Be A Full-Stack Creator, Start As A Writer.
You start somewhere, stay consistent, and build over time.
The reason why one might fail to make it as a digital writer today is that they focus just on writing.
But, just like everything else, you need to ‘sell’ your skill on the Internet. So, this means you need more skills. Just writing won’t do.
I’ve been consuming this narrative to build on the Internet for so long. It’s now ingrained.
If you’re super new, just start by writing. But keep a couple of things in mind.
Ride with the algorithms
The algos are just churning out more of the same stuff. So, if you’re reading about tech, there’s a lot of it. The same goes for self-help, personal growth, and others.
So, just by way of consuming so much content, you become a warehouse yourself. Use that to your advantage. Make notes and once you have a handy collection of points, start typing away.
That’s what I’m doing now.
None of this is my ‘idea’. It’s simply an amalgamation of several ideas floating on the Internet.
For every piece of content you consume, create at least two times more. Use the truckload of information as inspiration.
Nothing on the Internet is original. So, stop wasting time and just recreate the same old stuff in a new bottle.
You don’t have to be great, you just have to be consistent
Consistency is the most important quality of a digital creator. If you don’t write for a while, you will be forgotten. And then, you have to restart. At least initially.
There are so many creators fighting for a reader’s attention. They will consume content that comes to them consistently.
The biggest writers wrote every day and still do. Cole, Bush, Koe — all of them.
You eventually need to be a full-stack creator and not a writer
Everywhere you go, there are so many people and they all talk about the same thing. Making money on the Internet.
While that’s great, I think making money is a by-product. The real stuff that you earn here is skills.
Several creators call it the full stack of creator skills.
- You start by writing and building an audience.
2. Next, you use this audience to pitch your services — writing, coaching, website dev, graphic design. By pitching, you’re learning sales.
3. You continue to build your audience on the side. If you’re doing all this on the side, you’re also learning how to be more productive, aka time management.
4. Your audience is hopefully bigger now and you have a couple of happy clients. Get them to write you testimonials. Those can take care of the new leads. So, you use social proof to build a list of leads and save time because you don’t have to do outbound pitches.
5. Use your free time to create a product — digital or physical.
6. Plug in your product (let’s say a course on writing for beginners) to your content. Use copywriting that works. So that’s another skill to learn.
This is one of the ways in which you can grow from just a writer to a full-stack creator.
I’m going to give this model a shot. I love newsletters, so I might insert them somewhere to grow my audience and email list.
drumroll for my newsletter pitch*
If you’d like to read more about growth, tackling life’s seemingly gigantic problems with a smile, or just entertain yourself, do subscribe to my FREE weekly newsletter, The Literary Human.
