Every writer who has ever lived has lusted after ideas.

Where are they, how do I get them, and how do I keep them coming?

If you’ve been writing long enough, you know that — like Solomon — there is nothing new under the sun.

Try as you might to sweat them out of your head or pull them gently from the stars above, there are no new ideas.

So, relax.

But the page is not going to write itself, is it? Where then do we turn for ideas that work, ideas that move, ideas that persuade?

In short, we steal them.

The moment you free yourself from The Cult of Originality, you realize that “original” ideas do not come from within.

They are given to us, from without.

A writer should not look inside, but outside, at external sources, stories, events, and emotions.

If you’re offended that I’d suggest you “steal” ideas, please get over it. You’re already a thief, you just don’t know it yet.

Here are two of the most significant idea repositories on earth …

1. The modern media is a torrent of ideas

In this information age, you have absolutely no reason to “draw a blank”.

Ever.

What took our writing ancestors days and weeks to research and learn, takes us mere moments.

In fact, the only problem we have now is one of finding trusted curators. We need to develop self-discipline and discernment in seeking out correct information from reliable sources.

There is no drought of ideas.

Brian Clark recently wrote:

You have more computing power in your pocket than it took to send men to the moon. What are you doing with it?

Indeed.

Are you wasting it or harnessing it? You don’t need to go to the moon, the crossroads will do just fine for our purposes.

Research. Read. Steal.

Product manuals, literature, interviews, talk radio, magazines, newspapers, television, Twitter, Google Trends, movies, Wikipedia, and on and on and on …

It’s all there, right in your pocket.

And it’s actually more than you’ll ever need.

So use it. Don’t let it use you.

2. People will give you exactly what you’re looking for

Ideas are walking around everywhere out there.

Eugene Schwartz once told a story about a copywriting job he had.

He met with the client and asked him to start talking about the product. They ended up sitting together for four hours — the client talking, and Schwartz simply listening and taking notes.

Later that night, while he was waiting for his wife to get ready for a night out on Manhattan, Schwartz wrote the ad.

The entire ad.

He said about 70% of the finished copy was composed of his client’s own words.

The headline itself was a phrase the client had hit on, word for word.

He waited two weeks, mailed the ad to the client, and they both made a lot of money.

You might think this was some kind of dirty trick on Schwartz’ part, but you’d be wrong.

Schwartz knew how to write a powerful direct response ad. The client didn’t.

Schwartz was smart enough to know that the client knew (in this case) his own product better than he ever could, and simply translated that knowledge and passion onto paper.

The ideas were sitting in the client’s head and Schwartz knew exactly what to do with them.

It goes further …

For better or worse, a writer is working all the time.

Phone calls with friends, the plumber, your spouse, your child, your boss, your client, your neighbor — they are all constantly giving you ideas.

They are all constantly telling you what they — and the entire world — truly want.

It is all grist for the mill.

All you need to do is … listen.

Steal this post

Eugene Schwartz summed this up for me perfectly:

You don’t have to have great ideas if you can hear great ideas.

I stole this post from him, and he stole it from many others.

Listen more. Talk less.

Read less. Read better.

Steal.

The Art of Finding Ideas is then … to go out and find ideas.

Originality? That’ll come from using your own voice, and your voice develops from only one thing — writing more. And more. And more.

Where have you been getting your ideas?

About the Author: Robert Bruce is Copyblogger Media’s copywriter and resident recluse. Get him on Twitter.

There are plenty of great reasons to write an ebook.

A short, free ebook could be precisely the cookie you need in order for your email list to grow beyond a handful of members.

A big, paid-for ebook could be an important part of your revenue stream — and the first product in your sales funnel.

Being able to say, “I’m an author.” could give your credibility a massive boost.

So what’s stopping you? I think I know …

Maybe you think you don’t know how. Sure, you’re comfortable with writing blog posts, but an ebook is a totally different animal.

Or is it?

Everything you know about blogging applies to ebooks too

Think of your ebook as a series of blog posts.

Content-rich, in-depth posts that readers can’t wait to read and share.

When you look at it that way, your ebook suddenly seems less … daunting.

You already know how to write an ebook. Everything you’ve learned from blogging still applies. Just think of your ebook as a series, and each post as a chapter within that series.

That way:

• Your ebook won’t become a bloated, “everything I’ve ever learned” guide to your whole field. It won’t sell — and you won’t have any room for your second ebook. Pick one topic, just as you would for a post series
• Your writing style can stay friendly, informal and engaging. You don’t have to come across all stilted and academic just because it’s an ebook. Your readers will want to hear your voice, just like they do on your blog
• Your chapters can be concise and information-packed — just like your blog posts. You don’t need to waffle on and on to fill the pages. After all, what would your readers prefer: straight-up information or a ton of padding?
• Your content-creation routine doesn’t have to change drastically. You don’t need to lock yourself away for two weeks in order to finish your ebook. You can just write a couple of short chapters each week — in the same way that you write blog posts on a regular basis

You can use your current blog content too

If you’ve been blogging for a while, you could repurpose some of your existing content for the ebook.

For lots more on this, see Carol Tice’s excellent post, 12 Ways to Turn Your Old, Dusty Blog Archive into Cold, Hard Cash.

For instance:

• You might use one of your popular posts as the introduction for the ebook
• You could turn a “how to” post into a worksheet
• A case study post could become a vivid example
• Your readers’ comments might inspire new chapters or a Q&A section

Formatting matters just as much in ebooks as in blog posts

Some bloggers seem to ignore formatting completely when it comes to ebooks.

They’ll produce dull, grey documents densely packed with text … and they’ll wonder why no-one’s interested.

If your ebook is going to be a pdf (and most info-products are), then you can use all the same formatting features that you’d use in blogging:

• Add images to grab attention, break up the text and show concepts that are hard to describe in words.
• Include subheadings to help signpost the way through the text
• Add hyperlinks so that readers can jump straight to the chapters that they need
• Use bullet-pointed lists to display information more clearly
• Create a style for block quotes so that these stand out from the text

You already know how to do all of this

You know how to write regularly.

You know how to make your style engaging.

You know how to use formatting to hold the reader’s attention.

So let me ask you again: what’s stopping you from writing your ebook?

About the Author: Ali Luke is a blogger, writer and writing coach. She’s just released a brand new ebook in her popular Blogger’s Guide series: The Blogger’s Guide to Irresistible Ebooks. If you’d like to write an ebook that your readers can’t wait to snap up, click here and check it out today.

As a professional copywriter, there’s one question that tends to pop up constantly from my readers and clients … “Can you teach me to write like you?”

My knee-jerk answer is usually something like, “Um. No. There is no other like me! I reign supreme! Me! Me! Me!”

OK, I’m not really that egocentric.

But I do typically respond with something along the lines of “I’d love to teach you how, but I don’t know how I do it … I just do it.” And then I run off to a dark corner somewhere to eat sweet potato French fries like they’re going outta style.

Writing meaningful, effective content day in and day out is difficult. To say the least.

I’ve thought a lot about how I get it done, and have come up 3 steps that serve me well, over and over again.

At least, it’s how I think I get it done

The holy grail for aspiring writers

I’ve struggled to convey just how I (and others I admire) actually write the way I do.

I’ve wanted to teach it in a way that you, the reader, can take and immediately implement on your own.

This is the one question that won’t. Stay. Down! Kinda like that game where you beat the hedgehog down and then an identical one pops up to take its place? Yeah. Like that.

It seems that in my rather meandering journey to becoming a ghostwriter-cum-blogger, I unexpectedly stumbled upon what seems to be the Holy Grail for many aspiring writers.

I’m talking about my voice.

It’s distinct. I like to think it’s funny and charming. I’ve been told it’s fairly no-bulls***.

Above all, it’s mine, oh mine, oh mine!

Regardless of where I guest blog, my voice is recognizable.

People read my stuff and they’re like “Hey … I know who this is!”

That happens even if readers don’t yet know that I am, in fact, the author. My friend Abby Kerr does this very well too.

You could say that that voice has now become part and parcel of my “brand”.

So, in the interest of fighting the good fight and teaching ya’ll something useful … I’ll now attempt to give you some pointers on how to unearth your own “voice” and write content that oozes your own flava.

In this process, you might even begin to find ways to brand yourself (so be ready!).

Here’s my 3 key steps to finding your voice and brand, mojo-writer style.

1. Speak your reader’s language

This may come as a surprise, but not everyone who reads your site is going to be a Harvard grad that speaks “ivy league” or whatever other language you specialize in.

Most folks reading online are reading at a grade school level.

That means all those big words you use are making people run screaming in the other direction.

It also means that cool industry lingo you’re so proud of throwing around is mostly falling on deaf ears.

Probably not what you intended to happen right?

When we write, we are creating content with a purpose. We want people to read it, to understand it, to enjoy it and absorb it.

Maybe we want them to take action — maybe we just want them to feel good after reading it.

They are only going to feel a whole lot of frustration if everything you say whips right over their head or they feel like you’re talking down to them because you can’t control your insane need to sound smarter than you probably are.

Not exactly warm and fuzzy advice, right?

Stop talking at your readers.

Stop talking over them.

Stop talking through them.

Talk to them, in simple lingo.

Write like you’re plopped down with them and sharing a cup of coffee and a bit of convo. My buddy SuiteJ pretty much nails this style and implements tip number 3 (we’ll get to it shortly) like gangbusters!

The result? You might be surprised at how many of them are willing to talk back with you.

2. Know why you are writing

All the writing skill in the world won’t do you any favors if you don’t know why you’re writing in the first place.

Lack of purpose is the death of success.

When you write something that has a clear cut purpose it’s reflected in a positive way. There is flow, there is rhythm and there is direction.

If you’re writing without a purpose, it’s kind of like doing one of those writing exercises where you just slap every thought that pops into your head onto paper.

Have you ever tried to read those things afterwards? Crikey, it gives me a headache just thinking about it.

If that’s what you’re serving up to your readers, you might as well be handing out free Tylenol in little blog goodie bags. At least that would be useful!

So if you want to nail down your own unique “voice” you need to start with purpose.

From purpose, passion is born.

From passion you are born, in all your unique glory.

Every piece of content you publish should have your name all over it, in more ways than one!

And that leads nicely into my last tip …

3. Brand it, baby

In addition to speaking your reader’s language and knowing why you’re writing in the first place, sprinkle your work liberally with your own little stamps of distinction.

For instance, people who read my content often recognize my voice simply because I use words like shite, or frack, or ya’ll. Or even crikey.

Maybe there are words you tend to gravitate towards on a regular basis, that perhaps not everyone uses.

Or, maybe you have some sort of signature “how ‘dee do” or “fare thee well” that you use regularly.

Maybe it’s not in the words you use specifically, but in the way you tie them together.

Perhaps you like to inject silly jokes or clichés in your content. (That’d be me!) Or maybe you’re madly uncomfortable with writing with a bit of humor and prefer to adopt a 100% serious tone. That’s still branding and it’s OK too (though it may not win you very many friends, just sayin’).

Regardless of which tic you like to tac, there are a variety of ways you can tweak your content and utilize your quirks, so that it reflects you and allows your “voice” to sparkle.

You just have to allow yourself to find them.

Any questions?

There now. I hope you found these three tips useful.

It’s hard sometimes to nail down how to find your “voice”.

The process is often different for everyone and some folks come by it more easily than others. It doesn’t mean that it can’t be learned though, and if it can be learned it can be taught!

Hopefully you’ve learned a little something here today and if you’ve got questions, please drop them in the comments below.

And, if you’d like more teaching, mayhap Brian and Sonia will invite me back sometime

Oh, and don’t forget folks … sharing is sexy! (No really, it is! I swear! Just ask Kristi!)

About the Author: Cori Padgett is a wildly hire-able freelance ‘ghost’ as well as the creative brains and dubious brawn behind her blog Big Girl Branding. If you’d like to harness her creative brains and dubious brawn to write for your blog, just stalk her on Twitter and ask. I’m “almost” sure she doesn’t bite. Well… like 95% sure.

Remember learning Greek mythology in school?

I’m going to give you one name, and I want you to think about the first image that pops into your head …

Hercules.

What’d you think about? Was it what you read in that dusty old history book, or was it the unforgettable Disney cartoon?

That, my friends, is the power of storytelling in action.

According to Chip and Dan Heath in their book “Made to Stick”, stories are an incredibly important element in creating ideas that stick.

We humans process information much more efficiently when it’s in the form of a story, and we’re therefore much more likely to remember it.

We quickly forget a dry recitation of the facts.

And yet, most marketing is just that: fact after fact after fact …

“Buy this widget from us, and it’ll do this, this and this.”

That doesn’t stick.

If you want your marketing to really sizzle, if you want people to remember it, you need to turn your marketing messages into stories.

I’ve broken down the classical elements of story below so you can begin to think like a storyteller, and make your marketing messages stick …

The protagonist leads the way

You don’t have a story unless you have a main character — also known as the protagonist — whom the audience empathizes with.

The protagonist helps the audience become emotionally engaged with the story.

That’s why very emotional scenes, such as love and action scenes, are so powerful.

Think about horror movies, particularly when the killer is chasing the protagonist.

The audience is on the edge of their seats because they are experiencing the same fears and rush of adrenaline as the protagonist.

Who or what is the protagonist — the hero — of your business?

Your antagonist is their antagonist

In addition to a protagonist, a story also needs an imposing antagonist — someone (or something) hindering the protagonist from reaching her goal.

The antagonist creates conflict.

An antagonist can be a person, an entity, or even the protagonist herself (for instance, the protagonist trying to overcome her own fear).

Tap into and talk about a common “enemy” to bond with your customers, and their loyalty to you will grow very strong, very fast.

The protagonist must be on the move

Boring stories are ones where things happen to the protagonist.

Engaging stories are ones where the protagonist takes action to defeat the antagonist.

In other words, there’s an active struggle.

Let’s say there’s a story about some really bad guys who steal a boy’s dog. The boy is sitting on his couch, crying, missing his dog terribly.

A few moments later, a police officer knocks on the door and delivers the slobbering, excited dog back to the boy.

Boring.

We’d rather see the boy chasing down the bad guys, trying to get his beloved dog back himself.

Are you boring your clients/readers/customers?

This is a cardinal sin of marketing.

Boring kills sales.

No plot, big problem

Of course, a story isn’t a story unless it has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

The beginning sets the stage, showing what the protagonist’s life is like before the antagonist disturbs it.

After the antagonist is introduced, we enter the middle of the story where the protagonist fights the antagonist, trying to accomplish a particular goal.

Then, we reach the climax.

All seems lost. The protagonist makes one more dramatic move and defeats the antagonist totally.

In the end we see how the protagonist restores order to his life.

What’s the “plot” of your content marketing?

Is there a beginning, middle, and end present in your messages?

The moral of the story is …

Lastly, great stories have an overarching message, or moral.

For instance, the moral of “Beauty and the Beast” is that we shouldn’t judge people by their looks.

What’s the major message — or, moral — of your business or idea?

Distill it into one or two very clear lines that you repeat, like a mantra, over and over in all of your marketing efforts.

Pulling it all together

Now, let me bring this all together by diagramming one of the greatest marketing stories of all time: Apple, Inc.’s “1984″ commercial.

Take a minute to watch it here:

The protagonist in this story is the running woman.

The antagonist is “the man” on the screen (Big Brother for you “1984” fans).

The plot here is interesting. There is a beginning, middle, and end, but the commercial only shows us the climax, and merely hints at all the other elements.

We can determine the beginning of the story was that the woman and society were living free. Then, Big Brother came and forced everyone to conform. But the woman — possibly alone — resisted (the middle).

Now, when there is no hope left and the entire culture has submitted to the will of “the Man” (the climax), she takes one last action: she destroys big brother by launching that hammer through the screen.

And she does it in front of the entire world.

As the screen explodes, we know that both the woman and society have been freed from Big Brother once and for all.

The moral? We must act to overcome tyranny and conformity.

And the marketing message? Macintosh will set you free from the tyranny and conformity of the other droning, boring PC manufacturers.

See how stories really help make a marketing message stick?

Apple could have just said, “Hey, we make better computers, and here’s why …”

Instead, they told a story.

Take a look at your marketing message and ask yourself: How can I use a story to make my message stick?

It’s how we humans communicate with each other best.

Go tell your story …

About the Author: Ready to create relationships with your customers that lead to more sales? Want to build a business consumers know, like, and trust? Check out Brandon Yanofsky’s website, B-List Marketing, and discover how.

Have you ever gotten so caught up in a deadline (or your own expectations) that writing anything at all felt … uncomfortable?

Too often as writers we measure ourselves by our level of productivity. We get so worried about being productive that we forget to enjoy ourselves.

Here’s the rub: if you aren’t enjoying your writing, you aren’t truly being productive.

Give me six minutes and I’ll give you six techniques that’ll make you a happy and productive writer.

When you stop feeling happy — or good about your work — you lose motivation.

If you lack motivation, you won’t get much accomplished. I know you know this, but I’d be willing to bet you’ve never created a happiness system.

A personal story about writing, motivation and failure

Last month I was setting up 3 Twitter parties in 1 week.

I was writing my face off and hating every minute of my effort. We all know the saying, “It’s not the destination, but the journey that matters.”

I certainly wasn’t living that quote.

I was stressed and worried about getting all the copy done for my project. Most of it was self-induced.

Who am I kidding? It was all self-induced. I just wanted the copy done so I could relax. I wanted it out of my mind so I could move on.

After I finished, I switched to my editor’s mind and read over my blog posts, newsletter posts, landing pages and tweets.

Half of it was decent, and then I read through the other half. It sucked.

I knew exactly why. I was writing from a place of stress and frustration instead of fun and curiosity.

My writing superpower had failed me because I was bullying myself instead of enjoying the process.

My arch nemesis was laughing at my feeble attempt of writing the second half of my copy. It took me much longer to rewrite the landing page and newsletter email than if I would have worked on them both from a place of fun and curiosity.

I analyzed the process and discovered some fascinating concepts that can help you supercharge your writing.

The best way to optimize your writing superpower is to start at ground zero.

1. Know your “Why” before you sit down to write

You have to know why you need to write.

I’m not talking about the pay that you get for each article, press release or email you write. I’m talking about your intrinsic motivation.

Why does the work get you excited?

By knowing why you want to do the work, you won’t get burnt out. Believe me, writing non stop articles/copy can be exhausting if you aren’t doing them for a higher purpose.

This may mean writing articles to improve your writing, writing articles to get your message out into the world, or to niche yourself as an expert in this field.

Whatever it is, know that you aren’t doing it just for the money because if you are, you aren’t going to last as a writer.

2. Know your productivity hot-spots

Every writer has a certain time of day that allows for peak creativity.

Some writers love that first cup of Joe in the early morning when everything is quiet and they can focus. Others love late nights when their body is a little tired, but not too tired.

You have a hot-spot. Experiment with working hard at different hours of the day and find it.

Notice when you are most productive and creative throughout the day. Don’t “try” to make time during this period, make time.

If you write best at night then make sure you aren’t disturbed and write until your brain gives out.

You’ll get more done in two hours during your hot-spot than in four hours outside of this zone.

3. Walk with your emotions

As a writer you’ll hit those weak moments when your writing isn’t lighting the world on fire.

If you’re like most writers, most of your moments will be like this.

It happens to us all, but what you do during this time will make the difference between success and failure.

You need to walk with your emotions when you are having trouble focusing. As a writer a cloudy mind means crappy writing.

You need to clear your head. I like to do this by taking a walk and talking to my arch nemesis.

By thinking of this cloudiness as an arch nemesis, I create an emotional bridge between me and my problem.

I also bring my dog to help fight this battle. We talk about my fears, resistance, and how I can get back on track. Then, after about 30 minutes, I can usually get back and meet my deadline.

If you aren’t processing your emotions on a daily basis, you are allowing your arch nemesis to push you around.

4. Refocus your creativity by reading a kid’s book

A friend of mine, Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project, loves asking people what they do to improve a bad mood.

Gretchen always starts off by saying that she loves to read kid’s books to bring some happiness back into her day.

I’ve also found this is a great way to refocus my creativity.

I can be way off on an article. I can feel myself floating out in space trying to grab on to anything to help ground me. When I feel this disconnect, I’ll grab one of my favorite kid’s books and just read it through.

I always end up feeling lighter and more focused and jump back into my work with renewed vigor.

Use this technique (or find another way) to refocus that mind so you meet your deadlines and stop stressing out so much.

5. Create a writing point system

Every day is basically the same set-up for me.

I like to create my list for the day — my main focus and how productive I expect to be.

I keep a point system for everything that I accomplish. The bigger stuff like writing an article for a blog, I’ll give myself 2 points. The smaller stuff like emails, networking, or short business conversations I’ll give myself 1 point.

I try to reach 10 points by the end of the day. I reach my goal about 50% of the time. By making my goal of 10 points hard to reach, it pushes me to be productive throughout my day. No matter how many points I get, I always celebrate my accomplishments.

You should have a way of keeping track of your productivity.

When you measure what you do, you have a better idea of what’s working and what isn’t, then you can adjust and improve.

6. Make time for a party

Celebrations of your success might get pushed to the back of the line because, well, you’ve got work to do.

This is a huuuuge mistake. You can’t keep producing great copy if you aren’t celebrating your wins.

I have a freelance writer friend who will take 20 minutes to draw a silly cartoon when she feels like celebrating.

It gets her away from the computer, helps her use another part of her brain, and replenishes her creative juices. It’s her perfect mini-party.

When she accomplishes something big like an ebook, she goes out that Friday with her friends, no matter how tired she feels.

When you are done working on an important project then do something to celebrate.

It can be 10 minutes on YouTube or going out to lunch with a friend. You need to reward yourself for your hard work. Too many of us don’t get enough face-to-face friend time as it is, so we need as many excuses as we can get to be social.

And I’m not talking about hopping on Twitter.

I’m talking about hanging out in the real world, with people who you can actually hug.

Remember this …

You have to set up your writing career for happiness.

If you aren’t taking the time to create some happiness systems, you are losing out on a lot of amazing productivity.

It always comes back to love.

If you can’t enjoy your work, you aren’t going to succeed. Marketing a business is the same way. You can’t do marketing you hate. You have to connect with people in a fun way that doesn’t feel like work.

If you hate writing long emails to prospective new clients because that’s what the experts tell you to do, write short emails that make you feel energized. The people who read your copy will feel the passion and they are more likely to open and read your emails.

Think about what you need to write and produce amazing content.

Your writing superpower will only weaken if you don’t find ways to connect with the love of your work.

About the Author: Karl Staib is addicted to throwing Twitter Parties to bring exposure to bloggers. If you want to learn how Twitter Parties can help your business grow then check out the previous link. You can also follow Karl on Twitter so you can stay in the know on all the Twitter parties and their prizes.

When was the last time you wrote something with the intent to specifically motivate your readers to take action?

Admit it or not, we’re all in the same game.

Whether you want someone to buy your product, join your email list, retweet or +1 your post, you’re doing one thing — leading your audience down a path at the end of which lies the action they’ll take.

You want them to do something.

In other words, you’re selling.

Unfortunately, many content creators don’t know the first thing about selling.

A few years ago, neither did I. Well, not online, anyway. Not until I developed one skill that changed everything.

I’d had plenty of experience selling at the flower shop I owned. But selling through the written word was an entirely new skill.

To learn this ancient skill, I turned to the experts — those who make millions every year because of their ability to write great sales letters.

Sales letters are roads paved with words which lead buyers to solutions, sellers to profit, and writers closer to their happily ever afters.

Yet, most freelance writers and professional bloggers never consider learning to write sales letters.

Writers often feel as though that particular skill is above their pay grade, while many bloggers prefer to hire a professional when it comes time to creating their sales copy.

That’s probably because neither these writers or bloggers have any idea how life-changing learning to write a sales letter can actually be.

Let’s take a look at five reasons you should learn to write a great sales letter …

1. Never create crap content again

Some clients want nothing more than keyword-stuffed filler content for their sites, and they’re willing to pay you very little for the privilege. They don’t want to hear anything about how Google’s Panda update has made this approach silly, they just want mountains of low-quality content, stat.

Writing crappy content in bulk sucks. Do it for too long, and you’ll wonder why you thought writing online was a good idea in the first place.

Worse than being paid by the pound is the feeling of indentured servitude that comes with being a breath or two beyond running in circles, but nowhere near where you need to be to break away.

Knowing how to write a sales letter elevates your skill set, meaning you can make more money for every word you write, virtually overnight, whether or not you’re a wordsmith for hire.

2. You’ll only need a few clients a month

Managing low-paying copy usually means juggling a long list of clients because you’re stitching one job into the next, quilting your ends until they hopefully meet.

With the much higher earning average of longer form sales copy, just one or two jobs per month can fund the rest of your writing business.

Every sales letter you write makes you a better writer than you were before.

Constantly write, continuously improve, and quickly build a long list of people willing to pay you top dollar for your time.

When you deliver a sales letter that converts, you’re never hired only once.

3. You can develop streams of passive income

Once you know how to write an effective sales letter, you can become your own best client.

Write an eBook, put together a training course, offer a special suite of services, then write a letter to sell it.

You’re doing it for others. Why not do it for yourself?

If you’re a writer, you have the unique ability to synthesize and simplify information.

It’s the next logical step to package what you know and put it online.

4. More time for what you truly want to do

You can always make more money, but you’ll never make another minute.

By being able to charge more money for the hours you work, you will have more time to write the things you love.

You didn’t become a writer to write crap content, or to get lost in the daily blizzard of disposable blog posts, did you?

Earning more per billable hour will give you the time required to build the bank of assets that will elevate your legacy, along with your bottom line.

5. You’ll be better a much better writer

Even if you only write one sales letter in your life, knowing how you did it will make you a better writer.

Sales letters are paint-by-number persuasion, connecting dots we all have in common. You can’t sell if you don’t understand your reader.

Yet, once you know how to slip inside their mind, you can channel their desire.

On a sales page, that means clicking the BUY button.

Offline, it can mean creating word-of-mouth about your latest book, inspiring the reader to tell friends, and maybe even review your product on Amazon.com.

Selling vs. selling out

When I first started online, I wanted nothing more than to write blogs posts and fiction.

Selling seemed like an anti-art, lacking in purity, or just plain “selling out.”

But when you think about what writing is — getting people to feel something, spreading ideas, or connecting with people across great divides — it’s not all that different from selling.

Whether you’re selling a product or selling yourself, learning how to write a good sales letter is one of the best investments you’ll ever make in your writing.

About the Author: Sean Platt is the author of Writing Online and How to Write a Sales Letter that Works (Without Wasting Your Time!). Get his free report, The 9 Mistakes Most Writers Make That Are Keeping Them Poor. Follow him on Twitter.

I’ve been blogging for six years now, and in that time I’ve noticed something — anyone can do it.

At first, I thought that this was a good thing. But then I realized that every good thing has a shadow side.

So here’s the downside of the accessibility of blogging: It makes the already-terrible writers much, much louder.

There are too many bloggers out there.

How can this be a good thing for you?

For too long, the bar has been set way too low with millions of blogs contributing to the noise without adding anything substantive to the discussion.

Our fame-obsessed culture has driven teenagers and baby boomers alike to create their own blogs — all for the sake of being heard. They’re taking up space with half-formed opinions and rants, and it’s given the blogosphere an infamously bad name.

But now, there’s a new phenomenon: The prolific, mediocre blogger.

This person actually understands the basics of SEO and social media and can attract a decent readership.

The problem, though, is that their content sucks.

This probably drives you real writers completely nuts. But maybe it’s not all bad.

Here are three reasons why these awful wordsmiths can actually make you a better blogger.

1. Envy leads to action

Be honest: part of the reason why you hate these champions of mediocrity is jealousy.

Because if you’ve stuck around the Internet long enough, you’ve seen how even a terrible writer can build his own tribe.

You’ve seen spam queens go into six digits on Twitter and typo-ridden articles go viral on Facebook.

And this pisses you off (and it should.)

But we need you to act, not sit back silently judging and mocking. Okay, you can judge and mock too, if you really want.

We need you to move, not lock up out of protest. We need your voice, and we need it now.

Don’t just complain. Act. Fight awful quality with excellence.

2. Competition is (always) good

Social media has, indeed, leveled the communication playing field.

Now, if you have a good story or idea, you can share it, without having to know the right people or possess the right skills.

The days of the gatekeeper are ending.

This, for the most part, explains a lot of the frustration you’re feeling. There are terrible writers out there with nothing to say, and they’re saying a lot … very poorly.

They are stealing away your readers and making them dumber by the minute.

This is actually a good thing.

It forces you to up your game, to woo your followers back to your well-crafted blog. This is not a sprint to the bottom; it’s a marathon to the top.

And those who are truly excellent in their craft and committed to finishing will win in the end.

3. Bad writers need coaches (i.e. you)

The fact that you’re an excellent writer irked by all this mediocrity may be an internal prompting to give back.

More people are blogging, because they recognize the value of building a platform. But they’re breaking the first rule of Copyblogger.

You can help them.

Look at it this way: If you’re really good at writing, you can help others become better writers. Instead of seeing these mediocre bloggers as a threat, why not view this situation as what it really is — an opportunity?

You could begin a writing consulting practice.

You could start coaching amateurs on how to stop sounding stupid and start writing like a pro.

You could help, instead of criticize.

The opportunity is there — do with it what you will.

What do you think? Does this just frustrate you further, or are there some legitimate lessons we can learn from mediocre bloggers?

About the Author: Jeff Goins is a writer and marketing guy who helps people use digital media to amplify their voice. Follow his blog or connect with him on Twitter.

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Have you ever looked back through your old blog posts and thought, “Why did I give away all of this brilliant writing for free?”

Well, here’s some good news: Unless your blog topic is last night’s baseball scores or this week’s hurricane, there’s income potential in those old posts yet.

Loads of it.

If your posts have evergreen, highly useful information, they can be turned into paid products.

With a little effort you can recombine, reuse, repackage, and repurpose that old material into new forms.

And people will pay money for them.

Yes, I know. It’s illogical — why don’t they just go back through and read your blog for free?

Most readers simply don’t.

Happily, some people would prefer to shell out their hard-earned cash for a handier, fancier, or better-organized slice of your content delivered in a different format.

So, don’t disappoint them …

12 simple ways you can earn from that dusty archive

1. eBook. Once you’ve accumulated 50-100 posts or so, you have plenty of material you can repackage into an eBook. Probably two-thirds of my first ebook was adapted from my first 75 blog posts. You can slice and dice your stack of posts different ways, too, using the same post in more than one eBook. Create a “20 Best Blog Posts” eBook, for instance, a “Best of the Mailbag” for the reader questions you answered, or several short eBooks on a few of your most popular topics.
2. Teleclass. Print out a few blog posts and read them on a phone call, riff on them a little bit, take some questions from the audience, and you’ve got a teleclass. Charge a fee, or make the class free to draw a bigger crowd. Then, sell other products to your teleclass audience live, and sell the recording of the class on your website. You can also use the recording as a freebie incentive to help stimulate sales of higher-ticket products.
3. Webinar. Add some eye-catching PowerPoint slides to that teleclass, and now it’s a full-fledged Webinar — and worth more money — while still basically just recycling your blog posts. Don’t forget to make limited-time product or service offers during the broadcast to rake in additional sales. Don’t have another product? Presell the next Webinar you plan to do off another set of your old blog posts.
4. Paid speaking engagement. Perform that Webinar before a live, in-person audience instead of broadcasting it over the Interwebs, and you’ve got another revenue source. Start doing free talks, get some experience, and then see if you can find paid work. This recently happened to a friend of mine — he gave a live talk that essentially recycled a few of his recent blog posts, and was immediately told by a professional speaker present that he could command $5,000-$8,000 an appearance if he wanted to hit the pro-speaking circuit. Ka-ching!
5. One-on-one mentoring. Some people read your blog, but they just don’t get it. They can’t apply the knowledge you’re sharing to their own lives. They need personalized help implementing your teachings. String your blog posts together into a course, spend a few hours talking through your materials with them on the phone, customize your advice to fit their circumstances, and charge a premium for granting one person your undivided attention.
6. Group coaching. Instead of spending a few hours on one person, take the same information from those blog posts you use in individual mentoring and teach them to a group of 10 or 12 at a time. You can charge a more affordable rate, but your hourly rate goes up because you have more participants on the consulting calls. Group coaching is popular because it’s a way to get personal access to an expert without paying the individual-coaching rate. I recently introduced this and immediately sold out four times as many slots as I usually sold for personal mentoring in a month. Tape these sessions and you’ve also got a set of recordings you could edit down and sell at a package price.
7. PDF report. Boil down the gist of the blog posts you used to create your presentation into a report that sums up your key points and you can charge more, both live and when you sell recordings later. The report can also be used on its own as a freebie to drive signups to your email list. And once you build a list, you can sell stuff. The report is a major money-enabler.
8. Go back and link old blog posts to new offers. Once you’ve created those new eBooks or Webinars, you can turn old blog posts into perpetual sales-referral machines by going back and adding links to your new products. Prioritize your most popular older posts for link-i-fying, then try to go through your whole blogroll as time allows.
9. Charge micropayments. Think you’ve got some great older posts? Go back and place them behind a micropayment paywall, where readers can see the top free, but then have to pay $.99 to read the full post. There are a growing number of providers that can help you automate this process, including well-known names such as PayPal Micropay and Payments.Amazon, as well as many startup services. Watch out as many charge steep fees — one of the cheapest at the moment is CashSender.
10. Repost in your membership community. If you reorganize your blog posts under theme topics, you can present them as courses inside a paid membership group. The more content you have in your community, the easier it is to attract and keep those paying members, who’ll appreciate the convenience of not having to hunt through your blog for information piecemeal.
11. Audition piece to get paying gigs. If you’re interested in adding some blogging-for-hire to your resume, you can position your blog as one big “clip” to entice paying clients. Add a “hire me” tab to your blog, make sure your site has a clean, uncluttered design and your posts stick to your niche topic. (That one you wrote about the funny pig video on YouTube? Delete it.) Then target some company blogs in your subject area and start inquiring whether they need a paid blogger.
12. Rewrite and resell. Once you’ve written about a topic on your own blog, it’s usually not much work to rewrite it for a paying market. Throw a piece of breaking news into the mix that adds a new spin to your original post, go back to your notes for a few new quotes or additional points, find a new related link or two, give it all a light rewrite and presto — a whole new post you could sell to other blogs. Don’t be an article spinner and have some robot replace all your adjectives with hilariously inappropriate ones and call it a rewrite — write a completely new post on your topic. It usually takes me maybe 15 or 20 minutes.

Do you have cash sitting in your archives?

Remember that brand-new readers find your blog all the time — and they’ve never seen your older stuff.

Many of your current subscribers haven’t read all your posts, either, unless you’ve got a 100 percent click-through rate

So, do your readers (and yourself) a favor and scoop up your best older posts and turn them into a new, paid product.

How have you turned your “old” blog posts into income? Leave a comment below and tell us your technique.

About the Author: Carol Tice keeps finding new uses for the posts on her Make a Living Writing blog. She answers freelance writers’ questions Wednesdays at noon PST on her podcast, The Freelance Writer’s Free-for-All.

So you want your online content to get noticed, huh?

Maybe you’re an blogger that aspires to crack into the A-list crowd.

Perhaps you’re a promising author with an irresistible story idea.

Or you may simply be an online freelance writer with big league dreams.

Kudos if you are, because the exploding digital content universe needs you to be at your best.

But there lies the prime question — how do I rise above the billowing obscurity blanketing the digital content universe to achieve online relevance?

Thankfully there is a simple (though not easy) answer to this question.

Sorry, it’s not entirely about Twitter tricks, smart SEO, or self-promotion wizardry. Those elements are all useful, but you need to do one thing first:

Create content masterpieces.

Masterpieces?

Yup, masterpieces — those iconic and enduring creations that withstand the tests of space, time, and short attention spans. Ironically, the best role models to emulate for crafting such online masterpieces are long dead and from a very un-digital world.

Enter Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael — the holy trinity of the supreme Renaissance artists.

We remember, celebrate, and idolize these creative legends because they were both epic and prolific. Their works are immortal, as are their legacies.

Plus, they’re the namesakes for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. How cool is that?

It goes to show that our three Renaissance friends have a thing or two to teach us about creating masterpieces.

So put down your keyboard and pick up your quill and ink, because it’s time to create content like it’s 1559.

Write with urgency like Leonardo da Vinci

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.
~ Leonardo da Vinci

Leaders act with the utmost urgency. Both Leonardos (the Renaissance pioneer and the Ninja Turtle) took up that charge.

The same quality holds true for you in your quest to build content masterpieces worthy of notice and praise. You must lead yourself (whether you like it or not).

This includes …

1. Marshaling your creative ideas into a tenacious writing force
2. Squashing the inner gremlins that seek to destroy your determination, and …
3. Establishing high standards for your creative output

As Jonathan Fields puts it, “that’s what pros do.” In January alone he published 17 blog posts, wrote 25,000 words and completed the manuscript for his next book, tweeted hundreds of times, and much more. And according to him, that’s not an unusual month.

Hello urgency!

Do you operate with the same drive?

Are you taking full initiative to create your most vivacious masterpieces? If online stardom is your aim, then you should. Here are a few ideas to get you started …

• Set a daily writing goal, like 1,000 words. This is Chris Guillebeau’s benchmark.
• Publish consistently and frequently. Don’t sacrifice quality, but ‘show up’ often.
• Sharpen your unique creative identity. Become memorable for who you are.
• Write larger-masterpieces (think books, special reports, and manifestos) that give a bigger picture of your bold style and story.

My friend Corbett Barr advocates this urgency premise in knockout fashion — write epic sh*t.

Are you being epic today?

Be one with flow like Raphael

When one is painting one does not think.
~Raphael

John Cleese of Monty Python fame teaches that “if you get into the right mood then your mode of thinking will become much more creative. But if you’re racing around all day ticking things off lists … and generally keeping all the balls in the air then you are not going to have any creative ideas.”

John’s recommended solution to conquering this “frenzied world that we all live in” is to construct our own “tortoise enclosure.”

Yes, we’re talking about a turtle shell that you can escape into away from life’s bombardment of interruptions. It’s here in this protected space that your “tortoise mind,” as John calls it, can fully play.

Here are the basic building blocks for your masterpiece-incubating (ninja) tortoise enclosure …

• You must establish strong boundaries of personal space and time
• You must permit no distractions (electronic or otherwise)
• You must focus on a single task at a time (stop multi-tasking)

Your playtime within this shell is vital to the unlocking of your full creative potential.

It’s the time you’re able to devote to such play that leads to Flow — the state of mind where your deepest and most vivid ideas pour out of you in a single, consistent stream of consciousness.

And that’s precisely what Raphael meant by “not think[ing]” when painting.

When you’re in this fluid state, you don’t really think as much as ride the waves of creativity to the shores of your content masterpieces.

Oh, and if you’re wondering if John Cleese was secretly the Ninja Turtle behind the red mask, I think you might be right.

Free your angel like Michelangelo

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
~Michelangelo

The exploding digital universe, which includes the publication revolution, has brought with it a tsunami of new writers.

On balance, we’re all “authors,” capable of being published with the click of a button (blogs be praised).

It’s an exciting ecosystem to be a part of. But it’s not a utopia. Case in point is the now herculean challenge of standing out and getting noticed in the crowd surge of online writers and the subsequent overload of content.

This atmosphere fosters an inconvenient truth — good content isn’t good enough anymore.

If you want to achieve escape velocity from the masses, you must — as Michelangelo says — continue carving your content until you set your masterpiece free.

There’s a common term for this all-important skill: editing.

I believe that sharp editing has become an invaluable competitive advantage within the digital content universe. And I’m not alone. Thom Chambers, for one, agrees.

Thom is the brilliant editor behind In Treehouses, a free e-magazine focusing on topics that will help you reach your 1,000 True Fans.

In his latest edition, titled We’re All Publishers Now (featuring The Domino Project, eBookling, Chris Guillebeau, Issuu, By Bloggers, and more), Thom writes that “with more and more content appearing online each day, the value of editors and curators is rising.”

You may not actually hire or collaborate with a skilled creative editor. Although, this is likely a smart decision if you’re a major league online author or someone who aspires to become one.

The key point is that you put your content through the full writing process.

Don’t just write and publish like most online writers do. To create a genuine masterpiece worthy of much attention and fanfare, you must write, edit, and publish.

And consider executing the writing-editing loop a few times first.

Go Ninja, Go!

Supreme online attention and relevance is reserved for those dedicated to creating content masterpieces.

It’s as simple as that.

Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo are apex examples of this axiom. True, we online ‘artists’ have traded paintings for pixels. But that doesn’t excuse us from learning and applying the timeless lessons that these grand masters of creativity have to teach.

Not a history buff? Don’t care about Renaissance artists? Not a problem. Just get your Ninja Turtle freak on.

You could do far, far worse than aspiring to be an online writing “hero in a half-shell.”

Cowabunga!