Tag Archives: Writing

HOW TO BE A SUCCESSFUL DIGITAL AGE WRITER

When I started this DyingWords blog nearly 10 years ago, I formed the tagline Provoking Thoughts on Life, Death, and Writing. I’m well past the 400 thought-provoking-post mark now, and I have around 20 indie-published books on the commercial market with over 30,000 eBook downloads in the past 12 months throughout 66 different countries. This decade-long blog and book writing experience includes 2 years I spent getting well-paid to write commercial web content targeting digital age readers. Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing in my tagline, and my unfolding success as a digital age writer keeps improving.

Something I’ve learned about successful writing (commercially selling & getting paid) in the digital age is you must know the rules of the game. First, you write. You park your ass in the chair, get your fingers on your keys, and you produce work. You have a brand, and you know the audience you’re writing to. Patience—you’re in this for the long haul—so you keep producing. You have confidence in your work, and you put your work out in public.

But you have to kill your darlings, as Stephen King says, and cut what doesn’t matter to the story no matter how much you love your suckling little bitches. You develop multiple voices, and you write to what your intended audience (ideal reader) wants to hear. You economize. And you balance your artistic aloofness with your entrepreneurial energy and your ego.

Commercial writing is a tough business—especially in this digital age where online readers really don’t read (they skim) and you’re competing with Youtube cat video grabs at attention. I was going to write a provoking thought on today’s digital writing world, but then I found this piece by Nicholas Cole. He’s an outstanding digital age writer who summed up what it takes to be commercially successful in this crazy day of online content production. This article by Nicholas Cole originally appeared in INC magazine (online) and is approved to share for your enjoyment.

Beware—Nicholas Cole is brutally honest about what it takes to be a successful (money-making) digital age writer. Trust me. I know.

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7 Skills You Need to Practice to Become a Successful Writer in the Digital Age
by Nicholas Cole

“When people see what I’ve built for myself as a writer, they think it’s the result of my degree in creative writing. It’s not. I tell everyone that my college education was great for two reasons: it taught me how (and what) to read, and it taught me how to read my work aloud–a skill that reveals more about your writing than any amount of silent reading ever will.

But my college education did not teach me about the underlying business model of the writing world. It didn’t explain to me how blogs and major websites make money through digital advertising–and how writers can earn money by driving page views. I didn’t take a class called Personal Branding 101, and I definitely didn’t learn about email marketing funnels and lead magnets and landing pages in my class on Russian literature.

Nobody walked me through the formal publishing process, explained what a typical royalty contract looked like, and certainly didn’t compare that old-world approach with the possibilities of self-publishing through Amazon. And most of all, there was no class for the fast-paced writing styles that drive, quite literally, every single viral piece of writing on the internet.

These were all parts of the “digital writer” path I had to teach myself–and all ended up being more valuable than the hours I spent notating Crime and Punishment.

Becoming a successful writer in the digital age is not just about writing. That’s the foundation, of course, but in today’s world–just as musicians have had to become their own marketing managers and creative directors, and even play the role of entrepreneur–writers have to do more than just write.

Here are the 7 skills you need to practice if you want to become a successful writer in the digital age:

1. The habit of writing.

If you want to be a writer, you have to write. There is no simpler way to say it.

If you want to be a painter, you have to paint. If you want to be a cook, you have to cook. If you want to be X, you have to practice X–far more than you “think” about how badly you want to be X.

All through college, I watched the majority of my peers wait to write. They were waiting to feel inspired, waiting to see what the teacher thought of their last piece, waiting for some outside nod of approval instead of just getting on with it and putting pencil to paper (or fingers to keys).

I’m here to tell you that unless you can establish the simple practice of writing into your daily schedule, you will never succeed. Period. Stop reading here, because nothing else I tell you will matter–unless you can first firmly establish this habit into your everyday life.

If you want to become a writer, you have to write. Every single day.

2. The art of personal branding.

People don’t buy writing. They buy you.

In the digital age, the single most valuable thing you can create for yourself is a brand around who you are and whatever it is you write about.

You could be the most incredible wordsmith the world has ever seen, but unless you have an audience, nobody will read it–and even if you want to go the conventional publishing route, a publisher will see you and your work as a gamble. You don’t have a following on the internet. You don’t have an e-mail list of people ready to read your next piece of work.

Nobody knows who you are, and that’s a problem.

I attribute a lot of my success as a writer to my working knowledge of branding, positioning, marketing, and social storytelling. And as much as we writers would love to hide away and not have to “put ourselves out there,” we don’t have that luxury anymore. We are now competing against YouTubers, Instagram stars, and viral cat videos. People are either reading our work, or they’re watching two cats swing from a ceiling lamp.

To attract (and keep) people’s attention, you have to give them something to feel loyal to–and that’s you.

3. The patience to play the long game.

There are two types of writing: the kind you share, and the kind you sell.

Ninety-nine percent of artists–whether you’re a writer, a musician, a filmmaker, a painter–want to come out of the gate and have someone (they’re not quite sure who, but someone) pay them to create whatever it is they want to create.

As an independent writer, I’ve learned that consumers buy only two things: things they like, and things they need. Everything else, we ignore–no matter how “brilliant” someone else says it is. Which means, as creators, it’s our job to adopt a similar mentality: here are the things I create for myself (that someone else might like), and here are the things I create to solve a consumer need (and turn a nice profit, which allows me to spend more time creating things I enjoy).

The poetry I keep in my journal? There’s probably a very small market for that. A book that teaches aspiring writers how to become successful in the digital age? Much larger market.

Now, this doesn’t mean I should never write poetry. But this also doesn’t mean I should only write poetry and expect to make a fortune.

4. The confidence to practice in public.

Nothing has done my writing more good than regularly sharing my work on the internet.

When you publish something out in the open, when you “practice in public” (as I like to call it), you receive immediate feedback. You feel vulnerable. You fear judgment. You see your work and read your sentences with a heightened awareness (“I can’t believe I didn’t catch that before …”). And most of all, you practice the most important underlying habit of all: the confidence to admit, “This is what I wrote today–in all its imperfection.”

I mentor a lot of aspiring writers. Some of the most frequent emails I receive come from those who want to turn writing into their career–but are afraid to share anything they’ve written: “I just feel like I’m not there yet. I want to make my debut when I’m ready.”

Can I give you a brutal truth?

Nobody is waiting for you. And you will never be ready.

All artists have this fear that what they made today isn’t good enough–and if they share it, what will happen five, 10 years later when they look back? Won’t everyone laugh at how bad it is? Won’t it be a disgrace?

That’s certainly one way to look at it. But in all honesty, I don’t see it that way at all.

In fact, there’s nothing I enjoy more than looking back at something I wrote years ago and seeing where my writing style was at, at that time. It’s like witnessing a younger version of myself–and I can, with infinite more clarity, see how I’ve improved since then.

5. The humility to cut what wastes the reader’s time.

I had someone reach out to me recently who described my writing style as “minimalistic.” I’d never thought about it that way–but that’s an accurate word for it.

Some writers love description. They want you to see every blade of grass, every leaf on the tree, every long and winding grain in the tree trunk turned kitchen table. Other writers love dialogue. They want you to hear their characters talk, and talk, as if their voices were lined with gold and a pleasure to listen to indefinitely. Some writers live by the facts, and color their paragraphs with statistics and footnotes and miscellaneous information intended to add further depth to the topic at hand. And some writers just want to float on their stream of consciousness, letting their words guide the way without ever intervening and making a conscious decision to stop and move on to the next point or moment in time.

To each their own, but from my experience (and I’ve written close to 2,000 pieces online), readers in the digital world have only so much patience. They just want you to get to the point–Netflix shows do this addictingly well.

Part of writing in the digital age means understanding your audience–and today’s readers barely have the patience to sit through a two-sentence tweet or a seven-second Snapchat video.

Paragraphs and paragraphs of static description is a lot to ask of today’s readers, and a good many writers fail because they refuse to adjust.

6. The mastery of multiple voices.

As an independent writer, the ability to write with a range of voices will be your most valuable (and easiest to monetize) skill.

There are dozens of different voices a writer should hone throughout his or her career–including all the writing voices that need to be deployed to effectively market yourself as a writer.

There is an art to writing sales copy, an art to writing e-mail sequences, an art to writing social media posts that can leave an impact on a reader in three or four sentences. There is an art to writing articles that subtly promote your work, an art to writing e-books that readers will want to download. And the reason why it’s so important to nurture these business-focused voices is because either you’re going to learn how to do it for yourself, or you’re going to have to hire someone (like me) to do it for you.

Part of being a successful writer in the digital age means being more than just a writer. You have to be the creative director, the marketer, and the social media strategist too.

7. The willingness to be both an artist and an entrepreneur.

I really do believe that every artist today has to also become an entrepreneur–if he or she wants to be successful independently.

This dual-specialization is probably the hardest skill for an artist to acquire. They are two opposing forces, both striving toward very different goals. As an artist, you want to express yourself and write what feels most truthful. As an entrepreneur, you are always searching for what’s going to perform well, resonate with readers, and ultimately sell.

As someone who spent years facilitating imaginary conversations between both sides of myself–the artist and the entrepreneur–in search of balance, it took me a long time to fully understand that you can’t have one without the other. You cannot become a successful writer (or artist period) in the digital age without some sense of awareness of how the business world works.

The entrepreneur in you is the part you want showing up to meetings. The entrepreneur is the one you want negotiating deals, contracts, opportunities, and more. The entrepreneur is the one you want to empower to protect your inner artist, and to have the working knowledge of the business world so you don’t find yourself giving up 80 percent ownership over your work–or worse, writing for minimum wage.

I am a writer, through and through. It’s who I am in my heart. I couldn’t imagine going a single day without finding a quiet place to write something, anything, that I feel. But had I not honed my skills as an entrepreneur, I might still be scouring Craigslist for the next opportunity to write articles for $25 a pop.

It’s not about being one or the other–an artist or an entrepreneur.

Becoming successful, period, is about understanding the rules of the game so that you can do what it is you love, on your own terms, for the rest of your life.”

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Nicholas Cole knows the rules of the game. Nicholas is a top digital age writer and entrepreneur who’s one of the most-read online scribes and a motivated mover & shaker. His pieces have over 100 million post views.

Fortune 500 companies and leading publishers like Time, Harvard Business Review, and Forbes have paid Nicholas Cole well to produce web content that resonates with digital readers. Besides being an indie writer in his Digital Press company, Nicholas also spearheads Ship 30 for 30 where he mentors emerging writers. Check out Nicholas Cole’s recent book, The Art & Business of Online Writing: How to Beat the Game of Capturing and Keeping Attention.

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STEPHEN KING’S SURPRISINGLY SIMPLE SECRET TO SUCCESS

When it comes to being a master of the commercial writing craft, few authors are more successful than Stephen King. The “Horror Guy”, who King calls himself, has tirelessly worked for over sixty years. He’s produced more than fifty novels and countless other pieces in a non-stop career during which he almost died from substance abuse and a nasty vehicle accident. “Prolific” is an understatement when it comes to labeling this writing machine, and there’s a surprisingly simple secret to Stephen King’s success.

Yes, the secret to Stephen King’s success is surprisingly simple. It’s a concoction beyond natural storytelling talent, which he has in spades. It’s a mix beyond craft knowledge and prose perfection. And it’s a blend beyond something else—something most writers simply won’t do in their lives. Yet it’s a simple success secret which Stephen King slyly shares if you follow his work.

Before I disclose Stephen King’s s simple success secret, let me tell you what triggered this post. I’m a big Stephen King fan. I’ve read a lot of his stuff—From A Buick Eight is my mind-blowing favorite—and I know many readers can’t Stand him (pun intended). Certainly, he’s verbose compared to James Patterson, but I’m on Team King all the way, even though Team Patterson outsells him.

I connected with a lady who recently retired from the same police force I served with. I didn’t know her directly, but I worked with her dad in the RCMP years ago. She made a career as a detective with Vancouver’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (I-HIT) and was their high-profile spokesperson for a long stint. Now this fine lady has a keen interest in beginning a crime-writing career, and she was silly enough to turn to me for advice.

I see piles of potential in this unfolding writer. She has the proper package required to be a commercial success and a household name in crime fiction circles, just as she was in the true crime world. Part of our long talk was me recommending resources to study. Stephen King’s On Writing—A Memoir of the Craft was at the top of the list.

Stephen King. Where do you start to explain his success secret? First, Stephen King is self-made. He didn’t come from writing royalty, and that story of him working nights at a laundry and throwing Carrie in the trash isn’t bullshit. His wife, Tabitha, rescued the manuscript and submitted it to Putnam and the success of Stephen King—writer—began.

Stephen King is coming on to 74. He still writes every day that he can and that includes Christmas and his birthday. Mr. King still finds time to read—lots of reading time—and he generously gives what he has to spare in helping others to develop their writing skills. That includes unfolding writers like my retired detective friend who I hope has redlined, yellow highlighted, and made black ink notes in an On Writing copy as I have.

In prepping this post, I reread On Writing. Or, I should say reviewed my red lines and yellow bars along with black ink notations. I’ve paged this prize at least a dozen times as I’ve built my skills, and I’m now at the point that I can legitimately call myself a commercial writer who’s achieved international bestselling status.

Call me a bragger. Just don’t call me a bullshitter, and I attribute my achievements much to Stephen King’s simple success secret which I’ll keep you in suspense from while I do a quick review of what’s in On Writing and why these pages of gold are so, so valuable for anyone who wants to make it in the commercial storytelling world.

Mr. King wrote On Writing in 2000. At least that’s what the copyright page says. That would have made him around 52 which is 11 years younger than I was when I decided to take writing stories seriously.

On Writing opens with this quote in the foreword: “What follows is an attempt to put down, briefly and simply, how I came to the craft, what I know about it now, and how it’s done. It’s about the day job; it’s about the language.”

It’s about the day job and it’s about the language. Commercial writing is a job. It’s bloody hard work that requires a writer to show up every day, sit down with their ass in the chair, and put their fingers on the keys—not just when they feel like it or when they think the muse calls. And it’s about using those keys to transcribe language into a crafted story that’s saleable to a mass market.

Like Stephen King has been doing tirelessly every day for 60 years.

“This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don’t understand very much about what they do—not why it works when it’s good, not why it doesn’t when it’s bad. I figured the shorter the book, the less the bullshit.”

On Writing is a short book by Stephen King standards. It runs just shy of 300 pages, but those pages contain sage quotes like these:

“You must not come lightly to the blank page.”

“It’s writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you take it seriously, we can do business. If you can’t or won’t, it’s time for you to close this book and do something else. Wash the car, maybe.”

“Simple sentences worked well for Hemmingway, didn’t they? Even when he was drunk on his ass, he was a fucking genius.”

“I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. Good writing is about letting go of fear and affectation. Also about making good choices about the tools you plan to work with.”

“I love this job. I want you to love it, too. But if you don’t want to work your ass off, you have no business trying to write well—settle back into complacency and be grateful you have even that much to fall back on. There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust over your typewriter or computer. He lives underground. He’s a basement guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you. Do you think this is fair? I think it’s fair. He may not be much to look at, that muse guy, and he may not be much of a conversationalist (what I get from mine is mostly surly grunts, unless he’s on duty), but he’s got the inspiration. It’s right that you should do all the work and burn the midnight oil because the guy with the cigar and the little wings has got a bag of magic. There’s stuff in there that can change your life. Believe me, I know.”

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others. Read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut. If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

“Constant reading will pull you into a place (a mindset, if you like the phrase) where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness. It offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn’t, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or your word processor.”

“A radio host once asked me how I write. I answered ‘one word at a time’. Day in and day out. Not surprisingly, it’s that simple. It’s the secret to my success.”

In my humble opinion (IMHO), Stephen King’s surprisingly simple secret to his success as a commercial writer is tirelessness. He’s tirelessly written one word at a time for over six decades and shows no sign of letting up. Long live the King.

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Post note from Garry: There is a book karma god or some kinda benevolent page muse out there. I published this piece on Saturday, 20Feb2021 and on Sunday, 21Feb2021, I went into a used bookstore in Parksville on Vancouver Island. What did I find? A first edition, hardcover of On Writing in pristine condition. SCORE! Start the f’n car! Even the dust jacket had no fading or marks. I’m going to have this baby framed in a shadow box.

HAPPY NEW YEAR & WAZZUP FOR GARRY RODGERS WRITING IN 2021

Well, that was quite the ride. 2020, I mean, not my old ’69 428 Super Cobra Jet Mustang that I seriously regret selling. (But that’s for another story.) This time last year, there was absolutely no way I’d have thought “new normal” would be wearing a surgical mask outside the autopsy suite, lining-up in the rain—six feet apart—to score a cheap box of white wine, and applying online for a haircut then shaggily waiting to hear if I won the barbershop lotto. Thankfully, 2020 was actually a very good year for me. I’ll tell you about it, and also wazzup up for Garry Rodgers writing in 2021.

It was Monday, February 17th when I made the decision. The decision was committing to treat my book writing as a business, not a hobby. I’d been around the writing world for a while by then—going on ten years—and I’d written fourteen book publications, not to mention thousands of commercial web content pages, op eds & articles for online magazines, and blog posts.

Something changed that Monday morning, and I have to thank my friend Adam Croft for changing me. Adam and I have been friends for as long as I’ve been writing. I say it was back before Adam was famous and I still had hair. His mentorship taught me to develop The Indie Author Mindset, and that took my writing world to an entirely new plane.

The indie author mindset is a mental state. It involves changing your thinking, and I guarantee it will change your writing career. Being in the right mind frame invigorates, energizes, and inspires you to believe in yourself, show up, and do the work.

The indie author mindset works so well that in 2020 (despite universal doom and gloom) I published six books not to mention carrying on with blog writing and try to figure out this thing they call marketing. One book was historical non-fiction (Sun Dance—Why Custer Really Lost the Battle of the Little Bighorn), one was self-help (Interconnect—Finding Your Place, Purpose, and Meaning in the Universe), and four were part of a based-on-true-crime series (From The Shadows, Beside The Road, On The Floor, and Between The Bikers).

My 2020 book sales exploded—literally. Not only did I produce more saleable products, I “went wide” by publishing on Kobo and Nook as well as still duke-ing it out on Amazon. I also began experimenting with pay-to-play advertising and tapping retailer support systems. This past year, I’ve had well over 20,000 eBook downloads in 56 different countries which definitely paid back. By some standards, that makes me an international bestselling author.

I’m fine with that. And I’m happy my website and personal blog here at DyingWords keep growing. I installed a stat counter on my site in April 2019 that shows 340,000 visitors since then. My mailing list of regular subscribers and followers also goes steadily up.

Print books, you ask? I only have one print publication out and that was my first crack at novel writing. I think No Witnesses To Nothing was my best effort and I’ve gone downhill from there, but that’s not what the stats say and I have to go by that. The problem I see with print books, as opposed to electronic ones, is the return on investment. Sure, it’s the same manuscript. However, there’s the cost of producing a back cover and spine which adds about $200 to the production overhead and that requires a lot of sales to pay off. Having said this, though, I do plan on putting the Based-On-True-Crime books out on paper via Ingram Spark.

What about audio books? That’s another income source to tap into, and it’s very tempting considering the big upswing in audio sales that occurred in the year of whose name shall not be spoken. But… audio books are even more expensive to put out considering the output requires a voice-over that can run 200 bucks an hour for professional results. One step at a time…

I had a real honor bestowed in June 2020, thanks to crime writer and crow lady, Sue Coletta. I was invited as a regular blog contributor on The Kill Zone. This is a popular site (One of Writers Digest Top 100s) composed of 11 top thriller and mystery writers who cover all aspects of that industry. TKZ posts range from helpful pieces on writing craft to hard reality in the publishing business.

A fun side project was helping a friend, Christine Orme, publish an illustrated children’s book titled We Need More Toilet Paper. This was timely and sent a positive message to youngsters bewildered by life changes caused by Covid regulations. I did the formatting while Sue Coletta, my BFF, helped with editing.

July brought a pleasant surprise. I planned a “stacked promotion” for In The Attic which is book number one in my based-on-true-crime series. “Stacked” simply means I placed multiple ads on different online book promotion sites. The result? In The Attic hit the #1 Bestseller spot on the overall Amazon Crime Thriller list. I framed the screenshot.

Another venture was publishing a collection or boxed-set of books. I packaged In The Attic, Under The Ground, and From The Shadows into one eBook. Sales have been so-so, but it’s part of the long-term vision that makes the core of the indie author mindset.

My book business strategy involves having as many products available for sale as possible. My tactics are to increase my inventory (backlist) and speed up my delivery (new releases). For example, one eBook on Amazon is one product. An eBook with print and audio options are three products. Multiply that by a dozen titles, and now there are thirty-six products. Expand the distribution to five separate retail outlets (Amazon, Kobo, Nook, Apple, and Google) and this gives one hundred eighty individual products for consumers to choose from.

It’s a numbers game, and the key to financially succeeding is distributing decent products (i.e. marketable stories with proper editing and professional covers) as widely as possible in multiple formats. As preached in the indie author mindset, it’s all about getting your “ass in the chair and fingers on the keys”. That’s the focus for 2021.

My plans for this coming year are to release six more books in my based-on-true-crime series. The seventh one, Beyond The Limits, is nearly done and should be on the eShelves by mid-January. After that, there are five more planned to finish this series which is doable over twelve months.

The biggest new venture, however, is taking on a podcast. Podcasting is something I’ve been interested in for the past couple of years. This medium is not a sunset industry by any means, and the plan is to increase my writing exposure, or discovery, plus have some fun. I’ve spent the past month researching how successful podcasts are properly done, and I think I have a general handle on the technology.

I don’t want to slip the bag off the cat or pull the sheep over your face. But, I’ll hint I’m going to co-host a program… PostMortemPod — Two Crime Writers Dissect Famous Murder Cases. And I’m not going to mention my BFF co-host’s name either unless she wants to leave it in the comments. What we’ll do is have video/audio chats trying to make sense out of high-profile homicide and suspicious death files like JonBenet Ramsey, Natalie Wood, and the Black Dalia. You never know… we might take on a serial killer or two.

That’s an ambitious agenda, I know. However, it’s work I love doing, and this writing gig is not just a job for me. It’s my life. It’s what I do. I also love reading and learning new things which I did a lot of in 2020. My vocabulary extended to new Caronacoinage words and phrases like Covidiot, Doomscrolling, Quazz, Sanny, Miss Rona, Social Distancing, Coronacoaster, Locktail Hour, Flatten The Curve, Miley Virus, Liquor-Lockdown, Isobar, Isodesk, Blursday, Zoombombing, WFH, Healthcare Hero, Quarrantini, and this beaut from an Aussie, “Strewth mate, the Rona bought out all the Bogan magpies, so I cracked the shits and opened a coldie”.

Thanks to everyone for supporting my work. Thank you. I truly appreciate hearing from you regardless if comments are good, bad, up, or down. That’s how life goes, and I hope your life in 2021 is full of goods and ups!