The Bill Clinton Secret to Writing

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I’ve been a bit busy in wrapping up a few of my projects.A  So I’ll let my friend Daphne take over this post…

The Bill Clinton secret to writing

Last night, my 13-year-old daughter came to me complaining about her social studies homework. “I just can’t make myself do it, Mom,” she said. “It’s soooooo boring.” I squelched the urge to scream, “That’s because the school system has given you the world’s worst textbook.” (Is being dull a requirement for textbook writers? It surely seems so.) Instead, in my best and most patient writing-coach voice, I suggested that she emulate Bill Clinton.

No, it’s not what you might think. It’s just that we had recently watched him in the wonderful DVD Wordplay. If you haven’t seen this charming documentary yet, rush to your local store and rent it immediately. The movie is all about crossword puzzles and it includes interviews with, among others, the former president. He’s certainly not the most interesting or proficient puzzler of the bunch — the real fanatics brag about doing the weekend New York Times crossword in four minutes, in pen! But he does have a strategy worth emulating.

Clinton explains how he looks over the puzzle until he finds one clue he can answer easily. From there, he goes on to look for other openings. I’m paraphrasing here, but he says something like: “I just kind of chip away at it.”

You’ve probably done this with crosswords, too — but did you ever think to adopt the same strategy with writing? Remember the old joke “How do you eat an elephant?” Answer: One bite at a time. Turns out this works for writing, too.

When I produce my newsletter, for example, I never do it all in one go. It takes me about two hours — but I spread it out over six days, mostly in five- to 30-minute increments. Here’s the drill:

Day 1: pick topic
Day 2: do a mindmap
Day 3: start writing
Day 4: write some more
Day 5: revise and copy edit
Day 6: enter into software and proofread

Whether you’re faced with a tricky crossword puzzle or a difficult piece of writing, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. But you can fight that feeling by doing just a little bit at a time, taking a break and then going back to it.

Just as waves gradually wear down granite, so, too, your tiny but repeated efforts will eventually show impressive results.

Daphne Gray-Grant is a writing coach with an international practice. Sign up for her fra_Tee weekly newsletter Power Writing by going to her website www.publicationcoach.comA 

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Its not necessary to stretch the work out to 6 days.A  But its a good idea to stretch it out to 2 days at least.A  What I usually do is sit down at the beginning of the month and write down ideas for about 15-20 posts.A  And create quick mindmaps or bullet points for each of them (Daphne’s day 1 & Day 2.)

And then I pick up one of those topics and write a blog post on it.A  And publish it either after a couple of hours, or the next day.A  (Daphne’s day 3 to 6.)

I never publish the post as soon as I’ve written it down. What I do is usually timestamp the post to be published after a few hours.A  So that I have time to refine and edit the post further. (Disclosure: I don’t usually proof read these posts though as Daphne suggests you should.)

November Goal: Create a Quick Info Product

Did you know that the entire month of November is the “National Novel Writing Month?” The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel within 30 days. The focus is not on writing a master piece. But its on completing the novel.

Here is the amazing truth most NaNoWriMo participants stumble upon:

Time constraints Brew Insane Creativity!

The less time that you have, the better work you’ll do. How come? Because you’ll only focus on the most important things. You’ll develop the main plot and give more depth to the main characters.

NaNoWriMo Adaptation for Bloggers

Let me propose an idea: Lets ride along with NaNoWriMo. But instead of writing a novel from scratch, create an info product for your blog. An information product that can be sold for anything between $3 and $20.

Why Should You Create an Info Product?

Instead of relying on making money through ads alone, you’ll have your own product that you can sell. And you can pump in the profits from the sale to further promote your blog. And become more popular. You can then parlay your popularity to earn a full time income from your blog and quit your day job and live your dream life…

Info Product Formats

You don’t necessarily have to write a 50,000 words 175 pages info product. Here are some other quicker alternatives:

1. Write a report / hotsheet / manifesto: 5,000 words.

2. Create an audio book: 9,000-12,000 words. (You’ll have to record the words to make a 60-80 minute audio book.)

3 Quickfire Ways to Create an Info Product

1. Expand on one of your posts

Pick out any one of your old posts and add more details and depth to it. Cover all the angles to convert the topic into a report. Just answer the 6 W’s relating to your topic.

i. What is the idea about?
ii. Who should read it?
iii. Why should they read it?
iv. How, When & Where should they implement the idea?
v. Frequently Asked Questions and their answers.
vi. Case studies.
vii. More case studies.

2. Compile your back posts

Popular cartoonist and blogger Scott Adams recently did this. He deleted some of his older posts so that the public could no longer read them. And converted the posts into a book “Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!”

If you’ve been a long time blogger, then this is something you can do without spending a lot of time.

3. Interview an expert

This may be the easiest way of creating an info product. Especially an audio product. Just interview an expert. Steps?

i. Find an expert and get her permission for the interview.
ii. Create a set of 20-25 questions. Send the list of questions to the expert prior to the interview so that she can prepare the answers.
iii. Call the expert on a pre-arranged time and start interviewing.
vi. Record the phone call. Thats one audio product for you.
v. Transcribe the recorded call. (Or outsource it for around $100.)
vi. Edit the transcript for a second polished info product.

Action Summary:

• Set a goal to create one info-product before November 30th.
• Make a post on your blog announcing the info product. (Optional.) What this will do is make you accountable to your readers. And make sure that you meet your goal and create the info product.
• Let me know in the comments if you plan to create an info-product this month.

Note: If you’re stuck and cant come up with an idea to write on, let me know and I’ll brainstorm with you so that you have a viable idea that would make a good info-product. Just post a comment or contact me privately.

7 Blog Elements That Form First Impressions

Do you know why Michelin uses a baby in their tire ads?

Solomon Asch is a psychologist who pioneered the study of impression formation. He conducted an experiment where a bunch of people were divided in 2 groups. Both the groups were asked one question.

Group A is asked:

John is envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious and intelligent. In general, how emotional do you think John is? (Circle your answer.)

Not emotional ~ 1 ~ 2 ~ 3 ~ 4 ~ 5 ~ 6 ~ 7 ~ 8 ~ 9 ~ Very emotional

Group B is asked:

Mike is intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn and envious. In general, how emotional do you think Mike is? (Circle your answer.)

Not emotional ~ 1 ~ 2 ~ 3 ~ 4 ~ 5 ~ 6 ~ 7 ~ 8 ~ 9 ~ Very emotional

The Results

Folks in group A marked John as a very emotional person. Most rated him as 7 or 8.

Folks in group B marked Mike as a not so emotional person. Most rated him as 3 or 4.

The Twist (if you haven’t found out already)

John and Mike - both were described using the same 6 characteristics! The only difference is that the order of the characteristics was reversed. The first characteristic for John is envious and the last one is intelligent. Where as the first characteristic for Mike is intelligent and the last is envious.

Because envious is an emotionally loaded characteristic, most people marked John as being emotional. And because intelligent is not emotionally loaded, most people marked Mike as not being emotional.

The first characteristic made all the difference!

The Power of the First Impression

Lead with your best foot forward. Because the first impression has a lasting effect on your readers.

People will make a snap decision about your blog in less than 4 seconds!

So you have to make a powerful first impression. Here are 7 elements that you should pay attention to improve the first impression your blog makes.

7 Blog Elements That Form First Impressions

1. Make sure your blog has a sharp colour combination.

2. Make sure you use good readable fonts.

3. Un-clutter your blog. Remove all the frivolous elements that don’t assist your blog readers.

4. Make sure the first screen of your blog looks fabulous. Work on your logo and header so that they match the emotion you want from your readers.

5. Spend more time on your headlines. Your headline will put the readers in the right frame of mind.

6. Use good looking images in your blog post. Because good images quickly create a positive mind frame.

7. Start your blog post with a bang. Don’t hide your main point in the middle of the post. Start with it.

How To Find Inspiration to Write Everyday

Edward of TheBlogBeat asked me this question some days back:

Question: You stated you write an article every day, but how do you find the inspiration for writing an article everyday? Where do you find the time to research and writing without recovering what you’ve already covered?

Here is my answer:

“Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time… The wait is simply too long.” - Leonard Bernstein

My approach:

1. Research.

I always have a pen and paper ready whenever I’m reading a book. If I come across a good idea, I mark the page number down. I do the same online. Whenever I come across an article, I add it to my scrapbook (its a firefox plugin). Having 10-12 half baked ideas before you have to write is the first step. Once you have a good idea, then its just a matter of filling out the details.

Start Your Own Idea Swipe File TodayA 

2. No Distraction.

The great copy writer Eugene Schwartz used to do this. He had an egg timer that he always set it to 33.33. He would then clear his desk and remove everything except his type writer and the egg timer. For 33 minutes and 33 seconds, he couldn’t move from the chair. Its ok if he doesn’t write anything and simply stares at the blank white paper. But he can’t move.

After a few minutes of being bored out of his mind, ideas would come to him automatically.

Remove all your Distractions
and Simply Start Writing!

I have plugins installed on my browser that don’t allow me to access my email inbox and my RSS feed reader and other forums before noon everyday. By cutting out distraction in the early part of the day, I can write more. (Its another firefox plugin that I use - called LeechBlock. There are other similar options and softwares available too.)

Yes, I <3 FireFox

3. External Pressure.

Set deadlines. Nothing sparks your creativity better than constraints. As paradoxical as this sounds, trust me: limit your time frame and you’ll end up writing really really well. Set deadlines. Set external pressure. And you’ll not only get your work done, but you’ll do the work better.

For eg: for the newsletters that I publish, I have a fixed deadline. And I let the subscribers know about the deadline. So if they don’t receive the newsletter by the deadline, I’ll receive a few dozen emails and phone calls.A  For the guest posts that I publish, I let the publisher or the editor know when they can expect the article.A  Commitment gets the writing done.A  On time.

Commit to a Timeframe

Anyone can create external pressure for themselves. Simply ask 1-2 friends to call and shout at you if you fail to send them your article by a fixed time everyday. (These friends could also act as your friendly proof readers.)

4. Actual Writing.

Over the years, I’ve developed my own formula for quick writing. Its based on a quote from one of my favourite writers - that I can share with you:

“The secrets of telling a story well are three:
1. How to end
2. Where to begin
3. What to leave out.”
- Roy H. Williams

I just follow the 3 steps most of the time:

i. write the end first.
ii. Then start at the beginning.
iii. And then edit the article well.

Action Summary:

• Create your own idea book.A  Once you have a few half baked ideas to write on, then its just a matter of filling in details.
• Get rid of all the distractions and simply start writing.
• Commit yourself to deadlines.A  Ask a few of your faithful readers to proof read your work for you, and let them know when you’ll be sending in the drafts.
• Come up with your own writing formula or template.A  It makes writing a lot quicker.

It would be awsome if you could share your writing tips with me too!

How To Get Genies To Give You What You Want

Will the WWW Genie grant your wishes?

A genie grants 2 wishes to a man.

He wishes for:

1. The best drink in the world and
2. The best woman in the world.

The genie does his magic and gives the man…

Aquafina and Mother Teresa!

Moral of the Story: Be Specific.

In various tests conducted by hundreds of copywriters, the results have been the same.A  Specific copy beats generalities.

“Kills 99.8% germs”
is better than
“Kills 100% germs!”

Details add depth to the claim.A  And make it more believable. A  And only when people believe you will they buy from you.A  So remember to be specific in your claims and copy.A  Provide lots of specific details.A  And you’ll do better than before.

Picture Credit: psd

How To Double The Popularity of Your Blog Posts

How To Use Pictures to Increase Post Popularity

“A Picture is Worth a 1,000 Words!” - Fred Barnard*

An easy way to make your post stickier and more popular is to add a snazzy picture to it. Adding a single picture has known to double and treble the traffic to a blog post!

How To Find The Perfect Picture for Your Posts

Step 1: Reduce your post to one core keyword. And search for pictures using that keyword. For eg: the keyword for this post is “pictures.”

Step 2: If you fail to find a good picture for a keyword, use the thesaurus to come up with alternative words you can search for. For eg: When I didn’t find the perfect picture while searching for “pictures”, I searched for “mosaic” and found the right one immediately!

Where To Find Perfect Pictures For Free

1. Google Images. Search for pictures on Google and contact the website owner to ask her if you can use her picture on your website. Don’t use the pictures from Google Images without permission.

2. Wikimedia Commons. All the pictures on that site can be freely reused.

3. EveryStockPhoto. Most pictures will require attribution.

4. Creative Commons Search. Select the Flickr tab on that page and search for your picture. Read the licensing terms carefully. Most pictures will require attribution.

5. iStockPhoto. Pictures on this website aren’t free. But they aren’t expensive either - pricing is as low as $1 per picture! The best thing about this website is: No attribution required. So you can use the images in brochures and business cards too. (Most of my pictures come from them.)

6. IconFinder. Good site to find icons that can be reused for free.

You should be able to find your perfect picture 99% of the time using the above 6 sources!

*Did you think that Confucius said “a picture is worth a 1,000 words”? Ad executive Fred Barnard wants to encourage people to use more pictures in their ads. So he coins that quote for an article he writes in 1927. And to add weight to the quote and make sure that people pay attention to it, he attributes it as a “Chinese Proverb.” Over the years, the attribution shifts to Confucius.

“A Word is Worth a 1,000 Pictures!” - Apple Computer Human Interface Group

In 1985, after finding that pretty but unlabeled icons confused customers, the Apple Computer Human Interface Group adopted the motto, “A word is worth a thousand pictures,” and a descriptive word or phrase was added beneath all Macintosh icons.

To jazz up your snazzy pictures, make sure you add a caption under all of them.

• A good picture is eye candy and will win people’s attention.
• But a good picture with a powerful caption won’t only win attention, but will also drive people to read your blog post!

How To Write Powerful Captions

The trick to writing powerful captions is: apply the same techniques you use to write headlines. Perceive your captions to be your sub headlines.

• Create curiosity with your caption.
• Write a benefit summary - what will readers learn when they read your blog post?

Credit: Above picture by nicmcphee (cropped)

4 Tricks To Repackage Old Posts

Question: What should you do of all the older posts on your blog - that not many people have read?

Here are four things you can do:

1. Write Review Posts

Write posts like “This Week Last Year” or “Top [category] Posts.” LifeHacker blog does that very well.

2. Build Up an Old Post

Go read your old posts with one idea in mind: can you expand on one of those posts?

3. Combine & Edit Older Posts

This is my favourite trick. By combining two good old posts, you can create a mega super blog post! My guest post at NxE is an example of how I combined 3 different half-finished drafts into one super blog post.

By combining 2-3-4 good ideas together, you overwhelm your readers with more ideas than they can process at one time. Which leads to them bookmarking your posts, submitting it to social bookmark sites etc - and all that leads to a lot more traffic to your blog!

4. Convert Old Posts into PDF

You could convert a series of old posts into PDF reports and documents. And then use thePDF reports as goodies or bonuses. Or lead generation tools for your blog!

Do you have any other ideas on using old content again?

4 Blog Frequency Guidlines (How Often Should You Blog?)

Question: How often should you post on your blog? Once a week? Once a day?

How long should your feet be? As long as they need to be to touch the ground!

There is no real answer as to how often should you blog. Some top blogs publish 3-4 posts everyday. While others publish just one post a week. And both of them do well. You’ll need to find your own publishing frequency.

I know thats not what you wanted to hear. So hear are 4 guidelines and rules-of-thumb that can assist you.

1. How many clients will you require?

General rule of thumb: the more clients you require to earn a full time income from your blog, the more posts you’ll have to publish.

If you earn all your income from ad revenue alone, then you’ll need to blog more often - at least once a day - if not more than that. But if you are selling high end consulting from your blog and all you need is 20 clients a year, then you can get away with posting just twice a month!

2. How many times will you be promoting your products on the blog?

General rule of thumb: You can only publish a blatantly promotional post after 4 good quality posts. So if you need to promote your or some one else’s products once every week, than you should post 5 posts a week. If you can’t post more than once a week, you shouldn’t promote blatantly more than once a month!

The more you publish, the more you can plug your products.

This applies for all the payperpost and reviewme posts too. For every pay-per-post you publish, you need to post 4 quality posts.

Follow the 80:20 rule or else you’ll turn off your blog readers. 80% good content for 20% promotional content.

3. How much time do you have?

If you can’t manage to spend more than 1 hour a day on your blog, then you should not write more than 1-2 posts a week.

Because 60-80% of your time should go on your blog promotion. Not writing. So if you can only put in 5 hours a week, and it takes 1 hour to write a decent post, than follow a weekly publishing schedule.

4. How long are your blog posts?

The longer your blog posts - the less often you’ll have to publish. If you only publish 20-30 page detailed research article on your blog, people won’t mind if you can’t post more than once a month. But if you’re posting 100 word snippets, you better post something on your blog more than once a day.

Question: Can you comment on how often do you now publish on your blog? And why?

Creativity 101: 5 Ways To Get Your Writing Groove On

A few days back, I came across a blog by Michelle aka BlogGrrl.A  And found her blog to be quite refreshing.A  Michelle has a very unique writing style of her own - very goofy, sometimes outrageous, but always entertaining. I started communicating with her via email and asked her if she would like to share her writing ideas with my blog readers.A  Michelle agreed - and here is her fantastic guest post:

Creativity 101: 5 Ways To Get Your Writing Groove On

Sitting around at home writing in your underwear is a pretty low-stress gig, but sometimes it can be too much of a good thing. Writing is a solitary pursuit, which can ironically leave you without the ideas that got you started writing in the first place. If you end up with severe brain drain, try one of these creative writing techniques to get your writing groove on.

1. Grab a trashy magazine and check out the headlines.There are great ideas both on the cover and inside. I like to use this “creativity exercise” as an excuse to grab a Maxim and check out whats going on in men’s heads. It scares me. I digress. At any rate, headlines such as How They Did It: Five Women Lose 100 Pounds in Five Months can be morphed into How They Did It: Five Bloggers Get 1000 RSS Subscribers in Record Time . If you’re the serious sort, instead of grabbing a trashy magazine, use The Economist.

2. Play cards with yourself.

Get three different colored markers and 15 index cards. Divide the index cards into three piles of five. On the first pile of index cards, write subjects from your niche. If you have a money blog, it might look like this:

• Saving
• Investing
• Making $ Online
• Frugality
• Career Advice

Then, using a different colored marker, write down five formats on the next five cards. For example:

• List
• Photo Essay
• Long Informative
• Link List
• Review

Finally, with the last marker and set of index cards, list some random things that come to your mind. You may want to add some more index cards at this point.

• breeds of cats
• personality types
• musical instruments
• fish
• tools

Now mix up the cards. You may end up with something like a list of ways to be frugal with illustrations of a Persian and alley cat next to one another. If you don’t like what you get, mix it up again. Eventually you’ll come up with something. Just don’t do what I did and include “underwear” in your last set of cards!

3. Lie awake at night and stare at the ceiling.

Eventually you will drift into a beta state where you think of all sorts of odd ideas, some of which might even be good. Keep a notebook and pencil next to you, because, believe me, you are not going to remember this stuff when you wake up. In the morning, review what you have written. The ratio of nonsense to brilliance typically runs about 99:1, but that’s okay, because that one percent pays off. Good ways to induce insomnia include having a teenager, drinking coffee too late, contemplating the nature of consciousness and owning a cat who enjoys “making biscuits” on your head with its extremely sharp claws at two in the morning.

4. Copy other bloggers.

Look at the structure of articles you enjoy and duplicate it using your own content. This is how I got the idea for 11 Mistakes Your Blog Makes in Bed. Likewise, if you see some content out there that you can do better, go for it. You can put your own spin on anything. Ultimately, it is your voice and perspective that make your blog unique more than anything else.

5.Read books.

Make a habit of keeping some Post-it notes next to you whenever you are reading a book. Whenever you get to a passage that relates in some way to your blog, however vaguely, stick a Post-it on the page. You’ll find that a single well-written book can spawn a dozen posts. Don’t disregard fiction–you never know when you’ll run across a quote, story or character that will spark a completely unique post.

If you liked this post, stop on by Bloggrrl and say hi. You might even want to try for the 50 smackeroos in this month’s strip poker contest. Check it out! See ya there.

• You can also read my guest post on Michelle’s blog: How To Not Write Stupid

Overcoming the Barriers to Guest Blogging

Guest posting on other blogs can attract more traffic than almost any other technique. Yet very few bloggers actively seek out guest blogging opportunities. Very few bloggers shoot an email to other blogs and send them a guest blog post pitch.

This post aims to break all your barriers to guest blogging. So that you too can start creating your own guest blogging opportunities.

Objection 1: The ____ blog is so popular. I doubt if the author has time to even read my emails. I’m sure he won’t allow me to write for his blog.

I’ll let you in on a secret: most bloggers will allow you guest posting on their blog if you approach them with a unique story or angle. It doesn’t matter how popular they are. Its true that your chances of getting published on their blogs shoots up high if you’ve spent time in building a relationship with the author first though.

The Trick to Getting Your Guest Posts Accepted on Over 90% of the Blogs You Approach

Approach blogs that have already published guest posts by other authors before and your chances of being accepted to write for them will increase tremendously. Because these are the bloggers that already know the benefits of allowing others to write for them (variety for their blog readers, more free time for them), you won’t have to spend time to try and convince them a lot.

The 3 Rules I Follow is:

• Only contact blogs that you like
• First make an effort to build a relationship with the author
• If you don’t have a relationship with the author, only approach blogs that have already published other guest posts before

Objection 2: I just don’t have time to write guest posts for other blogs.

If you don’t have time to write for others, here is the solution for you:

Co-Blogging!

Approach other bloggers and ask them if they would be interested in co-blogging - where you write one guest post for them, and they write one guest post for you.

Objection 3: I want to save the best posts for my blog - so that I attract all the traffic from social media sites and search engines.

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” - Harry S. Truman

Its very short sighted to save the best posts for your blog. Because if you write mediocre guest posts for other blogs, they may not publish it. And even if they do, their readers won’t like it - and won’t come visit your blog. Which is the main purpose of guest blogging.

Only if you blow the readers’ minds away with your guest post will they come and visit your blog. And subscribe to its RSS feed and keep on coming back to it.

Always “Put your best foot forward first.”

Action Summary:

• Start approaching other blogs with guest blogging requests - at least once a week. Make it a part of your strategy.
• Asking other bloggers to co-blog with you is a fantastic idea too - which makes sure you don’t have to write more than you are used to.