The Business Of Writing

When it’s time to sit down and write, do you find that your output is hit and miss? Would it be helpful to have clear expectations for each writing session before you move mountains to clear a few hours in your schedule? In this article, I’ll share a few eccentric best practices that have worked for me and may work for you as well.

We write to get our ideas out into the world and practice our craft. But for many of us, juggling this progress alongside work and family responsibilities can be a challenge. …

Entrepreneurship

I’m calling it right now: Post-pandemic entrepreneurship will surge. Our twisted mix of sheltering at home for months combined with more downtime than we’re used to has us all waxing contemplative. Sprinkle in a dash of stoicism as daily death count headlines force us to think about our own demise, and more than ever professionals are laying groundwork now to live life on their terms in the years to come.

Paid newsletters. Side hustles. Career changes. Coaches. Courses. Coaches coaching coaches. Agonizing defeats. Thrilling victories. It’s already begun, really. …

I scooped up the iPhone 12 Mini — my first upgrade in more than four years — mainly because it was time for an intervention. Working for yourself certainly has its perks, but quarantine has only accelerated my bad habits: checking work apps while sitting on the couch, peeking at metrics between social media scrolls, and pulling up marketing reports out of sheer boredom. Sometimes a needle has moved, and in my app-checking compulsion, I’ve dug myself into my own special variable rewards hole. Upgrading presented a good opportunity for a hard reset.

I didn’t know if my solution was the most optimal solution. What I did know was that I wanted a visceral change, one that I could literally feel in the palm of my hand and then put away in a drawer when it was time to call it a day. So, rather than writing the definitive, be-all-end-all tutorial on work-life separation, allow me to present how I reorganized my personal tech setup and what steps to take so you can do the same. …

Personality

If you’ve ever lived with a narcissist or worked with one, you know the way they operate can be draining at best and catastrophic at worst. A recent Psychology Today article summed it up nicely: Narcissists disrespect experts and boundaries, live for drama, and will throw others under the bus at a moment’s notice to further their own agenda.

My most recent experience interacting with narcissists was in a professional engagement that I’m still recuperating from. I’m in consulting, and at one point my main client was a startup media agency owned and operated by narcissists. …

The Business Of Writing

“2020 is MY year! New decade, new me!” A version of these words was uttered by millions of freelancers around this time last January.

Then, about 70 days later, everything came to a screeching halt. I don’t know about you, but about three weeks into quarantine I threw out my roadmap for how 2020 was going to go. Many writers’ careers and/or businesses changed completely over the course of just a few weeks. …

The Business Of Writing

Would you like to be able to name-drop “as seen in” and the names of some fancy media outlets in your author bio? Would it be easier to get clients or press if people already knew you were the real deal? To land media placements for yourself, you have to pitch for them — and that means knowing how to write a pitch.

I was lukewarm about PR and media for years, and looking back… it’s because I was jealous. I would pitch myself often and rarely see results, while other consultants seemed to be getting featured everywhere. …

Entrepreneurship

Even if you don’t aspire to own a bazillion-dollar company, keeping up on current business and innovation news will keep you sharp. In some cases, this knowledge may even help you see and implement your next brilliant business idea.

There’s a ton of content buzz these days around the new kids on the block: TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Clubhouse. They’re overrated in my opinion; articles and email newsletters remain one of the most-preferred content vehicles for staying informed.

It’s cool to be in the know:

• Billionaire Mark Cuban calls the “information advantage” one of the most valuable ways to get a leg up in…

The Business Of Writing

Do you struggle to make progress writing because of the demands of your day job, career, or client load? Does it feel like it takes you forever to get any sort of traction or momentum with your articles? Writing advice hits differently when you have a 9-to-5, so in this article we’ll discuss how to balance your efforts with the demands of a day job.

This post is a sequel of sorts to an earlier article of mine: 3 Tips For Writing Articles Consistently If You Have A Day Job. In reflecting on the response to that article — and continuing to work with experts, entrepreneurs, and aspiring entrepreneurs — it comes up again and again that getting ideas out of your head and onto the page is a common sticking point for aspiring writers. …