You’re Too Emotional About Your Writing & It’s Costing You Readers
It’s time for a change in perspective.
Writing is not a fast game for most people.
It takes the average writer years to establish a following and get paid more than peanuts.
I argue that you can significantly trim those years down to a timeline that wouldn’t make anyone want to bang their head into their desk.
But again, most people don’t go that route. Their writing becomes an emotional roller coaster. They publish to a void and it’s frustrating.
The highs aren’t worth the lows. It’s just taxing.
“Why am I not seeing results? Why isn’t the algorithm promoting my stories?”
You can get results. You can smash your writing goals and make serious waves, on a community level and a revenue level.
How?
It all begins and ends with your ability to detach your writing from your emotions. Your success is riding on it.
Let’s begin.
Why Your Emotions Are Costing You 1000S Of Readers
Do you know what’s the issue? You’re too attached to your writing.
You treat it like your pet project, your baby. And because it’s so meaningful to you — whether consciously or not — you believe that it’ll be meaningful to others as well.
It might be. But chances are you’re not providing any value. Chances are you’re writing something akin to diary entries or cryptically titled posts that no one would bother clicking on.
“But there is value in what I write! I wrote it because what I wrote about is valuable to me.”
Hmm. “I wrote it”. “Is valuable to me”.
It’s not wrong to believe that something that helped you can help someone else. But if you’re always just emanating from yourself — where does the reader come in? The readers’ hopes and desires?
There’s a reason most content is written in a how-to format.
1. It directly addresses a desire
2. It’s value and reader-focused
How-to’s are addressing a market. How-to’s are easy to digest. What’s addressing a market and easy to digest sells.
Am I suggesting you bank on nothing but how-to articles? No. I’m giving you an example that will serve both your reader AND your goals as a writer much better than your comfort blanket self-posts.
Looking for a Strategy Is Helpful. Looking for This Is Not.
If you’re really upset about not seeing results, you’ll start looking for ways to “game the algorithm”.
Or maybe it’s more subtle than that. You look for optimal publishing times or which publication will get you the most reads.
It’s not a bad idea to look for tips. But no amount of helpful tips will fix what’s already broken — your mindset and lack of strategy.
- Your mindset that you need to find a method to hack your way to the top.
- Your lack of strategy that relies on posting random thoughts into cyberspace until something sticks.
What you need isn’t a quick fix, because there is none. What you need is data. And the only way to gather data is to keep posting until you have a reasonable sample size.
Pick a list of topics. Write about them for three months. Gather data. If nothing took off and you’re still in the same place you were three months ago, comb through the data.
- What topics did better for you?
- Which of your stories got people fired up and engaging with you?
- Did you get a large influx of external vs. internal traffic talking about certain topics?
Based on the answers you can plan your next move.
You systematically grow your readership by quitting useless endeavors like finding quick fixes, and pouring all that time into writing more and perfecting your marketing.
Another Mental Trap Holding You Back From Writing Success
Maybe you’re not complaining.
Perhaps you’re simply doubting whether what you have to share is good enough. Good enough to warrant real engagement.
Truth is — you might be right. But that doesn’t mean you can’t eventually succeed.
Most people think what they have to say is special because they are unique individuals. But readers don’t care about you.
They don’t care about that you want to be acknowledged; they want you to serve them. Serve them knowledge and value that is useful to them. It doesn’t matter if it’s education or entertainment — people just want to be catered to.
If you can’t provide that then you’re going out of business. It’s very simple.
If you’re not writing because you think you have nothing unique to add, or you are writing but you’re doubting every word you type — stop.
Analyze. What is making you feel this way?
Is it that you’ve seen your headlines and/or advice millions of times before in a million other articles?
The ironic thing about writing, which is an activity you do sitting down in a quiet state, is that to write something worth writing you have to go out and live life. Learn valuable lessons and skills.
Personal essays are rarely good because the writer isolated themselves for 20 years.
It’s not that it’s wrong to copy what’s working or what’s generally accepted. It’s just that if you can’t bring anything new to the table, you can expect the same result as every other writer doing the exact same thing.
Crickets.
How I Survive Writing Lows & Come Out On Top
I’m emotionally unavailable when it comes to my writing.
My goals don’t need my emotions — they need results. And to get the results I seek, I seek ways to improve.
I’m always putting my ideas through the wringer to see if they hold merit. I’m always re-writing my headlines over and over. And I’m always aware that my success as a writer thrives and dies on nothing but my ability to serve readers.
This might stress some writers out. I find it liberating.
Think about it — everything you need to succeed is something within your control.
Now use that knowledge. Quit unhelpful emotions and start serving readers.
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