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Are You a Marketing Artist or Scientist?

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Let’s face it, you already know the answer to that question.

Instinctively, you know whether you belong with the black-clad Bohemians sipping coffee and absinthe in the cool cafes, doodling in your moleskine and staring into space as you dream up your latest creation …

… or whether you’re more at home with the gadget-toting geeks, crunching numbers, running tests, comparing data sets and outputting conclusions robust enough to survive rigorous peer review. 

It’s not a conscious decision or something you can change — you know in your gut which tribe you belong to.

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How an Enterprising Author Sold a Million Self-Published Books

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The publishing industry is in turmoil, and there is no shortage of people lamenting the passing of the old order. 

We’ve previously had wailing and grinding of teeth from the music and movie moguls. Now the publishers are the latest to tell us the digital revolution is the end of civilization as we know it.

But the changes are also creating fantastic opportunities for writers willing to take an alternative route to success — and novelist CJ Lyons is living proof.

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3 Simple Steps for Staring Down Writer’s Block

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Writer’s block feels like the end of your world.

Firstly, there’s the frustration — not being able to do something you love, that normally works like a dream.

Like getting into your finely-tuned, lovingly-polished car, turning the key and hearing a pathetic splutter. Or hitting the ‘Jump to Lightspeed’ button and watching the stars just sit there while the TIE Fighters close in.

Secondly, there’s the professional anxiety. If you’re an author, will you meet that deadline? If you’re a copywriter, can you still cut it for your clients?

Last and worst, there’s the identity crisis.

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The Ziggy Stardust Guide to Social Media Superstardom

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Some are born famous, some achieve fame easily, and some work out how to make fame happen.

David Bowie’s career hit lightspeed when he became Ziggy Stardust, but it was anything but a fluke or an overnight success.

In the seventies, Ziggy was futuristic. We are now living in the future — where news guys tell us earth may well be dying, and our brains hurt like warehouses from information overload.

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Are You Losing Business When You Hunt for Customers?

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To listen to some people, you’d think marketing were a battle or bloodsport.

Think about all the military metaphors we use — identifying a target market, launching a campaign, and using strategy and tactics to crush competitors and win that desired customer.

Even such apparently innocuous business terms as staff, officer, headquarters, division, and operations are rooted in military terminology.

And of course, no self-respecting business leader’s library is complete without a dog-eared copy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War.

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How the Buddha Solved His Marketing Problem

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When you think of the Buddha, you don’t think of marketing.

At least I hope not.

The Buddha was a spiritual teacher, with zero interest in profit. In fact, he forbade his ordained followers from even handling money.

But if we agree with Seth Godin that marketing is about spreading ideas, then you could say the Buddha was one of the greatest marketers of all time.

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