Write A Lot!
Yes. We self-publishing indie authors have to write a lot. We have to write a real lot. That’s just how it goes in our world. We all should have some kind of schedule that has us writing just about every single day, if not even every single day, and twice on Sundays. Content is our business. So, we need to have a lot of it. And the more we practice our craft of creating content, the better we get and the easier it gets. We’ll find ourselves eventually putting out content a lot quicker with a lot less effort.
Here’s the thing, though. We have to give ourselves permission to write shitty as first. In school, our teachers might have called it a sloppy copy. You see, writing isn’t really writing. Instead, rewriting is writing. Revising is what it’s all about. But you have to get something on paper to edit, which is real writing. But, to do this, we can’t let our egos get in the way of writing badly at first. We have to have something to look at to be able to rewrite. Thank goodness I don’t have that ego. I know I’m not the best writer or even a great writer. So, I don’t pretend to be one. Instead, I just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. A.K.A. writing and rewriting.
Don’t be a perfectionist. Perfectionist don’t put out a lot of content. And without much content, it’s hard for us authorpreneurs to gain any real traction and sell our books and services. We need lots of content. And we need a lot of this content to be free helpful content for our followers who will eventually follow up by investing in our books and services.
You don’t have to be a great writer to do all this content creation. In some ways, not being a great writer is a blessing because it takes your ego out of it and makes you more human. It makes you more authentic to your audience. It makes you more relatable to the common person. And that’s who your market most likely is, the ordinary person who needs some help. So go ahead and find out what works for you and then do it almost every day. Does handwriting it first work for you? Typing it first? Dictating it? Video recording it first? Does free-writing work for you? Or does outlines? Figure out your style and level of comfort and then get busy doing it almost every day.
Again, don’t sweat all this content creation if you’re not the best writer. The more you write, the better you’ll get. Proofread your written work out loud to yourself. And for the parts that don’t flow smoothly off of your tongue, fix. Put it away for a little while, and then proofread it again. Have others proofread it for you, too. I do this all the time, and it helps me build stronger connections with people who now feel invested in my work. They slowly become a raving fan themselves, and they tell others about me. They will eventually give me an Amazon book review, too.
There are also great editing tools out there, like the free version of Grammarly. I run all my work through Grammarly now, and it always catches stuff that I miss, and even my proofreaders miss. And for the mistakes that are left over after that, well, I’m not too worried about it. Most of my content is distributed for free anyway in the form of blogs, articles, posts, etc.… Later on, when I want to repurpose that content for a book, I can get an editor to help me find where I’ve made mistakes and fix them.
So, where do we get all these ideas to be always pumping out content? Well, all over is the answer. I always carry a pen and paper with me to jot down content ideas when I see something or think of something that I’d like to write about. In addition, I use Quora. This is a free service that you can sign up for that will send articles every single day to your email inbox in your niche. When you get these emails, you just scan the headlines, find a coupe interesting ones to read, and then put your own spin on it in your own article. I also get a lot of ideas for content from all the podcasts I listen to and all the blogs I read. Sometimes I even go back and read or listen to some of my old stuff, and new ideas always seem to emerge.
*Watch this FREE video lesson on this chapter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhNMQkzLZWM&list=PL_-39bUXJitwL8cHUpiZ5Mo0-JJuaPOVl&index=18
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