The first principles of selling online:

1. Increase the number of people who see your product.

2. Increase the percentage of people who see your product that buy it.

3. Increase the percentage of people who buy your product that rave about it.

Writing increases all three.

How to write a good tweet:

• Start with a subject line
• Then, it's all about cadence
• Provide concise value in bullet-points
• And be mindful of aesthetics to keep it easy to read

Then, finish with a punchy sentence or call to action.

Now go write some tweets.

5 dead-simple steps to build a daily writing habit (that you can actually stick to):

By the end of this thread you will have:

1. Found time to write
2. Generated 12 months of ideas
2. Set a daily publishing cadence
4. Overcome your procrastination
5. Built a bulletproof accountability system

Just in time for the new year.

Let's go:

Step 1. Design your writing routine in a single sentence.

This is immediately where most people go wrong.

They set a vague goal to "start writing."

Instead, you want to define:

• When you're writing
• Where you're writing
• For how long you're writing

Here's an example:

Bad way to build a writing habit:

→ "I want to start writing."

Good way to build a writing habit:

→ "Every morning at 8 AM, I will sit down at my desk with a cup of coffee and write for 20 minutes."

Clearly defined when, where, and how long.

But how do you decide these?

Enter: Sacred Hours

To find your Sacred Hours, ask yourself 2 questions:

1. What time of day am I most productive?
2. What time of day can I be least reachable?

The overlap of these times are your Sacred Hours.

During that time, start small and commit to just 20 minutes.

In January 2020, I started writing online.

What followed was 9 months of lonely, frustrating, and painfully slow growth.

So if you're a beginner, let me save you hundreds of hours and plenty of headache.

If I was starting over again, here's the exact playbook I would follow:

Here's the playbook breakdown:

• Where you should be writing
• How often you should be writing
• 1 thing you shouldn't waste time on
• The single most important thing you should do during your first 9 months (that I completely ignored)

Let's get into it:

First, where you should be writing.

When just starting out, I followed the conventional playbook.

I spent (wasted) hours creating a fancy website to host my fancy new blog.

And that's where I published.

I had to own my platform, right?

Except, there was 1 big problem:

No one knew my blog existed!

I was publishing into the void, spending hours every Sunday morning slaving over a hot keyboard & nitpicking every word.

Then, I would hit publish, waiting for the rush of attention.

Except... crickets.

The internet's crickets of indifference.

And because no one knew my blog existed, there was no feedback loop.

I had *no clue* whether what I was writing was interesting, helpful, or valuable to the reader.

Instead, I was *assuming* I was on the right track.

Newsflash: I wasn't.

Community-driven businesses are the future.

This was one of many takeaways from yesterday's Builders Build with @gregisenberg.

Here are 7 can't-miss lessons on audiences, communities, courses, and the future of business:

People confuse audiences with communities.

An audience is simply a group of people who:

• Follow you
• Listen to you

Building an audience is much easier than building a *community*with that audience.

And to do that, you can use the community test 👇🏼

There are five elements of every strong community:

• Togetherness
• Rituals
• Identity
• Belonging
• Engagement

When building a community, think TRIBE.

And to start, focus on creating rituals and fostering engagement.

There are two types of community products:

• Community-focused products
• Community-enhanced products

Community-focused products are when the product *itself* is the community.

If the community disappears, the product disappears.

This is how most people think of community.

But community-enhanced products are the real gamechanger.

This is when purchasing a product automatically gives you a sense of identity and belonging.

The most successful products will be community-enhanced.

Community-focused: @Clubhouse

Community-enhanced: @lululemon

Thread: Common instances of passive voice in rules text that can be clearer with more direct voice.

But first: Why do we so often write rules in passive voice? Outlining the "laws" of our game feels like a very formal position with an of aloof authority. Avoid that voice.

"THE PLAYER"

Question any instance of "the player" in a sentence. If you are addressing one player, address them directly in the first sentence of the paragraph and use "you" thereafter.

"If you are the first player, you may X, Y, then Z. If you X, see next page."

"HAVE/HAD/HAS/'D/"

Examine any of these words or contractions. There is usually a more succinct way of phrasing that sentence in the present tense and direct address.

"The player who has just moved must..."
vs.
"After you move, you must..."

"WE"

If you want to put yourself at the table with the players, do so CONSISTENTLY. A random "we" in one paragraph really sticks out. You can even play with voice that way.

"We suggest using option A for your first game."
vs.
"Ahoy, cadet! Use option A for your first game!"

"YOU MAY BUILD, HARVEST, or REST."

Break up action options into a bulleted list rather than a long sentence. e.g.

"On your turn, do one of the following:
• Build: Pay X to place a card.
• Harvest: Destroy a card to gain X.
• Rest: Draw a card from the deck."

Hello, writers! How about a thread on LITERARY AGENTS? How to get one, how to talk to one, how to keep one happy. Spoiler alert: I am 100% pro agent and can't imagine not having one on my side. 1/

Why would you want a literary agent?
* you want to be traditionally published
* you want someone experienced to help guide your career
* you want to learn how to edit like a pro
* you want to sell foreign and movie rights
* you want answers to your newbie questions 2/

Why you might *NOT* want a literary agent:
* you want to self publish
* you're not willing to compromise on your edits
* you don't think their expertise is worth 15% of your advance
I... can't think this way. Literary agents have been crucial to my career. 3/

So, how do you get a literary agent?
1. Have a finished, revised, edited, polished manuscript.
2. Write a query letter for your book
3. Send your query to agents who rep your genre and are open to submissions
4. Repeat steps 1-4 until you're offered representation. 4/

So, let's go through those four steps. First of all, you must have a finished, revised, edited, polished book, and it must be sellable. That is, you can't sell a 600k picture book or a 40k adult Fantasy, etc. You must read extensively in the genre you're writing. 5/

THREAD ON BUILDING A WRITING HABIT:

If it's hard to get yourself to write,

I surveyed 100+ people to identify how they overcome their blockers.

For writing blogs, books, screenplays:

Blocker #1: Procrastination

If you procrastinate occasionally, that’s normal—forgive yourself.

However, if you procrastinate endlessly, that’s a problem.

Procrastination is the result of two reflexes:

• Indulging in immediate rewards like browsing YouTube instead of writing.

• Avoiding work you perceive to be uncomfortable or tedious.

Let's tackle these two blockers.

A. Avoid distractions

Have you noticed how much writing we can get done on airplanes—despite having our knees and shoulders uncomfortably squeezed together for hours?

Why is that?

It's because there's nothing else to do on an airplane.

This reveals a truth about writing: needing a comfy chair, room, or "the right ambience" is a myth.

If you're waiting until your room is the right temperature to begin writing, you're lying to yourself.

Your blocker is not comfort, but rather distractions.

Two strategies:

You doing the academic book thing? Dope! A thread.
1. Do your homework. Sometimes the most prestigious academic press that (more) established scholars fawn over ain't meant for your research. Peep their acquisition editors, their titles, etc. Is it a fit?

2. Don't cold-submit a manuscript. Reach out to an editor. Talk about your work. Tell them where you are in the project. If y'all vibe, they'll ask to see what you got. Have it ready. Which leads to my next suggestions:

3. Don't waste your time or the editor/press' time. Bring your A game. If you are revising your diss, you need to scrap it to its bare bones starring YOU. You the authority. All that citing needs to fall back to the footnotes LOL. How are you changing/adding to the convo?

4. If you are starting from scratch - I did with Chronicling Stankonia - take some to figure out your burning question and its potential answer and learn to elevator pitch it. What you talking about? Why is it relevant? What new ground you breaking or revisiting?

5. Aight so boom you get invited to submit a proposal for peer review. Aaaaye! Your proposal is the blueprint: What's your project about? Why should it be published? Who would you be next to on the shelf? What makes you shine? Why xyz press? What is your timeline?