The bottom line is simple: As a writer, you first must entertain your readers. To keep them beyond a quick and final read, you have to do more than that, whether it’s to educate them, make them feel, anger them by challenging their preconceptions — or all of that and more. But if you don’t entertain first, none of what else you do matters, because they won’t stay around.“

– L. E. Modesitt

A really cool trick for better content

Yesterday night I got the chance to hang out with a profession article writer whose work has been featured in numerous magazines.

I sat down, shut my mouth, and took mental notes on every insight.

One of the most interesting things that I learned, and something that never crossed my mind before, was a really neat little trick for creating better content.

When you finish writing, send your work to someone with zero knowledge on the subject. If they can read your piece from start to finish you’ve done a good job.

This doesn’t mean that you have to be generic, but it does mean that every single article should provide people with enough background and information that they can understand what’s going on and feel engaged.

It’s simple advice, but it makes a lot of sense.

When you’re too technical you’ll alienate a ton of potential readers.

You need to provide some sort of introduction and explanation for every idea that you are sharing.

How does this relate to blogging?

A magazine article is very different from a blog post.

Blogs are interactive and ongoing, print articles are typically one-shot deals.

Yet the same principles still apply.

If every blog pot is a continuation of your previous work it gets hard for readers to follow along.

There are plenty of websites I’ve visited that were just way too technical for me.

A long time ago I wanted to buy some Phenibut, which is a legal compound that increases your focus while reducing your stress.

Every site I found was too focused on the scientific aspects, and didn’t provide any real context for me to understand what was being said.

Talking about the neurotransmitter γ-aminobutyric acid is great, but I would have loved for a paragraph explaining everything in layman’s terms.

If you’re writing about lifting weights or online business it’s the same thing, give the reader a little context.

Everything you write has to hold up on its own. A new reader should be able to understand what you are talking about.

You can still create in-depth content and write about advanced topics, but you need to make your work accessible.

Link back to old posts, provide anecdotes, work to keep the reader entertained while providing them with information. Doing so makes your content much more accessible and allows you to reach a wider audience.

“Nine out of ten businesses fail; so I came up with a foolproof plan – create ten businesses.”

– Robert Kiyosaki

20 things I learned from working with internet moguls

Generally I don’t like to piggyback off of other people’s blog posts.

Today’s article was, very, roughly drafted at the beginning of the month.

Since then Victor Pride has dropped an excellent, it’s far better than what I was writing, blog post on the exact same topic.

Rehashing his points would be stupid, especially since he did an awesome job covering everything you’d need to know, so instead I’m going to give you a few personal insights into my experiences as a content writer for some of the big Internet moguls.

I’m also going to debunk a few common myths and expose the truth behind some of the more outlandish industry claims.

Read at your own risk.

1. More products doesn’t mean more profits

500 turds are still 500 turds.

Having a lot of products does not mean that you’ll be making a lot, or even any, money.

Writing 1,000 bad eBooks is just a waste of time.

Same with building junk websites.

I’ve cranked out eBooks in the past, they never sold.

One winning product is better than a million pieces of trash.

2. Most niche sites make less than a dollar per month

I listened to a podcast recently where some guy was talking about how he makes $10,000 a month.

What is his secret?

7,000 different micro niche sites.

By the way, that was the actual number he listed I’m not exaggerating.

$10,000 from 7,000 sites means that he’s earning $1.42 from each one.

Since that’s a very specific number, we can assume that a few of those sites are making several bucks while the rest are just dead-weight.

3. You always have to work

If you constantly need to make more websites, eBooks, and products you aren’t an entrepreneur.

No, you’re a stay at home office drone.

Spending all day charting keywords and spying on domain authorities so that you make a dollar per month is way too much work.

You’re earning peanuts for the hours put in.

4. The big guns are the cheapest

Most of the massive niche, and eBook, empires pay so little that I won’t work for them.

Anyone with an oDesk account will know that there are all kinds of job opportunities paying insanely low amounts.

That’s because these guys try to stretch every penny that they can.

They want quantity not quality.

5. Expenses are high

Making a website isn’t free.

While it doesn’t cost a whole lot, the fees can add up.

Having to manage and maintain 7,000 websites, and pay people to write content or post comments, is expensive.

You might “make” $10,000 a month, but that isn’t all profit.

When these guys B.S. about how much they earn no one ever mentions the costs to maintain these types of businesses.

6. Profits are low

Starting out I worked for an individual who spent a small fortune making his junk eBook look good.

He paid me at least $75 to write fake reviews.

While that alone doesn’t sound like much, he hired a lot of other people too.

The book did well for a few weeks. Then people realized it was terrible and the title sunk into the depths of Amazon.

Investing hundreds of dollars into a project with zero longevity, like an eBook that sucks, isn’t a good business plan.

When the client moved on to his next project, another bad eBook, he had to hire a bunch of people all over again.

That’s a lot of money to spend for a one time payout.

7. Content sucks

We’ve all bought a dud product or visited a terrible website.

None of us ever returned or did business with that person ever again.

When the content sucks people aren’t going to give you a second chance.

That doesn’t mean that you have to hit one out of the park every single time, but you need to try your best.

Ripping off some generic information, or doing the bare minimum won’t win anyone over.

8. There is no community

Write one bad eBook, change your pen name, start all over.

Doing this deprives you of any sort of following.

Every project requires you to hire people to hype your product up and trick the next wave of suckers into making a purchase.

Instead of doing this you could, just as easily, make one good product and then follow it up with another one.

Doing so wouldn’t require any fake reviews or pretend blog comments.

You’d already have a following willing to endorse whatever you were selling.

9. The best products still look bad

Good products don’t sell themselves when the customer thinks they are being scammed.

There are all kinds of awesome items that are being poorly presented on bad affiliate sites.

You’d be better off learning a skill like copywriting than you would be making a bunch of different websites.

Paying someone to rewrite the Amazon product description is a poor strategy.

10. Moguls don’t make their money off ventures

Most of the big web guys never seem to showcase all their different sites or eBooks.

If they were so good, and making so much money, I’d think that they’d want the world to see.

However, they always have some overpriced book about making money online that they constantly try to sell.

It’s almost like all their money comes from telling people how to turn a profit, not from their surefire get rich quick schemes.

11. Many employees are idiots

Most of the people who work on junk products are idiots.

The majority of them are barely literate sweatshop workers from Asia.

I was able to, temporarily, become the king of fake review writing simply because of the fact that I could string together complete sentences.

If you want to make a site you’d be better off working alone, or with a close friend, than you would from hiring someone.

12. Getting rich quick takes more time than being honest

People want to work with someone they can trust.

Even if you aren’t the expert on all things, you can get a free pass just by admitting this.

Saying “I don’t know, but there’s a guy over here who does,” is much more effective than simply pretending like it doesn’t matter or that the customer is an idiot.

Risking your ego is better than jeopardizing your reputation.

13. 30 Days To X is worth more than most niche empires

I could sell this blog and use the cash to buy a Mercedes.

This site was appraised out at around $30,000.

Although the mean was low, there are all kinds of digital sweatshops out of Asia that purposely bid in the $15 to $20 range hoping they’ll get a good deal, most of the actual people were willing to pay several thousand dollars.

That’s because 30 Days To X is a real entity.

Unlike bestcolognefordogs.com my site has a legitimate purpose and actual readership.

It wasn’t invented to try to make some crackpot hustler rich.

14. Everyone rides the bandwagon

If you’ve ever heard pop music you’ll know that every artist tries to sound like whoever is making the most money.

A few years back every song had to have dubstep in it.

Creativity is second to riding the fad train straight into irrelevancy.

Blogging is no different.

If “anal warts” became a popular search topic you can bet that all the moguls would be scrambling to cash-in.

15. Fit Juice murdered my clients

Last winter I was hired to make at least four different juicing blogs.

I was given specific keywords to use and special writing patterns to follow.

As far as I know none of those blogs ever made a dime.

They were all clones of better sites and they had zero originality.

Fit Juice, which is a real site made by a guy who has an actual passion for juicing, can run circles around these blogs which were built with entire teams of writers and SEO experts.

Why?

There was no fan base, no value, and no soul.

A similar thing happens whenever Spencer Haws, he’s a big marketing guy, reveals his latest blog project.

I can’t tell you how many clients have come to me and asked if I could make something like A Penny Shaved.

No one ever visits because they can get the same thing elsewhere.

People aren’t stupid, they need something to connect with, otherwise they’ll leave.

16. Honesty is the best sales technique

Imagine if every post on this site was about some miracle product that I discovered and wanted to sell you.

You’d be out of here right away and would never come back.

Most of the affiliate sites that I have worked on are nothing more than thinly veiled commercials.

Even posts that could be used to provide information have a sales paragraph tacked on at the end.

17. No one buys garbage

There’s an old myth that people are mindless consumers who will throw money at everything.

This is true almost everywhere but blogging.

Unlike television or a video site, you have to actually read a blog to gather information from it.

This weeds out the morons almost instantly.

Plenty of people, and many of them are college educated, never read.

They’ll buy something they see on TV or click a Facebook ad, but they won’t read 500 words to solve their problem.

Selling garbage through print is very difficult due to the fact that you’re dealing with a smarter group of people.

18. A big blog can go anywhere

Last week I wrote a post titled Best soap for travelers.

That might sound like a strange topic for this site, but it really isn’t.

I like to travel, I like to workout, and I like to stay healthy.

People reading this site probably share those same interests.

When you already have readers you can take them to crazy places and show them things they might never have known about before.

With a little niche site that’s really hard to do.

19. Personality trumps “authority”

If you know what you’re talking about you’ll do well.

When all you’re information comes from ripping off another blogger, you have nothing to work with.

Most quick cash grab sites would be better off if they tried to ditch their pretend expertise and attempted to create a personal connection with the audience.

You could probably create a better, and more relatable, blog if you admitted that you weren’t an expert but promised to take readers on a journey.

Going back to the juicing copycats, they would have done a million times better had they found a unique voice, maybe a post series like “I tried _____ juice for the first time,” than by just copying from elsewhere.

The same thing goes for a topic like fitness.

More people would read “What I learned from following routine X,” than they would from your phony “15 ways to build better abs” garbage.

A friendly face is worth more than a fake expert.

20.  People won’t even read a lame site

Without sounding like a jerk, there are very few websites that I’ll actually read.

Most people never treat their sites seriously.

You’ll see a lot of folks who dedicate every single post to explaining why they are the greatest person to ever live.

Or they write incredibly bland material.

Either way, no one wants to read what they are putting out.

Being too self-centered, or too generic, will turn readers off.

Ironically, a lot of niche marketers still never realize that they have to dial the content in for a particular crowd.

Men want to read about manly activities and women want to read about stuff that appeals to them.

A 35 year-old stockbroker and an 18 year-old kid aren’t going to have the same tastes.

You need to focus on your audience and decide who you want on your site.

“I say to you never involve yourself in debt, and become no man’s surety.”

– Andrew Jackson

What I’ve learned from being debt-free

Yesterday I was walking downtown and saw this cool hookah.

It would have been the perfect accessory for my living room.

According to the price tag I could have this awesome smoking apparatus for just $70.

My hand was on my wallet by the time I remembered that $70 is about how much I spend on groceries each week.

For $5 I can go out to eat.

My hookah would cost me the same as 14 lunches.

That’s a lot of money.

Smart spending has saved me millions

This might sound like an exaggeration, but making wise purchases has probably saved me more than a million dollars.

Instead of taking on student loans to pay for tuition, I dropped out and got a job.

The nine months that I worked for someone else sucked.

But it was better than saddling myself up with debt and having to spend the rest of my youth worrying about bills.

Had I stayed in school I would have ended up with crippling debt and been forced to get a lame office job somewhere in Iowa.

I would have had to buy a car to get to work. An apartment to go home to. Furniture for my apartment. And all kinds of insurance for my stuff.

That would have cost even more money.

My debt would have grown.

Paying off my loans, car payments, and other expenses would have taken decades.

Debt limits your opportunities

If you have monthly bills it’s impossible to uproot and move to another country or take time off from work.

Investing in an idea you like, or taking a risk, becomes near impossible.

When you owe someone else money you lose the ability to make decisions for yourself.

Paying your creditor back comes before everything else.

Shopping malls hate him!

There’s an easy way to avoid racking up debt.

Don’t buy things you don’t need.

In all honesty there is no reason for me to own a hookah.

14 lunches is much more practical.

The funniest thing about avoiding impulse purchases is the fact that you never feel like you missed out on something great.

It’s been less than 24 hours since I passed up that hookah and I could care less.

You’ll regret things like never seeing the world or starting a business.

Forgoing a new sofa won’t be something you’ll lament on your deathbed.

Easy ways to save money

I’ve listed five simple strategies that have helped me to save money over the years. None of them will blow your mind, but all of them are incredibly effective. With these you can protect your money while avoiding useless purchases.

1. Spend on quality, not quantity

The budgeting gurus all love to talk about how brands don’t matter and how the cheapest option is the best.

I don’t believe it.

While there are a lot of things that are fine in their generic form, I always buy generic brands of peanuts, there’s nothing wrong with a pricey but well made item.

When it comes to shoes I only buy Ralph Lauren.

That’s what I like.

I’m sure I could save money buy ordering generic shoes online, but I wouldn’t like them as much and they would never hold up as well.

If you’re going to get a lot of use out of your purchase, choose the option that’s best for you.

2. Don’t buy prepackaged food

I know tons of broke people who eat pizza and pre-made food.

This is like throwing your money in the trash.

You get zero nutritional value while overpaying for what you get.

An apple, ground beef, and some rice takes no time to prepare and is infinity healthier than some frozen entrée from the store.

3. Create another source of income

Starting a blog takes very little time.

Posting a Craigslist add offering to walk people’s dogs is a 10 minute investment.

There are a million ways to earn extra money.

Even if you only make a couple hundred bucks a month you’ll still be able to save money and pay off debt.

4. Have basic goals

Find a large sheet of paper and divide it into three columns.

The first is for the date, the second is for expenses, and the third is for income.

Fill each one out every single day.

Make it into a game too.

Try to make the income column bigger than the expense one.

Some of you might think that this sounds stupidly simple, but it’s how I’ve been doing my accounting for years now.

5. Wait before buying

If I see something impractical that costs more than $25, I wait at least a full day before buying it.

Do you know what happens 99% of the time?

I think “That would have been a stupid purchase,” and am glad that I never spent the money.

Aside from a few books, none of my impulse purchases have ever brought me joy.

There’s a little rush when you initially buy them, but after that they add nothing of value.

Final thoughts

Do you know what the ultimate sign of rebellion is?

It’s not getting drunk, or holding up a sign and protesting “The Man.”

It’s not having to owe anyone anything.

When you’re a free man you can do whatever you want and no one can stop you.

They have no power and no way to control you.

You can do whatever you want without having to worry about how you are going to pay your financial masters back.

“Copywriters aren’t writers. Also, they should all kill themselves.”

– Message I received

Do you have to be a scumbag to make money online?

People assume that marketing and sales is unethical and shady.

They imagine you selling poison to children, or dumping toxic waste into community water supplies.

This stuff might make for good fodder in some big-budget Hollywood movie where the bad guys are all evil capitalists, but it’s pretty rare in the real world.

Between all the different review sites, and social media, attempting to dupe people is hard.

Starting out as a writer I was paid to post fake reviews for a guy who published two-page “books” on Amazon.

His scam was a disaster.

People could tell that they were going to get robbed and they left all kinds of warnings on the product page.

No matter how many times I was hired to write positive comments, like “Concise but good,” sales remained dead.

You have to recommend products that you use

In case you missed it, go check out my 30 Days of Discipline review.

It’s a great example of a product recommendation done right.

I tell an actual, and honest, story.

When you want to endorse something you’re putting your reputation on the line.

Don’t pick a product because you think it will make the most money.

Pick one that will provide the most value.

Readers don’t come to your site to spend money. They’re there to find a solution to something that troubles them. Focus on helping and providing answers.

What to do if someone calls you a scumbag?

The average person is pretty stupid.

Everything is either good or bad.

Most people put business, especially if it involves sales or a computer, into the “bad” category.

A few times a year I’ll go to a party and have some well-meaning, but ill-informed, person ask me if my job is unethical.

This would be like the owner of a grocery store how he sleeps at night, knowing that innocent people were forced to spend money in order to eat.

It doesn’t make any sense.

When someone tells you that sales or business is bad, don’t take it personally.

I used to get mad when people would make these comments, but now I let them slide.

Folks who say this type of stuff aren’t that bright or that socially inept.

The guy who decided to tell me that copywriters should “kill themselves,” is probably a moron. I could have wasted time explaining business 101 to him, but I didn’t bother.

When you deal with these kinds of people your best course of action is to ignore them and move on.

If you aren’t lying and cheating people out of their money don’t take these comments seriously. There’s nothing amoral or unethical that’s going on.