Make sure your audience matches you — Dear reader, are you sure you want to read this post? Because, you know, if you keep reading, there’s the very real risk that you may become part of my audience and I’m not sure I like that. You see, I’m not looking to build just any old audience. I’m…

Unscrupulous writers have it much easier —

Constantly comparing yourself to others kills your creativity — You’re a chicken. Yes, you. You may not lay eggs, but like every other chicken, you want to know where exactly within your flock you rank. You want to know your place within the pecking order. Sadly, whenever you look at the chicken leaderboard, you discover that you’re not the…

Focus on what you can’t control — Some people want to be happy writers. They want to enjoy writing. They want writing to be as joyful as writing a letter to Santa Claus was when they were seven years old and had just spent the whole month of December baking cookies, helping old ladies cross the street…

Here’s what you should optimize for instead — Ah, Google traffic! Show me the writer who wouldn’t shriek with glee when hordes of Google users suddenly came to their blog, rushing in like orcs about to tear down the gates of Helm’s Deep. I certainly would! But how do you get such a massive inflow of Google traffic…

Or how to kill a writer’s passion — Some people are just popular. They can fart in an elevator and the other passengers will immediately turn around and congratulate them on their eloquence. For these people, it’s not hard to keep going. They’re encouraged every step of their way. They have a hype team that never stops gushing…

Or how to kill a writer’s passion — Some people are just popular. They can fart in an elevator and the other passengers will immediately turn around and congratulate them on their eloquence. For these people, it’s not hard to keep going. They’re encouraged every step of their way. They have a hype team that never stops gushing…

Or how to kill a writer’s passion — Some people are just popular. They can fart in an elevator and the other passengers will immediately turn around and congratulate them on their eloquence. For these people, it’s not hard to keep going. They’re encouraged every step of their way. They have a hype team that never stops gushing…

Or how to kill a writer’s passion — Some people are just popular. They can fart in an elevator and the other passengers will immediately turn around and congratulate them on their eloquence. For these people, it’s not hard to keep going. They’re encouraged every step of their way. They have a hype team that never stops gushing…

Or how to kill a writer’s passion — Some people are just popular. They can fart in an elevator and the other passengers will immediately turn around and congratulate them on their eloquence. For these people, it’s not hard to keep going. They’re encouraged every step of their way. They have a hype team that never stops gushing…

A lesson from filmmaking — If you walked into an apartment where rooms have no ceilings, where doors lead nowhere, and where toilets aren’t connected to sewer pipes, you might wonder whether the inhabitant is a starving writer. …

Writing is an acquired taste — Mushrooms are like hyenas. They look filthy, eat dead things, and can be dangerous. So it only makes sense that I didn’t like them as a kid. It was nature’s way of keeping me safe. After all, if I had been born with a desire to sink my teeth into…

Make it fast-paced! — Some old blockbuster movies, like E.T., are completely unwatchable today. And no, it’s not the dated special effects. These often have some charm. It’s the pace. They feel like watching the school clock at 2:45 PM on a Friday afternoon. You stare at it for a good 20 minutes, groan…

Stay true to yourself — When I started out writing online, I was as popular as an unlubricated cactus at a swinger club. I looked up to some of the big-name writers, checked out the publications they submitted too, and in a delusional fit of self-confidence, told myself to submit there too. And so I…

3 tips from a fellow writer on dealing with copyright infringement — Did someone steal your words? Did they copy them and put them somewhere without your consent? Well, if not, then someone will if you ever become popular. And there really isn’t much you can do about it. You see, the Internet is a copying machine. That’s what it is. It…

An overview of linear, exponential, and bursty audience growth — Can you predict how many readers you will have in the future? How about predicting how long it will take you to get your first 100 or 1,000 readers? Or your first 10,000? Are such predictions even possible? Well, let’s look into it. Linear growth Naive writers who are just starting out…

Don’t believe explanations for writing success and failure — RAT-A-TAT-A-TAT-TAT-TA! Clink! Clink! BBBBBBBRRRRRRRRTTTTTT! BBBBRRRRRRTTTT! BANG! BANG! Bullets zip by. Machine guns sputter all around me. Mangled bodies lie strewn across the field and I hear the wounded cry. Then, the order comes: “ATTAAAAAACK!!!” I reach for my lucky pickle, squeeze it, give it a good kiss, and then climb…

Success early in life is a curse — We are all chasing success like a dog chases its bacon-wrapped tail. But you know what? I’d rather chew on armpit crust than be a young writer who gets a viral hit in their second month — a writer who makes the big bucks from the very start. Early success…

One blog post is not your life’s work! — Hey you! Yes, you, the perfectionist wannabe blogger on the other side of this screen. Let me tell you something from one crippled perfectionist to another. You’re not being meticulous when you’re rereading your finished draft for the 20th time. You’re being an idiot. Let me explain. If you’re serious…

Make the content creation platforms compete for us (the writers) — You can write on Medium! You can write on Quora! You can write on LinkedIn! On WordPress! On Vocal! On Newsbreak! On Revue! And on Substaaaaaaaack! YOU CAN WRITE ON ALL THE THINGS! YAAY!!! Ahem… Sorry, let me try that again. Some people claim it’s the Golden age for writers…