know, when I have this illustrious law career, even though that's actually what I want to do. Mm hmm. Yeah. How do you, how do you, like, I guess kind of the writers that you coach have this kind of issue as well. How do you approach dealing with it? Speaker 1 Yeah, it's the same thing we talk about in ship 30. And to me, the easiest solution is you just start by being surrounded by other people that are doing the same thing. Speaker 5 Right. Speaker 1 There's benefit to being, I had a mentor in Chicago who used to call it hanging around the hoop. ([Time 0:40:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7c736922-6e7c-48ea-8f18-d9ec21f7c090)) --- > The Never-Ending Search for Success Transcript: Speaker 5 The day after you achieve it, you're going to look at it and go, well, that was nothing. Speaker 1 So what's next? You know, I still go through that. They're like, I wake up every day being like, Oh, I still haven't made it as a writer. Speaker 3 I've done everything I wanted to do. And I still feel like, Oh, I haven't made it as a writer. Speaker 1 You know, and so recognizing that that feeling never goes away and taking little moments consistently. Like I tried to every day remind myself, dude, 10 years ago, you were in a really not nice studio apartment with like a heater from the 1960s sleep on a nair mattress with no furniture. ([Time 0:43:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9e2241b5-c18d-4fd8-839c-6275c2ad6e90)) --- > A Little Reminder to Enjoy the Journey Transcript: Speaker 5 Wow, I'm having I'm having the time of my life. This is amazing. Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't think I have. I'll show you after this. Just on my computer monitor is a little posted, saying remember to enjoy the journey smiley face. And it's weird, but like just just a little reminder like that when I see it in my profile vision. Oh, yeah, it's just like a little a little reminder that encourages me to actually try and enjoy the present moment and not just be so fixated on the goal of the other end. Speaker 1 Yeah, and just always remembering that again, it doesn't matter what you achieve. It's never going to be enough. You think it will it won't. ([Time 0:44:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0e047749-129f-4618-bd49-4c825f15409b)) --- > Copywriting tips for selling a product or service Transcript: Speaker 5 So you're specifically writing things with the goal of selling a product or selling a service. So you're writing landing pages, you're writing emails or whatever it is. Speaker 1 And there's a very specific, I don't even know if you call it style, but there's like rules to copywriting and sales copywriting and things that you need to do. The biggest thing is benefits, not features. You know, even that, most people don't know. Don't talk about what you do. Talk about what you're going to unlock for the reader, for the customer or whoever. ([Time 0:52:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fa9766ab-00b2-4423-8f09-b5d5fc018552)) --- > Getting to the Point with Communication Transcript: Speaker 1 The what it actually looks like is you just get on the phone with the person or get on zoom or whatever, and you just go, Okay, let's forget the whole 30,000 foot strategy. Like this one thing, what do you want to say? Like just one, it's a tweet, it's a threat, it's an article. I always tried to remind people, like, we're not going to figure out your entire life mission here. Right. That will reveal itself. You know, a mentor, I had a great quote, which is, you can't steer a stationary ship. Right. If you're just sitting at your desk and you're just looking out into the world, you can anticipate it all you want. ([Time 0:57:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/65c44c36-38b5-43d2-b173-786591b6f1bf)) --- > Efficiently pitching your writing to successful people Transcript: Speaker 1 If someone DMS you and goes, I want to write for you, but this is how much it costs, you now have to allocate time and mind share to think about whether or not that's a good idea, right, which you don't have the time to do. Any successful person doesn't have the time to do that, at least on command, right? But you can easily remove all that friction by just going, Hey, I already see what you're doing. I've already consumed 30 hours of your content. I've already extracted these five threads and these five blog posts for it. I want you to read it. Here you go. If you don't have time to read it, pass along to your team. And if you want more of it, let me know. ([Time 1:03:59](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5a3e8cbb-64be-4ee1-b523-3fab1f885940)) --- > The ROI on Free Work vs Paid Work Transcript: Speaker 1 And the reason I still make that decision is because people don't realize that the ROI on free work is exponential. Whereas the ROI on paid work is not exponential. Speaker 5 It's just fixed. Like, hey, I'll pay you five grand, right? Speaker 3 But I've done so much free work for people over the years that that's why my network is the way that it is because people go, well, I remember when you helped me write my commencement speech. Speaker 1 So what do you need? Speaker 3 Trying to raise money. Here's 10 people. You know, you trying to do this. Here's the right person to talk to. You trying to, you have a question about that. You should go talk to that person. Me. Speaker 2 Game Chaining advice. Like the ROI on free work. ([Time 1:05:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f90ff370-87b2-4465-bf29-2a25ecfe8b27)) --- > The transactional nature of charging for sponsored content Transcript: Speaker 2 Whereas the friend of mine who charged me for coaching, when he asked me to plug his stuff, I'm like, kind of, it's just, I mean, even though he's a friend, it's a bit, it feels a bit more. Totally. Yeah, weird. And a bit more transactional. I'm like, well, I mean, we could charge 20K for a sponsored video, like kind of, et cetera, et cetera. Speaker 3 And here's, here's the exactly. And here's the thing is it often translates into paid work. Right? If you start for free, it doesn't take very long for the person to go, this is amazing. Speaker 5 Yep. Speaker 1 Now I want to pay you, right? They will throw money at you. ([Time 1:07:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/154975fb-1630-4257-a979-af5df0dbe4c0)) --- > The Importance of Starting with Free Work to Prove Yourself Transcript: Speaker 2 Whereas the friend of mine who charged me for coaching, when he asked me to plug his stuff, I'm like, kind of, it's just, I mean, even though he's a friend, it's a bit, it feels a bit more. Totally. Yeah, weird. And a bit more transactional. I'm like, well, I mean, we could charge 20K for a sponsored video, like kind of, et cetera, et cetera. Speaker 3 And here's, here's the exactly. And here's the thing is it often translates into paid work. Right? If you start for free, it doesn't take very long for the person to go, this is amazing. Speaker 5 Yep. Speaker 1 Now I want to pay you, right? They will throw money at you. Speaker 3 And that's the point is like, if you can prove that you can do it, the money is easy. But if you can't do it and they're not happy with the free work, then you shouldn't be charging for it in the first place. ([Time 1:07:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0048229f-8423-4cc7-9943-bca5e916bd4d)) --- > The Uncomfortable Truth About Charging for Your Work Transcript: Speaker 3 And that's the point is like, if you can prove that you can do it, the money is easy. But if you can't do it and they're not happy with the free work, then you shouldn't be charging for it in the first place. Speaker 9 Right? Speaker 3 So it's, it's an uncomfortable forcing function for you to learn. Am I creating something for the, for this person that's worth being paid for? And if it's not, you have more work to go do more free work to get your skill up, right? And if it is, they throw money at you. Speaker 1 Yeah. ([Time 1:07:37](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c8049a4a-2aa4-4ef1-a90c-b7bc72a05026)) --- > Using Writing to Scale Yourself and Productize Your Knowledge Transcript: Speaker 1 So, so turning your knowledge in whatever domain and using writing as the ability to scale yourself and productize yourself. So we did this with ship 30 for 30, which is our course, right? So it's all the things that I and, um, my business partner, Dickie talk about in terms of writing and then we scale it through an education course that's writing based. Speaker 3 You know, you can also do that with ebooks and you can do that with other assets, but the goal is instead of providing whatever you're doing as a service. Speaker 1 So being like, I'm going to be a ghost writer for you or I'm going to be a consultant for you or a editor for you, right? It's all one to one. You're, you're using time as your measure. Speaker 3 Now you're just packaging it digitally and that allows you to scale it. ([Time 1:09:47](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5d78210e-5c8f-4d9b-8a6a-294ff0bb469d)) --- > The benefits of productizing services Transcript: Speaker 3 Now you're just packaging it digitally and that allows you to scale it. Speaker 1 The, the beauty of productizing your service is that you, like we were talking about earlier, you're removing the constraint of, uh, being paid for time. That's the whole, that's like the biggest challenge is as long as you're being paid for your time and not the outcome, it's really hard to have some sort of exponential jump in income. ([Time 1:10:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/886cbe65-6e64-43f8-ba37-d598e98d11e8)) --- > How to Approach Providing Services and Information Transcript: Speaker 3 Well, it's the same mistake as providing a service, right? You don't walk up to someone and go, hey, before you know what I can do, here's how much it costs. Speaker 5 They're like, get out of here. But if you start by going, here's everything. Speaker 3 Here's how to think about it. Here's how to solve the problems. Here's the interesting frameworks to frame the solutions. Here's everything you need to know. Speaker 1 The person then goes, well, if all the free stuff was so great, then what's in the paid stuff? Right? ([Time 1:12:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1fcd9791-83d8-4886-ab2d-a77d7e5d733c)) --- > Providing Value Before Selling: The Mistake of Focusing on Cost Transcript: Speaker 3 Well, it's the same mistake as providing a service, right? You don't walk up to someone and go, hey, before you know what I can do, here's how much it costs. Speaker 5 They're like, get out of here. But if you start by going, here's everything. Speaker 3 Here's how to think about it. Here's how to solve the problems. Here's the interesting frameworks to frame the solutions. Here's everything you need to know. Speaker 1 The person then goes, well, if all the free stuff was so great, then what's in the paid stuff? Right? And what most people don't realize is most courses, most books, most like paid membership communities, all of that, you aren't really buying information. ([Time 1:12:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/42e50212-a77d-4a9c-b86f-fbdee710925f)) --- > Structuring Deals for Successful Sales Copywriting Transcript: Speaker 1 So, for example, the way that a lot of really successful sales copywriters structure their deals is they go, okay, let's take a product or let's take an existing funnel. Speaker 3 Here's the average amount of revenue that you're doing right now. Speaker 1 If I can write things that lift the revenue 25%, 50%, I get a piece of that. So now you're being compensated on the outcome you drive, not on the I spent 20 hours rewriting the landing page, right? ([Time 1:19:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/675ad680-234c-4252-bd16-103e522755bc)) --- > The Value of Paying Writers Based on Conversion Rate Transcript: Speaker 4 And it's so worth it for the business. Like if someone, again, like at the moment when we do landing pages and stuff, we do it per like effort kind of unit. Speaker 2 But if someone were to be like, Hey, look, I will measure your conversion rate and or whatever. Speaker 4 And I'm going to aim to double that. And I want like 10% of the upside. I'd be like, hell yes. Speaker 2 Like exactly. Of course that's a trade I'm making any day of the week. Speaker 1 Because it's the exact same thing as a salesperson. Yeah. Right. Speaker 3 You go, Hey, based on how much new revenue you bring in, we're going to give you a commission. Yeah. So you as a writer are basically being paid as a quote unquote infinitely scalable sales person. ([Time 1:20:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8fb54513-9bc9-41a2-84b8-85f1d05b3727)) --- > Tips on Becoming a Sales Copywriter Transcript: Speaker 4 How does how does one get good at becoming a sales copy writer? Speaker 5 I mean, like anything you do it a lot. Speaker 1 But study the greats. You know, I mean, there's a lot of really amazing sales copywriters over the years. My personal favorite is Gary Halpert. I like I like saying Gary is what Hemingway would have been if Hemingway had gotten into advertising. Speaker 9 Okay. Speaker 1 Him and Hemingway have very similar terse minimalist styles, but Hemingway went the novel route and Gary Halpert went the I'm going to sell products route. ([Time 1:21:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e9282552-93fc-4ab3-9258-6220cc78cfac)) --- > How to Optimize for Fun, Freedom, Flexibility Transcript: Speaker 2 And the difference there is if you have 100k per revenue, 100k revenue per employee, you're a lifestyle business, you're like living the dream, fun, freedom, flexibility. So from like 300k to 1.2 million, if you have three to 12 people. And then for him, 12 to 40 people is the desert where companies go to die, where you're too big to be small and too small to be big. And beyond 40 people, it's like, okay, now you're in performance business territory where you've already got all the systems and processes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you're optimizing for fun, freedom, flexibility, cap your team size at 12. ([Time 1:27:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/064da3b6-416d-4ad1-8574-0d2c833a82bc)) --- > The Stress of Running a Large Team on a Creator Transcript: Speaker 2 I feel like I have zero stress. I spend all my time just writing or filming or doing podcasts, which is what I love and 0% of my time in meetings. But there was something magical about something like magically bad about having kind of 18 to 24 time employees where everything just felt like it was going to shit. Yes. And that seems to mirror your experience as well. It's the same thing. Speaker 3 And it's kind of a whole separate nuanced conversation, but oftentimes, so I'll speak for myself. ([Time 1:28:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5d4f4a04-2881-4492-983b-132776f26d0c)) --- > Effective hiring: thinking about tasks instead of roles Transcript: Speaker 1 We've 23 full time, you know, and you start to realize that, hey, that's a horrible measure of success because you're literally bragging about the fact that your overhead is going up and your profitability is going down. So that's, I don't know what I was thinking. But the more important thing is when you're focused on headcount or you think about hiring in terms of roles, most people start from the perspective of, okay, I need a project manager. I need a social media manager. I need a whatever. Right. So they think of the role. Speaker 5 The more effective way of thinking about it is what is the task? ([Time 1:28:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/65c1b6fd-d85f-4623-833e-e467718b5210)) --- > Measuring Success Through Profitability Levers Transcript: Speaker 1 Yeah. It's not most, most of those levers and those tasks are not full time, they're part time and can easily be contracted out. So, and to your point, right, is if you can keep that below the 12 people-ish mark, it's a really nice forcing function to go, I'm not going to think about hiring as the measure of success. I'm going to think about the levers that have to do with profitability as the measures of success. Speaker 3 And actually less headcount is more successful than more. ([Time 1:29:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c0438829-14eb-4ca3-805e-8088e263aa20)) --- > The Mistake of Hiring Too Many People Transcript: Speaker 4 And then our cohort based course really took off and suddenly we had more money than any what to do with it. Speaker 2 It's like, well, this millions are sitting in the business account doing absolutely jackle. Speaker 7 So that's higher than people. And that was the mistake. Speaker 2 The mistake was thinking that there is a linear correlation between a new employee doing a thing that theoretically should contribute to revenue and the real world of that thing, the communication and managerial overheads associated with having an extra person ([Time 1:30:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b1780f7b-b1dd-49b6-a73f-f2d35c3023fe)) --- > Operating a small business with a lean team Transcript: Speaker 1 I would either do it as I would keep it very, very small. We had such an amazing business when it was just five people. And looking back on that, I was like, I wish I knew how good I had it at that moment. Because me and my co-founder were essentially out of the business. We had just enough people to run it. And we could just oversee and focus on bringing in new clients. And we didn't need a ton of clients because it was a small team. It was like, it was perfect. And so I would either do that again and keep them full-time and almost operate at a deficit intentionally. ([Time 1:31:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ad9c135b-d7b3-430d-8272-70d1fe789247)) --- > Scaling Yourself in a Niche: Why Talented Writers Don't Need an Agency Transcript: Speaker 1 And the thing that I try and educate talented writers on is you will probably make more, so that value of death. You will probably make more money just doing what you do individually and scaling your pricing in a niche and being the best person in that niche, just working for yourself. Speaker 3 You will probably make more money. Speaker 1 You don't need an agency. And whenever someone thinks about scaling themselves with an agency, I always try and stop them. ([Time 1:32:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/83f49b2e-f578-47f6-8ce0-7fb4da7239d8)) --- > The Myth of Hiring More People Transcript: Speaker 3 The myth though is, oh, if I hire more people, my income just goes up to the right. That's not how it works. Speaker 1 And your headaches go up and it demands a totally different skill set. And you go from being a writer or practitioner into being a manager, right? Speaker 3 Your whole life is different. Speaker 1 And so if that's what you want, go ahead and do it. But if you're a writer, you're really great at a specialty skill set, you're better off just scaling and increasing your earnings and charging more and working with higher and higher quality people, then you are going, well, let me scale horizontally. ([Time 1:34:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c36ef4c6-0a85-49ae-89f5-cabd94d4a97d)) --- > Barbell strategy for information: Saving time and seeking expert insights Transcript: Speaker 1 And you're, I'm paying you to go do all of that time and you're going to compress it down for me. And because you're saving me so much time, I'm going to pay you for that like trends. Exactly. So that's that's one side of the barbell. And then the other side of the barbell is the complete opposite. You go, I want access to quote unquote insider information. I want expert level insights. So this person is a domain expert. Speaker 3 They're going really deep and you are, it's almost like you're paying to get the I want coffee with you at scale. Right. ([Time 1:37:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/41971cbc-997f-4d14-a4b4-c9e71cd10ae6)) --- > Monetizing Newsletters with Subscription Revenue Transcript: Speaker 2 Yeah. And I guess, you know, even in the creator zone, if we think of like Tim Ferriss is five things, but Friday, the way he pitches it is that every Friday is just five things that I've curated because I come across interesting things and I will save you time because yeah, which one is it? And you can try, you can try these things out. Speaker 7 And that's not even a paid newsletter. It's just a free one. Speaker 1 And you can go the free route and monetize with ads, which is what he did, which is, you know, the hustle morning brew all like ads work, but subscription revenues king, right? And if it doesn't take very much for you to go, okay, if I can get a thousand people on my paid newsletter, I'm living, you know, you're making six figures. ([Time 1:40:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/786d34e4-1d9c-4f87-b5e6-fb99ffacb91a)) --- > Monetizing with Ads vs Subscription Revenue for a Writer on the Internet Transcript: Speaker 1 And you can go the free route and monetize with ads, which is what he did, which is, you know, the hustle morning brew all like ads work, but subscription revenues king, right? And if it doesn't take very much for you to go, okay, if I can get a thousand people on my paid newsletter, I'm living, you know, you're making six figures. That's amazing. Like you, the math is it's, it's not that hard to make six figures as a writer on the internet. ([Time 1:41:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f05a0834-4788-4861-92dd-1a5a74e3a3ce)) --- > Typical Book Advances Based on Audience Size Transcript: Speaker 1 The advance for most people, I mean, I'll say probably the average is somewhere between 10, 20K all the way to maybe a hundred, maybe two to 50K. Anything above that you have a giant audience or your celebrity. Speaker 3 Like period. And anything below that, the reason they're giving you that is because your audience is growing and they believe that you will be bigger tomorrow than you are today. So it's worth asking the question, if a publisher is willing to give you that, why are they willing to give you that? ([Time 1:45:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a5389fa1-d32f-4faf-8b5d-ab324474489f)) --- > The Process of Discovering a Niche in Content Creation Transcript: Speaker 2 Whereas an archeologist kind of goes to one side, they do a bit of digging and they go to another one, dig some more, dig some more, go to another side. And then I'm like, oh shit, I've struck some gold. They keep on excavating. They dig some more. Speaker 4 And unless you are, for example, a sort of in the world of YouTube, a kind of Matt Hevella where you've been making documentaries about documentaries on Netflix for 10 years and you already know how to make a bang video. Speaker 2 Even then he did a lot of archeologist thing to get to his niche or Peter McKinnon where it's like, I've been a photographer, videographer for 10 years and I'm going to teach the thing. ([Time 1:51:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1246a162-9b63-445e-8789-f135a423d23b)) --- > The Importance of Serving the Reader Transcript: Speaker 1 There's a saying I love repeating to writers in chip 30, which is you are not the main character of your story. The reader is the main character. Nice. I like that. I'm going to steal that. You realize that you realize that you are in the business of serving the reader, right? That is literally what you are being paid to do. And so a blog is like, well, what is that? It's the writer going, I'm super special. Here's my fonts. Here's my website. Speaker 3 Here's my writings. Speaker 1 Here's my color scheme. Here's my pictures, right? The reader doesn't care about any of that point. ([Time 1:56:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/91efe480-e64f-4c04-a757-72c0b1a651be)) --- > The Importance of Writing in the Right Environment Transcript: Speaker 3 Trust me, it's amazing. Every time you show up with a blog post, that's what you're doing. Speaker 1 You're like, Hey, I throw really great parties too. And everyone's like, no, I want to stay at the pub. It's amazing here. Right. Everyone wants to stay in Twitter. Everyone wants to stay in LinkedIn. So you should be writing in the environment and then sure your site is where your best work can live, but that's not what's going to drive the result. Speaker 4 Okay, so right on Twitter, right on LinkedIn. ([Time 1:59:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6cefdf67-d2f1-4193-a3da-352f348c6653)) --- > The importance of quality over quantity in building an audience Transcript: Speaker 5 You don't need a huge audience. It's just about the quality of what you're creating. Speaker 4 How do you figure out what to create? Speaker 2 Like someone listening to this is like, oh, okay. So I guess I should, I should write on Twitter. Speaker 8 What the hell am I going to write on Twitter or LinkedIn? Speaker 1 So we have a, there's a really great like beginner framework that we share with people right in the first week of ship 30, which we call for who so that. ([Time 2:01:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/84b22e3c-bb72-4bf4-8ad1-175a56e26ba0)) For who so that --- > Starting with the Four Whos Framework: Testing Different Audiences Transcript: Speaker 3 And if you just start from the four who's so that over and over again, you're in great territory. Speaker 1 And the thing that I, is important to remind people is it's not that you make that decision once and then that's the only thing you can do. This is not a marriage decision. Right. Seven years ago, I was writing about bodybuilding on the internet. Nobody cares now. That's fine. You can change over time. But if you start every single thing that you create with the four who's so that framework, then you can test different audiences. You can test different outcomes. ([Time 2:02:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5fcbc223-c4ca-44e6-a3fb-ab188ae73a97)) --- > Size of the Question and Audience Transcript: Speaker 1 One of the things that Cora taught me and I love this framework is the size of the question dictates the size of the audience. Speaker 5 So for example, how big is the audience of person who wants to get into med school? Speaker 1 That is way smaller than the size of audience that goes, how can I improve my note taking ability? Right? So the size of the question dictates the size of the audience. Speaker 3 So when you see a data point, it's worth keeping in mind. Well, so like what's the category difference? ([Time 2:05:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/71fa5672-d982-4c03-8345-dcca5eb7010a)) --- > The Impact of Content Topics on Views and Quality of Comments Transcript: Speaker 1 And also you have other data points like what are the quality of comments? Speaker 3 Like I know every time I write personal development, I'm going to get more views and the comments are going to be like, nice. Good one. This was really helpful. You know, whereas every time I write about ghost writing or how to start a business by writing on the internet, I'm going to get less views, but I'm going to get way higher quality comments than people asking me questions. ([Time 2:06:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/74225c12-3207-4c82-885a-306dbd4c8192)) --- > Analyzing views, likes, and comments to gauge audience interest Transcript: Speaker 1 You just test data points, right? Because what I always like paying attention to is so views and likes is kind of which way it was the wind blowing. Speaker 3 Is there interest in this direction or this direction? What comments are where you really start seeing what people need help with? Speaker 1 So one of the big things I like pointing out to people is if one person comments on your video with a question, the average person or average creator just goes, oh, someone commented and then they like walk away and do whatever. But that one question is your first potential customer DM them, talk to them, ask them, what do you need help with? ([Time 2:08:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/45b58e27-fdf5-406e-8ffe-09826e761e06)) --- > Lessons and Mistakes: Tips for Growth and Overcoming Imposter Syndrome Transcript: Speaker 1 What are all the pivotal moments? What are the lessons, the mistakes, the tips you would give? Right. And all you're doing is you are creating for the version of yourself two years ago. You are the fifth grader telling the fourth grader, here's what you can expect. Right. Speaker 3 And if you just do that, that is the cure for imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is you trying to do the two year test forward. Speaker 1 You're like, I'm going to pretend I'm two years in the future. Speaker 9 You're not there yet. Speaker 1 Right. And the ideal reader or viewer or listener is two years behind you or two hours behind you. ([Time 2:10:47](https://share.snipd.com/snip/be4d4c3e-7255-4715-90e9-ce3723afc03a)) --- > Lessons and tips for self-growth and overcoming imposter syndrome Transcript: Speaker 1 What are all the pivotal moments? What are the lessons, the mistakes, the tips you would give? Right. And all you're doing is you are creating for the version of yourself two years ago. You are the fifth grader telling the fourth grader, here's what you can expect. Right. Speaker 3 And if you just do that, that is the cure for imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is you trying to do the two year test forward. Speaker 1 You're like, I'm going to pretend I'm two years in the future. Speaker 9 You're not there yet. Speaker 1 Right. And the ideal reader or viewer or listener is two years behind you or two hours behind you. Speaker 3 What did you just learn how to do? ([Time 2:10:47](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f8087d31-30df-48ad-beea-c5e0514c1545)) --- > The cure for imposter syndrome Transcript: Speaker 3 And if you just do that, that is the cure for imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is you trying to do the two year test forward. Speaker 1 You're like, I'm going to pretend I'm two years in the future. Speaker 9 You're not there yet. Speaker 1 Right. And the ideal reader or viewer or listener is two years behind you or two hours behind you. Speaker 3 What did you just learn how to do? Speaker 1 Great. Turn around and pass it to the person who doesn't know how to do that thing yet. That's the easiest solution. Yeah. Speaker 8 It's great how a lot of the stuff really converges on the YouTube advice as well. Speaker 2 Same thing. ([Time 2:11:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dc3eb18b-6b5a-4958-971c-deb7a7709709)) --- > The Target is Not the Market Transcript: Speaker 4 But there's that thing, I think in 12 immutable laws of marketing that the target is not the market. You can speak to one person, but actually your market could be a lot bigger than that. Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, it's a great sales copywriting adage, which is if you write something for everyone, you write something for no one. Your goal is to write or create something that is so specific, it's universal to all the people that are like that person. So whenever you're thinking of, I want to build an audience, you shouldn't think of a massive people. You should think of one person. What is their name? Where do they live? ([Time 2:12:05](https://share.snipd.com/snip/20bd04d0-154e-491b-b488-b3618db10473)) --- > How to Build an Audience Transcript: Speaker 3 What problems do they have? What are they interested in? Speaker 1 And if you're clear about that, you're going to attract all the other people who are like that person. But if you just think, I want to build an audience, you're in the mindset of how do I get everyone? Speaker 3 First of all, the more you try and get everyone, the more you get no one. Second of all, you don't need everyone. So what you were saying, you don't need edge here and level of success, right? ([Time 2:12:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/07b83ddf-4365-4d7b-a0cf-81ccd2a4940f)) --- > Quora: Scaling Answers to Everyone's Questions Transcript: Speaker 7 Exactly. Speaker 4 That just made it so easier, so much easier because it feels like you're writing to a single person rather than trying to imagine a, well, analytics tell me my audience is like 15 to 54 living in like the UK, the US, Australia, India, China, China, like how you even begin to imagine that. Speaker 3 That is exactly what Quora taught me is Quora was literally one person saying, I have this question. Speaker 1 And what did Quora do? It scaled my answer to that one person's question to everyone else who had that question. ([Time 2:13:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ecfc2a60-f31c-4feb-9782-024af47f26b7)) --- > The Importance of Email Lists and Newsletters Transcript: Speaker 1 The email list is an inflection point and it's a decision after you've clarified your writing in social environments. So you've written consistently, you've generated a bunch of data points, you've learned what works, you have a clear understanding of who you're trying to reach and help, what questions they have. Speaker 3 And then the newsletter is just the more of that. Right. Speaker 1 The actual is the, I do it in X amount of words. ([Time 2:15:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/11514256-ba7c-45c4-a865-d3cc8dcd5256)) --- > Compensation for learning and skill-building Transcript: Speaker 1 You are now getting compensated to learn and build your skills. And over time, if you want to, you can translate over to now I am an expert. Nice. Speaker 2 To what extent can people like expect a growth on things like, if we take Twitter, for example, the thing I tell people for YouTube is do that one video every week for two years and I guarantee that will change your life, but I can't put any numbers on it. I can't tell you whether you'll get 10K, 100K a million followers or even if you'll get monetized at all, but I can just tell you it'll change your life. ([Time 2:16:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/36885a91-fb40-405d-9588-d684c0c381fa)) --- > The Importance of Scaling Your Knowledge in Content Creation Transcript: Speaker 1 So every time someone comes to you with a question, every time someone goes, hey, what do you think about X? Notice how often you repeat yourself. So when you go have a coffee meeting, how many times do you say the same tidbits about yourself? How many times do you explain, well, this is my thought process on making videos? This is how I think about solving these problems, right? Speaker 3 Every time you're saying that, you are manually doing the work. Speaker 1 Writing online or making videos or having a podcast is your ability to scale that in the sense where now every time someone asks you that question, you don't have to repeat yourself. You go, I already wrote about it over here. ([Time 2:17:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ddecd672-2bfd-4ea9-b060-6fdd70bec749)) --- > How to Scale Your Writing Online Transcript: Speaker 1 Writing online or making videos or having a podcast is your ability to scale that in the sense where now every time someone asks you that question, you don't have to repeat yourself. You go, I already wrote about it over here. Speaker 3 So remove the audience, remove the, how many followers, remove the email list, remove the money, even still just creating things on the internet allows you to scale yourself digitally. Speaker 1 So then the question just goes, do you think that there's benefit in scaling yourself on the internet? Speaker 3 Everyone's going to go, well, yeah, of course there is. Speaker 1 Because now you have a library that you can point to over and over and over again. That's like the greatest hedge on it all. It's not wasted time or effort. ([Time 2:17:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fe0b6e72-2b69-44ef-a0fd-fd8305830c6a)) ---