#The platform is intuitive as shit but they would not let me get an account to use it unless I sat through Sales Dude walking me through it

[nerdomancer]

I love giving people my Government Full First Name over my commonly used shortened nickname version when I'm interacting with them in a strictly business context because it makes the old "Salesman using your name a lot to trick you into feeling friendlier" trick much more noticeable and insufferable

[txbbo]

I've been debating making this because this is definitely not what my blog is known for and I was worried that people wouldn't want to see it, but with the amount of shit im seeing on twitter it's compelled me to make this because I'm so frustrated.

I feel like I could make 100 posts about 'Cancel Culture' and it wouldn't be enough, so I'm just going to focus on what caused me to write this tonight - the Tommy situation. *Warning for a VERY long post below*

To be clear, Tommy has been in 'hot water' on twitter for the past couple weeks, roughly starting with the KSI collaboration where he made a joke about dream stans.

Last week, when the SBI 'exposing account' got made and twitter hyped it up, someone made a Tommy account and made a thread of things he needed to be '''educated''' on: https://twitter.com/idktommyinnit/status/1379158964148002821?s=20

I'll let you read it for yourself (and come to your own conclusion) but to me.... half of this stuff does not require a twitter thread? Breaking it down accusation by accusation:

1) 'The Mexican accent' - the clips show he is clearly only doing it when copying big Q (who famously exaggerates his own accent) and there is zero malicious intent (Big Q is also IN the 3 clips mentioned in the thread, and obviously didn't tell Tommy it was offensive). There's debates in the comments from people who think it is offensive and people who don't, so I'm not trying to pick a side. To avoid accidentally offending anyone, maybe it is best for him to stop, but the way twitter acts as if he was purposefully doing this to offend people is just not true.

2- 'Making a slave joke' - Even saying that feels wrong, because it suggests Tommy is doing something awful. Instead, they are referring to the 'bit' that Tommy, Techno, Tubbo and Ant were involved in, when Tommy and Techno took Tubbo and Ant as their slave. People are taking this vod and using it to accuse Tommy of being insensitive to Black people, but I think people are just assuming the worst. Slavery existed long before the transatlantic slave trade and still exists today. This is a role-play server - Tommy 'forced' Ant to work for him and used the word slave, which to me is exactly what was happening? People 'murder' others on the SMP, people 'kidnap' on the SMP, people are 'terrorists' on the SMP, and all happen without issue. To add, Ant is a WHITE man. Tommy taking a WHITE man as a slave is not something uber problematic.

3- 'His reply to Techno's 'murder is bad' tweet'. - I get people saying that Techno's initial tweet was insensitive, but saying Tommy's agreement to this from almost over a year ago is something notable and worth addressing is just super nitpicky and is clearly only in there to pad out the thread. It also makes me wonder what other CC's interacted with it and if THEY should be cancelled too (according to twitter).

4 - 'The saying slurs' tweet / jokes about 'whats the worst word you know' - This one I can kinda see how people might not like it. However, it's clearly a 'poke' at his friends, making them seem like bad people. To me, its in the same vein as 'Tubbo is a Tory' or when Tubbo shoots back that 'Tommy is a Nigel Farage fan'. They're obviously not, but its making fun of your friends by saying they are, and mockingly making them out out to be bad people.

5- 'Covid jokes' - People are taking jokes he made about him 'having covid' and saying he shouldn't joke about this, even going as far to linking it to asian hate crimes. I don't even know how to explain that that this is just? not a 'cancellable offence'? I'm sorry but if I hear anyone in my family coughing I make a little joke that 'they better not have covid' and I know other people do. I have someone in my family who is extremely vulnerable to Covid and if they caught it, would quite literally die, but I can understand that jokes like these are harmless. The whole internet had a running joke that we were in a 'panoramic' or 'Panera' or 'insert any word that sounds like pandemic.

This thread got a lot of attention and anything he tweeted afterwards was spammed with the link and there were so many people upset that he hadn't addressed it. I saw so many people say how 'upset' and 'disappointed' they were in him.

Going on to today, this happened: https://twitter.com/khasiid/status/1380611890104139776?s=20

I get it, it looks bad. But for context (which the tweet doesn't give), the reply was only up for less than a minute. It was obvious to me, even BEFORE Tommy addressed it in his stream (clip here: https://twitter.com/cowrpse/status/1380640046202593283?s=20 ) that it was a mistake. In the clip, he clearly acknowledges his mistake and seems embarrassed. To me, this situation should just be laid to rest because a mistake does not need this much attention, but twitter disagrees.

In case it wasn't obvious by now, the tide is turning against Tommy and people are less willing to ignore genuine mistakes and assume the worst.

Today, during his birthday stream people were clearly already waiting for him to mess up. Around half way through, he started saying 'finna' out of context and Tubbo joined in. This led to tons of tweets telling him he was misusing AAVE, and while there were plenty of people willing to be patient and educate, there were also people seeing this as an example of him being a 'bad person' and someone who should be 'without a platform'. I think people forget that not everyone has the same internet upbringing as they do. In general, I think its noted that the misuse of AAVE is something that has just recently been brought to attention. I learned about it through tiktok and stan twitter, and I don't think it's unimaginable that a British 17 year old boy (who is not active on either) has never heard of 'African American Vernacular English'.

Just for a fuller picture, today has also brought about another 'criticism' that I just had to address.

1) 'Tommy made a KKK joke' - Like the 'slavery' point, saying this is extremely misleading. It makes people think the worst. Here's the clip: https://twitter.com/ghostburz/status/1380673589612011522?s=20

Here, Tommy and Tubbo are both joking about Tubbo's 'bit' of naming his alt streams 'aaaaaaaaaa', 'bbbbbbb', 'cccccc', etc and how it would've been bad if it was 'kkkkkkkk' (for obvious reasons). That is literally it. It is a less than 20 second clip. Acknowledging that people woulda thought about the 'KKK' is not him 'not understanding Black issues', its a throwaway joke about the obvious.

Lastly, someone on twitter has made a tommyinnit (address asap) doc - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tZEZtBzikS-EYYkssfFtwVOoFqOwCK0zhStLe6H1wCc/edit

I've basically already covered everything in this document, but I wanted to mention how extremely 'guilt trippy' the whole thing is. I struggled to come up with the perfect word for the situation, and I am open to hearing other peoples opinion, but as I have mentioned none of these things Tommy has been accused of were done with malicious intent, and some I believe don't even need addressed at all.

'slavery is a source of astronomical trauma for black people, and isn’t something to be taken lightly if you’re to look into the horrors of the slave trade."

and "Oftentimes they are the last words we hear before we die and it really is not Tommy’s place to joke about words that affect us so negatively."

Are extremely emotional words for a 17-year-old boy to hear on his birthday, for stuff that I believe has been taken out of context and blown out of proportion.

I really feel bad for him, because such a large proportion of twitter (which ofc is the loudest side of the fanbase) is angry at him and is demanding (as the document says) ''either a stream or twitter thread/twitlonger to addressing this' and 'a long and serious apology instead of a short statement pre-stream'.

We all know how twitter works, and unless his apology is perfect (which to me means apologising for stuff that he should't have to, as explained in the thread), twitter will continue with this weird hyper focus on everything he does, and it's not going to end well.

Twitter's mentality of 'putting everything this person has done that could ever be considered problematic' into one neat little thread is so unhelpful and counter intuitive. I got overwhelmed reading some of the stuff people were saying about him, I can't imagine how he feels.

I feel like I have more to say but at risk of writing an essay longer than my actual work I have to do, I'm going to end here.

[alyfawx]

My Thoughts on  Shane Dawson/Jeffree Star/Tati/James Charles

you guys don't get to make decisions on who people choose to watch or support...its not up to you guys...and hating won't get anyone anywhere...so why not move the fuck on already god damn...i believe shane wants to change and will change...yes he did a lot of shitty things but he has the right to grow and learn from them...not be pegged forever as the things you call him...(you'll get blocked if you reply without having an open mind about it so don't try) i'm so tired of people just saying one liners or what everyone else says"he's a racist..he's a pedo...your a pedo for sticking up for him...for one...no i'm not...for 2 i just believe people can change and not put them in a box forever as this one or 2 things and not trying to see the prospective in a new light...and just closed minded af...i don't condone pedophilia but i truly don't think he like children in that way in the first place...he made a really bad joke...a REALLY BAD JOKE but it doesn't excuse it was wrong..but i'm not calling him a pedo for it...2 as for the black face situation...i don't like that he did it and it was also a bad take back then but i do not think he should always be in a box as a racist because he grew up and stopped that shit and never did it again...and i'm not black so i guess i don't have a say in forgiving him for it but still i think he learned from it and moved on...now you guys can keep the grudge fine...but stop harassing him about it...it won't do anything good just stress you out and put you in a low vibration...and as for the James thing i don't think Shane will bug him again and James is even more popular then he was before...and as for the suicide thing...Shane is wrong for that...but also why put him in the same situation as James...it doesn't help James or Shane...though if your a hater who cares right...fuck Shane let him commit suicide because thats justice in your eyes...no...your just as bad as he was...i don't think people really think when they post really...same goes for shane and whoever posted drama or hate...because hate seems to be so easy to spread now a days...like where is the love..why can't we move on from things...and i feel like...no one is gonna read this far...and just skim it see that i'm a fan of shane and just spread more hate to me because i'm trying to defend someone who did shitty things...we all do shitty things...some offends more then others but its all the fuck the same because its still hate...and this is what i dislike about how the internet works...its always jump on the band wagon and destroy this person because this person said this and did that and what not...we never really think hay...maybe spreading hate won't get you anywhere...it will just put more fire to the flame and than we act as if its this persons fault i hated this person because they shows me this and told me that...and weren't you all the same people who attacked James when dramageton happened...right we never take accountability for our actions its always some one else’s fault not our own...and Shane said you don't have to forgive him and you can say all the hateful shit you want about him because he deserves it...but even so...how bout we don't and just leave the damn dude alone..and anyone else...i just don't get it...its not hard to walk away from a situation that you have no control of...why waste time spreading hate when you can instead spread love somewhere else which will do far better then sitting here saying all these things to someone you don't really know..all you know is he said and she said and clips and fabricated evidence and accusations and shit...because you have been wrong about someone before...James is one of them...is he an angel...no...but hey lets stick up for him because everyone else is...cuz now that you were proved wrong about something you feel bad and want to fix it by making excuses for your actions by trusting someone else’s story...instead of doing your own research and your own evidence and intuition....no lets blame shane,tati,jeffree for lying about someone...i didn't know...it was fake...so its not my fault...but no it is cuz you assumed without real evidence...and now you just want to put the blame on someone else for your actions...

Shane is not innocent

Jeffree is far from innocent

Tati is a manipulator

and James is using this to thrive now...

no one wins...

Shane i think really wants to love on from this and wants to do his own thing away from drama and hate..he just wants to create...and he recently hasn’t done any of the things he use to do...only thing is the whole james thing but you know what...it doesn’t matter because Jame’s is better then ever and is doing his own thing so did he really lose?

Jeffree is a whole mess and he just need to like chill...get off of the internet stop doing make up...get some help and therapy and actually try to kill his ego and pride and narcissistic tendeses...and i mean actually try to come down to earth for like a year and not just dress down in walmart clothes no...actually be a normie for like a year no fancy cars or 10 Pomeranians living in a castle...actually come down from that throne see what it was really like to get on that level...no distractions or excuse...and work on himself...and go within and reflect and actually feel instead of hiding behind a paywall...

Tati needs to mind he own business and only focus on her self and leave shane,jeffree or James out of her vocabulary...actually pretend they don’t exsist...

James...he actually kinda doing well with what he’s been doing but i would like to see him actually address his feeling torwards this...of like just forgive and forget on a real tho...tell people to just stop everything about the situation and walk away...tell them not to harass or contact shane,tati or jeffree...just leave them be and let them deal with there own demons...

for me this situation has really been taken a toll on me...cuz you see Shane is really getting gutted here...and i know some things he’s done should not be forgiven..but i don’t think he should have his platform taken away...and here’s why...cuz Shane isn’t trying to spread hate...most of the time he was trying to stay silent from the situation but people keep bringing it up and attacking him...telling him to do this and that and when he does that out of pressure..he doesn’t think before he speaks...not really because he gets flustered and embarrassed and reacts with comedy at the wrong times and or say the wrong things because he really can’t react the right way because no matter what he says or does no one want’s to hear it..they already painted this image of him a really bad image and he feels like he has to be on the defend but defending makes things worse so its like...what can he do...nothing...but people don’t want him to do nothing that means he’s hiding from it...but what if its not like that at all...maybe he just doesn’t know what to say to please everyone...and come out alive mostly...i put myself in his sues and i’m an empath so its hard for me to just sit and read these cruel comments about him when honestly i think he’s trying so hard to fix this mess but no one..wants him too...they just want to just go die in a hole somewhere...and i just find that disgusting and cruel...yes you have the right to your opinion...and yes you have the right to not forgive him and yes you have the right to not like him...but is it really necessary to go on all his posts and tweets and spread this unbelievable hatred towards someone...a million times over...to the point they feel like they could probably just die and no one will care...no..i don’t like that...no matter what he said...i don’t think he deserves that...no one fucking does...especially since...he hasn’t touched a kid inappropriately on the real though...but everyone assumes he did cuz of the jokes he said...and the gestures...all an act but everyone wants to believe he’s really this way because they just hate him...until a real victim with real evidence comes out against him i refuse to call him a pedo because a pedo is a child toucher and he’s not that...and this doesn’t excuse his actions its still disgusting...but he isn’t serious about it and never was...ya’ll are protecting no one because no one is in actual real danger...he stopped that nonsense...he’s not even making money off those things anymore youtube cut his funds so move on...and as for the black face as i stated before since he stopped and never made racist slurs since...and yeah you don’t have to forgive him and i don’t have the rights to forgive him for what he did but REALLY...does it do anything for you saying he’s a racist for what he did years ago and since hasn’t even mention anything negative towards a person of color...so what if he doesn’t hang with much of them...maybe he just couldn’t find a good friend who is a person of color...that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s perposly doing it or he hates the black community...because guess what there are people out there who don’t have a single black friend but still don’t hate them...

honestly i think everyone who hates Shane should just leave him be

and the people who like him watches what he puts out...

no one should decide who you choose to watch or support...

(this was originally gonna be on Shane's Instagram comment section on his last post but i moved it here cuz it couldn’t fit and also i added more...)

[harryandmolly]

The Emancipation of Ginny ~ 10

summary: shawn and ginny could’ve ruined everything six months ago, and sticking together despite their past could make or break them now as ginny stays on as his personal assistant. but what happens on tour doesn’t stay on tour.

warnings: Language, Gertler Karaoke (TM), Niall

WC: 7k (yowza)

“Could I just… would you mind terribly if I just…”

“Hmm?” Shawn murmurs, eyes closed, leaning into her as her lips explore his jaw.

“Would you mind much if I just chewed on your chin for a while?”

His eyes open. A bubble of surprised laughter bursts out of his chest. He quiets himself quickly, remembering he’s in her bed and he’s not supposed to be. He looks down at her curled up in his lap. He tightens the arm supporting her around her back.

“What?”

Ginny looks undeterred. She brushes the tip of her little nose against his cheek and leans back again to look at him.

“Your chin is beautiful. I’d like to make a snack of it.”

He closes his eyes again, chuckling, leaning back with her against the headboard. His smile is quiet and lazy. “Go right ahead. It’s all yours.”

The unspoken caveat sits between them uncomfortably, reminding her not to leave a mark if she doesn’t want her ass sent home to Heathrow on the next plane.

Ginny hums and teasingly nips at his chin. Her fingers skim up his chest to tangle in the chain that holds the medals around his neck. She kisses strategically, softly. She’ll be damned if this thing between them stops on someone’s account besides theirs.

Ginny feels his breathing even out. She’s about to climb off his lap and let him sleep when he holds her a little tighter.

“Where ya goin’?” he mumbles, blinking his bleary eyes open.

“Gonna let you nap, love,” she says, sweeping a hand through his curls.

He shakes his head. “Stay and watch a movie?”

She doesn’t need much persuading. She smiles and settles back into him. He flips through the hotel’s options until a big smile splits his face. He perks up a bit.

Ten minutes later, “A STAR IS BORN” comes across the screen in big red letters.

+

Ginny’s eyes nearly cross from staring at the multicolored pattern of the train’s seat fabric. And she almost misses her stop.

She scrambles around politely disgruntled London Underground riders with murmured “scuze me, pardon me”s and sneaks between the shutting doors before they snap around the Chanel backpack Shawn bought her for Christmas. She leaps out onto the platform at London Bridge station and curses herself for not sleeping through the flight back to London for her week off so she could get adjusted to the time difference. She trudges up the stairs and ascends close enough to the famous Borough Market to smell that perfect melange of paella, tikka masala, coffee and pastries that means she’s almost home.

Her dad’s flat was the “fun” home when she was growing up. Her parents split early, the result of a driven, career-oriented mum and a flighty musician dad. She lived with her mum pretty much full time but her dad would swing in and out of her life. The one steady thing about him was this flat on Maiden Lane with the yellow door and a series of Fiats parked out front.

Ginny’s dad, Bobby Dresden, has the name of a 50s swing singer, and the voice of one, too. He’s not a deadbeat, broke, ramen-noodles-for-every-meal kind of dad. He was always the calling-from-Boston-on-tour, sending-you-an-American-girl-doll kind of dad that just was never around. He tours with a band that plays American classics and they do pretty well. They spend a lot of time in Vegas and, oddly, Manila but he’s home this week too and she hasn’t seen him in almost a year.

She waits on the front step of the flat he’s lived in since she was two. He bought it with the signing bonus he got from his record company and hasn’t touched a single thing since. The consistency is comforting to Ginny, who feels like she has to reintroduce herself to her dad every time she sees him.

He arrives beside her with that sparkling, crooked grin and slings his arms around her. He always did give the best hugs.

“Hiya, Ginny Bunny.”

She smiles into his shoulder and has the strongest urge to sob into his familiarly unfamiliar scent of some random hotel soap and a new cologne.

It’s been a long year.

“Hi, daddy.”

With one final squeeze, he releases her, only as far as arm’s length so he can look her over. She takes the opportunity to do the same.

He has sandy blonde-brown hair that’s pasted stylishly, way more stylishly than a 55-year-old man driving a Fiat should have. But same goes for the rest of him. He’s incredibly tall and lanky, clad in a light Topman sweater pushed up chicly to the mid forearm. His jeans are brand name and inky dark, tailored to end at his ankle above his Ralph Lauren loafers. He looks wonderful, like he always does. She almost cries again.

He curls an arm around her shoulders and she feels dainty the way she does around almost no one on earth. He begins guiding her toward the market to walk and eat, their father-daughterly tradition.

“So, pumpkin,” he begins, his voice raspy from lack of sleep, “How’s the rockstar life?”

Ginny sniffs a laugh. It could be reasonably assumed that Bobby is asking about Shawn, but she knows him and she knows he’s actually just asking about her. He figures rockstar’s PA is basically rockstar, so that’s how he thinks of her. It’s sweet, actually.

“Completely exhausting and every minute of it perfect,” she answers breezily, gazing around the market. Though over a thousand years old, Borough Market’s transience is one of Ginny’s favorite things about it. It has always surprised her every time she comes in. Maybe it reminds her of her dad a little.

“And how’s our Hannah Banana?”

Ginny rolls her eyes. “She’s well, she got herself knocked up again. She barely had time to drink a margarita between kids. Think she’s getting a bit restless now, though. She never has known how to stop working.”

Bobby grins, squinting with a hand up over his face as he looks over the coffee options. The stall they’ve stopped at has a hanging chalkboard sign with the menu options scrawled in flirty, curly cursive.

“I’ve always liked that about Hannah. She and I are the same that way.”

Ginny blinks and finds herself staring at a canister of roasted beans with a furrow in her brow. She’s never really thought about it, but he has a point. All the people she’s loved the most are extraordinarily driven and can’t sit still for shit. It makes her quietly smile to herself. Her dad orders something outrageous sounding with two shots of whatever and a swirl of this or that. Ginny gets a flat white. He pays.

They walk around, catching up on their travels. He’s dating someone from his label, which is of no surprise or consequence to Ginny. She’s always known about his girlfriends but has never met one. It used to upset her more when she was a child but she understands now he would never dream of introducing her to someone he didn’t actively intend to marry. Another of his strange comforts to her. He asks about whether she gets to sing or play much, like he always does. Bobby thinks of her musical talent as a win for him in his parenting book. He’d tell anyone that would listen that it really is god-given, but that he helped foster it. She assures him she sings and plays often. She blinks quickly and studies a gargantuan pot of paella that smells incredible, willing herself not to think about her karaoke performance from last week.

“And how about your fella?”

Ginny looks up at him. Bobby is smiling, fine lines showing on his youthful face, and just for a second, he feels really and truly fatherly.

Ginny’s face warms. “Not my fella anymore, as you know.”

“He’s still holding out, huh? Poor sod.”

Bobby looks pensive, narrowing his eyes out over the layers of canopied food stalls. He’s trying very hard to be mysterious. Ginny sees through it but decides not to poke holes.

“He’s dating someone, actually. A New Yorker.”

Bobby looks down, still seemingly unruffled. “It won’t last, babygirl. Not when he’s got a girl like you.”

Ginny’s breath catches in her chest. It’s an innocent enough statement. Maybe it’s not very fair to Sara, but when are fathers ever fair when it comes to their daughters? That’s not what bothers her. That’s not what has her curling her fingers into her fists and half-listening for the rest of the afternoon. It’s not what has her rolling over sleepless in her bed at her mum’s house.

Her dad’s never offered her many nuggets of wisdom. He never really had to, he was fun dad. But a man of many half-hearted relationships, he does it now, unwittingly. Ginny feels like they stumbled upon treasure but her dad swept it away, claiming it as fool’s gold.

Not when he’s got a girl like you.

Maybe she loves him still. Maybe she always will. Hell, maybe a part of him even still loves her. But Ginny’s beginning to think none of it will matter, not them, not Sara, if they don’t get out of their own way.

+

Ginny knew something was up as soon as Hannah opened the door to her flat the next morning. Call it best friend intuition, or maybe Hannah’s just super obvious when she has something on her mind by the way her voice raises an octave and she’s even more scattered and flighty than usual.

She doesn’t open her mouth about it though until they’re camped under a tree in Regent’s Park. Ginny is holding Kingsley, snuggling her nose into the baby’s warm neck as he gazes curiously over her shoulder. Hannah watches them both, leaning back on sore wrists as her belly protrudes between them under her stretchy maxi dress.

“I want you back, Gin.”

Ginny looks up, startled, her hand pausing its rubbing motion on her godson’s back. She blinks, blankfaced.

Hannah pulls the corner of her lip into her mouth to chew on. She pushes off her hands and leans forward, eyes focused on Ginny.

“I’ve decided to go back on tour, Gin. Not soon, obviously,” she laughs, running her hand over her belly, “But I need it. I need to know it’s in the plan. It’s what I want most, to take my babies on the road. But if I’m going to tour, I need an album.”

Ginny swallows, waiting for the next shoe to drop.

“I want you to write it with me.”

Ginny’s lips part. She stares at Hannah, waiting for some kind of indication that she didn’t actually just say that.

“I know you’ve never tried writing before, but who better than with me, the one who knows you best? God, it’ll be fantastic. We’ll write it, we’ll record it, we’ll produce it, all together, Gin, just like we always wanted. It’s your shot. Your shot to get out of the situation you’re in. He’s between albums right now anyway, you wouldn’t be leaving him in the lurch or anything. It’s perfect. You and me, back on the road. What do you think? No, wait, don’t tell me now. Want you to really think about it. It’s a lot, I know. But I think it would be good! And--”

Hannah goes on rambling for a while like she does when she’s excited and just a little nervous. Ginny watches her talk without listening, restarting her circular massaging motion on Kingsley’s back, more to soothe herself than him.

She stares off into the distance, feeling the breeze blow her hair around. Logically, she knows it’s the summer wind, but it feels like a draft from a door being flung open. It’s the exit strategy, the one she’s been too stubborn to ask for.

Ginny hands the baby back when Marcus arrives to bring his family to Hannah’s doctor’s appointment. She watches them walk off, pulling her feet out of her Keds and sinking her white-painted toes into the patchy grass.

The thing about exit strategies, Ginny finds, is sometimes even when they’re presented to you like a gift falling into your lap, you don’t actually want it. It feels good when you’re thinking, planning, strategizing. You can pat yourself on the back -- good job, you’re working on it.

Now she’s faced with real opportunity, the move is hers to make. She’s faced with something else, too. She really doesn’t want to leave.

An unhelpful montage of every great moment with her team in the last year and change flits through her head, soft and vignetted, glossy and warm. It’s not all Shawn, either. The team is her family, her chosen family. She stays up for late nights talking strategy with Andrew -- she’s learned more from him as a manager than anyone in her professional life. She talks football with Cez and Mike. When she was so homesick that any mention of the word “London” brought Ginny to the brink of quiet tears, Josiah always noticed and kindly and gently distracted her.

Leaving the team is the right thing. As she lies in the dirt with tears sliding sideways into her temples and her toes pulling at the grass to ground herself, she doesn’t question this decision.

But she does need to mourn it.

+

Sara sits on her knees on the end of her bed, wrapped in a gauzy white sheet with soft morning light coming in the window. She swears she’s never felt more like a movie star.

He always makes her feel like a star.

She’s mashing her chapped lips together, watching him button and zip his jeans as he faces away from her. She has his shirt, that purple t-shirt she really likes, sitting beside her round thighs. His shoes are beside his bag, the one he brought to stay with her this weekend.

This weekend represented a shift she thinks neither of them really planned, or even thought about at all. He’s spent the night before, a few hours stolen between one engagement or another. He’s never spent a whole weekend. With her.

It was a blur of takeout, movies and great sex. She’ll be living off the high of the orgasms for as long as it takes him to come back to her. And as he packs up to head back to his real life, she’ll be going back to hers feeling just a little bit heavier.

When something shifts, it comes off balance and you have to find a way to recover. Sara knows how this works, she’s done it before, but never with someone who isn’t here.

“Do you… uhm, do you know when you’ll be back?” She fights meekness in her voice. She doesn’t want him thinking she’ll be only half here when he’s away. She doesn’t want herself thinking that either.

Shawn looks up from his belt. His eyes are a little wide. She’s never asked before. He feels the teeter-totter of the shift like it’s physically tangible.

He cracks a half-smile like he’s Mr. Casual. It feels wrong as soon as he does it. “Not too long, I think. I’m heading back to LA to meet up with the rest of the team. We have more recording to do. But if this movie moves forward, I’ll come back to New York for meetings. Probably a few weeks.”

There she goes with her lip mashing again. She nods thoughtfully and looks toward the window to look distracted, but the curtains kind of kill her effect.

She looks back when he lifts a knee up beside her on the bed. He cups her round face in both of his enormous hands and gently tilts it up to look at him.

“Gonna be thinking about you, though.”

She smiles. He tucks a strand of red behind her ear and lowers his lips to hers, one more for the road.

When he leaves, though, she feels the shift even more dramatically than before. There’s traces of him everywhere -- leftovers in her fridge, an empty travel can of shaving cream in her garbage, his scent in her sheets.

This shift is making her fucking dizzy.

+

Shawn’s flight to LAX is delayed an hour. He sits in the first class lounge, leg bouncing, trying not to think about the weird feeling he has, like he forgot something, or lost something in New York.

His phone is serving as an only barely passable distraction. He’s kind of afraid to go too deep into Twitter or Instagram right now -- he doesn’t want to find anything about him and Sara because then he’d feel the obligation to tell her about it. And he honestly doesn’t know what she’d do.

YouTube it is.

He scrolls through videos, still drumming anxious fingers, and before long he realizes something’s off. His suggested videos are not familiar -- clips of Arsenal games, Adele covers, British comedians he’s never heard of. It takes him only a few seconds to recognize Ginny logged into her account on his phone at some point, probably months ago when they were stuck somewhere in Europe bored in another airport lounge. In another life.

He goes to log out and thumbs through options, looking for the button. He doesn’t mean to find the videos. He doesn’t realize they’re her at first. They’re badly lit and don’t have her name on them anywhere, not even in the description. But the songs catch his eye. Just like her video suggestions, the content of her page is so… her.

Someone Like You by Adele

I Wanna Know by Whitney Houston

My Old Piano by Diana Ross

He doesn’t think for a second about not clicking. When he hears the first soft strokes of her voice, he lifts a hand to scrub at his cheek and wonders if anyone else can see the tears in his eyes. He looks up. No one’s watching him.

Her voice is a fix he didn’t know he was craving. The last time he heard her sing hurt so bad he actually physically ran away from it. Thinking about it now kicks up the shame that’s been lingering in his gut for days.

He’s never seen her sing like that. He’s seen her sing every kind of song in every kind of mood. He’s never seen her sing like that, like she was screaming secrets to anyone who would listen. When he got up to leave, he was feeling too many things to make sense of. Selfish -- he didn’t want to face her. Thoughtful -- he didn’t want her to have to face him. Instinctive -- he felt his anxiety pulling him toward the door. He could feel the eyes trying so hard not to watch him while she sang about him. He knew they could only keep away from him for so long. He knew they’d feel like battery acid on his skin when they gave in and looked. So he ran.

He regretted it from the moment he got out the door and knocked into a toxic wave of southern California summer heat, even in the dead of night.

He sits in the lounge ignoring the announcements of his flight boarding, deciding he can limp onto the plane once he’s drowned himself in all her videos. He watches them each back to back, bobbing his head with the beat, studying her, the choices she makes musically, the way he can see she feels every song like it’s radiating out of her bones.

He notes the time stamps. The first video was posted weeks ago. She’s been steadily building up a catalog of them -- different hotel rooms, different times of day, different instruments. He recognizes his acoustic in her arms in her guitar cover of “Gravity” by Sara Bareilles. He takes a scroll through the comments to see if any of his fans happened to catch it. He tamps down an edge of disappointment in his chest when he finds no one has noticed. He pushes it over next to his tinge of jealousy that his guitar has been held by her more recently than he has.

Final boarding call.

Shawn drops his phone beside him and lurches forward to hang his head in his hands. He closes his eyes and fights to breathe, but his chest feels swollen, like everything inside him is blocking up his lungs, starving him of oxygen. Everything he’s been fighting, all the feelings he’s been trying to reason away, even sell away to someone else -- someone wonderful, someone deserving of a whole heart made just for her.

They’re choking him.

He swallows once more, rough and papery. He shoves his phone in his pocket and meanders to the gate just before they’re closing the doors. On the plane, he listens to the original versions of the songs she’s covered. They don’t sound the same anymore. Everything Ginny has touched holds something more in it for him now.

The songs sound better when they’re hers.

+

Ginny is fresh off a redeye from Heathrow. Being back in LA amongst palm trees and cold-pressed juiceries is jarring after a week and change back home in blighty Britain. She enjoys being caught between the two worlds, her two homes. Appropriately, she buys herself a fancy juice, the strawberry-heavy one, and the pineapple one Shawn likes. She also pulls out the McVities Digestives she bought at duty free, an ode to London.

She’s perched on a ledge beside Shawn’s baggage claim carousel, waiting for him to deplane. She sees him first, tall and broad and in a red hoodie like he’s never thought about keeping a low profile in his life. When he spots her, she watches in confusion as his throat bobs and his steps grow longer and quicker so he can reach her.

Her pulse increases a little frantically as he power walks over. She lifts herself off the ledge to meet him. He drops his backpack at their feet and scoops her into a tight hug, turning his face so his nose is in her gently scented hair. Ginny gasps a ragged breath of surprise and wraps her arms around him, instinctively bringing her fingers up to smooth the little curls at the base of his neck.

“Love? Y’ok?” she nearly pants, her voice high and on the edge of panic.

He deflates against her chest, letting out a long stream of air from his nose. He closes his eyes for a moment to collect himself.

“I know about the videos.”

+

Ginny manages to get him out to the hired car where Jake is waiting with a driver. Shawn is stiff and awkward around Jake, who eyes Ginny curiously, but lets them tuck themselves into the backseat and tunes out their private conversation. He’s had practice at this, but not recently.

Ginny turns to Shawn as soon as they’re buckled in and pulling away from the curb. Her brows are pulled together slightly, her lips twitch as she decides where to begin. Shawn ducks his head, guilty.

“I… didn’t mean to, I swear. I know you probably would’ve told me if you wanted me to know.”

Shawn pauses in a way that tells Ginny that thought stung him as much as it did her. He shakes it off and tries to continue.

“You were logged into YouTube on my phone. I saw your uploads.”

Ginny tugs the corner of her full lips between her teeth, nodding. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t… I should’ve just left them alone when I found them. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

Ginny doesn’t know either. She’s still confused. His reaction to seeing her at the airport was so visceral, so emotional. She’s missing a piece somewhere, like a jigsaw corner lost in a carpet. It leaves her still tense.

“You watched them all?” she asks unsteadily.

He nods. “I watched them all. They’re… fuckin’ beautiful, Gin. I mean, I know you know that. You have to. You’re so… god, fuck, Ginny, you’re so talented. You’re… you’re incredible. I should tell you more often. I don’t tell you that enough.”

Ginny lifts her hands and tents them over her nose and mouth. Steadying her breath feels like a battle she wasn’t prepared for.

“I’m so sorry.”

She looks up at his words. They sound raw from his throat. His face is anguished.

“For what?”

“For making you feel like you couldn’t tell me. Or didn’t want to. I know… I know things are different now. We don’t know how to do… this.”

This. Translation: we don’t know how to be friends when I’m with someone else. It’s a scary fucking thought.

“I just wanted it for me for a while,” she whispers honestly, shrugging and looking past him out the window at the waves of cars on the freeway as they head for Beverly Hills, “I wanted to see how it felt to do something like this for myself, not involve anyone, not you, not Hannah, not Niall, not Teddy. I wanted to see what it was like when it was just for me.”

Shawn wets his lips. “And?”

Ginny’s quiet for a minute, considering. “And it’s lonely. I thought it would fuel me, to do something independent like this. But creating something and keeping it in a vacuum, not telling the people I love that I’ve done something I’m proud of, it… kind of fucking sucks.”

Shawn’s attention is led back to a memory of the first handful of videos he posted on YouTube, way, way back when, before he mentioned it to his friends and family. He remembers that feeling, too. Even though you’re sharing it with countless strangers, it doesn’t feel like it counts until you share it with the people that love you.

“I don’t…” Shawn pauses, scrunches his face and chuckles awkwardly. Ginny nods at him to continue.

“I don’t know… if I have any right to be. But I’m so fucking proud of you.”

Ginny’s gaze is leveling and heavy. Shawn’s eyes fall to her hands lying in her lap.

“I don’t know if you have any right either. But it’s nice to hear.”

+

“Wha’s the magic word?”

Ginny groans, shaking her head so her curls bounce. “Go Rams.”

The tall wrought iron gate buzzes. Ginny pushes it in and continues smirking on her walk up the driveway to the front door. Niall’s standing there waiting for her in gym shorts, a t-shirt and ankle socks. His hair is flat over his forehead. He’s holding two beers. He hands her one with a twinkle in his eye.

“Can’t believe you make me say that every time I come to your house,” she chides, swiping one of the brews from his hand and striding past him.

“You can take the boy out of Derby County, you can’t take Derby out of the boy.”

Ginny blinks. “You’re not from Derby County.”

He shrugs, like it’s never occurred to him to care about that. He locks the door and scampers behind her in his socked feet, letting her guide him back to his living room. The Leicester-Leeds game is muted and there’s a guitar on the couch. She collapses next to it with a groan.

“Welcome back, then,” he laughs, settling on the other side of the guitar, eyes on the game.

“How’ve you been?” she murmurs, smiling over at him sleepily.

He nods. “Good, love. Writing a lot. Bit of hiking. Staying far away from women and their wiles.”

“Good boy,” she chuckles.

“How was home?”

Ginny bobs her head. “Saw my dad. Always an experience.”

Niall knows the saga. He doesn’t much trust or like Ginny’s dad. He doesn’t understand why someone who Ginny loves so much could feel even the slightest disinterest in her. He decides not to press that.

Ginny looks over. Niall sees something in her eyes.

“What?” he hums.

She bites the inside of her lip and winces. “Hannah offered me a job.”

Niall’s eyebrows lift. He sips his beer, nodding for her to continue.

“She wants to plan a tour. Wants to start working on an album now, finish it after she takes a bit of time after the birth. She wants me to help her write it.”

Niall looks intrigued, but remains quiet. He cocks his head. “I think that sounds great, Gin.”

Ginny closes her eyes. “It does. It does sound great. So why am I being a priss about it?”

He snorts. “What d’you mean?”

She sighs, exasperated, “Like, why am I not bouncing off the walls to get out of where I am? Why don’t I want to get back on Hannah’s team for an obvious step up? Why is it not so easy for me to say yes?”

She looks up at Niall from her swollen cuticles, irritated from near-constant recent picking. He doesn’t look terribly surprised, but thoughtful.

“I think there’s no one easy answer to that, Gin. I think even if you won’t say it out, you’re still in love with him. And I don’t know how you get away from that other than time and space.”

Ginny remains curiously unemotional. “I think I’m worried time and space won’t work either. Just make it hurt more.”

Niall rolls a thumb around the rim of his bottle. “Would it hurt more than seeing him happy with someone else?”

“Can’t imagine anything hurting more than being away from my best friend.”

It’s strikingly honest, so much so it makes even Niall’s breath catch. “But can he stay your best friend if you work for him indefinitely?”

She groans and drops her head into her hands. “Probably not.”

Niall sighs. “Nothing you haven’t heard before, babe, from me and Hannah. And probably your mum. Something’s going to be the thing that pushes you, and it won’t be any of us. It’ll be you. It has to be.”

Ginny is quiet. She lifts Niall’s guitar and snuggles close to it like a lover. It makes him chuckle, watching her graze her fingertips over the strings. It stirs up another notion.

“And maybe…” he begins, trailing off. She looks up. He shrugs again like he always does before he says something deeply intuitive and intelligent, “Maybe it’s not enough, the opportunity you’d be leaving for.”

Ginny looks startled, maybe a little frightened. “What else is there?”

Niall looks up at the TV. “You tell me, Gin.”

+

“Andrew Gertler, you need a new hobby!” Ginny cries.

Andrew turns from his seat to grin at her wickedly. Ever the team’s karaoke enthusiast, he shakes Tom’s cap, making the slips of folded paper inside shake and crinkle temptingly.

“Your turn, Gin. Team bonding. Non-negotiable.”

Ginny grunts. She swallows a snarky comment along the lines of “yeah, because the last karaoke outing was such a ‘kumbaya’ experience” and takes her folded slip. Shawn a few seats down has been eerily quiet all night and trying not to connect eyes with her.

It makes her roll her own. He’s acting like he’s afraid she’ll get up and sing another heartbreaking power ballad in his honor. Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” starts playing in her head, making her smirk.

She’s on last. A few months ago, she’d have been delighted. The final word on karaoke night is a high she’d live on for days. She’d pick from her choice of her beltiest songs, bringing down the house every time. Tonight she’s just not sure she has the energy.

Niall’s words have been swirling around her head all afternoon. She drank a few beers and napped beside him on the couch while Shawn and Andrew were in another meeting about the movie. She was awakened by Niall’s head tipped back, releasing snarling snores that shook the whole house. She left him with a kiss on the cheek and a head full of questions, wandering back to their hotel where she had calls and emails to return to keep her best friend’s life running smoothly.

She’s distracted and reinvigorated by her friends and their performances, if it’s fair to call them that. Andrew’s up to bat first. He chooses “The Reason” by Hoobastank, a truly bizarre opening number. Mike and Zubin team up for “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher. Ziggy attempts “The Power of Love” by Celine Dion and gets lambasted by the rest of the team for butchering it. Ginny knows logically that her friends didn’t set out to make her feel better, that this wasn’t a well-designed intricate plot to distract her from her own crazed brain, but it makes her feel so much calmer, steadier, led away from the ledge she’s been teetering on for… weeks.

And then it’s Shawn’s turn.

The evening’s festivities haven’t had the same effect on him that they did on her. He remained mostly quiet, clapping politely and speaking only when spoken to. He was mostly left alone, the team figuring he was either tired from jetlag or moody from being away from Sara.

Ginny gets an odd twisting in her stomach when he takes the stage. Up to this point, he hasn’t been conspicuously recognized. But now that he’s up there, there’s no hiding him. He doesn’t look like he wants to hide. The anticipation feels like it’s rising water around Ginny’s waist, more threatening by the second.

His shoulders are slightly hunched. He cups the mic with one hand, staring off above the heads of his rapt audience. Ginny’s jaw feels sewn shut as she waits. The first chords of something come up over the speakers. Shawn’s reaction is immediate. He darts to the DJ and murmurs something urgently. The DJ, a twenty-something fuckboy who just looks amped to have Shawn Mendes on his stage, nods and cuts the track.

Shawn walks off the stage. Anyone who wasn’t paying attention definitely is now. He heads back toward their cluster of tables and drags his guitar case out from under it, having come straight from his movie meeting where he played them a few songs.

Ginny watches him retreat back to the stage, this time to some applause that he doesn’t acknowledge or even seem to hear. As he passes, she locks eyes with Andrew, who looks grave. Her eyes dart away, eagerly watching Shawn.

Shawn plugs his new Taylor acoustic into the speaker and starts plucking. In seconds, she recognizes it. Her face falls, and she didn’t even realize she was wearing any kind of expression until it snaps into an oddly blank knowingness.

He repeats the opening chords a few times. Ginny vaguely notices the crowd begin to catch on and recognize the tune, but she doesn’t think that’s why he’s doing it. She thinks it’s for him. He looks more nervous than she’s seen him on stage in ages -- shaky, sweaty, a little pale. Almost sickly. She rocks forward in her seat, fingers gripping her knees.

“I’m not fucking going up there.” She says it to herself, loud enough for anyone around her to hear. They’re not listening.

Tell me somethin’, girl

Are you happy in this modern world?

When his voice comes in, she half-expects it to sound as broken as he looks. She should’ve known better. It’s smooth and rich and well-practiced, like he’s been getting ready for this. The thought has her teeth on edge with the rest of her taut body.

Or do you need more?

Is there somethin’ else you’re searchin’ for?

He’s looking down straight at her. She thinks of Jack’s words, whispered in Ally’s ear as she quivers sidestage, terrified of her own fate.

“All you gotta do is trust me. That’s all you gotta do.”

Ginny hangs her head in his hands. She can’t watch him sing to her. Her knee bounces, shaking the hands that hold her up. Her body vibrates with the opposing forces of her choices.

I’m falling

In all the good times I find myself longin’

For change

And in the bad times I fear myself

He plucks at the chords again, waiting for her. He doesn’t take his eyes off her, not once. He doesn’t care about all the people staring curiously at her, following his gaze. He doesn’t care about the iPhones popping up, flashes going off, recording the scene. He will stand here playing these chords until his fingers bleed if it’s what it takes to get her on this stage.

She doesn’t wait that long.

Ginny lurches to stand. Instead of going around to take the stairs to the stage, she lifts her leg and steps up onto it, popping up to thunderous, curious applause. Andrew folds his hands over his nose and mouth, tensing from the shoulders down. The entire team watches in shocked silence as Ginny steps forward. As soon as she’s up there, their eyes don’t leave each other. Zubin swears under his breath. Jake sits forward eagerly.

Ginny takes the mic.

Tell me something, boy

Aren’t you tired tryin’ to fill that void?

The audience reacts even more strongly to Ginny’s voice. It’s nothing like Lady Gaga’s -- it’s softer somehow, warmer, more delicate.

Or do you need more?

Ain’t it hard keeping it so hardcore?

As they build to the chorus, Shawn continues watching her shine. He knows they have the audience. He can feel them, even if he can’t really hear them. He’s focused on the way her eyes are trained on him more steadily than they have been since Ibiza, maybe even before. He doesn’t want to blink. His Ally doesn’t need his coaching, doesn’t need him mouthing the words or nodding encouragingly. She’s got this.

I’m falling

In all the good times I find myself longing

For change

And in the bad times I fear myself

He watches her eyes slide shut and smiles for what feels like the first time all night.

I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in

I’ll never meet the ground

Her voice is bold and huge, unapologetic. She lifts her hands, rising to the occasion as her voice soars.

Crash through the surface, where they can’t hurt us

We’re far from the shallow now

Shawn leans in, only inches from her face, to sing into the mic with her. Their eyes remain locked, their breath mingles, closer than they’ve ever been even with a guitar, a mic and a million miles between them.

In the shallow, shallow

In the shallow, shallow

In the shallow, shallow

We’re far from the shallow now

The DJ has movie timing. He starts playing the backtrack from the film just as Shawn backs away from the mic, wetting his lips. His Ally doesn’t need his prompting, she isn’t going to hold her hands over her mouth and cower from the mic. She’s going to fucking sing.

Ginny lets her eyes shut, disconnecting from him. This moment isn’t about them, it’s about her. She’s making it hers.

She invents her own lilting, crooning, bellowing vocal run, different from Lady Gaga’s but still so fitting that it’s breathtaking. She doesn’t ignore the eyes this time. She feels them, all of them, and lets herself believe she’s worthy of the attention. When their cheers rise, she grins through her final note and opens her eyes once more. He’s beside her, smiling just as wide and goofy.

In that moment, something settles in the pit of her stomach that’s been riled for too long, niggling at her, wrecking her calm, disturbing her sleep. As she takes the last chorus, she finally feels absolutely certain about the one thing that has been holding her back.

No matter what, she and Shawn are going to be ok.

She doesn’t know how much longer she’ll be on his team. She doesn’t know if they’ll ever get to be in love again. She doesn’t know what the next step is, but she knows he will always be there.

He steps into the mic with her, repeating the final refrain. Ginny feels a chill down her spine at the depth of the words hanging between them.

We’re far from the shallow now

The fading notes are lost in the barreling shouts of their audience and the polite, bewildered applause of their teammates (all except for Jake, who’s clapping and whistling louder than anyone in the room).

Shawn swings the guitar behind his back and opens his arms as Ginny steps into them. She fights the urge to bury her face in his neck and sob with relief. She knows the phones didn’t stop recording after the song ended. They’ll be watched like hawks for the rest of the night.

They separate. Shawn’s smile is warm and welcome, back in its place after a little too long away from home. She matches it, tucking some curls behind her ear as he starts to lead her back to their table. They’re greeted by hugs and high fives all around from their team who are still exhibiting signs of whiplash but are rolling with the punches.

Ginny meets Andrew’s eyes. His expression is difficult to read -- a mix of concern, fondness, anxiety. It’s how he’s always looked when Shawn and Ginny do anything that passes beyond the barrier of very basic working friendship.

She smiles back and sinks into her chair, unwilling to apologize, explain or backtrack. Shawn takes the chair beside her, slinging his heavy arm behind the back of it as he talks to Zubin around her head. She steals a sip of his beer, he pretends not to notice.

Absolutely nothing is what normal once was. Their old normal is unrecognizable. Whatever this is now, no matter how weird and loaded with history and inconvenient, it’s their new normal.

And it’s not gonna be easy.

Please support my longstanding love of super emo karaoke scenes and buy me a Ko-fi (link on main page)!

Taglist: @smallerinfinities @the-claire-bitch-project @achinglyshawn @infiniteshawn @mendesoft @singanddreamanyway @alone-in-madness @abigfatmess @shawnitsmutual @awkwardfangirl2014 @september-lace @thotfulalena @sinplisticshawn @rollingxstone @yslsaint @randi-eve @sauveteen @fallmoreinlove @voguemnds

[talkingtoemptyrooms]

Today I had a meditation with Nakita and the theme was to let go and to manifest.

It’s currently 2 am, 2nd night in a row I can’t sleep and wondering why my psoriasis sparked and I feel like whatever Reiki Nakita gave me on Tuesday really opened up a big fat mirror.

I’m listening fan to “Om gam ganpataye namaha ” it’s a mantra praying to Ganesh to remove all obstacles. It’s soothing and overwhelming at the same time.

In all this self reflection, I’ve been in my head a lot more than usual. It’s like I get wrapped into the vastness of it all the mess and complex feelings- it’s exhausting to work through. Where do you start.

Well, now that I’m observing this “low” a little clearer. I realize that my ego is what is coming up and acting like a big fat baby. Perhaps my inner child being mad? Not getting the attention that I feel I deserve? I’ve been so frustrated that I haven’t tapped into my intuitiveness and sometimes I completely doubt that I’m being heard. I know in my bones all these things are real - spirit guides, higher self, multi dimensional beings, archanegels etc, but I just crave a connection.

Maybe because I’m lonely? Maybe I think I’ll feel better that I have buddy’s to actively learn from. Like having vip tickets to hearing your favorite professor talk.

The darker side im embarrassed to admit is that I just want to feel special. I want to get the letter saying “ you’re a wizard Harry”! It’s like knowing there’s a hog warts but not being admitted. Or doing a class and having to completely teach yourself because the teacher is focused on tutoring others. That’s how it feels. It’s easy to go down the spiral of “WHY NOT ME?”.

I was reading some tweets from some psychics or intuitives and they had a platform to speak yet they spread ego centric, seperation seeking things to others that are so poisonous and low cove. Like why do they get the gifts and I don’t? Like, you just “woke up like dis” and I’m here like that meme with DW looking through the fence at all her friends playing in the basketball court

Maybe I’ve been around too many people that can see, hear and comunicate with their guides as easily as picking up the phone, calling and almost always getting an answer.

I do think it’s important to focus on why I don’t feel like I’m seen or heard. See that’s the ego. The “why me” bitch... yeah her. Shes the one that needs to take a seat. Why is it so hard for me to have this connection? My ego is so focused on wanting to feel respected, guided, pure, loved, multidimensional, gifted and actually have a reason why I can guide others.

But why do I need a big fat sign to feel that. Why do I think I am not worthy right this present moment? Why do I fee like I am not special without it? Then I realize, If it’s not that, then it’s something else...

Will I ever just be content with the space that I am in? Pamela Aaralyn, a freaking alchemist is still trying to to figure out her truth, so why can’t I?

I would assume it’s because I need to go through the foundations. Okay, I’m a little more awake than before, but how can you spread, share, and be the boss bitch if you can’t do simple things like enjoy time yourself, be kind to yourself and set the boundaries?

In all this I realize that it’s needed. And here I thought I was doing the work but really I just haven’t been seeing it. I mean, I’ve improved but I have some way to go to be the empowered Astrid as opposed to the victimized Astrid. I definitely don’t want to be that.

In this self reflection, more now than ever, I also came to realize how I’ve been getting in my own way!!!! Ive has this obsession with perfectionism and it’s the single most unhealthiest habit (amongst many other things) that I’ve carried.

David, my boss reviewed my presentation and called it ‘good’ and made a few suggestions to add. Immediately I thought “OMG, he hates it and so disappointed” and “he caught me”. “I probably don’t execute projects as good as Stina and Lisbet. Compared to them, I must be his least favorite or the one delivering less”. The one that is not as productive or as smart as the others by getting it the first time. The one falling behind. I can’t even articulate in an intelligent way certain things and he must realize that I got through college and high school by being likeable, obedient and not smart. He’s so kind in the matter he expresses that my presentation is unimpressive and mediocre.”

CAN YOU BELIEVE THESE ARE THOUGHTS THAT ARE CONSTANTLY RUNNING THROUGH MY HEAD? Like wtffffffff. I’m crazyyyyyyy. And thennnnn I spend time venting to my two favorite co workers and let them see how insecure I constantly am and NOBODY likes an insecure girl. Because I sure as hell don’t. Insecure girls are jealous and mentally unstable.

What kind of self dialogue am I saying? Also, do I think that by over sharing my insecurities to these girls I’m asking for validation that I’m not those horrible things and need to be reminded how awesome I am. Like, the desperate narsasistic puppy asking for the pat on the head? Also, how ugly is it that I’m then lying to MYSELF and saying that I’m just being vulnerable, and vulnerability is good and from a place of wisdom. Do I really believe my own shit? I guess it’s been so long since I’ve held myself in a neutralalized state of accountability that I actually believed this “I’m wise and vulnerable” when in reality I’m just in survival mode being a beggar for reassurance.

I mean, I was today years old when I realize how determinntal these thoughts are. How utterly dependent I am on how others view me or think of me and how their level of reaction to my work determines if I’m worthy or not. Yes, these themes have shown up in my life, but never this “in my face”.

The real question to this is- am I ready to let go of these ties? And if so how bad? Obviously this is years of learned behavior so what do I do to shock me out of the hamster wheel when I’m triggered? Also, how and what do I need to heal to get over this really horrible view of myself.

In recap, the points that I noticed:

- feeling deserving and worthy with or without obvious spiritual connection

- perfectionism doesn’t cut it and never will. Why do I do this to myself and how can I get away from this self dismorphia?

- stop lying to yourself and get a grip. It’s not fun or in your best interest being the girl your coworkers need to console whenever she’s having an insecurity meltdown. Your best should be the success factor. Own your strengths. You know what your good at regardless if you receive praise or not.

[mdhwrites]

Calmish Thoughts: Epic Games Store and Sale

So, I have to admit that I shouldn't do this. I have had multiple breakdowns over the past couple days trying to discuss this, but I am anyways because I think it's important. Now, to preface, I planned to be an accounting major when i went to college. I still went to a year and a half for that and took both micro and macro economics. I have talked to economic professors and gotten them to admit that economic principal has been abused too far for the current market. Let me know if you want that one because it's about supply, demand, and the minimum wage and is FASCINATING.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I am here to talk about Epic Games because they have done somethings laughably wrong, but unlike what a lot of people are claiming, they are currently the model to me of what good, flourishing, HEALTHY capitalism looks like and I would like to open up a discussion about that. I will try to cover as much as I can here, and in a few days will try to cover any mistakes and additional points I missed in a follow up blog.

1. Their Storepage

Let's start with the unforgivable and the thing that most of Epic's real problems stem from: The store page. It has no reviews, barely a search function, no categories, no shopping cart, and looks like the UI prioritized form over function. It looks half baked and like it should have had another half a year to a full year of work put into it before it was released.

...Probably because that is genuinely what happened. After all, Epic is working VERY quickly right now and I suspect someone in the marketing department said, "We either announce this at E3 this year with Supergiant's next game as an exclusive and FREE, or we have to wait a year for another major event to announce it at, at which time we will either have forced delays on games we want on the storefront, or straight up missed getting those games into timed exclusivity contracts."

With everything that is coming out that Epic has managed to get ahold of that it likely had some insight on at the time, delaying the store page probably looked like a non-option. Does that excuse them? FUUUUUUCK NO. People are getting banned from things like Paypal for suspicious activity, finding anything on the damned thing is a nightmare, and at least 50% of their sales catalogue is in preorder games, especially amongst their exclusives. HOWEVER, we also know that they are working on all of that and that many of these games are getting released later this year and with enough marketing behind them that if you care about them, you'll find them.

Again, not good, and it is the worst thing about the store but... Well, I'll wait to talk about Steam for later, because I have a lot to say on that matter, especially in their response to all of this.

2. Epic is Chinese Spyware

Now, I am putting this as how I always heard about it, which putting it that way is a complete lie. They are funded by Tencent, but Tencent is not the majority shareholder of the company, and not the only investor. Now, the claim of it being spyware... Again, the rush in making their store page kind of fucked them here. A: They had a program that appeared malicious and grabbed information about what you were buying and who you were buying through. That's kind of like saying DA owns your art though so they can modify and post it in order to make thumbnails. That is something they essentially need as a business and they only track those numbers, at least currently, on purchases you buy through them.

Problem is B: When it was first released it would copy certain files over from Steam without permission from the user. That is... bad. That is just bad. And they have said as much and they are working on it. Does that mean as quickly as we'd like? No, but if that is a problem still there a year after launch for Epic, I think they'll get crucified. If what they had been doing was illegal, Steam's vocal complaints and suspicions about them would have brought out a settlement... But again, I'll get to Steam later.

3. Epic Games is Killing PC Games With Exclusives!

Alright. *cracks knuckles* We're now getting into the stuff that REALLY pisses me off to hear. So, let's first talk about what exactly exclusivity on a platform means and how it is obtained. A publisher/company affiliated with a console, such as Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, will hear a pitch from a company and nod saying that they like it. They like it so much that they'll give the developers MUCH more money then usual for a publishing deal if they are willing to only put it on their console. This is supposed to be a forever thing because it's how the company makes back its money through sales of their consoles and higher brand recognition. It is almost entirely a marketing tactic... on the publisher's side.

Now let's swap that to the developer's side. They want to take a risk and do something big and out of the box. This can be creating a third person shooter with shields, an alien world, and NEXT GEN GRAPHICS!, or create a big, open world superherp game that makes you FEEL like the superhero. Or, maybe, it allows a company to try to break from a normal formula of knights, European aesthetic, and slow gameplay to something faster, Cthulhu and Victorian in mythos. And if none of you have picked up on the fact that I'm talking about Bloodborne, Spiderman 2018, and HALO, then you live under a rock. Exclusive deals have led to some of the best, genre defining games period because of the additional development time, money, and help they get for doing this.

So, where does Epic sit on this? Well, PC exclusivity has kind of always been a thing, but they're changing it to launcher exclusivity...

3.5 Epic Games adds another Launcher! Grow a fucking pair you entitled pieces of shit! It's one fucking launcher that's entirely free to download!

Sorry for that outburst. I genuinely cannot put up with that argument after my time at Job Corp. Anyways, what they're doing is that they'll give a company extra money and marketing, like any exclusive deal, for them to sell only on the Epic Games Store page... for a year. After a year they have no control over it unless the developer has decided to work only with Epic period as far as sales go. This approach has garnered them a lot of hate from gamers who are watching their favorite game series like Metro. The go there to die...

And sell more copies of their game than they did for the previous installment. Yeah, weird how awful this is when so many developers love it. They get to experiment with their games more, take more time, and Epic is willing to put in the effort to show them off unlike.. Well, I'll get to it.

4. Epic Games is Killing Games and the Economy By Giving Developers More Money

*opens mouth* *closes it* *sighs* I genuinely told one of my followers to fuck off over this point. That statement people make about the revenue split is so mind boggling counter intuitive that it pisses me off that I actually have to fucking talk about it. But, talk about it I do have to.

So, for anyone who doesn't know, Epic takes 12% of revenue from game sales on their platform. On top of that, if you use Unreal Engine, their engine, to make the game, they waive the 5% licensing fee they normally do on other platforms. Steam on the other hand, and I'm not waiting this time because fuck you Steam, takes 30% of every sale and only gives 70% back. So, let's say you make a game using Unreal. Here are the numbers for developers on returns:

Steam: 30% to Steam + 5% to Epic for their engine = 35% of sales taken off before ever seeing the developer.

Epic: 12% to Epic= 12% taken away before seeing the developer.

That is three times as much lost if you are using Unreal. If you're not, it's still two and a half times as much lost. So, I'm going to go into an analogy I heard at one point about Epic. That Epic is like Walmart in their predatory tactics and trying to undercut their competitors. However, let's actually compare how the two are going about this. Walmart does it by telling manufacturers that, due to their lion share of the market, that they can either sell to them cheaper, thus allowing Walmart to sell at lower prices at higher profit to themselves, or they won't stock a product and thus the company will stay in obscurity. Larger companies will take this because they have their own money to wave around and bully the places they get their resources from, forcing those companies to have to do the same and etc. etc. This is part of why Walmart screws over their employees and customers so infamously. They have to cut a corner in order to get this buying power and they do so by screwing everyone who isn't them.

Epic meanwhile... takes the hit to the chin and keeps going. They figured out that as purely a digital distributor that upkeep and service fees on their store did not need to be so high so, in order to be competitive, they took the financial burden on themselves and spread the money to the other companies and their developers. They thus increase the ability for these companies to make more games, treat their employees better, and spread money into other sectors of the economy because of the investment that...

Holy shit, Regen was right for the first time literally ever about Trickle Down Economics. Shame someone isn't doing that despite their profits...

5. Epic Games is Killing the Economy With Their New Sale!

This is going to hit everything of the Epic Games Epic Sale that is going on. For anyone who doesn't know, the sale is that any game that is 14.99 or higher is on sale at specifically 10 dollars off, even if it was already at a discount. How is it on sale? Well, Epic is making it so that instead of the developer or publisher having to decide to lower the price of it, Epic is once again taking it to the chin to give the discount themselves and paying the ten dollars out of pocket while their developers see no change in what they get for each sale. It's akin to Subtember on Twitch where if you got a gift sub, you could get another month at an extreme discount while the streamer on Twitch got the full amount of the sub they normally do.

So, what went wrong? Well, somethings legitimately wrong. Epic incorrectly thought that because they were taking the monetary hit that they could do this without warning and/or consulting the developers and game holders ahead of time. Theoretically, this makes sense as they're only trying to do the developers a solid through this pricing. The problem is that it messes up promotional campaigns that these other companies plan to do and... to some fucking morons, 'devalues the product'. To explain why that's wrong... AH!

So, when does a sale happen normally? Well, let's use Walmart and their clearance section. An item goes there when it is deemed no longer wanted by the populace and they want to get rid of it. At the price it is put at, it is commonly sold at a loss or break even for the company, but people who would not spend the original amount on the item will now be interested in it, increasing demand and making sure the item gets sold so they get some money back from the purchase. A digital sale is similar, but this time just being willing to accept less profits from those who wouldn't buy it otherwise. After all, digitally it takes very little to stock an endless supply of a product on a marketplace, so you never have to worry about initial investment that needs to be made up. However, how many times have you seen a game on Steam and go, "Well, that's neat, but I'm going to wait for a sale." In that moment, you have become someone who has deemed that product less valuable than it is initially proposed at. Companies know that there are people out there like that and thus will reach out to get those sales by dropping the price temporarily and making sure you buy the product at all rather than never.

This also DOESN'T DEVALUE THE PRODUCT! Just because something went on sale before does not mean it's suddenly tarnished. People are, USUALLY, smart enough to go, "Man, it was nice for them to put this 20 dollar game on sale for a week at 10 dollars. It's a shame I couldn't get it then, but 20 dollars was the price it is normally sold at." Something going off sale is not  a fucking price hike (and yes, I saw Jim Sterling's video earlier today, and yes I think he's a fucking moron like usual) but instead it returning to normality.

A fucking price hike is the bullshit that Supergiant Games pulled. See, they came up with an excuse that "Hey, our European fans can't get the discount because of a few cents because Epic is (it wasn't) screwing up getting the conversion right." So what did they do? Up the price by a dollar and thus keep their actions honest? Nope! They upped it to 25 bucks instead of the 20 it is commonly sold at and claimed "Hey, we always planned to make it this price anyways, we're just doing it earlier now." And this is where this type of sale comes into trouble for the person trying to do right. Supergiant realized that if they raised the price by five dollars they could still look like their game was on sale at 15 while raking in another $4.40 off of every purchase generated by the sale. That is a tactic joked about in clothing commercials about retail stores doing so that their sale looks better, but doesn't actually save you as much money.

And guess who hasn't corroborated with the claim that the sale didn't work in Europe? Europeans. Guess what game is still eligible for sale after Supergiant put it back down to 19.99 because of backlash? Hades, the game Supergiant upped the price on. That isn't Epic's fault. That should be getting people to think twice about how good Supergiant is and make them concerned as to what other bad practices they might be employing in order to make an additional profit.

Now, the last thing I will comment on in the sale is the lack of a shopping cart. Because there is no shopping cart, purchases must be made individually. After a time, to try to help against fraud, banks and online services will often lock a card or account if they deem this sort of activity as unusual. This takes, at best, just a call to your bank to fix. I don't know what the worst case scenario is. This was a GROSS oversight on Epic's part and hopefully will be fixed by the time the sale is over in a MONTH. So, like much of the rest of Epic's stuff, it is damaged by moving too fast, not preparing enough, and by customer facing aspects that are ugly and NEED to be fixed.

I would rather have that then

6. Steam

Yeah, I want to open a discussion on this too. After all, what has Steam done since Epic has opened their store? What has Steam done over the past half decade? Arguably: Little good, and little of anything people want. After all, Steam's client still doesn't feature mutliple tabs, they tried implementing paid mods without improving the client at all or explaining why it would be better for modders to do so (just that they would ALL make more money) and they have LOOOOVED fanning fan flames furiously over Epic. After all, if they didn't what would happen?

They would have to try. They would have to do something other than trying to make as much money as possible. And this isn't just me trying to make Steam/Valve out to be a villain. This is reminding people that they are. After all, Valve's biggest published game in the past few years was Evolved. Evolved was a game that, by PUBLISHER DEMAND was decided to have a season pass, lock most of its content behind hundreds of hours of grinding, and this all led to a game that ended up dead rather than the something special it could have been. At this point the developers have even turned it free to play to try to keep the game alive, but for many it was too little too late.

Steam has gone unopposed for too long with practices that aren't healthy. That comparison before of Walmart? Well, if Epic fails, every developer who wants to publish on PC will have the same problem they had before as they turn around to Steam and ask, "Hey, can you only take a 12% cut so we can try to keep making games?"

Steam: "Sweety, if you're that strapped for cash, just crunch some unpaid overtime and give me my fucking money." Because that has been Steam's response this past half a year and to developers who could really use a break to help make it so that their companies can be incentivized to take care of their developers. But hey, I mean, if you're a game that will get lost in the Steam shuffle because you aren't made well enough to get on Epic (which I do hope is changed someday) but were never going to make it anywhere on the front page of Steam... Well, Steam isn't ever going to give you that big, front page banner ad, and I really only have sorry to say to you and to wish you the best of luck, because Steam isn't going to reward you for their loyalty, or they haven't shown any sign of that yet.

And again, I would love to hear from all of you in the comments below. Also, an admitted counter to Steam's stuff is that they are now allowing more porn on the website, but I feel like that's more to compete with Nutaku than to allow better games onto their platform unfortunately, because we need better developed porn games first.

[topicprinter]

I wrote this as a means of getting it out of my head. Im hoping it gives me both insight into my situation and hopefully some therapeutic reprieve. Sharing now as Im curious the outcome for others who have been through something similar.I've been running my business for over 4 years now and am about $50k shy of hitting the $1M in revenue marker(total not annual). I'm happy I've been able to make it four years, make some money but truthfully, I hate my business and I don't know what to do next. The euphemism that speaks the most to me right now is that fact that I don't own a business - it owns me. The idea of taking vacation stresses me out, the idea of getting married next month stresses me out, the idea of a honeymoon or really anything where I'm supposed to “take a break” just freaks me right out.First off, a little about my business. Digital Marketing. I'm a mix between a consultant and an agency - meaning I have no staff but a lot of contractors. My background is in banking, but I've always dabbled in building my own sites and doing basic SEO. When I finally got out of banking (soul-sucking), I wanted to really invest into my digital skillset, so I hammered a bunch of different agencies in town and eventually got picked up by a development shop. I started in sales, performed well and after about two years, got into Project Management as I thought that would lend better to running my own show one day. In retrospect, it was chaos. Very little process, most projects were over budget, staff was burnt out and it was usually quite tense. That said, I did enjoy it and it felt like how it was supposed to be. I eventually left because I learned I cared more about what happened after launch, than the launch itself - like what good is a new design if it doesn't sell more of your shit?Within my first 3~ months, I had 3 clients and had largely replaced my income in revenue.One thing from the start that could have made my life easier was specializing. I didn’t focus in on a specific niche or a service. I did local, SEO, PPC, email, analytics, landing pages, copywriting - and Id do it for anyone I wanted to work for based on a feeling. Within my first year, I had enough clients that my role turned into Account Manager, Sales and Project Management and I had to build out a remote team of contractors. It was and continues to be interesting.I was good at a couple of things to make this happen: building trust, trusting my intuition and work ethic. I did turn away a lot of clients. I knew a snake when I saw one and I knew when I was a good fit. In my four years, I've been fired twice, once shortly after year one and another one in February of this year. I had always been very proud of that due to the reputation of our industry, however, the one in February stung...a lot. I did a lot of work for them during that time, and when I signed them, were my second largest retainer to date. They were tough to manage as they were a small scrappy, first time entrepreneurs but the platform was there to make a big splash. I made such a splash, and while it wasn’t always graceful - it fuckin worked and I was stoked. We closed the year extremely well and I felt extremely proud of what we had accomplished. Then I lost the contract and was offered to retain about 15% of it.This definitely rocked my world a little bit. To work so hard and grow a business so much, just to have it all taken away. I was and still am bummed - but this loss is part of why I'm reflecting now and I'm confident the outcome will be worth the struggle.Through these four years - I suffered consistently from imposter syndrome. I didn't feel *great* at any of the services and there was a lot of them. It was also tough to manage quality with contractors as everyone had a varying skillset, reliability, and attitude.That said, I did some amazing work for good local businesses. Took on a few big eCommerce projects and one massive global communications project for a combination of the Department of Defense and a specific States local tourism authority. My fear/imposter syndrome was often under wraps by the words of affirmations I got from the people I worked with. They seemed to think I knew what I was doing - so just keep working hard, research when you're stuck and be honest with people. I am proud of the difference I've made on every account I've worked on - but what I ignored is that I loathe being mediocre at a lot of things.Shit really hit the fan last year when my Dad got sick. Fuck cancer, and I won't open that can of worms. Adding the part-time job of being a care aid to a sick man, managing a business, a puppy and planning a wedding was/is rough. I am reflecting on all of this now, as I’m phasing myself out of a very large eCommerce client ($120-$200k/mo ad spend and a totally separate story) and for the first time in 14 months, I finally feel like I have time to breathe.Right now, I think I'm burnt out of service work...or maybe just burnt out in general. I'm doing too many things to do them really well and require too many people to keep myself sane. I have management problems, process problems, people problems and a new found discontent with someone being able to take the businesses away.When I give myself permission to explore what it means to be burnt out of service work, I wonder what’s on the other side?I see a few options:Specialize and focus on Local - I really do enjoy helping local businesses figure out digital and in my opinion, miles less complicated than sorting out global ecomm and all the fun bells and whistles that come with that. That said, still service work and in order to be something Id want to do, I'd really need to nail down what the services are and how they’re delivered.Start my own eComm - this idea excites me and scares me. I have every skill in the world required to run my own shop; I just don’t have a product. I'd love to build a brand, have people love what we’re up to and love our product. but what product?! Truthfully, I think I'm letting perfectionism stop me here and if I'm going to do it, just starting would be the fastest way rather than finding the perfect product.Get a job - truthfully, this idea sounds almost like a vacation. I’ve had a few normal jobs in my life and I’ve always absolutely crushed them. The idea of showing up at 9am, having someone else tell me what to do, I do it and clock out at 5. I obviously know it’s not always that cut and dry, but the point is, the amount of responsibility I carry diminishes significantly. I don’t decide on the offering, so I don’t need to worry about or question the value, I don’t need to prioritize a rolling task list with hundreds of items. Blah blah blah. That said, I do sacrifice flexibility.The other perk to getting a job again is community. I’ve been flying solo for so long that Im getting lonely and I miss working with people. People to suffer with when shit gets hard. People to celebrate with when you pull it off - just another human in the office to be around.That pretty much feels like the end of my rant. I'm tired and will continue to take advantage of this break to truly reflect on where I want to go next. I know I need to do something different and on the hunt for what that next thing will be. In the meantime, I'm getting married in 41 days and would love to carry this peace of mind leading into that day.That’s all for now.

[djsamaha-blog]

Building a Blog While Working Full-Time? Cut Out EVERYTHING Except These 3 Things

Let me guess…

Between the 9-5, the 30-minutes-each-way commute, and having a social life, you feel like you're piling too much on your plate.

You're terrible at using the little free time you do have to work on your side hustle, because you're exhausted.

So how do you find time to focus on your own blog when you're already working all day for somebody else?

If this sounds familiar, it's because I know what you're going through. I've been there.

When I started my first blog, I was working full-time and taking a full-time course load. When I started Unsettle, I held down a contract that took up most of my daytime hours.

Now, I juggle coaching clients, freelancing clients, consulting clients, online courses, product creation, contributing to other publications like Huffington Post, writing for Unsettle, and being a new mom.

“Content marketing” – or my blog – is the one thing that keeps my business going and allows me to make multiple 5-figures/month. . So how do I juggle it all?

And more importantly, how can you juggle your full-time gig with your fledgling blog and live to tell the tale?

Well, you cut out everything and become hyper-focused on three things.

The Only 3 Things You Need to Focus on To Build Your Blog

A funny thing happens when you start a blog.

You're writing articles, interacting with your readers, answering comments, and then you're yanked in a different direction.

Social media!

YouTube videos!

You've got shiny object syndrome, which would be fine, if only you had time for that shit. But you don't. You're a side-hustler, and you need to focus.

There are only three things you need to focus on to build a profitable blog.

Notice that I said profitable blog. You can do whatever you want – and focus on whatever you want – if you're journalling. That's cool.

But if you want to build a blog that not only has an impact on the world but also gives you at least the option to quit that 9-5, here are the three things you need to buckle down on:

Building Your Email List

Nurturing Your Audience

Solving Problems

Let’s go.

1. Building Your Email List

When I started my first blog, and throughout the entire time I owned it, I didn't have an email list.

Big mistake.

Without an email list I missed out on the opportunity to have a great relationship with my readers – not to mention tens of thousands of dollars I would have been able to earn if I had one.

Your email list is your results driver and will make everything you do easier.

Why You Need an Email List

Think of your email list as your VIP readership. They gave you their email because they considered your resources valuable, liked you, and want to hear more from you.

Your subscribers are more likely to interact with your brand, tell a friend about you, buy a product, or enroll in a course.

They’re the real MVPs. Statistics show that:

Email marketing has the highest ROI of any other marketing platform available. A 4300% ROI, to be exact.

Landing a new customer is 40x more likely on email than it is on social media.

People click on email links 6x more than Tweets.

The subscribers on your email list are 3x more likely to share your content on social media than a visitor from another source.

Ok, so more conversions, money, traffic, and shares. So far so good, right? The benefits don’t stop there.

Having an engaged email list also means…

It’s easier to make money. Because your subscribers like and trust you, they’re more likely to support your launches and buy your products. Your marketing efforts will be more effective with them than with strangers on Facebook.

It’s cheaper, too. You can make more money by sending a single email to your 4000-people email list than by spending thousands of dollars on Facebook ads to bring 10k people to your landing page.

How? It’s all about your conversion rate. If your email marketing conversion rate is 7% and the conversion rate of Facebook marketing is 2%, considering you have a $30 product, here’s what happens…

4k*7%=280*$30=$8.4k in sales.

10k*2%=200*$30=$6k-$2.7k(ad fee*)=$3.3k in sales.

*The CPC (cost-per-click) is $0.27 in average and we are assuming 10k people click through your ad.

Email list for the win. With email marketing, you don’t have to pay for ads, you get a higher conversion rate, and you don’t even need a giant list to make it happen.

You have guaranteed traffic. With an audience eager to read your articles, you don’t have to hope the SEO gods to send you traffic, or that your article will go viral on Twitter. If your email click-through is 20% (on a 4k person list), you’ll have an initial traffic boost of 800 people who’ll read, comment, and share your article. Better than refreshing your new blog post for 10 mins and seeing a big fat 0 on your share bar, right?

You can easily validate your product ideas. Have an idea for a course you’re not sure people will buy? Just ask your subscribers what they struggle with regarding the topic of your course. For example, if you want to create a course about indoor gardening, you’ll ask your list “Do you wish you could start an indoor garden? What stops you? What would make it easy?”. This will help you 1) realize whether or not you have the right idea for the course and 2) know your audience better.

You are in total control. Your email list is yours, and no platform or corporation can take it away. There’s no middle man who can affect your reach by changing its algorithm, so your access to your subscribers relies solely on you.

You can access your audience any time you want. Because you’re in control, you can choose when to contact your readers. If you just published an article, you can tell your audience immediately and get a traffic boost, instead of having to wait for it to gain traction on social media.

You have your target market on speed dial. Struggling to find the right words for your sales page? Wondering what type of offers will attract your audience? Take a peek inside your readers’ minds. Ask them what their #1 struggle is right now, and use their words in your copy, or ask them what they’d like to learn the most from you, and create freebies around that.

You can literally make money while you sleep. What if I told you, you can create an automated email marketing sequence in an hour that will do the selling for you 24/7 without you lifting a finger? You can when you have an engaged email list. You’re able to set up an email sequence with premium offers once, automate it, and then watch the money roll into your Paypal account.

You can bond with your audience. The more you talk and share with your readers, the more they’ll care about you. Chatting with your subscribers through email creates a level of trust and connection no other platform can match.

Want to have the time to grow your email list? Click here to sign up for my time management class and learn how to build a profitable blog when you're working full-time.

Now that you’re convinced growing your email list is crucial for your biz, it’s time to take action.

Get started with these tools:

The Tools I Use to Grow My Email List

Sumo

I love using Sumo for email capture. I offer content upgrades, freebies, and courses with their easy-to-customize opt-in boxes, welcome mats, click triggers, and in-line forms.

The clean dashboard gives me a quick overview of how each form is performing, and all the opt-ins can be edited in minutes with a drag-and-drop editor.

You can create a high-converting form in just six steps.

Full disclosure: I write for Sumo, so while I don’t get any affiliate commission for mentioning them, I may be slightly biased 😉

Click Funnels

I use Click Funnels to design landing pages and some opt-in forms. Their editor is intuitive and I love how easy it is to A/B test all the elements I want.

ConvertKit

ConvertKit is my new email service provider.

I use it to schedule emails, create automated sequences, segment my audience by the topic they’re interested in, and A/B test my headlines to make sure I’m using the language that resonates the most with my audience.

An email service provider is necessary — think of it like a house for your new subscribers. It stores the emails that Sumo and Click Funnels allows you to capture, and communicate with your people.

Grow Your List With Irresistible Content Upgrades

Once you have the right tools to capture leads, it’s time to use them in the most effective way. That means setting up pops-ups all over your blog, right?

Wrong.

Random pop-ups on your site will grow your list as fast as writing “subscribe to my list” in a piece of paper, putting it inside a bottle, and throwing it into the sea.

The only way to skyrocket your email list is by combining…

The right offer

The right opt-in form for that offer

That’s where content upgrades come in.

If you want to grow your list, give people something they want and need.

Content upgrades are content-specific bonus resources that boost the value of your articles. An effective upgrade complements a blog post so well it feels like a no-brainer to get it.

Any resource that makes your article more actionable, more digestible, and easier to follow, is an useful content upgrade. For example:

A checklist.

A workbook.

A template.

A printable pdf.

This video class 😉

Next time you write an blog post, include a downloadable resource to shower your readers with value and grow your email list.

After you’ve optimized your site for conversions, the next step is…

2. Nurturing a Great Relationship with Your Audience

This funny things seems to happen with some bloggers as they grow.

They sit on top of their growth like Scrooge McDuck on a pile of cash and forget about the real meaning of what they have.

Behind their email lists they have human beings who care enough to pay attention to what they're writing, saying, and doing, and supporting them on the ride.

I think a lot of the online marketing world forgets that the number you see when you log into Aweber or ConvertKit or MailChimp? Those are real people.

There's no point in building an email list or a blog at all if you don't care about them, too.

This is why you need an amazing relationship with those people who have subscribed to your email list, and read your blog.

Spend time nurturing a relationship with them. They're not robots and neither are you.

How to Connect with Your Audience

You’ll interact with your audience in three places:

On your email

On your blog

On social media

Since your time is limited, you can’t spend 4 hours chatting with people on Twitter, so you have to focus on your most impactful interactions and cut out the rest. Here’s how:

What to Send Your Email List

Once you set up opt-in boxes with irresistible freebies and subscribers start pouring in, you have to keep them engaged.

Getting your readers’ emails is just step one. You have to make it worth their while and grow the relationship. This is exactly what you should send your list:

A Killer Welcome Email

A welcome email is the beginning of your relationship with your subscribers, so make it a an awesome one.

Your first email should have:

A friendly headline.

A thank you for signing up to your list.

A short explanation of what your readers can expect from your emails.

A description of who you are, what you do, and why you do it (optional).

Links to your most helpful/popular resources (optional).

An invitation to follow you on social media.

In my welcome email, I tell my readers what they can expect from my emails, who I am, what is Unsettle, and why I started it:

Noah’s welcome email encourages replies by asking his readers what type of emails they want to receive from him:

Tim Ferriss’ first email points his readers to his best material:

The two main goals of your welcome email are:

To set the right expectations.

To get your readers excited about being a part of your list.

Once you do that, you can start sending out your best resources.

New Article Updates

Your subscribers should be the first to know when you publish a new article. Send them a short email with a link to your new piece each time you publish to give them priority and boost your traffic.

This is the email I sent my list last week when I published my latest article:

Exclusive Tips

Share helpful tips and tools that have worked for you with your subscribers. I sent my list this productivity hack one day that I felt insanely focused and energized:

Exclusive Discounts

If you are doing affiliate marketing or have your own course or product, show your subs some love with a promo code. Gina Horkey from Horkey Handbook sent her list a promo code for 25% off on a pitch template bundle. Who doesn’t love saving money?

Invitations to Webinars and Workshops

If you’re having a webinar, masterclass, training, or workshop, tell your email list first. You’ll boost attendance and they might invite their friends because they trust you. Look at how Nico Moreno did it:

Behind-the-Scenes Sneak Peeks

Build a stronger relationship with your audience by sharing some behind-the-scenes snippets. Being real and transparent with your subscribers will make them like and trust you even more. People can’t relate to a faceless brand, but they can relate to you.

This is the email I sent my list after my daughter Poppy was born. I had been away from Unsettle for a while, and here I explained why and made the big reveal:

Surveys

Remember what I said before about validating your course and product ideas with your list? That’s how I finished up my Etsy course. I sent my list a short & sweet email about the upcoming course and asked them to take a quick survey to find out what they wanted to know about running an Etsy shop. I received a ton of responses that I used to shape the copy of the sales page and the course itself.

Pro tip: Use Survey Monkey to create quick surveys for your list. Step #1. After creating your account, click on “Create Survey”.Step #2. Choose “start from scratch”. Step #3. Name your survey and choose the right category. Step #4. Customize your survey.

Newsletter Topics

If you picked the newsletter option to grow your list, you’re probably wondering what it should be about. Get inspired with these newsletter formats:

The weekly curation. Cover a lot of ground by curating your favorite reads and finds of the week. Include a mix of your own content as well as other people’s resources, news, and tools. See how Nat does it in his Monday Medley newsletter:

The practical newsletter. Show off your expertise (and research skills) by sharing weekly tips that make life easier for your readers. Amy Lynn Andrews shares practical tips for bloggers, freelancers, and business owners through her “Useletter”.

The private article. Instead of talking about 5 different things, focus on one topic. Paul Jarvis sends one useful mini article every weekend on his Sunday Dispatches.

The conversation starter. Start a discussion with your readers by giving your opinion on a subject and asking questions. You want to make your readers feel they’re having a chat with you. Lauren from Restored 316 Designs sends a weekly “From Lauren’s Desk” newsletter to discuss blogging-related topics with her readers.

Answer your email

Reply to emails from your readers personally. If someone admires you and your work enough to email you about it, a thoughtful response will make them feel acknowledged and appreciated, which increases trust in your brand.

How To Interact With Your Fans

Foster a deep sense of community around your brand by actively interacting with your followers on your blog and social media.

Focus on these 2 things:

#1. Reply to blog post comments. Replying to each and every comment makes those readers feel appreciated and shows others that you care about your audience. The more you reply, the more likely people are to leave a comment.

#2. Pick ONE social media channel and excel at it. Dabbling into social media without a clear strategy is a disservice to your business. You simply don't have the time to keep up with all the social media platforms competing for your attention. That’s exactly why you need to laser focus your efforts on a single channel instead of spreading yourself thin across many platforms. Pick your favorite social media channel and be hella active in there. The rest can wait.

For example, let’s say you pick Instagram. You’ll have to:

Post at least once a day

Reply to the comments people leave on your photos

Reply to DMs

Like and comment on posts from your fans

Get my time management class to learn the productivity strategies that will help you free up more time to interact with your audience and grow your blog.

3. Becoming a Problem-Solving Ninja

After you have built and email list and nurtured a relationship with the people on it, further that relationship (and your audience) by actually contributing to their lives.

The words “provide value” are tossed around so much in internet marketing that they're devoid of all their – well, value. Don't just provide value. You can provide value by handing out pennies.

Contribute to your audience's lives in a meaningful way. Make an impact on them. Solve the problems they're experiencing with your topic, niche, or industry.

Don't hand out pennies. Hand out Benjamins worth of valuable, useful, and actionable guides, tips, advice, inspiration and just general written badassery.

How to Change Your Readers’ Lives

#1. Create the best damn content in your niche

If you want to make a life-changing impact on your readers, you have to become their go-to resource.

Be so helpful that your name is the first thing that pops into their minds when they need a solution related to what you teach.

You can achieve that level of authority by creating the top resources on your field.

There’s no point in pounding away at your keyboard for hours if you are not trying to create the best content out there.

Cranking out helpful resources won’t only boost your credibility and authority, it’ll also…

Improve your Google rankings

Boost your traffic

Get new readers in your email list

Turn you into an influencer

Help you get more clients and customers

I know that creating “the best” resources sounds daunting, but if you’re willing to put in the work it’s 100% doable.

Let’s pretend you’re trying to create the best resources about biking. Here’s what you do:

Step #1: Listen to what your audience needs

The first step to creating awesome content is doing your research. You want to find out:

What people want to read about biking. Use Answer the Public to find the topics and keywords people are searching for.

You’ll get all these results by typing in “biking”:

Just download the CSV file to make it easier to study:

Search Reddit & Quora for questions people have about your topic and the problems they face.

Quora search for “biking”:

Reddit search in r/bicycling:

How they want to read it. Google your topic in a incognito window to see the top organic results. What format are they in?

This website has long-form, detailed, and image-heavy articles, as well as videos. That’s how bikers like to consume content, so that’s the type of resources you have to create.

Step #2: Look at what is missing from other resources

Now that you have a sense of the problems bikers have, take a look at the articles from your competition and identify:

Weaknesses and gaps.

How you can improve those aspects.

Spend 1-2 hours checking the top resources on your niche, and then come up with a list things you can do better than them. Perhaps you can add more imagery, write more clearly, format your article better, write longer articles, make nicer videos, or remove annoying ads.

Step #3: Write better articles

After discovering how you can beat your competition, it’s time to craft your best content.

Brainstorm 20-30 headline ideas using the same headline structure your competitors use, and then pick the one you like the most.

For example, if you used the headline structure of this article:

You could come up a headline like this: 5 Pieces of Gear That Make Riding In The City Way Safer- and 3 Mistakes To Avoid.

Outline your article with the main points. Write down every single possible subtopic so you have a clear structure and flow. Remember you want to create an incredible resource, so the more points the better.

Do your research. Close any knowledge gaps you might have by researching the heck out of each point. Keep open the tabs with studies or relevant resources you want to link to in your piece.

Just write. Now that you have an article outline and researched your topic, start typing.

Proofread like your life depends on it. Ok, your life doesn’t depend on it, but your impact does. Read and re-read your piece until it’s the best it can be. Ask yourself these questions:

Does it sound conversational and friendly?

Is it entertaining?

Does your personality shine through?

Are your points backed up with studies?

Are you simplifying some concepts with metaphors and analogies?

Are you using language your target audience would use?

Are your paragraphs short and to the point?

Is your writing fluff-free?

Step #4. Promote your articles like crazy

After creating the best possible article, share it with the world.

Use an SEO plugin like Yoast SEO to make sure your article is optimized for search engines before you hit “Publish”. This won’t create any short-term results, but doing SEO right from the beginning pays off incredibly well in the long-term.

Tell your email list about it.

Post it on your Facebook page and FB group.

Post it on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Digg and Stumbleupon.

Post it to the right subreddit. In this case, r/bicycling.

Answer a Quora question about the topic you just wrote about, and drop a link to your article at the end.

Reach out to the authors of any articles you linked to, and politely ask if they would be willing to share it.

#2. Answer questions in forums and groups

Get the attention of your target audience by being extra helpful at the online communities they hang out.

When you offer value for free, you quickly cut through the noise and people start to notice you.

These are the best places to show off your expertise:

Facebook groups

Which FB groups have your ideal audience? Be there and become a valuable member by…

Responding to other people’s posts in a helpful way.

Posting 2-3 times a week on the group.

Sharing tips and asking thought-provoking questions.

That’s what Nico Moreno did in the Unsettle FB group when he became a member:

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

He posted crazy useful copywriting tips several times a week just to help out other members.

That’s the kind of generosity that will get you noticed by your potential readers and customers. In fact, this tactic landed Nico high-playing clients who discovered him through these type of posts.

Don’t be stingy with your knowledge. The more you give the more you receive.

Quora

Answering relevant Quora questions makes you visible to your target audience and generates traffic to your site. Plus, the person who asked the question gets massive value from you.

Reddit

Creating Reddit threads with useful advice can send you a lot of traffic if you do it right.

Method #1: Post the right article in the right subreddit. Drop your link in a community that makes sense, like I did here:

I posted an article about toxic beliefs in a productivity subreddit and replied to all the comments.

Method #2. Include your article in a text post, not a link.

Instead of linking directly to your site, type out your advice in the text field and add a link to your piece at the bottom.

Why? Doing it like this will elicit more responses and make you look like a true problem-solver ninja.

Focus On These 3 Things and You'll Never Starve

You only have a few hours a week to focus on your blog.

You don't have time to waste on frivolous things. Your full-time job is demanding and you need to buckle down and focus.

So cut everything out except these three things. After all, to build a profitable business of any sort – including audience-based businesses like a blog – people need to know, like, and trust you.

Building your email list: Your audience is getting to know you.

Nurturing a great relationship with the people on your email list: Your audience is starting to like you.

Handing out Benjamins: Your audience is starting to trust you.

Nothing else matters.

If you're wondering how to manage your time such that you can fit even these things in as you work full time, my friend Tor (who is a time management bad ass) and I hosted a free class to help you through it.

The class is 100% free, and we won't try to sell you anything on it. We just want to set you up for blogging success.

Cool?

Want to Leave a Comment?Join the conversation in the Free Facebook Group

Hey, don't kill your momentum.

http://www.successwize.com/building-a-blog-while-working-full-time-cut-out-everything-except-these-3-things/

[djsamaha-blog]

Building a Blog While Working Full-Time? Cut Out EVERYTHING Except These 3 Things

Let me guess…

Between the 9-5, the 30-minutes-each-way commute, and having a social life, you feel like you're piling too much on your plate.

You're terrible at using the little free time you do have to work on your side hustle, because you're exhausted.

So how do you find time to focus on your own blog when you're already working all day for somebody else?

If this sounds familiar, it's because I know what you're going through. I've been there.

When I started my first blog, I was working full-time and taking a full-time course load. When I started Unsettle, I held down a contract that took up most of my daytime hours.

Now, I juggle coaching clients, freelancing clients, consulting clients, online courses, product creation, contributing to other publications like Huffington Post, writing for Unsettle, and being a new mom.

“Content marketing” – or my blog – is the one thing that keeps my business going and allows me to make multiple 5-figures/month. . So how do I juggle it all?

And more importantly, how can you juggle your full-time gig with your fledgling blog and live to tell the tale?

Well, you cut out everything and become hyper-focused on three things.

The Only 3 Things You Need to Focus on To Build Your Blog

A funny thing happens when you start a blog.

You're writing articles, interacting with your readers, answering comments, and then you're yanked in a different direction.

Social media!

YouTube videos!

You've got shiny object syndrome, which would be fine, if only you had time for that shit. But you don't. You're a side-hustler, and you need to focus.

There are only three things you need to focus on to build a profitable blog.

Notice that I said profitable blog. You can do whatever you want – and focus on whatever you want – if you're journalling. That's cool.

But if you want to build a blog that not only has an impact on the world but also gives you at least the option to quit that 9-5, here are the three things you need to buckle down on:

Building Your Email List

Nurturing Your Audience

Solving Problems

Let’s go.

1. Building Your Email List

When I started my first blog, and throughout the entire time I owned it, I didn't have an email list.

Big mistake.

Without an email list I missed out on the opportunity to have a great relationship with my readers – not to mention tens of thousands of dollars I would have been able to earn if I had one.

Your email list is your results driver and will make everything you do easier.

Why You Need an Email List

Think of your email list as your VIP readership. They gave you their email because they considered your resources valuable, liked you, and want to hear more from you.

Your subscribers are more likely to interact with your brand, tell a friend about you, buy a product, or enroll in a course.

They’re the real MVPs. Statistics show that:

Email marketing has the highest ROI of any other marketing platform available. A 4300% ROI, to be exact.

Landing a new customer is 40x more likely on email than it is on social media.

People click on email links 6x more than Tweets.

The subscribers on your email list are 3x more likely to share your content on social media than a visitor from another source.

Ok, so more conversions, money, traffic, and shares. So far so good, right? The benefits don’t stop there.

Having an engaged email list also means…

It’s easier to make money. Because your subscribers like and trust you, they’re more likely to support your launches and buy your products. Your marketing efforts will be more effective with them than with strangers on Facebook.

It’s cheaper, too. You can make more money by sending a single email to your 4000-people email list than by spending thousands of dollars on Facebook ads to bring 10k people to your landing page.

How? It’s all about your conversion rate. If your email marketing conversion rate is 7% and the conversion rate of Facebook marketing is 2%, considering you have a $30 product, here’s what happens…

4k*7%=280*$30=$8.4k in sales.

10k*2%=200*$30=$6k-$2.7k(ad fee*)=$3.3k in sales.

*The CPC (cost-per-click) is $0.27 in average and we are assuming 10k people click through your ad.

Email list for the win. With email marketing, you don’t have to pay for ads, you get a higher conversion rate, and you don’t even need a giant list to make it happen.

You have guaranteed traffic. With an audience eager to read your articles, you don’t have to hope the SEO gods to send you traffic, or that your article will go viral on Twitter. If your email click-through is 20% (on a 4k person list), you’ll have an initial traffic boost of 800 people who’ll read, comment, and share your article. Better than refreshing your new blog post for 10 mins and seeing a big fat 0 on your share bar, right?

You can easily validate your product ideas. Have an idea for a course you’re not sure people will buy? Just ask your subscribers what they struggle with regarding the topic of your course. For example, if you want to create a course about indoor gardening, you’ll ask your list “Do you wish you could start an indoor garden? What stops you? What would make it easy?”. This will help you 1) realize whether or not you have the right idea for the course and 2) know your audience better.

You are in total control. Your email list is yours, and no platform or corporation can take it away. There’s no middle man who can affect your reach by changing its algorithm, so your access to your subscribers relies solely on you.

You can access your audience any time you want. Because you’re in control, you can choose when to contact your readers. If you just published an article, you can tell your audience immediately and get a traffic boost, instead of having to wait for it to gain traction on social media.

You have your target market on speed dial. Struggling to find the right words for your sales page? Wondering what type of offers will attract your audience? Take a peek inside your readers’ minds. Ask them what their #1 struggle is right now, and use their words in your copy, or ask them what they’d like to learn the most from you, and create freebies around that.

You can literally make money while you sleep. What if I told you, you can create an automated email marketing sequence in an hour that will do the selling for you 24/7 without you lifting a finger? You can when you have an engaged email list. You’re able to set up an email sequence with premium offers once, automate it, and then watch the money roll into your Paypal account.

You can bond with your audience. The more you talk and share with your readers, the more they’ll care about you. Chatting with your subscribers through email creates a level of trust and connection no other platform can match.

Want to have the time to grow your email list? Click here to sign up for my time management class and learn how to build a profitable blog when you're working full-time.

Now that you’re convinced growing your email list is crucial for your biz, it’s time to take action.

Get started with these tools:

The Tools I Use to Grow My Email List

Sumo

I love using Sumo for email capture. I offer content upgrades, freebies, and courses with their easy-to-customize opt-in boxes, welcome mats, click triggers, and in-line forms.

The clean dashboard gives me a quick overview of how each form is performing, and all the opt-ins can be edited in minutes with a drag-and-drop editor.

You can create a high-converting form in just six steps.

Full disclosure: I write for Sumo, so while I don’t get any affiliate commission for mentioning them, I may be slightly biased 😉

Click Funnels

I use Click Funnels to design landing pages and some opt-in forms. Their editor is intuitive and I love how easy it is to A/B test all the elements I want.

ConvertKit

ConvertKit is my new email service provider.

I use it to schedule emails, create automated sequences, segment my audience by the topic they’re interested in, and A/B test my headlines to make sure I’m using the language that resonates the most with my audience.

An email service provider is necessary — think of it like a house for your new subscribers. It stores the emails that Sumo and Click Funnels allows you to capture, and communicate with your people.

Grow Your List With Irresistible Content Upgrades

Once you have the right tools to capture leads, it’s time to use them in the most effective way. That means setting up pops-ups all over your blog, right?

Wrong.

Random pop-ups on your site will grow your list as fast as writing “subscribe to my list” in a piece of paper, putting it inside a bottle, and throwing it into the sea.

The only way to skyrocket your email list is by combining…

The right offer

The right opt-in form for that offer

That’s where content upgrades come in.

If you want to grow your list, give people something they want and need.

Content upgrades are content-specific bonus resources that boost the value of your articles. An effective upgrade complements a blog post so well it feels like a no-brainer to get it.

Any resource that makes your article more actionable, more digestible, and easier to follow, is an useful content upgrade. For example:

A checklist.

A workbook.

A template.

A printable pdf.

This video class 😉

Next time you write an blog post, include a downloadable resource to shower your readers with value and grow your email list.

After you’ve optimized your site for conversions, the next step is…

2. Nurturing a Great Relationship with Your Audience

This funny things seems to happen with some bloggers as they grow.

They sit on top of their growth like Scrooge McDuck on a pile of cash and forget about the real meaning of what they have.

Behind their email lists they have human beings who care enough to pay attention to what they're writing, saying, and doing, and supporting them on the ride.

I think a lot of the online marketing world forgets that the number you see when you log into Aweber or ConvertKit or MailChimp? Those are real people.

There's no point in building an email list or a blog at all if you don't care about them, too.

This is why you need an amazing relationship with those people who have subscribed to your email list, and read your blog.

Spend time nurturing a relationship with them. They're not robots and neither are you.

How to Connect with Your Audience

You’ll interact with your audience in three places:

On your email

On your blog

On social media

Since your time is limited, you can’t spend 4 hours chatting with people on Twitter, so you have to focus on your most impactful interactions and cut out the rest. Here’s how:

What to Send Your Email List

Once you set up opt-in boxes with irresistible freebies and subscribers start pouring in, you have to keep them engaged.

Getting your readers’ emails is just step one. You have to make it worth their while and grow the relationship. This is exactly what you should send your list:

A Killer Welcome Email

A welcome email is the beginning of your relationship with your subscribers, so make it a an awesome one.

Your first email should have:

A friendly headline.

A thank you for signing up to your list.

A short explanation of what your readers can expect from your emails.

A description of who you are, what you do, and why you do it (optional).

Links to your most helpful/popular resources (optional).

An invitation to follow you on social media.

In my welcome email, I tell my readers what they can expect from my emails, who I am, what is Unsettle, and why I started it:

Noah’s welcome email encourages replies by asking his readers what type of emails they want to receive from him:

Tim Ferriss’ first email points his readers to his best material:

The two main goals of your welcome email are:

To set the right expectations.

To get your readers excited about being a part of your list.

Once you do that, you can start sending out your best resources.

New Article Updates

Your subscribers should be the first to know when you publish a new article. Send them a short email with a link to your new piece each time you publish to give them priority and boost your traffic.

This is the email I sent my list last week when I published my latest article:

Exclusive Tips

Share helpful tips and tools that have worked for you with your subscribers. I sent my list this productivity hack one day that I felt insanely focused and energized:

Exclusive Discounts

If you are doing affiliate marketing or have your own course or product, show your subs some love with a promo code. Gina Horkey from Horkey Handbook sent her list a promo code for 25% off on a pitch template bundle. Who doesn’t love saving money?

Invitations to Webinars and Workshops

If you’re having a webinar, masterclass, training, or workshop, tell your email list first. You’ll boost attendance and they might invite their friends because they trust you. Look at how Nico Moreno did it:

Behind-the-Scenes Sneak Peeks

Build a stronger relationship with your audience by sharing some behind-the-scenes snippets. Being real and transparent with your subscribers will make them like and trust you even more. People can’t relate to a faceless brand, but they can relate to you.

This is the email I sent my list after my daughter Poppy was born. I had been away from Unsettle for a while, and here I explained why and made the big reveal:

Surveys

Remember what I said before about validating your course and product ideas with your list? That’s how I finished up my Etsy course. I sent my list a short & sweet email about the upcoming course and asked them to take a quick survey to find out what they wanted to know about running an Etsy shop. I received a ton of responses that I used to shape the copy of the sales page and the course itself.

Pro tip: Use Survey Monkey to create quick surveys for your list. Step #1. After creating your account, click on “Create Survey”.Step #2. Choose “start from scratch”. Step #3. Name your survey and choose the right category. Step #4. Customize your survey.

Newsletter Topics

If you picked the newsletter option to grow your list, you’re probably wondering what it should be about. Get inspired with these newsletter formats:

The weekly curation. Cover a lot of ground by curating your favorite reads and finds of the week. Include a mix of your own content as well as other people’s resources, news, and tools. See how Nat does it in his Monday Medley newsletter:

The practical newsletter. Show off your expertise (and research skills) by sharing weekly tips that make life easier for your readers. Amy Lynn Andrews shares practical tips for bloggers, freelancers, and business owners through her “Useletter”.

The private article. Instead of talking about 5 different things, focus on one topic. Paul Jarvis sends one useful mini article every weekend on his Sunday Dispatches.

The conversation starter. Start a discussion with your readers by giving your opinion on a subject and asking questions. You want to make your readers feel they’re having a chat with you. Lauren from Restored 316 Designs sends a weekly “From Lauren’s Desk” newsletter to discuss blogging-related topics with her readers.

Answer your email

Reply to emails from your readers personally. If someone admires you and your work enough to email you about it, a thoughtful response will make them feel acknowledged and appreciated, which increases trust in your brand.

How To Interact With Your Fans

Foster a deep sense of community around your brand by actively interacting with your followers on your blog and social media.

Focus on these 2 things:

#1. Reply to blog post comments. Replying to each and every comment makes those readers feel appreciated and shows others that you care about your audience. The more you reply, the more likely people are to leave a comment.

#2. Pick ONE social media channel and excel at it. Dabbling into social media without a clear strategy is a disservice to your business. You simply don't have the time to keep up with all the social media platforms competing for your attention. That’s exactly why you need to laser focus your efforts on a single channel instead of spreading yourself thin across many platforms. Pick your favorite social media channel and be hella active in there. The rest can wait.

For example, let’s say you pick Instagram. You’ll have to:

Post at least once a day

Reply to the comments people leave on your photos

Reply to DMs

Like and comment on posts from your fans

Get my time management class to learn the productivity strategies that will help you free up more time to interact with your audience and grow your blog.

3. Becoming a Problem-Solving Ninja

After you have built and email list and nurtured a relationship with the people on it, further that relationship (and your audience) by actually contributing to their lives.

The words “provide value” are tossed around so much in internet marketing that they're devoid of all their – well, value. Don't just provide value. You can provide value by handing out pennies.

Contribute to your audience's lives in a meaningful way. Make an impact on them. Solve the problems they're experiencing with your topic, niche, or industry.

Don't hand out pennies. Hand out Benjamins worth of valuable, useful, and actionable guides, tips, advice, inspiration and just general written badassery.

How to Change Your Readers’ Lives

#1. Create the best damn content in your niche

If you want to make a life-changing impact on your readers, you have to become their go-to resource.

Be so helpful that your name is the first thing that pops into their minds when they need a solution related to what you teach.

You can achieve that level of authority by creating the top resources on your field.

There’s no point in pounding away at your keyboard for hours if you are not trying to create the best content out there.

Cranking out helpful resources won’t only boost your credibility and authority, it’ll also…

Improve your Google rankings

Boost your traffic

Get new readers in your email list

Turn you into an influencer

Help you get more clients and customers

I know that creating “the best” resources sounds daunting, but if you’re willing to put in the work it’s 100% doable.

Let’s pretend you’re trying to create the best resources about biking. Here’s what you do:

Step #1: Listen to what your audience needs

The first step to creating awesome content is doing your research. You want to find out:

What people want to read about biking. Use Answer the Public to find the topics and keywords people are searching for.

You’ll get all these results by typing in “biking”:

Just download the CSV file to make it easier to study:

Search Reddit & Quora for questions people have about your topic and the problems they face.

Quora search for “biking”:

Reddit search in r/bicycling:

How they want to read it. Google your topic in a incognito window to see the top organic results. What format are they in?

This website has long-form, detailed, and image-heavy articles, as well as videos. That’s how bikers like to consume content, so that’s the type of resources you have to create.

Step #2: Look at what is missing from other resources

Now that you have a sense of the problems bikers have, take a look at the articles from your competition and identify:

Weaknesses and gaps.

How you can improve those aspects.

Spend 1-2 hours checking the top resources on your niche, and then come up with a list things you can do better than them. Perhaps you can add more imagery, write more clearly, format your article better, write longer articles, make nicer videos, or remove annoying ads.

Step #3: Write better articles

After discovering how you can beat your competition, it’s time to craft your best content.

Brainstorm 20-30 headline ideas using the same headline structure your competitors use, and then pick the one you like the most.

For example, if you used the headline structure of this article:

You could come up a headline like this: 5 Pieces of Gear That Make Riding In The City Way Safer- and 3 Mistakes To Avoid.

Outline your article with the main points. Write down every single possible subtopic so you have a clear structure and flow. Remember you want to create an incredible resource, so the more points the better.

Do your research. Close any knowledge gaps you might have by researching the heck out of each point. Keep open the tabs with studies or relevant resources you want to link to in your piece.

Just write. Now that you have an article outline and researched your topic, start typing.

Proofread like your life depends on it. Ok, your life doesn’t depend on it, but your impact does. Read and re-read your piece until it’s the best it can be. Ask yourself these questions:

Does it sound conversational and friendly?

Is it entertaining?

Does your personality shine through?

Are your points backed up with studies?

Are you simplifying some concepts with metaphors and analogies?

Are you using language your target audience would use?

Are your paragraphs short and to the point?

Is your writing fluff-free?

Step #4. Promote your articles like crazy

After creating the best possible article, share it with the world.

Use an SEO plugin like Yoast SEO to make sure your article is optimized for search engines before you hit “Publish”. This won’t create any short-term results, but doing SEO right from the beginning pays off incredibly well in the long-term.

Tell your email list about it.

Post it on your Facebook page and FB group.

Post it on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Digg and Stumbleupon.

Post it to the right subreddit. In this case, r/bicycling.

Answer a Quora question about the topic you just wrote about, and drop a link to your article at the end.

Reach out to the authors of any articles you linked to, and politely ask if they would be willing to share it.

#2. Answer questions in forums and groups

Get the attention of your target audience by being extra helpful at the online communities they hang out.

When you offer value for free, you quickly cut through the noise and people start to notice you.

These are the best places to show off your expertise:

Facebook groups

Which FB groups have your ideal audience? Be there and become a valuable member by…

Responding to other people’s posts in a helpful way.

Posting 2-3 times a week on the group.

Sharing tips and asking thought-provoking questions.

That’s what Nico Moreno did in the Unsettle FB group when he became a member:

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

He posted crazy useful copywriting tips several times a week just to help out other members.

That’s the kind of generosity that will get you noticed by your potential readers and customers. In fact, this tactic landed Nico high-playing clients who discovered him through these type of posts.

Don’t be stingy with your knowledge. The more you give the more you receive.

Quora

Answering relevant Quora questions makes you visible to your target audience and generates traffic to your site. Plus, the person who asked the question gets massive value from you.

Reddit

Creating Reddit threads with useful advice can send you a lot of traffic if you do it right.

Method #1: Post the right article in the right subreddit. Drop your link in a community that makes sense, like I did here:

I posted an article about toxic beliefs in a productivity subreddit and replied to all the comments.

Method #2. Include your article in a text post, not a link.

Instead of linking directly to your site, type out your advice in the text field and add a link to your piece at the bottom.

Why? Doing it like this will elicit more responses and make you look like a true problem-solver ninja.

Focus On These 3 Things and You'll Never Starve

You only have a few hours a week to focus on your blog.

You don't have time to waste on frivolous things. Your full-time job is demanding and you need to buckle down and focus.

So cut everything out except these three things. After all, to build a profitable business of any sort – including audience-based businesses like a blog – people need to know, like, and trust you.

Building your email list: Your audience is getting to know you.

Nurturing a great relationship with the people on your email list: Your audience is starting to like you.

Handing out Benjamins: Your audience is starting to trust you.

Nothing else matters.

If you're wondering how to manage your time such that you can fit even these things in as you work full time, my friend Tor (who is a time management bad ass) and I hosted a free class to help you through it.

The class is 100% free, and we won't try to sell you anything on it. We just want to set you up for blogging success.

Cool?

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Hey, don't kill your momentum.

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