#this is for a very niche audience aka me and maybe like one other person. maybe two

[greghatecrimes]

help I've fallen and i can't get up (i nearly made myself cry working on in the dirt because i thought too hard about a post-canon house that's grown used to showing softness from loving and taking care of wilson, kissing thirteen very softly on the forehead after supporting her through a breakdown)

[khizuo]

No but I want to elaborate why c!niki's writing feels so frustrating to me—it's because it feels like reactive writing rather than proactive writing. It feels like all she's been given to do is being allowed to react to the bigger streamers' plot actions instead of doing anything on her own. And before you come for me—here me out.

Niki was a side character in the Manberg-Pogtopia conflict, but she carved out a pretty cool niche for herself, as a persecuted citizen who ultimately fled. She was definitely treated more like a side character, but she was allowed a space in the lore. In S2, though, besides her relationship with Puffy, she didn't have anything along the lines of S1, because the Butcher Army plot was completely contained within like 4 people. She might as well have been an NPC throughout all of December. I don't know if she was streaming a lot during December, but I think she would have had to be quite creative to find a way to muscle into the major lore of that time.

And when she tried to plan lore with Puffy, bam she is informed about the Green Festival literally the day before it happens, throwing off her previous lore plans. So instead of getting whatever Puffychu lore that they were planning that I still mourn the loss of, we get Niki scrambling to find another bit of lore to grasp onto—aka her "I hate c!Tommy and L'manberg actually" arc. I don't know what goes on in the DSMP writers room or cc!Niki's head so all I can do is speculate, but you can not tell me that arc felt planned in any way. It felt like a really last minute attempt to not get completely left behind by the main lore storyline.

She was given the offer to join the Syndicate, and that feels like another way she tried to stay in the lore. I'm not saying that that's the sole reason why Niki joined the Syndicate of course—she's good friends with cc!Techno and there are probably other reasons—but honestly it again feels like reactive writing to the cards she's been given rather than cc!Niki deliberately planning the move. And then the Syndicate gives her nothing to do anyways and she's treated like an NPC again.

Do I think there could have been better ways that this all could have been handled? Yeah. My personal headcanon is that c!Niki joined c!Puffy's hero arc after Doomsday and got involved in the Crimson Arc, lol. But I really feel like the reason why Niki's character feels all over the place is because it literally is. Maybe I'm wrong and it's all very deliberate writing. But if it is, it doesn't feel like it.

I'm going to go one step further and say that there are two kinds of successful characters on the Dream SMP—characters who were very deliberately written; and characters who were allowed room for consistent improvisational characterization by the narrative. Wilbur is an example of the first kind of character, while Tubbo is an example of the second. These two character types aren't mutually exclusive; in fact they actually strengthen each other. You can't have a purely improvisational character without any kind of deliberate writing, but you also can't have a deliberately planned character who is never given an inroad into the narrative because no character is an island. Quackity is a character who I feel like started as the second type of character but moved to the first. Jack feels like a character who really worked to carve his own niche after getting left behind in the lore for all of S2.

Niki feels like a character who was not allowed to be a Tubbo, and whose efforts to be a Wilbur were consistently thwarted because she wasn't allowed much agency in the writing room. Yeah, you could say that she could have formed her own writing room, but unfortunately these people aren't pure roleplayers—they're streamers with audiences who do this for a living. Of course Niki would want to become lore relevant to stay in the conversation.

And while we've gotten a lot better as a fanbase at giving attention to lore from smaller streamers, that really wasn't the case back in S2. Case in point: I was watching Puffy's stream during the Green Festival, and she literally had under 1K viewers and there was absolutely no focus put on her. She had her own monologue about how Dream had been her "little duckling" and she was all conflicted on what to do, and about 600 people were there for that. S2 was really focused on Tommy, Techno, Tubbo, and Dream. (Ranboo is an exception that I can dive into later. Long story short, he would have been a Wilbur kind of successful if the narrative had allowed him to be; and he was given a leg up in viewership because he was quickly befriended by some of the major streamers, namely Tommy and Tubbo.)

So yeah. If you've made it all the way to the end, congratulations. Essentially, I think reading c!Niki's messy characterization as something that has been deliberately planned is the wrong way to look at it. While I may be off in my analysis because I don't have eyes and ears in the DSMP writers room, I read her character more like a victim of the Dream SMP's messy writing (and the issue of female streamers getting sidelined in general.)

[strangertheory]

With the theory about Hopper and others potentially being introjects, would that mean that everything that took place with Hopper and others like El and Will etc. was purely in an inner world? Joyce for example, who I assume isn’t an introject...her interactions with the Hopper we see would have never happened, at least IRL? Also, how do you think they would reveal this theory to the audience in a way that they understand? I find it interesting but I think if they outright state it, it could be seen as sensationalizing DID by comparing it to scifi and could receive criticism. I hope you’re well, btw!

I’ll answer each of your questions one at a time. (Thanks for messaging!)

“With the theory about Hopper and others potentially being introjects, would that mean that everything that took place with Hopper and others like El and Will etc. was purely in an inner world?"

The nature of an introject alter is that they are based on a person or character who exists in the external world. Introjects can be “factives” (based on a real person – perhaps like Chief Jim Hopper) or “fictives” (based on a fictional character – like the Demogorgon or the Mindflayer.)

Therefore this means that, hypothetically, if there is an introject who is based on an original Jim Hopper that the Byers family knows, that there could hypothetically be scenes that are the “original” Chief Jim Hopper and then scenes that are a very different Jim Hopper who exists in internal worlds in the DID System. Some scenes might be one Hopper, and some scenes might be the other Hopper.

It’s important to keep in mind that when there is an introject alter based on a person that does not mean that the introject alter will behave and think and act exactly like the “original” that their identity was based on. Their mind subconsciously established a new alter and identity that knows themselves to be Jim Hopper, but that person will be totally different from who the other Jim Hopper is because they are truly not the same person. An alter of Jim Hopper might be based on one particular idea of who Jim Hopper is as a person, but alter-Hopper’s identity can also be heavily influenced by the DID System’s lived experiences and thoughts and sometimes even other people that they know too, and therefore the accuracy of that initial persona of alter-Hopper will be entirely dependent on the DID System’s interpretation of who they think Jim Hopper is.

Joyce for example, who I assume isn’t an introject...her interactions with the Hopper we see would have never happened, at least IRL?”

So. Joyce! Hopper and Joyce. Within my current DID theory and meta I see a variety of possibilities regarding Hopper and Joyce’s interactions with one another as well as a variety of possibilities about Joyce’s character. We currently know her as Jonathan and Will’s mom. I did briefly touch on one hypothetical in which Joyce might not be, under all circumstances in the series, “mom” a few months ago but I haven’t discussed it extensively because it’s an idea that I doubt would be especially popular in the fan community and is very niche to my current thoughts on the series. You can read my speculation on “a Joyce who is not mom” in this blogpost here at this link. I do see it as hypothetically possible that there is a Joyce that is an alter. Hypothetically. There are many possibilities, but I do see this as one of many hypotheticals. I recognize this is a very controversial “what if?” and many will see it as highly unlikely, but the possibility that there is a Joyce who is not mom and that is perhaps a very well-loved and trustworthy person in the DID System’s life and who has an introject alter based on the “original Joyce” who might not be a parent but perhaps is, in the external world, a doctor or a nurse or a therapist that Will and Jonathan know as “mom” was something that I have considered. Maybe. Hypothetically. Perhaps.

I am working on a very long blogpost in which I’ll explore a handful of very different hypotheticals about Hopper’s character and my thoughts about his role as the “deeply flawed but protective dad” in the story as well as address my thoughts regarding his relationship with Joyce. Hopper’s dynamic with Will and Hopper’s dynamic with El are also very interesting to me, so I’ll definitely be exploring his relationship with each of them in that WIP blogpost as well.

I’ve avoided talking about Hopper and Joyce for a while because many of the hypotheticals that I’ve considered about their characters are rather incompatible with current popular fandom ideas about their relationship. I don’t really ship Jopper, but it’s arguably one of the most popular ships in the fan community. There are one or two scenarios in which I could see Jopper being “endgame” but there are a handful of hypotheticals in which I see them absolutely not being a couple at all. I’ll be discussing most of these hypotheticals that I’ve considered in the Hopper blogpost that I’m working on. Originally I wasn’t going to talk about Hopper at all until after season 4 because I was anxious about how my ideas might be received by the fan community, but given that even the most mundane opinions that I’ve expressed over the last year have resulted in me receiving a few angry anonymous messages I figured: screw it. If I can’t even ship Byler or like Bob Newby without getting a little bit of harassment and pushback from other fans then I may as well talk about whatever I want and share all of my ideas. So I will be finally sharing all of my ideas about Hopper and his relationship with Joyce, El, and Will. The blogpost I’m working on will probably take a while to finish but I hope to publish it before season 4 is released.

When I’m thinking about different theories and possibilities for what might be happening in Stranger Things I rarely feel as if there’s only one possible route for the story to take. Yes, I do at this point feel very confident that there is a meta narrative happening in the story and that not everything is as fans currently believe them to be regarding both the character relationships and what each character is dealing with, but the possibilities that exist within that are vast. I might suspect that Stranger Things is intended to be about a DID System, but this creates millions of possibilities for the route that the story could take. I might believe that I’m starting to notice certain consistent details that imply the Stranger Things universe is based on something that has a logic and structure to it, but that doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly psychic and can predict what will happen within that universe’s structure. The story is in the hands of the writers, and I’m eager to see where they take it.

“Also, how do you think they would reveal this theory to the audience in a way that they understand?”

I wrote about how this could hypothetically be explored and revealed in the show in this blogpost here. 

“I find it interesting but I think if they outright state it, it could be seen as sensationalizing DID by comparing it to scifi and could receive criticism.”

Although it is hypothetically possible that writers could choose to create a fictional story in which superpowers are real and a character with DID also happens to have superpowers, and this has been done before in popular media (ex. David Haller, aka Legion, who was first introduced in the X-Men comics in 1985 and who has dissociative identity disorder and who has alters with mutant abilities) I personally currently theorize that all of the fantastical events that have happened in Stranger Things so far might be intended to have happened exclusively in internal worlds and not in the external world at all. Events that take place in internal worlds are not limited by the rules of physics and what is “real” in the same way that events that take place in our external world are. Events in internal worlds can be very metaphorical and fantastical because they exist within the mind. The scifi and fantasy elements of the story could, hypothetically, be directly tied to fantastical events that are not sensationalized but are truly accurate to the way that some (but not all) real DID Systems might process memories and trauma within their internal worlds. Internal worlds aren’t dreams, they’re much more vivid and consistently structured and they are often structured around real-world experiences that they’ve experienced, however I want to very loosely compare an internal world to a “dream world” in order to clarify why having fantastical events and monsters and characters with superpowers in an internal world would not necessarily be sensationalizing DID but rather portraying a realistic hypothetical. Telling a story that features internal worlds in a DID System in which fantastical events happen is not inherently sensationalization since fantastical events can and do happen in some real DID Systems’ internal worlds and that is not something that is exaggerated or fictionalized at all. What might seem unrealistic and fantastical to us might be very real for them and most especially for alters who spend significant amount of time in internal worlds. To alters that live in internal worlds exclusively and never front in the body the internal world is their real world and, comparatively, our world might feel very fictitious and unreal to them. But it’s definitely important to keep in mind that every DID System will be very different, and that any one example of a DID System isn’t necessarily comparable to others since their unique experiences will define the way that their System works.

The ethics of “should a popular show like Stranger Things be about DID” is a complex question and an important one, but I haven’t explored it extensively because I believe we do not currently have enough information regarding the approach and the resources that the production team and writers have taken in the creation of the Stranger Things universe and story in order to discuss those ethics at much depth quite yet. If the story is, in fact, about DID or a specific mental condition: did they consult with medical experts? Are any DID Systems directly involved in the production as consultants? Is this particular series entirely fictionalized or are certain plotpoints based on real DID Systems’ experiences? If they are not basing the events of the story on a “true story” then what are the ethics of creating an original story about a fictional DID System? I do believe it is important that creators make a conscious effort to be informed and ethical in their approach to storytelling that involves any real-world medical references, especially with regard to commonly misunderstood and misrepresented conditions like DID, but given the nature of Stranger Things and the way that I believe we are not yet aware of the “bigger picture” of what is happening in the story because the writers intend for it to be revealed in future seasons, I do not think we know enough of the context of the creation of the show in order to begin discussing those nuances. I think and hope that we will learn a lot more over the next few years as seasons 4 and 5 are released. The question of “should they” is a different topic than “are they,” however. Whether they “should” or whether they are doing it “well” will need to be discussed if and when we know if they actually are doing it and also once we know more about their creative approach to the subject matter and what resources they have used in the creation of the Stranger Things universe. I think the direction that the story takes next is also going to be important regarding the assessment of whether or not the story was written ethically, too. If they reveal, for example, that the story is about a DID System that has murdered people or done terrible things then I would immediately say “nope, that’s a misrepresentation and a continued stigmatization of a deeply misunderstood community and I see the story as being unethically done.” But we don’t know what will happen in season 4 and 5 yet. Thus far all I can say is that I believe the writers have effectively encouraged us, as fans, to deeply empathize with and care about El and Will and Hopper and everyone and that this gives me hope that whatever the story is about that the writers are taking an approach that is deeply respectful of those who are neurodivergent or dealing with mental illness like PTSD etc. They’re the heroes and survivors and they are not the villains. And that in itself matters very much. But I guess we will see what happens in next in the series and whether or not the story is about DID or is about something else entirely.

“I hope you’re well, btw!”

Thank you! ^_^ I’m doing really well right now. 

...

*As always please keep in mind that I'm doing my best to explain things as well as I can but that, ultimately, if you'd like to learn more about DID and internal worlds and alters that you should find up-to-date and recent medical resources on these subjects. I am not a medical resource I'm a stranger on the internet talking about a fictional Netflix series.

[atomicfilm]

INTP vs. ENTP

    ENTPs are more-likely to act on their dangerous ideas and take interest in harmless schemes. INTPs are more-likely to make jokes about doing that kind of stuff but don’t usually take action on it. If they do, it’s likely only because they’re with an ENTP. Every ENTP I have ever been friends with offline (there’s 3) has jumped off a parking lot garage for fun and I always think I’ll do it but I won’t. Because I’m not interested in actually being reckless without a potential trade off.

    There are ENTPs who present very similarly to INTPs and INTPs that are super close to ENTPs (that’s me). Neither one is better than the other and I love ENTPs, which is something I’m clarifying now before I criticize them. 

   First of all ENTPs are extraverts who seem introverted until you put them around their favorite people and then they’re obvious extraverts. They love to make plans with people. They love to entertain. And once you know as many of them as I do, you can expect to have your social calendar filled for the rest of your life. Seriously, I only know 3 and each one of them has separately invited me out every day this week. INTPs are true introverts. We can appear extraverted, as we’re not completely aloof, but that’s a skill that takes a lot of effort for us. At the end of the day, we crave space, and if we don’t get it, we’ll ruin our relationships. If I don’t text back an ENTP I have a close relationship within the day, they’ll think I’m mad at them. If they don’t text me back within the year, I’ll still think we’re okay. INTPs also typically have more physical boundaries than ENTPs and give off the vibe that we don’t want to be touched unless we initiate it. 

    To ENTPs, everyone is an audience. To INTPs, people choose to be their audience. INTPs are also generally more anxious about spreading misinformation/saying things w/o substance and will pause before doing so, ENTPs blurt out whatever. I would also say that stereotypically, ENTPs are cocky and INTPs are confident, aka, we’re more-likely to be very aware of our limitations and not try to step out of them unless we find it necessary for growth. However, neither trait is exclusive to one type. ENTPs are intentionally charming, INTPs just do whatever they want and you can take it or leave it. (I’m not sure about other INTPs and ENTPs at large, but I personally only compliment people on their intellect/humor whereas the ENTPs I know think it’s sweet to compliment people on their appearance a lot. I’ve noticed that the other INTP I’m close friends with is the same, in the three years I’ve known him he’s only said stuff like “you’re a genius” or “you have a lot of wit”. ) INTPs do tend to brag about being a savant and make competitions out of testing people’s knowledge. Those kinds of INTPs you should avoid. 

  When it comes to opinions, ENTPs, while they don’t necessarily like to show their true emotions, have no problem with displaying passionate beliefs. I’ve heard some ENTPs say they hate centrists, for example. A lot of the time, they support anarchy or libertarianism, or can at least argue in favor of them. Whereas INTPs are more-likely to either be more moderate in the presentation of their beliefs or desire to completely disengage from society. Also, we usually prefer to take niche beliefs than to pretend to have ones we don’t. INTPs are more honest about not knowing something and are also really good at calling bluffs. ENTPs are funny in that they underestimate INTPs a lot, INTPs are more prone to underestimate xxFPs but not really anyone else, nor do we overestimate. (And usually we underestimate people because there is an established pattern of being disorganized/flaky/taking irrational sides vs. ENTPs who underestimate because they simply think people don’t know as much as them.) 

  *ENTPs may win debates with tricks and by spontaneously trying on every type of available argument, INTPs will win by analyzing all of your logical flaws and if given the time, will make a well-thought out case of their own. 

   Also, INTPs have one particular interest or group of interests, but whatever it is, it’s very distinct. One INTP I know only reads Russian literature/murder mysteries and likes French history, one only likes to talk about domestic politics and the movie industry, I mainly like to talk about identity politics, physics, and biology. I have known one of my ENTP friends for 11 years and I’m still not sure what she’s passionate about as she’s not even slightly specialized. Likewise, ENTPs generally don’t know what they want to do with their lives but that’s part of the fun. INTPs have a starting point, maybe a five-year plan, but know that it needs to be flexible. ENTPs are still intelligent people, they’re just even more disorganized than INTPs and their knowledge is spread out more. 

   That being said, if you hate INTPs it’s probably because you think they’re obnoxious and stuck-up or always trying to one-up you. If you hate ENTPs, it’s probably because they didn’t take the time to be politically-correct. If you hate both it’s because we’re flirting with your romantic partner and it’s working. 

   Other than that, there are many kinds of ENTPs and INTPs.

   If you’re in high school or younger than don’t worry too much about it, you’ll naturally develop distinctly into one or the other.

**P.S. Mbti is a psuedoscience fyi so it’s okay to pick whichever one you relate to the most for fun. 

[protagonistheavy]

I only really liked vtubing when it was new... aka just Kizuna Ai. What even happened to her? Does she still make videos? I never see her now in the flood that is a ton of awkward, overly-produced characters with gimmicks coming out the wazoo, all of which are necessary to make their character stand out within the flood of highly-eccentric, niche-oriented vtubers.

I think what I want out of vtubing is for it to become more accessible and more diverse. God I’ve just really become a total sjw at this point in my evolution, huh? But it’s true and I think it would give the scene some more lasting power than what it looks to have -- as it is now, vtuber success is based heavily on an entertainment branch picking them up as contract workers, or flash-in-the-pan meme-like successes that attract enough attention to keep them relevant for the year. I can’t say for sure how this trend will curve since it’s so new and all, and I’m not exactly invested in the scene either, but it’s hard for me to see these personalities retaining attention deep into 2021. Once people have their “preferred” vtubers that appeal directly to them and whose quirks are to their palette, there’ll be a lot less openness towards newer vtubers that don’t bring anything new to the table.

The novelty of vtubing is really impressive. I have to admit that SOME of my ill-regards with vtubing stems from jealousy; I really want to join in on this, it looks fun! It’s avatar building, an aspect of the internet that I kinda really love -- the ability to create your idealized self within the Matrix, complete with your own quirks and fascinations. But when the whole scene is a mixed bag of... every single overused anime trope randomly distributed across 100+ otaku dudes... it’s just not very gripping, I don’t feel the potential that I’m able to imagine.

And I can’t brush over the fact that it is overused anime tropes that make up everything you’d ever need to know about a given vtuber. You have every animal-eared girl you can imagine, your bodytype diversity is strictly a binary between loli and Tig Ol Bitties, personality quirks consist of only the most subtly-erotic anime girl traits like absentmindedness, eagerness to do spontaneous things, and a craving for attention. And since only one of those traits is genuine at all to the actor, you’re often watching what is just obviously a male otaku pretending to be a 10 year-old girl that conveniently doesn’t mind being looked at religiously by an all-male audience.

I’m sorry but I have to say it, I think more than anything it’s the loli vtubers that drive me furthest away from the vtubing scene. The whole idea of that is just obscenely creepy to me and I can’t help but imagine how this will be used to further groom minors in the same vein that loli culture already has for the past three decades. It really does seem like the next logical step in that world...

And in general, I guess vtubing is, in a lot of ways, the next logical step. It’s an expansive way of building up one’s internet avatar, letting people create the image of themselves they want others to acknowledge them as. There’s so much potential for fun and great things here, but it feels like it’s being squandered big time by otaku-types who are neither particularly creative nor entertaining. Much of what’s out there in the vtube market are trend-chasers that entertainment syndicates have invested thousands of dollars into, and it frankly shows.

But again, maybe I’m just a major shitty pisser. I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade, I just personally have these wrestlings with myself in trying to understand why I happen to feel so negative about an idea I would otherwise be over the moon for.

[giasonesdream]

Track Your Fic’s Success on AO3

Fanfic Writing on AO3 (for ARMYS)

I'm not sure why I felt the need to make this, but I have heard writers talk about this topic before, of not getting much traction on their fics. There's a part of it that really does fall on the readers, but this is a post to maybe help get you on the right path or maybe change your perspective on the stats given to you (aka kudos, hits, comments, etc).

The 10% Idea

Basically, this is just something to keep in mind if you see that there aren't many kudos on your story.

I used to have a friend that said pretty much this: If the amount of kudos is 10% of the amount of hits you have, then it's deemed a good fic. That is to say, even if your story only gets 50 kudos out of 500 people that read it, you're in the clear.

I'll be using screenshots of my own works as example because I have a range of decently well-received stories to not well received at all.

So this one has almost exactly 10% the amount of kudos.

This, which has only a whopping 5 kudos is in the 10% (it’s actually not it’s 2am and my brain is shitting itself but I’m gonna make a point with this one regardless so leave my math error alone}

Meanwhile, this fic only has 55 kudos even though, presumably, over 2k people read it.

There are a few things that should be taken into consideration here:

THE SHIP: it's no shock to anyone -especially writers- that there are favoured ships in our fandom. Taekook and Jikook take the first place spot followed by Yoonmin (this one actually was named the top ship on all of ao3 a couple years ago!) along with yoonseok/sope maybe Namjin? This is all to say, if you write about a ship that isn't necessarily popular, not many people will read your work. That isn't to say that you should only write for certain ships. Please write what you want and what you feel! I cannot stress enough that all of this should be for fun or maybe even practice if writing is your passion.

But let’s look back at the three fics I pointed out. The first one with 400 kudos is taekook, so it had a better chance of getting seen by more people. In fact, 4k people clicked on it and potentially read that story...but the next fic with only 5 kudos is yoonmin. Aren’t they a popular ship? Why did only 100 people read it? And vhope isn’t necessarily a popular ship now (it had its time earlier on back when Rookie King came out, and the veterans for that ship are still fighting, me included!) but 2k people clicked on that and only 55 of those 2k liked it enough to leave a kudos. So, if it’s not the ship, what else could it be?

THE TAGS: tagging a story is very detrimental when posting on a site like this or any other, really. Many people like to narrow their searches down based on the criteria. Being able to filter what fics a person sees can make or break a work’s traction. My yoonmin story is a horror fic, and I’m sure there aren’t very many readers looking to get scared. As an avid reader myself, there is no denying that I -as well as many other readers- are interested in reading smut. Whether it be a one shot that’s quick and easy, or maybe it’s a slow-burn that tallies up to just being a written rom-com series, if you specify in the tags that smut is in this story, people are more willing to give it a try. For the vhope fic, I didn’t mention smut, but I did put in the tags some subgenres of smut. You can’t have “over stimulation” without sex, right? 

But, again, I feel the need to stress this: do not write smut if you are not comfortable with it! Despite the fact that a lot of us are thirsty, shameless fiends, there about just as many people that are only here for the cutesy, lovey-dovey shit. That taekook fic doesn’t have any sex in it, nor did I ever mention that there was a possibility of sex. It doesn’t go past being flirty in the span of 2k words. So, then, if a fic with a popular ship can do well without having sex in it, what else is making people click on it?

THE SUMMARY: I...am such a huge advocate for summaries. There’s a nice fine line between going into too much detail or not enough. This is why I normally go the route of putting in an excerpt from the story and then add a TLDR (Too Long Don’t Read) in the form of an “OR” followed by an incredibly oversimplified idea of what the story is about. As you can see, I didn’t do that for the yoonmin fic. I only put in an excerpt that -quite frankly- is boring narrative. The reason as to why I chose that in the first place is because the horror aspect of the fic is where any dialogue comes in- which brings me to the next point!

This could just be me, but I do tend to click on stories that have dialogue in the summary. This is going to depend on if the reader cares more about dialogue or narration, but think of the story as if it were a new movie coming out or preview to a new episode of a show. Do these videos only broadcast the actors simply moving around? No, they like to add in clips from scenes, use dialogue where you can sort of understand what the context of the scene might be, but not enough context so you’ll want to watch and see what the fuck they’re talking about.

So, if you’ve gotten to this part, you have probably realized that all I did was just tell you how you can market your writing so that more people will click on it and possibly read it all the way through. And really, these aren’t necessarily sure, guaranteed ways of becoming the next “The Fic” in our fandom, but I can assure that just taking more time to consider these aspects can allow you to contemplate what works for you as well as the audience. 

That’s that on that. The next thing I want to talk about some stuff I didn’t cover that are just as important:

Comments (and Bookmarks)

This is probably the biggest thing I ever hear/read/see artists of any sort complain about. And with good reason! As a writer, it truly does wonders to get feedback of almost any sort, even if it’s just a critique on how something was worded. Comments mean that we’re not just throwing our art out into a vast void. Effort was put into the art we created, so if you enjoyed it, effort put into commenting is much appreciated. But this isn’t another rant begging the audience to please just let us know how you felt. No, I’m here to mention that we should not let the number of kudos overshadow the interactions.

More examples. And keep in mind that taekook fic. Feel free to scroll back up and look at the amount of comments on that work. Now take a look at these:

So, 8.1k read this fic...and only 250 people liked it...but boy did this story cause some sort of reaction because people W E N T O F F! And rest assured, none of the comments were necessarily negative. The majority of them are just people being like “wha- how could they >.<”

Everything seems to be pretty even across the board. 2.6k readers, 220 kudos, about 20 or so comments (that’s excluding my replies). 

As I mentioned before, comments are so important. The taekook fic I wrote that seemed to garner enough traction where 4k people read it and 400 people liked it enough to leave a kudos, only a handful of those readers left a comment. It kinda makes me think of instagram. How strange does it look if a picture gets 10k likes but only has maybe 10 or 20 comments. Something seems a bit off, doesn’t it? I can see how this sounds entitled, but my sole purpose in bringing this up is because those numbers can be discouraging. And I want to stress how important it is to look at your works, cherish the comments you get even if the number of hearts seems low in comparison. Some of my most heartfelt comments are on that Taegi fic just above. And it makes them all the more special because this has been my favourite story to write. So even though not many have read it (whether it be because the ship isn’t popular or I didn’t do a good job of summarizing the fic where it seemed interesting) the people that clicked on an liked it felt the need to comment some absolutely amazing words. And those are the comments that should keep you going and growing.

I’ll also just add this little tidbit because it wasn’t something I noticed until recently, you should also check the bookmarks. People are able to leave comments and tags in their bookmarks, and I believe those to be extensions of comments. Not only did people feel like saving this work you wrote, but they might just let out some of their feelings in the tags, like the tags section of a tumblr post or the comment on a retweet.

There is no rule or formula that I particularly know of for getting more comments -aside from using the note section to say “let me know what you think” or “comments are always appreciated!”. I think this aspect somewhat depends on the story itself. That taekook fic I wrote is probably one of the more “cookie-cutter” things I have written. Tropes are great, they normally have a plot and formula that people can follow and know what’s going to happen. And they’re tropes for a reason: they’re common and entertaining. I know I don’t always like to go the route of writing tropes. I have accepted that the style in which I write is not always catered towards the general audience, but that is completely okay!

As I said before, this is for fun. You write because you have a story you want to tell, and you feel so passionately about it that you take the time and effort to write it. If my numbers have proven anything, it’s that your fics will find their niche. It’s always going to fit someone. And it’s important to really appreciate those that seem to like what you’re writing, even if the greater audience doesn’t vibe with it.

And that’s that on that.

So, since we’ve gone over all this, I just wanted to say that I am open to helping writers. I know this post probably isn’t the best representation, but I’m pretty damn good at spelling and grammar. I’m not a novelist, don’t have any published works floating anywhere on the New York Times Best Seller list, but I have been writing since I was seven years old. With fifteen years of experience and having worked with authors in the past on potential books, I am always more than happy to pass on any knowledge I have gained over the years. If it’s wording something to make it flow better, trying to fill any plot holes or answer questions of character motivations, of if you should be using “there”, “they’re”, or “their”, I would love to help. All ya gotta do is message me :)

*mic drop*

[itslikethatfrenchthing]

028: HOW I USE ORGANIC MARKETING TO REACH 100K VIEWS

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Today’s talking point:

 Organic Marketing!

Welcome back guys! Just a quick reminder before we jump into organic marketing: if you need a rest, if you need a day here and there where you need a creative reset, please take that day. Burnout is real. I would have hit that point if I hadn't taken some time off, and it can absolutely happen to you if you are not being delicate about your time and your energy. 

Please take some time to bring energy back in so you can come back stronger, more passionate and more creative. And if you don't fill your own cup first, it's very difficult for you to help others. Now for the juicy par you've been waiting for: organic marketing,  

USING UNPAID MARKETING TO GROW YOUR AUDIENCE

If Mark Zuckerberg was standing right in front of me right now, I would tell him: I don't like that I have to run ads on my business page to get the best engagement. Not to blow my own trumpet, but I have mastered organic marketing in the sense that it's been how I consistently reach 100,000 pageviews every single month on my blog. 

This is how I've truly grown my business over the last couple of years. I have not spent any money on ads. I truly did this organically (unpaid marketing) through a few different secrets and tactics that I'm going to share with you.

Okay, so let's dive into these tips and realise that all of this does take tests and trial. You have to figure out what is going to work for you.

P.S. Click here to grab your FREE step-by-step Boss Traffic Flow Checklist!

#1|  Sharing your story (& solution)

Your story is everything. It's everything. Your journey, that A to B transition, is worth so much. 

I've built a personal brand from me being vulnerable and that sounds so “woo-woo” and way too good to be true, but honestly that is the biggest tip. When you become a really good storyteller and you are finally allowing your audience to see who you are, that is when the connection starts, human to human sales. 

People in 2019 are craving human connection more than anything. This is why live video is crushing it, why podcasts are crushing it because you have the opportunity to be intimate with a human. The beauty of live video and podcasting is when you can clearly articulate your story and marry it with a solution, you have hit marketing bliss: connecting your story with your solution. 

To treat social media “like a diary” and hone in on connecting with your audience, you can ask yourself some questions & identify:

What is your story? 

Why do you do what you do?

What brought you to where you are today?

When you chip away at those questions, you’ll realise where you’re passions stem from and be able to marry your story with your solution. 

Once you’re in a position to say: “Hey, I actually know some of the top tips to heal from blank. I actually now know what it's like to go through blank and I want to help you with that to”, that makes you a powerful leader. 

Humans need to feel connection to purchase. If you have not already, read Why She Buys by Bridget Brennan. You can check that out on Amazon. It teaches you so much about the female brain and how we truly are emotional creatures and the best sales conversions for us are through the heart. 

So number one: what is your story and what is your solution? How can we marry and merge those two? These are the stories that you are going to recite and recycle on social media to really remind your audience who you are and why you do what you do. 

#2 | Direct Messaging 

Number two is direct messaging and no, this isn't sliding into people's DMs. It's clear messaging where you're speaking to one person. This is you, making sure that your message is very niche and your message is really something that one person could read and say, “oh my God, how did she know I was dealing with that?”

When I was in the beginning stages of building my personal brand, I was creating a lot of content. It was interesting to assess what type of content really landed  and what type of content was just okay. Speak your truth, speak your mind, in a way where you always respectfully support the other side. Speak what you want to say. 

When you're not running ads, organic growth comes from sharing your content, your content being so good and so helpful that Susie wants to share it with her best friend. 

In my podcast episodes, I follow a Q & A format. Whenever I record an episode, I always speak to the person who asked the question -I have one ideal client in mind before I press record. If I think about all the other people, not only does it become overwhelming, but then I forget who this messaging is really for. 

If you create content that everyone's going to like, you're not going to get those few people who love it. You create a loyal tribe of people who are obsessed with you and your work when you are polarising. 

#3| Live Video

Number three is live video. I can’t say enough about live video and how much it's truly changed my life and my business. It's been one of the most fulfilling things to do, because it's allowed me to connect with my audience on a really deep level.

It's allowed sales to be so easy for me that I never feel like I'm actually selling (because I'm really not). I'm just showing up, sharing my story and being my authentic self, there's no filter, there's no editing. 

So just giving you an idea, it's showing you the possibility and it's hopefully inspiring you to get yourself on live video. We go deep into this in the Busy to Boss Method - if you are not inside yet, I am adding some new trainings that are going to make you a boss at live video.

If you want people to purchase from you, get them to trust you first. Without showing up for your audience, how are they supposed to know you, or to trust you? Give your best passion to your audience, which they deserve. Solve problems, give value, give unmatched value. Live video is the fastest way to do that and that is way better than just running ads. 

#4 | Affiliate Marketing

This can be a really powerful way to sell and can be really authentic and genuine to do affiliate marketing. So you can give a referral incentive (Aka money) to people who will help you sell your courses or products for you. This is how you can work around not having to run ads. 

As a business owner, you can't think about it as, “oh, I'm losing money because so&so is getting a chunk of that sale” because that was money that was going to be spent on ads. As a marketer, I'd actually rather do heavier affiliate marketing and “lose money”  because it's an actual guaranteed sale. Whereas, if I just pump money into Facebook ads, I don't necessarily know if that is a guaranteed sale.

  #5 | Collaborations

Collaborations are huge. Whether this is you getting on a podcast, doing split screen live videos with all the bloggers and business owners, bringing people into your Insta stories, this is everything in the online space.

Sharing each other's audiences and really helping each other is so important. Utilise each of their networks like hell and collaborate because you never know who could help you and vice versa. If you know someone in the online space, who has a fantastic audience that aligns with yours, and you can bring a value to that person, it's time to pitch them. It's time to reach out. It can't hurt. If you don't ask, you don't get, and you might as well see if there's a collaboration opportunity.

#6 | Giveaways

Now giveaways can be annoying as hell if you're doing them every day and you're giving stuff away Monday through Friday. This is intended to be used strategically: a few times a month or a few times a year, where you are giving people an incentive, a free gift. Get creative, anything can be a giveaway. Maybe you're partnering with an amazing health and wellness company and they sent you a load of amazing products that you can give away. 

To use giveaways to their full extent:

Ask your audience to tag 2 or 3 friends in that post 

Give them some sort of incentive to join your email list or your newsletter

Get on live video, make fantastic graphics for it and incorporate collaboration with giveaways. Get creative. 

Resources Mentioned In This Episode:

Tool Recommendation of the Day: Typeform

Want access to a library full of online marketing resources plus weekly bitesized breakthroughs to help you boss your online presence? Find it here.

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Apply to work with me 1:1 in the Busy To Boss Method here.

P.S. Be sure to download your FREE Boss Traffic Flow Checklist to grow your niche and generate more readers and subscribers organically!

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[princebete-archived-moved]

How do you cope with rejection in the rp community? Asking for a friend.

//rejection? 

well i wish i could say “ i ignore it!” but really that’s not a reality for me. Not at first, anyway.

I’ve face all kinds of rejection, from straight up to not being responded to from memes, to starters, to messages etc.– to being downright ghosted. People have their reasons, and I don’t usually put much effort into hosting resentment toward those who I feel “ reject” me. Because that’s way too much energy to keep up with. 

But at first. It’s awful. 

I like feeling wanted. 

And I know I get more out of online friends then real life. Because a.] i can hang with my friends and remain in my bedroom in pjs with my cat and disney shit. b.] there is something about being able to tell people more stuff about urself online than in person 

so i guess what im trying to say is. when im rejected. it’s more of a missed opportunity for a good friendship. 

and that’s a bummer. 

but honestly. there have been many friends that come and go, and it’s all a part of the process of applying yourself to the social networks. and i try to just compartmentalize everything. 

IF I notice a pattern with people. one minute im ghosted the next they return, i try to stay away from them. because i know i personally am unable to handle that it’s like being second best. i consider this a type of a rejection. almost like a use and abuse. 

stay away. save urself the time and emotion. 

next is examine urself. look at your interactions with every so far as a whole. past to present. 

do u ghost others? maybe a little pushy? [ ive been there!] oh! here is a scenario. you got an idea or an au, you are soooo excited or you have so many fresh ideas. you tend to piled it all on at first?? and the person just gets burned out or shys away. sometimes it’s good to recognize that despite it being good having ideas. sometimes people can get overwhelmed a great deal. and overly stimulated by everything. you gotta take it one step at a time, and not push too much on them at once. keep to one idea... write down the others... and slowly introduce those over time. or consider that maybe u should keep those ideas for other partners. some people can only do one or two threads per person at a time. not saying that that is ur frriend’s deal but--yanno?? it’s a learning process because etiquette online is so terribly skewed, especially on tumblr. one person may be more open than another. some people dont communicate ooc a whole lot, they just write. which is fine [ im not particularly drawn to this. because ooc is important to me. it keeps confusion at bay. and very enjoyable to get to know those who i write with] 

are you approaching the right people to rp with? 

i dont think this could ever be enough. because there are always people to write with. every corner of this website there is a person who wishes to expel and share their creative content.

so don’t give up. that’s my advice. there are so many out there. be patient. be open. 

now when all that is said and done. and yeah you wanna rp now right?

well okay. 

what muse do u play? there are some that are a lot more difficult to get ur foot in the door with then others. 

When i came here. i immediately joined a group, and i joined one with a big niche [ aka disney] now im not saying a group is ur best bet, but it’s pretty nice when you are figuring out the norms of this abnormal discipline  [ my family cant wrap their minds around rp, other than that ‘roleplay’ is regarded as a sexual activity not writing…. ]  

i picked a canon muse i felt i could take to. [aladdin] and made a little name for myself. 

so lets say your friend is writing an oc. ye? or a very unknown character from a book or film or anime etc. it’s going to be a bit more difficult to start out then lets say playing something more people are familiar with. 

and a lot of people may disagree with me. but [ this was me wanting to feel wnated] i picked a muse i knew people would be more familiar with, and i made an ame for myself. made friends AND THEN introduced my unfamiliar muse when my friends were now open to the idea of writing with me, just a different muse. just to gain some traction— then over time, the writing [ lots of writing. write write write. writing will attract other rpers] attracted newcomers to the unfamiliar blog and eventually i stopped being rejected, and became welcomed. 

and the biggest of all, is to familiarize others with your writing, and with a nice page that covers the backstory of said lesser known character.

but youll find that the other blog will become a fav. 

also, your fandom is a big deal too. and the demand of the muse.

BATB fandom was dead. 

there were like 10 belles. 4 beasts. me. forte. some cogsworths and lumis and 3 gastons… . 

so because there were less of us, but a wide audience [ llots of people know batb] i found myself being gravitated to a lot because there were not many of prince adam���[ now they are COMING OUT OF THE WOOD WORK. LIKE GREAT. BUT SHIT. DEMAND WENT DOWN. tumblr rp economics] but because of this [ i admit. its bad] people were sortof forced to rp with me. or at least had to give me a chance… to which— they then realized my writing aint so horrible, nor is the mun. and now even as the fandom grows, they are loyally sticking by my side, being exclusive with me [ not rping with other beasts. this is THEIR choice. but it’s nice to feel this considered] 

there are times were i make a muse, and it’s not a big interest to others. i really tried with Rin. She is the main character from the music video of Shelter by MAdeon and porter robinson… or prince cornelius from thumbelina…. or aradinus my male ariel…. ive got so many reject–ees. 

but it’s ok. theyll revive one day when i feel it. 

my newest is Prince Philip, so we’ll see if he gets ‘ rejected’…. just need to find the right people. 

hold out for them. and keep trying.

[gregwhite]

SOLD A SHOW

So a writing career is kind of made up of two jobs: getting staffed on other people’s shows, and selling your own shows in the hopes that one day you will be the one doing the staffing. I’ve been lucky since getting my first writing job in 2009 to basically be employed on other people’s shows on a fairly consistent basis, with only a few notable gaps*, but I hadn’t had much experience selling shows. 

I had pitched a bunch over the years, and I’m still very fond of a lot of them. One of them was called Lesser Gods (pitched with character designs by my very talented board artist pal Will Patrick)--it was set in the realm of the gods, and followed the Zeus character’s degenerate son as he is exiled into a life ruling the lesser gods, aka the gods nobody cares about (there was the god of smooth jazz, and so on). Very fun show, but I don’t think I pitched it very well. Then there was a show called Slice, pitched with Six Point Harness, which was more of a King of the Hill sort of tone set on a crappy public golf course. The show began when this slummy golf pro’s somewhat estranged daughter, a local government employee, is hired to make the golf course profitable, which basically makes her her dad’s boss. Another show I really loved, but I don’t think it really connected with the folks we took it to. 

And on and on and on. 

Then in 2015, I had partnered with Alex Bulkley at Shadow Machine (a great man, and a great studio) on another animated show of mine called Robot Daughter (my agents made sure my DreamWorks deal allowed me to pitch and develop to outside buyers). The premise of RD was basically Terminator meets Girls. A small-time inventor is kidnapped by the Russians (it’s always the Russians) and forced at gunpoint to create a killing machine for them, which he does, but he ends up developing paternal feelings for his creation, so he takes it on the run, slaps skin on it, and tries to hide it in plain sight by enrolling it in high school, passing it off as his teenage daughter. The joke of the show was that for this death machine, capable of anything, high school is a lot more complicated and confusing than actual war. It was funny and vulgar and we sold it to MTV. That was the first time I really felt truly confident in a pitch, where I could just talk about the show without little note cards or anything. It was just “here’s the hook, here’s what the show’s about, thanks for listening.” It was a good lesson in not only how to pitch, but also what to pitch. There are some things that you take out that you feel sort of like, “Yeah, this is a show more or less” and then there are things you take out that feel like, “Oh, this is definitely a show.” That isn’t to say they follow a template, quite the opposite, but that there’s something that just feels right about it. 

I wrote a pilot I’m still really fond of (it’s become a sample my agents and managers use quite often) but ultimately MTV decided, after buying our show, that they didn’t want to do animation anymore. Fair enough. It was a throwback to sort of that Liquid Television era of MTV, and in the end it wasn’t enough to convince them that animation was where it’s at. 

A note on animation for a sec. While I love it, I never intentionally decided that I was going to do primarily animation, it just sort of happened this way. And when it comes time for me to pitch something, the ideas I get most excited about take place in alternate universes and other realities with gods or animals or robots as protagonists. At this point, I just go with it. But on the selling side of things, a lot of studios and networks don’t really know how to approach animation. Is it its own thing? Can it exist alongside live-action shows? It’s a weirder, more niche thing to pitch it seems. I don’t let that really influence what I pitch or write, but it’s worth noting. 

Anyway, moving on. At the end of 2015, I was rewatching The Sopranos, and one episode ended with this beautiful Nick Lowe song called The Beast in Me and I became a little obsessed with it. Just the notion of this roiling monster living inside someone (basically all of us to some degree) and the person not knowing exactly how to deal with it struck me as particularly profound. It also made me think of my dog, Louie, a little wonderhound schnauzer, and how he seems to contain all these amusing contradictory traits. One minute he’s trotting along next to me, docile and obedient, and the next minute he’s vomiting blood and shrieking at the sight of a squirrel or one of his SACRED ENEMIES (pugs and other flat faced dogs). 

So with this in mind, I wrote a script for a show called The Beast in Me. It was basically, what if Bambi decided to get revenge on his mother’s killer, but in doing so, gets sidetracked and wanders off into a nearby city and gets a job at a data entry office. The show was very dry and odd and absurd, and was sort of just about this fox character learning what it means to become human (he gets a job, makes friends, experiences love, etc). I sent it to my managers at Principato-Young, as I often do, with a very self-satisfied note: “Hey! Here’s another script! I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done!” When we connected, they were less enthused than I (I get VERY enthused about things), but they said that there was something about the revenge aspect of this show that struck them as interesting. I recall one of my managers saying, “It feels more like a Western.” It was the end of the year, and I was leaving for the holidays, but they told me to fiddle around with it to see if maybe there was something there. 

So I went home to Jersey for a few weeks, and thought about it, and when I came back in January of 2016, we started talking about this idea weekly. First it was a change in the setting, from present day Hudson Valley to the 1800s Dakota Territories. And it needed a tone shift. So I made it about The Fox, now this sort of bizarre combination of a sweet, sentient animal who is at the same time violently hungry for revenge and yet weirdly naive about the world in his absolute dedication to his personal code. And he’s out there traveling with a Chinese immigrant who is searching for his own family, and this murderous crack shot Molly, who dreams of becoming the first female US Marshal. And then it needed a villain, so we rewrote history and made it Chester A Arthur, who we portray as a lunatic American Hitler with no moorings in reality. He murders James Garfield to snatch the presidency, and by the time The Fox discovers who killed his mom, the task is clear: kill the dictatorial president of the United States. (Who knew this would be so satisfying to write post November 8...)

So it took us quite a while to really land on the tone and the serialized nature of the story and to make sure it functioned as a bizarro drama and not just as a disposable joke machine comedy. And so by September of 2016 the adults started setting up pitches for us, and we basically spent 2 weeks or so in the early fall pitching once or twice a day. The pitch felt very good from the start. I knew the show very well, and was very passionate about making this show (basically, it was me doing Tarantino/Miyazaki fan fiction). Plus, the pitch was fun to do. I liked talking about it. I liked telling people about our alt Chester A Arthur. I liked walking them through five seasons of serialized storytelling. And this was a big difference. In the past, I worried so much about hitting certain talking points in the pitch, that I never really considered whether or not I even liked the words I was saying. This time around, the metric was: what is the detail in each section that I can’t wait to get to? No notes, no pages, just go in there and tell these people about our strange story. 

And it worked! This combination of a weird but familiar thing, and a straight forward telling of something very strange ended up resulting in two offers. One from a streaming channel, and one from FX. FX was always the target in our heads in terms of the tone they aim for, and the kinds of stuff they put on the air, and so we were pleased to be able to go with them. Then the adults started doing the deal stuff, and I went home for Christmas again. 

Now here we are, and I’m about to start writing. So far the conversations we’ve had with their execs have been very creatively satisfying. They want us to make something unique and they have been pushing me to do better work, and to consider the characters’ inner lives and all the things that are very easy to ignore. I pitched them a few pilot premises, and they were off the mark, and we’re** about to go back to them with what I think is a strong but simple premise that allows us to introduce the world and the show to an audience while still leaving plenty of room for the quiet stillness associated with the Western genre. We always said that the show was more anime than Archer. I love Archer more than anything else some days, but it’s a very quick, dialog rich show. This thing will work best in a slower execution. 

So that’s the shape of it. I wrap my very happy time at DreamWorks in a few short weeks, and then I’ll switch over to writing The Beast in Me pilot full time for a few months before seeing what comes my way next. Hopefully I can write a script on this thing that convinces FX to let us make a pilot, and then eventually get to series because I really want to spend a few years making this incredibly strange show. 

I hope to convey a few things here. One is: it’s ok if things take a while. I used to think if something wasn’t ready in five minutes or less, it wasn’t worth pursuing. But having had this experience, one that I enjoyed at every step, I’m okay with something taking longer than expected (in this case it was well over a year between conception and pitching and eventually selling). The other thing to point out is that it’s really not worth pitching things unless you’re very excited about them. This sounds obvious, and maybe it is, but I feel as though there’s enough stuff out there that nobody seems to care about. At the very least, you owe it to yourself and anybody who might watch or read your stuff to care more than anyone else does. There are easier ways to make money than selling cartoons. 

A few other takeaways from this experience: the outcome doesn’t matter. In other words, is this show more valid because we sold it? Would it have been less valid had we failed to sell it? Of course not. And yet a certain extrinsically motivated mindset would say that the opposite is true. Ignore extrinsic motivators. Be intrinsically motivated. Now obviously, you need to eat food and live in the world, so making a living is a valid reason for doing anything, but from a strictly creative point of view, this experience has bolstered my beliefs in doing good work for its own sake. Lewis Hyde would likely agree if I understand his dense writing correctly. 

Finally, this show I think taught me to be fully confident in my ideas, but also that confidence doesn’t come from blind faith, it comes from a true belief and connection to your work. I would take long walks while working on this idea with Lou, and I would play Morricone on my headphones and walk and walk for hours and let the show reveal itself to me in waves. I would then go back home and write down my impressions of what the music made me feel. It gave me a sense in the feeling I wanted to write towards. And in this process, I came to really love what I was thinking about it in terms of the eventuality of this show being made. And that made me very excited and knowledgable by the time we walked into rooms*** for our pitch meetings.

I don’t know if The Beast in Me will ever become something anyone sees, but I do know that I’m enjoying the process, and I promise you, if you can hold tight to that enjoyment, you will never fail.

*Such as the gap between April 2013 and October 2013 where I wasn’t on a staff at all...this was right before I started writing on Puss in Boots at DreamWorks and now here we are over 3 years later, still at it. Such is a freelance style career. The trick is to not let the external stuff influence your internal life. 

**I keep saying we or us because my managers are serving as producers on this, so often it’s a “we” more than “me.”

***A note on rooms and circular life paths. In 2010 or so, I was a very new-at-this writer, having just done a very short 7 episode season of a then-unaired show on Comedy Central called Ugly Americans. FX had a pilot called Duchess, later called Archer, and they were thinking that maybe the show would have a writing staff or maybe some freelance writers at some point. So I remember sitting in this room watching this pilot of theirs, just being so amazed to even be on the dance floor, and thinking how fortunate I was that things worked out as I had hoped they would. And then 6 years later, we sold The Beast in Me to FX in the same room. It doesn’t mean anything, but it does. It’s easy to let things slip by in an attempt to channel the Stoics, but once in a while it’s important to allow yourself a brief moment of satisfaction that your process is leading you down a rich and fulfilling path. 

[jazzypizzaz]

end of the year fic meme

I’m pretending like @multsicorn​ tagged me in this :-).  I would love if other writers were to answer these questions too!  I love hearing what people think of their own work and process, so consider yourself tagged if doing this type of reflection is interesting to you.

Statistics:  I wrote 22 fics this year (21 for DS9 and 1 for Columbo), ~105k words between May and December, which works out to almost ~500 words/day.  12 Quodo fics, 10 different pairings. I’m very proud of forming this habit of indulgent creative writing, and honestly it’s improved my overall well-being immeasurably.  Hopefully I’ll keep it up this year as a habit.   (special thanks to trek-rarepair-swap and Quodo, and everyone associated participating and supporting each other)

under the cut for length, ten questions:

1. What’s your personal favorite thing you wrote this year?

Hmmmm maybe this is an odd choice, but at the moment my favorite is Rule One Thirteen.  I hit all the emotional notes I wanted to, which was a delicate balance in tone/characterization, and I think stylistically it’s beautiful in a particular bittersweet way.  

They’re all my babies that I love in different ways though.

2. What’s your least favorite thing you wrote this year?

Uummmmm??????  They are my children and I love them all dearly!!!  uhhhhhh  maybe What if Feels Like for a Girl, because a) I have more distance from it as among the first fics I wrote, and b) it was necessary but I like the other fics in the series better, c) the title and description and some of the dialogue makes me cringe a little idk.

3. Which of your fics was most different from what you usually write?

since what I write is rare pairs with odd combinations of fluff and angst and absurdity and poetic imagery and indulgence and too many emotions, “what I usually write” feels like a super broad category???  

Messy Desks was the only non-DS9 fic, so I guess that’s an outlier by default, even though small scenes and shipping a one episode character is my bread and butter lol.  Morn’s Big Mouth I feel like had a different style than anything else.  Rule One Thirteen wins for not having any silly moments maybe.

4. Which of your fics this year was most successful?

For my corner of fandom, this is such an odd question with how to measure it! Because going by pure kudos, the numbers are small enough that factors like a) who reblogged it and especially b) what the pairing is I think almost entirely accounts for variability.  That said, Sweet Dreams Are Made of This is by far the most successful in this regard, with ~50% more kudos than the runners-up, many of which fall into a similar range.  Odo/Quark is probably a more popular rare pair, plus hurt/comfort I think might draw bigger audiences than angst or smut, plus maybe since it was pre-slash that also upped interest.  Who knows, it’s all guesswork on my part.

The bigger measure of success for me is comments.  In that regard, Down On My Knees has the most comments from individuals, particularly proportionate to the kudos, which I think is more telling of success within the target niche audience lol.  I’ve very happy about that because ~tentacles~.

Honorable mentions to Morn’s Big Mouth -- which also had a high rate of comments-to-kudos, mostly of people expressing delighted surprise aka my favorite reaction -- and Case of the Caged Heart -- which had the BEST outcry of emotional tags on tumblr and in the comments hahahahaaaa I draw strength from your pain dear readers.

5. Which of your fics do you wish was more successful?

ummmmmm idk I think they all drew the audience reception that could be expected!  anytime anyone enjoys my self-indulgent absurdity is such a gift, honestly.  like I’m so happy that there’s this small group of us obsessed with rare pairs and weird aliens in a show that’s been off the air for two decades???  it’s such a delight, always.

to not cop out of answering this though I guess I’ll say Hungry for Your Touch, even though the fact that anyone is willing to read Sisko/Quark is a miracle honestly.

6. What’s your favorite piece of dialogue you wrote this year?

uhh let’s say Morn’s dialogue in Morn’s Big Mouth hehehe

7. What’s your favorite piece of description or narration?

probably it doesn’t work as well as I think it does, but I absolutely adore all my over-the-top weather elemental imagery metaphors in Breathing Underwater.

8. Which fic this year was most fun to write?

well the month of May was fun because I wrote the majority of Can’t Buy Love series in one long crazed obsessive spree.  also Down on My Knees because shut up I like tentacles and angst and aliens and weird consent and D/s okay, it’s fine it’s all good it’s just what I like.  

anyway any time that the ideas just ~flow~ and I can write 2k words or more in a single sitting because I’m that ~inspired~ is A+ peak writing experience.

9. If you could go back and change something about one of the fics you wrote this year, what would it be?

listen I go back and change stuff in my fics anyway... but I guess only minor stuff.  for something bigger I’d make Odo more stoic and less overtly sincere and maybe more vulnerable in various ways in Can’t Buy Me Love (I was still working out his characterization at that point).  there’s PLENTY of other stuff I’d like to be better or change in other fics, but much of that I don’t mind keeping because it’s something I enjoy even if it doesn’t actually strengthen the narrative for the reader haha.

10. What, if anything, are you going to try to do differently in your writing in the new year?

maybe spend more time editing and thinking about the fic before posting.  like I always say that, and then get over eager anyway.  also, figure out how to extract more honest criticism, because so often I *know* something doesn’t work as well as I want it to, but I need outside perspective to figure out how to even figure out what isn’t working.

probably not use so many adverbs?? idk.... if anyone has suggestions, I honestly honestly honestly do like hearing constructive criticism.  like if something bugs you about my writing I LOVE well-intentioned suggestions.

[itismetheperson]

21 Instagram Captions Ideas For When You're Totally Stumped For What To Post + Announcing New Series!

Instagram captions are so so so important and I see people ignoring this all the time. The picture is of course extremely important. Instagram is a visual platform. The photo is what captures people attention. The caption though? That's what makes them stay and maybe actually follow! I personally though have a hard time knowing what to post. I have the pictures but I have absolutely no idea what to put in the caption. That's where this post comes in! I'm going to be giving you 21 Instagram caption ideas!

Call To Action/Question After every idea I will also be including a question/call to action which you can put at the end of the post. This is extremely important if you want more engagement and comments on your post. Sometimes it's hard to know what to comment. When you ask people a question though, it makes it super easy! Also just a little pro tip, it's usually better to ask a question that's easy to answer. You might be less likely to get a response if the question is more thought provoking although this can be very good. Depends what the post is about.

Who these ideas are for: Most of these ideas will work for pretty much any general lifestyle account. It is very important to stick to your niche though. If you usually post workout content it's a bit odd if you suddenly posted a food recipe. Keep that in mind!

The ideas:

1. A little intro with some facts about you This is an awesome post to do if you're a newer account or if you have just recently gained a bunch of followers. Reintroduce yourself.  Maybe say where you live, what your name is, your hobbies, and a couple of miscellaneous facts. CTA: what are 3 fun facts about you? 2. Three of your current fave products People love to know the products you're using! Do a little roundup and share some you've been loving. You could do one or three or five! This could be a perfect opportunity to test out your product photography. This is also a good idea if you have a sponsored post you need to do for a brand. CTA: what are some of your favorite products? 3. Your go to snack I love getting new ideas and I'm sure your followers do as well! Share a fun little easy snack you love making. If you want you can share multiple and have a little roundup. :) CTA: What's your favorite snack? 4. Your fave restaurant  Went to a restaurant recently? Share it!! People love restaurant recommendations especially if you have a more local audience! You can talk about what kind of food it was, what you got, and also tips and what to and not to get. CTA: what's one of your favorite restaurants? 5. Tell about your day I'm telling you, people love just simple day updates. I honestly thought people would get bored hearing about my day every day but they didn't?! Ummm what?! And I promise your life is probably more exciting than mine. Talk about what you were feeling and what you did and what made you sad or happy. Just give a little insight into your mind and life. CTA: what's something that made you smile today? 6. An event you're excited for Maybe you have a concert coming up or a performance you're in that you're super excited for. Talk about it! If you're nervous literally say that. People are so so so supportive and will say all of the good lucks. This is also good because when you post about the event people already know it's happening so they will be more interested. They will want to know how it went. CTA: What's something that you're currently excited about? 7. Recap of event you went to Aka the after of the above! Share how it went and show all of the picsssss. If it made you super happy USE ALL CAPS. People love to see real emotion and if you seem super happy they will also get excited. It's like people who have a contagious laugh. Except. Well. Online! CTA: have you been to any fun events lately? 8. Your favorite classes in school  You can do this one if you're in school or even if you have already graduated. I think a lot of times we totally separate our online and school lives, but you don't have to. I also think knowing what someone likes to do in school can tell a lot about a person and also show your audience some new interests they maybe didn't know you had. For example whenever I tell people I take theater and broadcast journalism they're like, "Oh my gosh. That's so cool!" CTA: what was/is your favorite class in school? 9. Your favorite songs Sharing every single song you listen to on your story can be a bit annoying. I think an actual post is a good place to share music though! Round up five of your absolute favorite songs and share them!! I personally am always looking for new music recommendations and I'm sure your followers are as well. CTA: What's your current favorite song? I always want recommendations! 10. Tips for school If you have an audience that is mainly in school share your tips! It's really helpful. You don't even have to be graduated or a senior to share your tips. I was helping my siblings start school when I was like in third grade. It's not like they said thank you but I'm sure I was very helpful. CTA: what grade are you in? 11. Movie/book review If you like movies or books and are always giving reviews to your friends who maybe don't care put that hobby to good use! Share your fave new movie with your followers. Scream about the adorable ships. Fandoms are powerful. Use that to your advantage. CTA: what is one of your favorite movies/books? 12. Talk about where you/your family is originally from  I personally think this is really interesting. Especially in the US there are people from everywhere. And you might not know it just from looking at them. If your family has cool traditions share them!! Maybe you eat different food than a lot or your friends. Share itttt. CTA: where are you from? 13. Fun things to do in your city Like the restaurant one, this is good if you have a more local audience. Share your fave things to do and just fun places in your city from a local. CTA: where do you live? 14. Tips on being productive This is always helpful. To literally everyone. Everyone wants to be productive. And like the one about school, you don't have to be an expert. You can just the share your personal things that you do to help you be productive and maybe help someone along the way. CTA: what is your top tip for being productive? 15. Instagram tips If someone is on instagram they probably want grow there instagram which means reading tips would be very helpful. I have multiple insta friends who have done whole little series on instagram tips and like how to grow and they seem to do really well. CTA: favorite app? 16. Talk about your new blog post/youtube video/any new project  This is probably an of course but I thought I would still list it!! If you have any other social medias besides instagram, then they should all be connected!! Share your new stuff across all platforms. CTA: have you checked out my new post? 17. Talk about some of your fave Instagram accounts Just talk and scream about your faves and tag them. People love following suggestions! Plus you could make this a collab with someone and y'all could both give each other shoutouts. Or maybe the person you tag might see the post and like. That is always so cool. And you can get people to tag there faves which brings even more people to the post. CTA: what are some of your favorite instagram accounts? Tag them! 18. Art  If you are an artist first of all shoutout to you because I have no art skill, second the world needs to see that talent. If you have more of a lifestyle/ascetic feed it might be hard to incorporate art but if you don't want to make a whole other accounts it's totally possible. Play around with it! CTA: would you call yourself an artist? Should I post more art? 20. DIY instructions/show of a cute DIY  If you are into being creative and making cute DIYs off of Pinterest, totally show them off on the gram. I am personally very bad at making things look cute so I could never haha. If you have that talent though, use ittttttttt. I love the fun little DIY videos on instagram. CTA: what DIY should I do next? 21. Answer questions people usually ask you/ask for questions on your story If you've been online long enough you probably have gotten people asking questions. If you've been online super long, then you've probably gotten repeat questions. Take a moment to answer them!! Plus then, if someone asks you again, you can just refer to the post. If you don't get a lot of questions, use the questions feature on your story. This is a great way for you to help your audience and produce content they actually want/share more about yourself. CTA: What is something you have always wanted to ask me? 22. Share a fun/inspiring quote Quotes do weirdly well on instagram!! Plus there are numerous ways to do them. You could edit one onto a pic you're already planning on posting, make a separate graphic, or just put it in the caption. One thing about quote posts is that they're more likely to get shared. CTA: tag someone who inspires you!

I hope you liked that post because I'm officially announcing a new series on my blog!! I get so many questions about instagram so now I'm going to be doing a bunch of posts on it. :) I have at least 3 posts in my little Instagram 101 series planned out but I would love to do more. Comment down below any insta questions you have/things you want me to write about! I want to do posts that are actually helpful to you lovely people. :)

via Blogger http://bit.ly/2IowgLL

[gradecmedia1-blog]

How To Start A Blog: Beginners Guide to Successful WordPress Blogging

How To Start A Blog

Setting Up A Blog - How To Start A Blog

A Beginner's Guide To Successful WordPress Blogging In 90 Days

Most people who start a blog or website in 2018 and beyond, will most likely use a CMS (AKA -content management system) to start their website.

What is A Content Management System or CMS?

Popular and well-known content management systems (CMS or website platforms) like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Magento are free. To simply put your mind at ease, any of the above cms (content management system or website building platform) are all free and extremely customizable. One more thing I love about CMS is the fact that they run on an intuitive application layer which is user-friendly and an almost instant, out of the box newbie friendly platform for starting a blog or building websites and managing your website content. Back in the day, changing and tweaking a website required hundreds of man-hours, with a cms system, all you need is 10 to 30 minutes to build and launch your website running on a content management system instead of using a bunch of loose HTML, CSS and PHP pages. If you are a company, looking to set up a business portfolio, or an Individual, looking to start a website or blog, CMS is a good choice for you as it can pretty much be adapted to cater for many different types of websites, whether you are organizations or individuals.

What Will You Need In Setting Up A Blog?

Decide on Which CMS To Start A Website or Blog Get a Domain Name and Host Installing WordPress

Is blogging completely FREE?

The short answer is Yes. You can even create a blog free if you want to. BUT there are a couple of things you should pay for. A domain name (www.YourBlogAddress.com) will cost around $10/year (but you can get it free, more about that later). Web hosting is usually around $4-$15/month or more (although, the host I use and recommend is a bit under $3/mo). Many bloggers will tell you that starting a blog, In a nutshell, should cost you less than what you spend without even thinking when buying a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Bottom line: If you are seriously considering starting a blog, then be aware of the initial start-up costs which you'll need to spend. It's just a few dollars to get a domain name and web hosting. We'll go through these in detail in the following STEPS to make sure you are covered. Ask anyone who runs a profitable blog, the recipe is pretty much the same. Some Gurus will say profiting from blogs is just a matter of grabbing the attention of an audience and not doing any actual salesmen selling. This is utter nonsense! Nobody buys unless someone takes the step and attempts to make a sale. No matter what you think or which class of society you belong to, chances are that you have been sold once or twice before. Setting up a Blog as a way of making money can be a very rewarding experience and very profitable if you know how to align the tools and resources needed to take you to your end goals. But you need to know which blogging toolkit is Ideal for the sort of results you want to achieve, at the same time you need the know-how to use those tools correctly so you can yield the results. If you have ever made a decision on anything, you have been sold. Selling is not only when money exchange hands, but people also sell Ideas and beliefs. Your children are the best sales people there is, and if you still haven't figured it out that you are being sold... you are in deep trouble. Being sold to makes us vulnerable, and this is exactly what we as human beings do not like. What we don't like is not the feeling of being sold, it's the feeling of vulnerability that makes us question everything and it makes sense to me. Why I do not like being sold to, is just the fact that I feel like am not in control of my own spending. It feels like a sheep going to a slaughterhouse knowing exactly what will happen and yet feels powerless to do anything. Any salesman who knows what they are doing will steer away from anything that triggers a customer fright mechanism.

Regardless of how you think you feel about your other half, sex makes us even more vulnerable, and if you can find your way to the top, it feels great! Makes you feel the adrenaline flowing through the veins. Fear, on the other hand, is a feeling induced by perceived danger or threat that occurs in certain types or form. Instinctively human beings are conditioned to react to threats. This primitive mechanism helps us to survive by either running away or fighting the danger. Your mind is always on the lookout for triggers and when it perceives one, it will immediately activate the sympathetic nervous systems; which controls the flight, fight, freeze, fright, and faint response. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); Knowing this information as a blogger will be helpful in the long term. Way back before I created a blog, I took a personal reflection, putting myself in the customer's shoes. Then I realized that as a customer, my perception is my reality. So if anyone wanted to sell anything to me, all they needed to do was see things through my eyes. As a matter of fact, this is a well-known phrase in customer service circles and it boils down to this: the customer might not actually be right, but they think or feel they are. If you want to create a blog that is profitable, you must take this reality into account when dealing with whatever challenges they face. People go online for two simple reason's only. So if you are looking at ways of how to create a blog that earns money over time, then you must understand the reason why your customer avatar is online, then mark an escape route for that customer inside that escape route is where you address the needs and concern they have. In sales or internet marketing they call this a sales to funnel.

What Are Your Fans On Facebook Looking for?

Are they: Looking For Information? or Looking For Entertainment? Google, Youtube, and Pinterest are people's trusted confidant today, before telling anyone that they had unprotected sex, teenagers turn to google looking for a solution. And if google spits out to go get pills, that is what they will go and do. In my community over on Facebook, I tell my colleagues or student bloggers that Identifying the Customers  Emotional and Practical Needs is the first step to making money with a blog. For example, Data Race- one of Gradec Media's web hosting companies offer affordable web hosting packages to Small and medium enterprise. Our Ideal customers are those looking into getting started with as little as $49.00/PER YEAR

What does that customer actually want?

We know that their issue is not just price points, rather the capital investment. So we offer them the lowest entry point, teach them how to make money along the way and in the process of their money making blog their needs for handling high volume traffic and sales push them into upgrading into some of our premium web hosting packages. Do I really need to sale to this customer? Nope! There will be no selling just addressing the needs of a growing business. It's not always easy to determine, but this business model offers techniques that help you see a bigger picture and respond to a customer's pressure points way before they happen. So you provide the customer with a practical and emotional fix without requiring to be shamelessly salesy. Blogging for profit is all about answering people's challenges or needs by: Pre-positioning and Conditioning Behavioral Interpretations - These are also called consumer behavioral patterns. Understanding Fight or Flight - No customer to your nail shop is the same so learn to spot the triggers. Responding Appropriately to Customers needs - Niche blogging is not a one cup fits all. If you are looking into creating a blog and earn money by blogging then you need to consider the above points learn the following most essential steps to successfully blog and make money at the same time.

Where to start, WordPress.com or WordPress.org?

You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service such as Wordpress.com can be appealing to many new bloggers, but you need to understand the limitations that come with it. Advantages Of WordPress.com Or FREE Hosted WordPress

Starting with a free blog hosting service allows you to begin blogging instantly without having any advance knowledge of scripts, hosting, or programming. It allows you to build an audience and buzz for your blog. FREE hosted WordPress also allows you to focus on your content and not the internal maintenance of the blog. On the other hand, starting with a free service, is in your best interest if you are a slow burner and you do not mind taking a long learning curve without risking any money just in case your blog doesn't become successful, you then do not lose any money or left holding the bill. Just like many bloggers who have been around for some time now, I often get questions relating the best option for setting up a blog. And my answer has always been consistent all these years. It boils down to your personal goals with the blog you want to create.

Why Create A Blog?

Setting up a blog is easy these days, and there can be many motivating factors for creating a blog. If your goal for starting a blog is just to share your personal thoughts, ramblings, photos and such. Then WordPress.com is your best option as it offers a free, easy to use, secure and stable platform for you to blog on. However, if your goals are to set up a blog you can finally earn money from, maybe you want the freedom of extending WordPress publishing functionalities with plugins and custom CSS tweaks so that you can do more with your blog such as make money selling services or products, build a membership community, among other things, then there are some inherent limitations.

WordPress Account Suspension WordPress.com is very serious and protective of its brand and what it stands for. If for some reason, you violate their terms of use or knowingly/unknowingly infringe content publishing copyright and you get reported, your blog will be suspended without warning. No Theme Uploads On WordPress.com WordPress.com has a very strict rule of themes customization as it does not allow its users to upload custom made themes or tweak the sort of dull themes they offer. Keep in mind that any form of customization or attempts to change the functionality of your themes is absolutely out of question.

Limited Blog Monetization

Many blogs make money via Google Adsense, unfortunately with a WordPress FREE hosted blog you are not allowed to run Google Adsense or other advertising programs to serve ads on your WordPress.com blog. The same applies toward writing paid posts, selling of links, Product reviews and much more. WordPress.com's strict terms of use vehemently state that any form of commercial activity on your own is not allowed unless if the product on sale is your own book written by you and not otherwise. However, if you are running a popular blog, with a good amount of monthly page views, then you can apply for WordPress.com advertising program which is called WordAds. Once you are approved for WordAds program, you will be sharing your advertising revenue with WordPress.com Self Hosted WordPress - Using WordPress.org Option WordPress Self Hosted option is Ideal freedom seekers! It is a perfect solution for those interested in turning their blog into a revenue stream through advertising or paid Blogging. How Does WordPress Self Hosted Blogging Work? If your creative freedom counts, you will then have to consider getting your own domain and shared or private server. That way, once your WordPress blog is installed much more flexible customization options can be applied to your site without any limitations. Additionally, Blog monetization is possible by running ads on your blog. Regardless of the fact that you are just starting to set up your first blog, you will notice that popular and Major Blog hosting service providers on the market today offer easy installation methods and setting up your blog is not quite a huge task anymore. If you are looking at the steps you will have to follow here they are: Buy a domain Setting up a blog will surely begin with choosing a domain name you want to use as your brand, then buying or registering that domain to make sure that it is safe from other competitors. There are so many domain registrars available to register your domain name but personally, I recommend starting out by taking advantage of the Dataracehero which includes a free domain name. It is best practice to make sure that you check the availability of your domain names on social media like facebook, twitter, Youtube then securing those social handles of your domain immediately after registering your domain.

Here's How to choose a web hosting service

In brief, Wordpress makes it clear of the requirement for hosting, as a matter of fact, WordPress has a list of recommended WordPress web hosting companies as approved partners. Know your hosting needs. Investigate host reliability and uptime guarantees. Study web host upgrading options. Check all hosting features (such as the number of addon domains allowed) based on your needs. Check prices for both signup and renewal. Check hosting control panel. Read hosting company's ToS to find out more about account suspension and server usage policy. Other supporting features (ie. site backup, environmental friendliness, etc) Knowing Your Hosting Needs You can never get the right web host without knowing what you need. So before you go any further put everything aside (including this guide you are reading) and think thoroughly about your own needs. What kind of website are you building? Do you want something common (a WordPress blog, for example)? Do you need Windows applications? Do you need a special version of the software (ie. PHP)? Does your website need special software? How big (or small) can the web traffic volume go? These are some of the basic questions you need to answer for yourself. Have a quick picture of what you want to do with your website now. Figure what happens next for the next 12 months. If you are A Totally Newbie For newbies, the no-brainer rule is to always start small with a good shared hosting account. A shared hosting account is cheap, easy to maintain, and sufficient for most new sites. Plus, you can always upgrade to VPS or dedicated hosting in the later stage when your site grows bigger.

Email List Set Up

Buy Awebber Auto Responder Membership Account Your blogging profitability will depend on getting this part right. If you are indeed interested in making a sale or simply automate some of the blogging activities on your blog, then you will need an email list builder or autoresponder set up for your blog. I use Aweber and I can testify to its benefits having used it for the past 8 years.

Niche - Choosing And Researching A Niche Market

A niche market is simply an area of expertise you intend to help others with solving their problems with. As mentioned before, people get online in search of either information or for entertainment. If you are contemplating setting up a blog, then make sure your blog solves some one's problem or provides entertainment they are looking for. Our WordPress foundation training focuses on a particular blogging blueprint which is built on a three-step system. Target Cultivate Convert With this system, we are able to pick a particular problem or product then we look at what sort of delivery systems we can put in place to make sure that service user gets what they want, over time we build the relationship and recommend products or solutions to them where necessary. This is why we recommend building an email list along with your blog as it allows us the flexibility of getting in touch with our subscribers strategically. Deciding first on a product, service, or topic which is of interest and possibly economically viable is of the essence here as it allows us to plan specific content strategies which help us to condition the consumer with the necessary information needed to make a sale. It can not be emphasized enough that when looking into Choosing an area, make sure to pick one which you can enthusiastically write about on a daily basis. Making use of keyword researching tools like KeywordFinder, Google keyword planner and BuzzSumo to find popular searched topics. It does NOT matter if your topic is popular as long as there is an audience for your topic and the topic is precisely focused then your blog should be successful. Anything can be considered a niche as long as it has a target audience no matter how large or how small the audience is.

When you choose to create A blog about your fluffy and cuddly cat that in itself can be classed as a niche market. The only thing I will POINT out here is that Niches often break down into sub-niches within their own niche. It all depends on how precisely do you want to niche down so you can directly speak to your Ideal audience. Niche Market Research: How To Choose A Niche For Affiliate Marketing For instance setting up a blog about the species of the cat family can be a larger niche market, if there are people who are interested in hearing about your cat or the species of the cat family, then you have a niche you can also choose to niche down and build your audience for a market whose audience does not exist, but first you must build your blog.

Maintaining Your Consistency

Update Your Blog Daily (nothing less) WordPress makes it easy to get started with blogging, in fact, there are thousands of blogs started daily, the disappointing truth is that only a handful succeeds at getting past the 12 months mark. Lack of commitment and consistency is a huge letdown. This particular step is a must and not a suggestion. Statistics over on Youtube showed that Vloggers who posted daily on Youtube enjoyed a bump up of traffic and revenue generated. If you want to be successful with blogging, post frequently, Update your blog with high quality and valued pieces of information daily. This will not only keep your blog more interesting to readers, but it also gives your blog fresh authoritative content on a day to day making it more appealing to search engines. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); When you ignore to update your blog on an occasional basis or when you do your drip content one day here and there, it may seem to be convenient for your schedule, but missing days at a time or weeks is unacceptable and will most likely result in your blog being unsuccessful. To keep your blog traffic and retain your visitor's interest it is a must to update your blog daily with multiple entries. An argument can be made that a growing trend of successful blogs that are not necessarily updated daily. The issue with blogging is you want more eyeballs on your fresh content as well as old, some old-timers who have authority in the subject matter may enjoy success but as a new blogger who is constantly fighting for a stable audience who continue to visit your blog daily, slacking is not an option. Authority may be everything, however, these blogs are still updated weekly with multiple entries. Until you have a steady audience you should try to update your blog every day with at least 3 or more daily entries. The best way to accomplish this is to set aside 1-2 hours a day for tending to your blog and adding new entries. It may even be wise to schedule a set time which you dedicate to your blog each day. I keep telling my students to give themselves a consistent block of work hours and treat their blog as a job. Tell me what would happen if suddenly you didn't show up to work for days or weeks you lose money or worse you get fired! Let the same standards apply to your blog if you do not update your blog for days or weeks you'll lose your Google rankings as you are constantly on the defence from other bloggers trying to get on top.

Traffic

It's no secret. You must have traffic to profit from blogs. There are numerous ways to build traffic. A - Paid advertising B - Free advertising C - Viral marketing D - Organic or search engine marketing E - Social Media and word-of-mouth. As a blogger, you should always have plenty of these traffic methods master. As a rule of thumb, always use your blog URL address in the signature of your email, forum discussions, message boards, or any other communication media. Make it a habit to submit your blog URL address to search engines and blog directories. You should submit your RSS/XML URL feed to blog ping services like Technorati, Ping-O-Matic, and others. Many people often ignore sharing their blog with family, friends, co-workers, associates, and business professionals. Many blogs can be considered as a collection of articles, for this purpose you should submit your blog entries (those that are valuable and lengthy articles) to content syndicators. Once submitted your articles can be picked up and published by others. The trick is to make sure you include your Blog URL address in the About the Author passage. What this does is create link popularity and backlinks for your blog, when someone picks up your article from the syndication then publish the article on their website the About the Author passage is included with each publication and the link you included is followed, crawled, and indexed by search engines. Imagine if your article is popular enough or controversial enough to produce 10,000 publications across the web. The search engines are bound to find your blog in no time with that many publications and credit you quickly become an overnight authority on the topic, in return increasing your rank on search engines. The small effort of writing a well-written article is rewarding. You should try to write at least 1 full length article every week for syndication and submit your article to at least 10 article syndicators.

 Track Your Blog

How do you know if your blog has traffic? Just because no one is leaving comments doesn't mean your blog isn't growing. Many visitors do not leave comments but they are returning visitors. I know it sounds crazy but with blogs, people are more interested in what you have to say! Many visitors do not comment on their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd time. Some do not comment at all but are active daily visitors. Tracking your blog does not have to be overly sophisticated usually a simple free page counter like StatCounter.com or Active Meter will do the trick. Install (copy/paste) the code into the HTML of your blog template and start tracking your visitors. It's better to use a service which gives you advanced traffic analysis, such as keyword tracking information, referral information, and search engine information. Visitors, returning visitors, and unique visitors should be standard for any page counter service you choose.

Listen to Your Audience

I love Facebook groups, they offer an insight into your audience and when using the proper page counter begin to see how others are finding your blog and if through search engines then which keywords are being used to find your blog. What this allows you as a blogger is to gout and start fencing those keywords so you can dominate them and If constantly your blog is being found by 1 or more keywords then focus your blog around those keywords to make it even more powerful. When writing entry titles and entries use the keywords as often as possible while keeping the blog legible and interesting.

Short & Concise

I must confess this article is almost 30 pages, and that is good sometimes. Aside from these skyscraper styled articles, save these lengthy articles as a once a week occurrence for syndication and publication on your blog entries should be short & concise (if you can help it). Sometimes there are exceptions to the rule and you have no choice but to blog lengthy entries, but try to avoid this as much as possible. You do not want your blog entries to become hours of reading. Visitors like to easily find information and skim through your entries. It is good to be detailed and provide useful information, but do not include useless information or run away sentences that veer away from your topic. Stay keyword-focused.

Google Loves Multimedia Articles

Youtube blogging is here and if you are not using youtube to drive traffic to your blog, you are leaving money on the table. With Youtube as the second largest search engine, making sure that your blog posts are turned into both Video and podcasts is a surefire for traffic. Make sure to embed Youtube videos in your articles even if it is not your video, as long as it is a related subject matter you should consider publishing it. Making sure that your Multimedia is non-advertising graphics, pictures, photos posted within your blog entries. Not too much. One Video embed in a post is fine. Personally, I use graphics sparingly to break content and can sometimes bring your blog to life. Of course, the content of the blog is the most important aspect and you do not want to overshadow your content with graphics, but displaying graphics can add a bit of flair and spice to the blog. Be choosy about your graphics and make sure they fit your entry topic. You should add content to the graphic, at least a caption. Original graphics, photos, pictures, and art is recommended.

Keep it Personal

A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try to include personal experiences which relate to the topic of your blog entry. Stay away from the business style of writing. Write with a more personal style and use first-person narratives. Do not write any of your entries as sales letters, instead share product reviews and personal endeavours.

Interact With Your Visitors

You now have the traffic you deserve. You should begin interacting with your visitors. Create a regular theme such as Monday Money Tip or Picture of the Week which entices your readers to look forward to each week. Sounds amateurish but I can bet you on it. As a way of keeping up with my fans on my private facebook group, we have monthly earnings challenge which we later crown the big dawg in crashing it. this helps to generate fresh content ideas and as an administrator to the group, I use this as my scoping tool for training requirements of my Mastermind group. Give your readers advance notice about a product, service, or topic which you are going to review and then talk about later. If you are into current affairs, the strategy is the same, say a Company CEO was scheduled to give a speech then in your blog you should state that you will discuss the speech and give your opinion after the speech airs. Comments will be very much appreciated.

Make Money

Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blog traffic is increasing then it is time to start thinking about turning your traffic into profit. You should use contextual advertising, like Google Adsense or Chitika. Contextual advertising is usually text links which use the content of your blog to publish targeted ads on your blog. The payout is usually based on a pay-per-click model, meaning for every click an ad receives you are paid a small percentage of the profits. In addition to contextual advertising, it is good to also use graphical advertising such as BlogAds.com, Amazon.com or General Sponsored Advertising.

At the level of a professional blogger, you may want to team up with 1 or more other bloggers. This will create a more interesting and more powerful blog. The old saying two heads are better than one, more authors mean more advertising and exposure because each author will have a vested interest in the blog. The idea of a team blog is to make it profitable and rewarding for all authors while continuing to target the blog topic and keeping the blog interesting for visitors. Following these blogging techniques should make your blogging experience much more rewarding. There is no guarantee that your blog will become popular or a household name, but the effort should at least put you one step closer. Making money online is not an overnight experience like many may think, but making money online is definitely a foreseeable possibility. As well, growing popularity on the web is not an overnight experience, but through time, dedication, and persistence you will be rewarded with all the royalties of blogging. How To Use Pinterest To Drive Traffic To Your Blog How Do Bloggers Get Paid INTERSERVER WEB HOSTING INSTY WEB HOSTING How Do Bloggers Get Paid List Building – Are You Buying Email List Or Solo Ads? BLUEHOST WEB HOSTING 10 Ways To Make Money Online – I Needed Money So I Had To Find Best Way To Make Money Online Wix vs Squarespace Read the full article

[andrewdburton]

How to become a copywriter (even with zero experience)

Being a copywriter is AWESOME.

You get to jet around the world, eat in the finest restaurants, and date supermodels.

Totally legit text exchange I had recently.

Okay, maybe it’s not THAT extravagant — but being a copywriter is still great. You make a good amount of money while flexing creative muscles you wouldn’t be able to otherwise.

The best part: You also don’t need any formal education. In fact, some of the most sought after and highest paid copywriters in the world never took a writing class in their life and clear six figures a year.

Check out these rates that copywriters charge:

From our sister site GrowthLab.

A relatively new part-time copywriter can make $283 from just ONE blog post. The best part? It’s easily scalable, meaning you can earn even more if you have the right systems.

I’m going to show you how.

What is a copywriter

The two paths: Freelance and in-house

How to become a copywriter

Step 1: Define your copy niche

Step 2: Find your clients

Step 3: Know what to charge

Step 4: Scale

Earn more money today

What is a copywriter?

A copywriter is anyone who is paid to write copy — aka the words used for marketing products and/or services. This includes things like:

Sales pages

Email funnels

Landing pages

Blog posts / articles

Social media posts

White papers

Case studies

Despite the name, copywriters are more than just writers. They’re writers, salespeople, and behavioral psychologists all rolled into one. To be a good copywriter, you need to learn to master all those elements.

Luckily, it’s easy to start getting the experience you need.

The two paths: In-house and freelance

There are two ways you can start getting experience as a copywriter:

In-house. Working for a company or marketing agency.

Freelance. Working as a freelance copywriter (aka being your own boss).

And both have their pros and cons.

IN-HOUSE COPYWRITING

IN-HOUSE PROS

IN-HOUSE CONS

Stable income and benefits

You get paid the same even if your work makes millions

Mentorship if you work under an experienced copywriter

Have to deal with office life (commute, traffic, Steve from accounting who steals your lunch every day, etc)

Work for big brands and contracts

Might have to write for brands and projects you’re not passionate about

Hone skills for copywriting more quickly since you have consistent work and mentorship

Have to work a LOT. This means stress and late nights at the agency in order to complete deadlines

FREELANCE COPYWRITING

FREELANCE PROS

FREELANCE CONS

Be your own boss

Might be hard to stay motivated without anyone keeping you in check

Choose your own hours, projects, and rates

Unstable income — including lean periods where you have very little work coming in. May have to take jobs you don’t enjoy

Work from home — which means you won’t have to worry about running late for work and paddle boarding across the Hudson River

Learning curve is steeper

Hustle on the side. This means you don’t have to quit the stability of your full-time job

Going mad after not leaving your house for weeks

If you want to learn more about getting an in-house copywriting job, be sure to check out our best resources on finding your dream job.

Video: How to find a job

Dream Job Blueprint

The 80/20 guide to finding a job you love

For this post, I’m going to focus on creating your own freelance copywriting hustle — even if you have no experience. 

How to become a copywriter (even with zero experience)

The art of writing (and doing it well) is one you’ll learn with experience — so you might not be great at it if you’re just starting out at first.

To help offset the steep learning curve, though, here are some fantastic resources on copywriting from our sister site GrowthLab:

20 copywriting books you need on your shelf

How to write copy

The 6-part outline every good sales page has in common

How a $100,000 sales page is made

The Ultimate Guide to Remarkable Content (This is from our sister site I Will Teach)

The Ultimate Guide to Email Copywriting

The good news is the more you do copywriting, the better you’ll get. So let’s get started on the four steps to becoming a freelance copywriter.

Step 1: Define your copy niche

Before you start looking for clients, before you start putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard?), before you do anything at all, you need to first define your niche.

This is the specific area and audience you’re going to target as a copywriter.

“But why would I want to limit myself? Wouldn’t I get more work if I open myself up to more people?”

It’s paradoxical — but you’ll actually be able to find more work AND charge more if you niche down your audience and specialization.

Imagine there are two fitness coaches. Which one do you think gets more business?

The coach who says that he’ll help anyone feel and look better

The coach who only works with middle-aged men to get six-pack abs

The answer is the second one! That’s because that coach is specialized. He knows who his clients are and offers a clear goal: To get six-pack abs. As such, he’ll attract more customers.

A few niche copywriters for inspiration:

VeryGoodCopy. Eddie gears his copywriting to helping SaaS companies craft … well, very good copy.

SusanGreenCopywriter. Susan helps nonprofits gain more funding through their copy.

TheGymCopywriter. Gyms aren’t all about lifting and getting swole — they’re also about high-performing copy techniques.

So first, think about what role you want to own — and there are a lot of them.

Emails / Sales funnels

Social media / Community management

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Blog posts / Articles

Video / Podcast scripts

There’s no right answer here. The important thing is you pick what’s interesting to you and get started. And you can always change it later if it’s not a right fit.

Now you’re going to niche down your target market.

This will be your prospective clients. Ask yourself:

What industry are they in?

What are their services?

How do they use copy currently?

Once you have the answer to those questions, you can come up with your niched-down role.

Here are a few examples:

Email funnel copywriter for SaaS companies

Social media manager for nonprofits

Blog posts for personal finance websites

Once you know how you want to approach your copywriting hustle, it’s time to find your first clients.

Step 2: Find your first client

Finding clients can be a little intimidating — especially when you’re new.

Luckily, once you find your first few clients, the process becomes MUCH simpler, since they’re likely to refer you to their network (more on this later).

There are a lot of different ways you can find your first client. And you already have a lot of different platforms to find work as a copywriter.

One of the most popular: Upwork, a job and gig site catered toward freelancers.

Getting started with the website is simple. You simply create a freelancer profile and start applying for various projects on the site such as copywriting, SEO, social media, and more.

It should be noted that while Upwork can be a great place to find clients and build a portfolio, you shouldn’t necessarily rely on it to find all of your clients.

Instead, we suggest you go to where your clients live. This means going to message boards, forums, and websites your client might frequent and be incredibly helpful.

It’s what Luisa Zhou, entrepreneur and writer for GrowthLab, did to help her earn $1.1M in eleven months.

From Luisa:

I started spending all my free time hanging out where my potential clients were online (free Facebook groups) and directly engaging with them by sharing valuable content and answering any questions I could about advertising.

That’s how I got my first client. A woman I’d been helping for free — answering her questions about how to set up a basic advertising campaign — asked me how she could work with me, and when I told her the price — $5,000 for six months — she said, without missing a beat, “I’m in.”

You can apply the same framework for your potential clients:

Are you a graphic designer? Find a Facebook or subreddit group for small business owners who need your services.

Are you a writer for a niche industry? Start answering questions on Quora regarding your niche.

Maybe you’re a video editor. Find online groups for bloggers looking to expand their content media.

Start going to these places and providing value. Not only that, but you should be doing it consistently. I’m talking on there every day for AT LEAST one hour a day.

By being engaged and providing immense value, you’ll build a network of clients organically and develop a rock steady reputation.

Step 3: Know what to charge

This is the part where most freelance copywriters get tripped up. That’s because there’s no official rate for your services.

Like many things freelancing, though, you need to remember not to worry too much about it when you’re starting out.

In fact, you can even work for FREE if you do it strategically.

Some good examples when it’s okay to work for free:

You’re building a portfolio of work you can show to future paying clients

You want to build connections with businesses you admire

The person you want to work for is well-connected. And if you do a good job, they’ll connect you with other people

You already have a full-time job so you can afford to trade time for experience

This is something I’ve done when I was starting out as a freelance copywriter AND it’s something that Ramit has done many times before. 

This flexibility is key to any freelance marketer starting out.

Of course, you’re going to want to eventually charge, you know, actual money.

To help, we have four different pricing models you can use to base your rates off of:

Hourly. You set an hourly rate and a client will pay you per hour. The benefit for the client is that they mitigate their risk since they can just stop paying you whenever they want if they’re dissatisfied. It also stops the clients from piling on work without paying you.

By project. You’ll know exactly what you’re getting paid for an entire project, with more concrete deliverables for the client. This method is nice because when you’re done with the project, you’re done. So you might end up getting paid more than your hourly rate. However, you do run the risk of the client adding more work onto the project as you move along, so communication about what a “project” entails is important.

By retainer. Your client will pay you a set amount monthly. This allows the client to have access to you at any given time during that month. As a beginner, you’re probably not going to find a client who is willing to hire you on retainer until you’ve built up enough experience working with them. However, it’s a good goal to have and something to keep in mind as you get into freelance marketing.  

Commision/bonus. This payment model can work in conjunction with all of the other ones and can provide a healthy incentive for you to get your work done. For instance, if your client promises you a $1,000 bonus for attaining X amount of leads with your landing pages.  

If you’re a beginner, I suggest you charge hourly, because most clients are going to be unsure about whether or not you’ll be able to do a good job. As such, they might not want to give you a fat project fee.

Once you’ve gotten your first three or so clients though, then you can move on to different pricing models.

And when it comes to how much exactly you should be charging, there’s no right answer.

However, we here at IWT have a few solid rules of thumb that can help you ballpark a good rate:

Drop Three Zeros Method

Simply take your ideal (read: realistic) salary, drop three zeros from it, and voila, you have your hourly rate!

For example, say you’d really like to earn at least $40,000. Just take the three zeros from the end and you now have your rate: $40/hour.

Double your “resentment number”

I love this one because it’s both really interesting and effective. Ask yourself: What’s the lowest rate you’ll work for that’ll leave you resentful of your work?

Say you’ll work for $15/hour at the VERY LEAST. Just double that number so now you’ll earn $30/hour.

Do what the next guy does

Go to Google and search for the average hourly rate for whatever service you’re providing. You’ll get a good sense of where to start when you’re charging your clients.

If you need even MORE help, here’s that handy chart from professional copywriter Abbey Woodcock. She surveyed 68 copywriters for GrowthLab to find out how much they charged:

What do you notice about the rates above?

First, there’s a HUGE disparity between a highly experienced copywriter and a beginner copywriter. This should be encouraging for anyone just getting started.

Also, even when you’re a relative beginner, you’re still making a good amount of money for your services. Say you write an “About” page for a company and charge $85. If that “About” page only took you an hour to write, that’s a fantastic ROI on the time spent.

Of course, you don’t want to just charge the same rate forever. Which is why, when you get more and more experience, you’re going to want to scale.

Step 4: Scale

Scaling means growing your copywriting hustle to earn more and get more clients.

And the best way to do this is through referrals. These are potential clients that you get from existing clients.

When your current client refers your copywriting services to another business, that’s a referral.

They’re incredibly valuable for a few reasons:

You can raise your prices when you get a referral. The client who referred you has automatically added value to your work by recommending you. That means you can charge more for your work.

You get better clients. When you charge more, you’ll start attracting high-quality clients who can afford you. They’re also much less likely to waste your time if you’re being paid top dollar. It’s a win all around.

You can more than double your income. Check out this case study from a freelance project manager who went from charging $25/hour to $75/hour just by getting a referral. This is a HUGE win.

And asking for referrals is easy — if you have the right script.

Luckily, we have a proven script from our article on how to get clients to help you ask for referrals:

CLIENT’S NAME,

I’m so happy to hear that you enjoyed my work. If you know of anyone else who’s looking for my services as well, I’d be grateful if you passed my contact information along to them.

Thank you,

YOUR NAME

It’s simple, direct, and gets results. Over time, you’ll start getting so many referrals you’ll have to deny some prospective clients — which is an awesome problem to have.

Earn more money today

If you’re really interested in making money as a freelance copywriter, we here at IWT have a gift for you: The Ultimate Guide to Making Money.

In it, we’ve included our best strategies to:

Create multiple income streams so you always have a consistent source of revenue

Start your own business and escape the 9-to-5 for good

Increase your income by thousands of dollars a year through side hustles like freelancing

Download a FREE copy of the Ultimate Guide today by entering your name and email below — and jump into freelance marketing today.

How to become a copywriter (even with zero experience) is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/how-to-become-a-copywriter/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[apartmentdiet]

How to become a copywriter (even with zero experience)

Being a copywriter is AWESOME.

You get to jet around the world, eat in the finest restaurants, and date supermodels.

Totally legit text exchange I had recently.

Okay, maybe it’s not THAT extravagant — but being a copywriter is still great. You make a good amount of money while flexing creative muscles you wouldn’t be able to otherwise.

The best part: You also don’t need any formal education. In fact, some of the most sought after and highest paid copywriters in the world never took a writing class in their life and clear six figures a year.

Check out these rates that copywriters charge:

From our sister site GrowthLab.

A relatively new part-time copywriter can make $283 from just ONE blog post. The best part? It’s easily scalable, meaning you can earn even more if you have the right systems.

I’m going to show you how.

What is a copywriter

The two paths: Freelance and in-house

How to become a copywriter

Step 1: Define your copy niche

Step 2: Find your clients

Step 3: Know what to charge

Step 4: Scale

Earn more money today

What is a copywriter?

A copywriter is anyone who is paid to write copy — aka the words used for marketing products and/or services. This includes things like:

Sales pages

Email funnels

Landing pages

Blog posts / articles

Social media posts

White papers

Case studies

Despite the name, copywriters are more than just writers. They’re writers, salespeople, and behavioral psychologists all rolled into one. To be a good copywriter, you need to learn to master all those elements.

Luckily, it’s easy to start getting the experience you need.

The two paths: In-house and freelance

There are two ways you can start getting experience as a copywriter:

In-house. Working for a company or marketing agency.

Freelance. Working as a freelance copywriter (aka being your own boss).

And both have their pros and cons.

IN-HOUSE COPYWRITING

IN-HOUSE PROS

IN-HOUSE CONS

Stable income and benefits

You get paid the same even if your work makes millions

Mentorship if you work under an experienced copywriter

Have to deal with office life (commute, traffic, Steve from accounting who steals your lunch every day, etc)

Work for big brands and contracts

Might have to write for brands and projects you’re not passionate about

Hone skills for copywriting more quickly since you have consistent work and mentorship

Have to work a LOT. This means stress and late nights at the agency in order to complete deadlines

FREELANCE COPYWRITING

FREELANCE PROS

FREELANCE CONS

Be your own boss

Might be hard to stay motivated without anyone keeping you in check

Choose your own hours, projects, and rates

Unstable income — including lean periods where you have very little work coming in. May have to take jobs you don’t enjoy

Work from home — which means you won’t have to worry about running late for work and paddle boarding across the Hudson River

Learning curve is steeper

Hustle on the side. This means you don’t have to quit the stability of your full-time job

Going mad after not leaving your house for weeks

If you want to learn more about getting an in-house copywriting job, be sure to check out our best resources on finding your dream job.

Video: How to find a job

Dream Job Blueprint

The 80/20 guide to finding a job you love

For this post, I’m going to focus on creating your own freelance copywriting hustle — even if you have no experience. 

How to become a copywriter (even with zero experience)

The art of writing (and doing it well) is one you’ll learn with experience — so you might not be great at it if you’re just starting out at first.

To help offset the steep learning curve, though, here are some fantastic resources on copywriting from our sister site GrowthLab:

20 copywriting books you need on your shelf

How to write copy

The 6-part outline every good sales page has in common

How a $100,000 sales page is made

The Ultimate Guide to Remarkable Content (This is from our sister site I Will Teach)

The Ultimate Guide to Email Copywriting

The good news is the more you do copywriting, the better you’ll get. So let’s get started on the four steps to becoming a freelance copywriter.

Step 1: Define your copy niche

Before you start looking for clients, before you start putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard?), before you do anything at all, you need to first define your niche.

This is the specific area and audience you’re going to target as a copywriter.

“But why would I want to limit myself? Wouldn’t I get more work if I open myself up to more people?”

It’s paradoxical — but you’ll actually be able to find more work AND charge more if you niche down your audience and specialization.

Imagine there are two fitness coaches. Which one do you think gets more business?

The coach who says that he’ll help anyone feel and look better

The coach who only works with middle-aged men to get six-pack abs

The answer is the second one! That’s because that coach is specialized. He knows who his clients are and offers a clear goal: To get six-pack abs. As such, he’ll attract more customers.

A few niche copywriters for inspiration:

VeryGoodCopy. Eddie gears his copywriting to helping SaaS companies craft … well, very good copy.

SusanGreenCopywriter. Susan helps nonprofits gain more funding through their copy.

TheGymCopywriter. Gyms aren’t all about lifting and getting swole — they’re also about high-performing copy techniques.

So first, think about what role you want to own — and there are a lot of them.

Emails / Sales funnels

Social media / Community management

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Blog posts / Articles

Video / Podcast scripts

There’s no right answer here. The important thing is you pick what’s interesting to you and get started. And you can always change it later if it’s not a right fit.

Now you’re going to niche down your target market.

This will be your prospective clients. Ask yourself:

What industry are they in?

What are their services?

How do they use copy currently?

Once you have the answer to those questions, you can come up with your niched-down role.

Here are a few examples:

Email funnel copywriter for SaaS companies

Social media manager for nonprofits

Blog posts for personal finance websites

Once you know how you want to approach your copywriting hustle, it’s time to find your first clients.

Step 2: Find your first client

Finding clients can be a little intimidating — especially when you’re new.

Luckily, once you find your first few clients, the process becomes MUCH simpler, since they’re likely to refer you to their network (more on this later).

There are a lot of different ways you can find your first client. And you already have a lot of different platforms to find work as a copywriter.

One of the most popular: Upwork, a job and gig site catered toward freelancers.

Getting started with the website is simple. You simply create a freelancer profile and start applying for various projects on the site such as copywriting, SEO, social media, and more.

It should be noted that while Upwork can be a great place to find clients and build a portfolio, you shouldn’t necessarily rely on it to find all of your clients.

Instead, we suggest you go to where your clients live. This means going to message boards, forums, and websites your client might frequent and be incredibly helpful.

It’s what Luisa Zhou, entrepreneur and writer for GrowthLab, did to help her earn $1.1M in eleven months.

From Luisa:

I started spending all my free time hanging out where my potential clients were online (free Facebook groups) and directly engaging with them by sharing valuable content and answering any questions I could about advertising.

That’s how I got my first client. A woman I’d been helping for free — answering her questions about how to set up a basic advertising campaign — asked me how she could work with me, and when I told her the price — $5,000 for six months — she said, without missing a beat, “I’m in.”

You can apply the same framework for your potential clients:

Are you a graphic designer? Find a Facebook or subreddit group for small business owners who need your services.

Are you a writer for a niche industry? Start answering questions on Quora regarding your niche.

Maybe you’re a video editor. Find online groups for bloggers looking to expand their content media.

Start going to these places and providing value. Not only that, but you should be doing it consistently. I’m talking on there every day for AT LEAST one hour a day.

By being engaged and providing immense value, you’ll build a network of clients organically and develop a rock steady reputation.

Step 3: Know what to charge

This is the part where most freelance copywriters get tripped up. That’s because there’s no official rate for your services.

Like many things freelancing, though, you need to remember not to worry too much about it when you’re starting out.

In fact, you can even work for FREE if you do it strategically.

Some good examples when it’s okay to work for free:

You’re building a portfolio of work you can show to future paying clients

You want to build connections with businesses you admire

The person you want to work for is well-connected. And if you do a good job, they’ll connect you with other people

You already have a full-time job so you can afford to trade time for experience

This is something I’ve done when I was starting out as a freelance copywriter AND it’s something that Ramit has done many times before. 

This flexibility is key to any freelance marketer starting out.

Of course, you’re going to want to eventually charge, you know, actual money.

To help, we have four different pricing models you can use to base your rates off of:

Hourly. You set an hourly rate and a client will pay you per hour. The benefit for the client is that they mitigate their risk since they can just stop paying you whenever they want if they’re dissatisfied. It also stops the clients from piling on work without paying you.

By project. You’ll know exactly what you’re getting paid for an entire project, with more concrete deliverables for the client. This method is nice because when you’re done with the project, you’re done. So you might end up getting paid more than your hourly rate. However, you do run the risk of the client adding more work onto the project as you move along, so communication about what a “project” entails is important.

By retainer. Your client will pay you a set amount monthly. This allows the client to have access to you at any given time during that month. As a beginner, you’re probably not going to find a client who is willing to hire you on retainer until you’ve built up enough experience working with them. However, it’s a good goal to have and something to keep in mind as you get into freelance marketing.  

Commision/bonus. This payment model can work in conjunction with all of the other ones and can provide a healthy incentive for you to get your work done. For instance, if your client promises you a $1,000 bonus for attaining X amount of leads with your landing pages.  

If you’re a beginner, I suggest you charge hourly, because most clients are going to be unsure about whether or not you’ll be able to do a good job. As such, they might not want to give you a fat project fee.

Once you’ve gotten your first three or so clients though, then you can move on to different pricing models.

And when it comes to how much exactly you should be charging, there’s no right answer.

However, we here at IWT have a few solid rules of thumb that can help you ballpark a good rate:

Drop Three Zeros Method

Simply take your ideal (read: realistic) salary, drop three zeros from it, and voila, you have your hourly rate!

For example, say you’d really like to earn at least $40,000. Just take the three zeros from the end and you now have your rate: $40/hour.

Double your “resentment number”

I love this one because it’s both really interesting and effective. Ask yourself: What’s the lowest rate you’ll work for that’ll leave you resentful of your work?

Say you’ll work for $15/hour at the VERY LEAST. Just double that number so now you’ll earn $30/hour.

Do what the next guy does

Go to Google and search for the average hourly rate for whatever service you’re providing. You’ll get a good sense of where to start when you’re charging your clients.

If you need even MORE help, here’s that handy chart from professional copywriter Abbey Woodcock. She surveyed 68 copywriters for GrowthLab to find out how much they charged:

What do you notice about the rates above?

First, there’s a HUGE disparity between a highly experienced copywriter and a beginner copywriter. This should be encouraging for anyone just getting started.

Also, even when you’re a relative beginner, you’re still making a good amount of money for your services. Say you write an “About” page for a company and charge $85. If that “About” page only took you an hour to write, that’s a fantastic ROI on the time spent.

Of course, you don’t want to just charge the same rate forever. Which is why, when you get more and more experience, you’re going to want to scale.

Step 4: Scale

Scaling means growing your copywriting hustle to earn more and get more clients.

And the best way to do this is through referrals. These are potential clients that you get from existing clients.

When your current client refers your copywriting services to another business, that’s a referral.

They’re incredibly valuable for a few reasons:

You can raise your prices when you get a referral. The client who referred you has automatically added value to your work by recommending you. That means you can charge more for your work.

You get better clients. When you charge more, you’ll start attracting high-quality clients who can afford you. They’re also much less likely to waste your time if you’re being paid top dollar. It’s a win all around.

You can more than double your income. Check out this case study from a freelance project manager who went from charging $25/hour to $75/hour just by getting a referral. This is a HUGE win.

And asking for referrals is easy — if you have the right script.

Luckily, we have a proven script from our article on how to get clients to help you ask for referrals:

CLIENT’S NAME,

I’m so happy to hear that you enjoyed my work. If you know of anyone else who’s looking for my services as well, I’d be grateful if you passed my contact information along to them.

Thank you,

YOUR NAME

It’s simple, direct, and gets results. Over time, you’ll start getting so many referrals you’ll have to deny some prospective clients — which is an awesome problem to have.

Earn more money today

If you’re really interested in making money as a freelance copywriter, we here at IWT have a gift for you: The Ultimate Guide to Making Money.

In it, we’ve included our best strategies to:

Create multiple income streams so you always have a consistent source of revenue

Start your own business and escape the 9-to-5 for good

Increase your income by thousands of dollars a year through side hustles like freelancing

Download a FREE copy of the Ultimate Guide today by entering your name and email below — and jump into freelance marketing today.

How to become a copywriter (even with zero experience) is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

[themarketcouncil]

Note: This case study is a summary of a very successful three year public relations and media outreach campaign that I single-handedly created and executed, landing media and influencer mentions in US Weekly, Elle, Shape, Fitness, Allure, W, Health, Prevention and many, many more.  It is packed with story ideas, pitches and ways to reach out to the media and influencers for press coverage for your new brand.  While I love working with health, wellness, fitness and nutrition brands, these tips are for anyone trying to connect with the media and build their market. If you are looking to build press and influencer connections like a pro, you should probably check out my course The PR Playbook.com as well.

Why Vanity Metrics Matter

Everyone knows that influencers can actually sell through your product, bring real return on investment to your conversion funnel and actually have you making some money off your new business, but you tell me, how do you plan on paying for all that sponsored media? You need a balance of both blogger and persuasive top tier mentions and connections to convince and convert.

Same Problem, New Solution

I digitized these press clips and organized them into case studies with helpful tips for you to demonstrate that the news cycle in health, wellness, fitness and nutrition is a continual loop of how to look and feel our best. What is old again, is new again.

How to Pitch Like a PR Pro

It is not enough to tell the world you have built something brand new. You MUST share the problem you solve and why your product is the ultimate solution. In order to do this consistently like I did, with press in every media outlet imaginable – from  Brides to Marie Claire; Town & Country to Oprah and Travel & Leisure to Vogue, you have to be very, very creative. No blogger, vlogger or journalist in their right mind wants a mass blanket pitch.

One of my first clients in beauty was a complex collection of skincare products (read: over 125 SKUs) from a brand called Yon-Ka Paris.

The challenge: Accumulate international brand awareness and celebrity cult-like status for an obscure, botanically-based skin care line created by two eccentric sisters living in the countryside of France without heat, electric or plumbing.

Create an influencer & celebrity worthy experience while delivering five-star results at a world premiere event, like the Cannes Film Festival.

2. Don’t just focus on the masses. Branch out and persistently and consistently land press coverage in specialty (niche) media like I did here with bridal and new moms.

3. Pitch story angles around each individual product for additional reviews and inclusion in specific problem/solution stories.

4. Build upon product coverage and reviews by promoting spa and retail partners to build a clip book of the best of spa and wellness experiences in top tier media outlets, like Allure, Vogue and W.

5. Stay on top of all consumer trends and connect the brand to everything that is “hot”, on newsworthy, while climbing the charts – always sharing with media outlets in a timely fashion.

6. Create a charticle and/or listicle with products that offer solutions for every health and beauty challenge under the sun.

7. Never miss an opportunity to let the world know that your product is coveted by insiders “in the know”. Yon-Ka featured here in The NY Times. 

8. Research, uncover and reveal blogger, vlogger, model, celebrity and influencer hacks, secrets & ways to look and feel their best. Then share it with those who want to look and feel like a star.

9. Highlight and tout exotic ingredients, or even every day house hold items and edibles like grapefruit as the next super food, miracle cure and foundation of youth, while sharing the benefits backed by science.

10. Show everyone short cuts to reduce stress while recreating an at-home mindful spa & wellness experience.

  More ways to create story ideas around your products and brand . . .

People can never have enough ways to eliminate the signs of anxiety and exhaustion.

Help followers, customers & prospects pack for travel and another season and reason of self-care.

Vet products, curate collections and share other complimentary brands in your story.

Offer up new survival tips and products for every day annoying, yet common problems, like dark under eye circles. 

Collaborate with all-stars, including  your strategic partners, retailers and professionals for added press coverage. 

Reposition your products for a new market – like men’s skin care.

Position your more expensive, luxury product as an investment.

Make sure your products are in good company and in the hands of professionals – and share their know-how with the world.

Niche markets like “pregnancy” may have a shorter customer lifetime value, but they are open to product suggestions and recommendations. Especially when positioning your product as safe and effective for everyone.

You’ll build more trust when you sound believable, so keep it really real. Don’t just make up your CEO’s quotes. Let them speak from the heart. Be believable.

Popularize a certain part of the body and zone in on care for that one particular area.

Promote  soothing, safe, natural ingredients – like botanicals for specific skin conditions.

Take an age old problem, and propose a new way to deal and heal it.

Sampling sizes always work to give customers the opportunity to try before they buy.

Does your product have an exceptional color? texture? Share the beauty of what’s inside the bottle.

Understand your customer persona. What is her personality type? Naturalist? Futurist? or maybe just pure Becky. It doesn’t matter, just be sure to pitch to the media he/she reads, views, likes and shares.

Go local – Connect with city guides in areas of dominant influence.

  Even in an age of influencers by the dozen, stars and celebrities still have pull.

Plan an amazing product giveaway for your audience, fans and followers. 

Plan a splurge vs steal story – and include products at every price point.  

  Help people get ready to reveal more for a new season – summer slim down and beach beauty prep.

Have experts speak on your behalf. They need the publicity just as much as you do.

Promote your product by lifestyle – cross over with fashion and accessories. Create the ultimate beach guide.

Notice an ingredient trend before an influencer does? – help them select products for a round up .

Have you opened a new retail account? Launched in a new online store? Tweet and share the news.

Even if you are not pitching a story or new product it is important that influencers know what you are up to – so they can include you in their upcoming stories. Stay in touch with your VIPs.

What happens when you have a fierce sales team, a loyal customer base and a winning marketing team –  it’s a recipe for magic – it’s explosive.Work together.

Show people how to relax, de-stress and unwind during distracting times.

Help people transform themselves. Read: A complete vegan makeover.

Are your products in a new hot destination spot? Promote it.

Added tip: Make customization as simple as possible. As a matter of fact. Make everything as simple as possible. 

Take one ingredient – like geranium – and promote the hell out of it. 

Get people out of a bind – like when they over tan or burn their skin .

Keep it exclusive and promote win its aka “contests” to attract new audiences.

Promote B2B and B2C – which also helps boost employee morale.

Promote experts from within your company to speak about their skill set.

Seed out your products to celebrities.

Offer tips on how to choose the best products in a category – like self-tanners.

Go niche – pitch to smaller media and combine products with partners for the ultimate story mention.

Pimp out celebrity users when they are launching a new movie or track. They need the publicity now more than ever.

Reveal confessions. 

Ask your followers what their favorites are and report on that.

Enter awards for your brand and promote the honors.

Focus on problematic issues, like sensitive skin. 

Want more ways to build your brand with media coverage? Check out my on line video course, ThePRPlaybook.com a short cut to learning how to pitch the press like a pro.

How to Get Ongoing PR Coverage For Your Health & Beauty Business Note: This case study is a summary of a very successful three year public relations and media outreach campaign that I single-handedly created and executed, landing media and influencer mentions in…

[thephilosophersapprentice]

[clears throat] h i l m n o q s t w v z because i'm a terrible person

My brain tried to resolve that into “Hi I’m noquist” and I was what.

H: How would I describe my style? Descriptive. Overly flowery, but in a gritty sort of way. Detail-oriented. My friend suggested “Tolkien” but I was like nah it’s more of a cross between Tolkien and C.S. Forester (if you don’t know who that is. AT LEAST READ ABOUT HORNBLOWER BEFORE YOU COME BACK. And consider watching the movies with Ioan Gruffudd.)

I: My guilty pleasure… writing friendship scenes. Generally between characters from two different fandoms. I know, I’m weird. I don’t do the shippy ship. Instead, I like reading about people being platonic and awesome.

L: The weirdest AU I’ve ever come up with… well, the three-way crossover with Doctor Who, Hornblower and Forever is up there, as is the Doctor Who/Star Wars one. But the absolute weirdest AU I’ve ever come up with was to genderbend Anakin and Obi-Wan and put them and Ahsoka as officers on a privateer during the Napoleonic Wars.

M: Premises… let’s see… Well, there’s a couple of stories experimenting with gods as relates to science–specifically, people using science to create gods. They have nothing to do with most of my fanfics, honestly. They’re all original stories. Other than that, I have a steampunk/gaslamp story with a sort of Nazgul-like villain (aka human beings who were corrupted by Evil and Necromancy and Misuse of Magic-type stuff.) It doesn’t sound as awesome as it is because I haven’t mentioned any characters specifically.

N: Yes. It’s a very specific feeling, the ache as you search for something and then realize it doesn’t exist and then realize again that you wouldn’t be the right person to write it. Unfortunately, I can’t think of any specific examples at the moment.

O: It depends. Sometimes the plot comes first and the characters come later. Other times I’ll have characters but no plot and it comes to me slowly. I don’t really have a preference for one way or the other. It’s easier if I know the characters first, though.

Q: Discarded projects. Well, discarded scenes happen in every project (I had to delete my favorite scene from my screenwriting final project last year), and I generally have a couple of documents just full of snatches, vague ideas, because I hate to waste anything, and inspiration comes so dear. But my first discarded project… Probably the plotless Star Wars post-Original Trilogy fanfiction that sprawled out to 425 pages and had no defined direction or structure. Most of my other projects end up salvaged into another shape, but the Robin Hood retelling is awaiting new inspiration and the Arthurian legends novel about Lancelot’s son became a retelling of the legend from Mordred’s point of view.

S: Any fandom tropes I can’t resist? Well… Most AUs are hard to resist, particularly a well-envisioned historical AU. I’m not into coffee shops or very into high school/college AUs (though, I will read Hornblower college AUs so long as they’re not too shippy. I keep headcanoning Horatio as being ace, despite the source material saying otherwise. I even have my own Hornblower college AU where Horatio, Archie and William are all members of a study group. Horatio’s going into science with an advanced mathematics degree, Archie is undeclared and William is a history major.) I’m also a big fan of character development and particularly missing scenes (I was so mad that we never get to see the Doctor just being a father to Miranda in “Father Time” but more about that another time.) Fantasy AUs, sci-fi AUs or paranormal AUs–it kind of depends on what it’s trying to do and what it does manage to accomplish, but I do like them.

T: Tropes I can’t stand… well, I don’t read smut for one. I also don’t like a lot of ships because I personally can’t see them ever happening. I don’t particularly care for straight-up romance but I will read romance if it’s a subplot to something else (i.e. a crime thriller or suspense.) A lot of genderbend which has the potential to be fantastic turns out terrible because of poor writing or insufficient fleshing-out of the concept, or maybe just because the writer doesn’t have enough imagination, and that’s really sad to me. I also dislike omegaverse or whatever it’s called.

V: A secondary character I want to see more of: I HAVE TO PICK JUST ONE?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? If Obi-Wan and Ahsoka qualify (because Anakin Freaking Skywalker hogs the bloody spotlight all the time), I want to see more of them teaming up! I like Captain Jack Harkness, but the fanon has actually done right by him. I like Martha Jones. She seems to be unpopular, which annoys me because she is awesomeness incarnate. I like Mace Windu and I feel like he’s way too underappreciated, and portrayed as stern and unimaginative, which he definitely is not. I also like Elrond and I wish there was more fic about Elladan and Elrohir because what’s their story? I NEED TO KNOW MORE GUYS. Also there’s Claire Temple but apparently she’s going the rounds of Netflix superheroes so maybe that one isn’t justified. But the number one secondary character I NEED more fanfic about is the unnamed (?) priest from Daredevil because he’s seen a lot and I want to hear more of his advice and about his experience, which we won’t necessarily get from the show because, even though it’s Netflix, there’s still time constraints going there. And that’s really the fantastic thing about fanfiction, right? You can go anywhere or do anything and don’t have to worry about losing your audience because your audience practically selects itself. You can write about really niche things that would never make it on TV or as a book and people will LOVE IT.There’s also a few OCs I’d read fic about because I got to know them in another fic (about the canon characters) and I want to know more about them too.

W: Sometimes a general prompt isn’t enough for me. I tend to prefer the absurdly specific ones, because they will spark off concepts where general ones won’t.

Z: Major character death–better known as the biggest point of contention when it comes to fanfic. Yes, I have written it. Yes, I condone it, but mostly in one-shots because I can’t imagine living without those characters for long. There are a few characters who are ABSOLUTELY OFF-LIMITS, though: mostly supporting cast who deserved better, such as Foggy Nelson and Ahsoka Tano. I also can’t forgive anyone who wrote Jack Frost getting killed off or Steve Rogers either, and if you killed off Falcon I’d probably come and smack you with the frying pan of my URL because you can’t possibly have a good reason for doing that… Yeah, there’s a list.