After my previous blog post, “Six Maxims of Writing for a New Writer,” I started hearing from people who began tentatively wondering whether they were really-and-for-true Writers.

That’s Writer with a capital W.

You can always tell a roomful of writers. You just can't tell 'em much.

They had hesitated to call themselves a Writer, because they didn’t think they had done it long enough, didn’t think they had earned the title, or were afraid to say it out loud because other real Writers would laugh at them, the way the bully laughs at the weak kid who tries to surf/do karate/do rap battles.

Believe me, most Writers aren’t like that. We’re the ones on the other side of the line, beckoning you to the dark side the party. Mostly because we’re lonely and unhealthily humble about being writers that we need the newbies’ optimism to feed off of feel better about ourselves remind ourselves of why we got into this business — no, “feed off of” is right.

How do you know whether you’re an official Writer or not? There’s no ceremony where a Mont Blanc fountain pen has been carried lovingly on a red velvet pillow to Annie Lamott so she can tap you on the shoulders three times with it.

For writer/Butler U creative writing teacher, Bryan Furuness, it was after he published his first story. “As soon as I said it, I was shocked and embarrassed,” Bryan said.

So, in light of that, and because we can never sync our schedules for an official Writer-knighting ceremony, here are the signs that you are an official, really-and-for-true Writer of the Realm.

If you do at least seven of these things, then you have this profession’s official permission to tell people, “I’m a Writer” without stammering, stuttering, putting a question mark at the end of that statement, or ducking your head and scuffing the toe of your shoe in the dirt.

1. You have been “vetted,” meaning you have submitted something to perfect strangers and been accepted or rejected. (Cathy Day, author, creative writing teacher at Ball State University)
2. Have a designated writing space in your home. (Cathy Day)
3. Approach your tools of the trade with a seriousness and dedication. (Allison Carter, writer and marketing professional)
4. Carry a notebook or notecards with you everywhere because you’re constantly being struck with new ideas. (Erik Deckers)
5. Feel compelled to write even when no one is asking you to (as if it’s something you must do). (Cathy Day)
6. Spend most of your professional work day writing. (Kate Shoup, professional writer and editor)
7. Regularly study the nuts and bolts of writing through books and workshops. (Allison Carter)
8. Got published for the first time in a real print publication. (Leslie Bailey, freelance writer)
9. You have a regular practice and schedule of writing. (Bryan Furuness) . . .even when you don’t have to for school or deadlines (Cathy Day)
10. You wrote today. (Bryan Furuness)

So that’s it. If you’ve done 7 of those things (especially #10), you now have permission to call yourself a writer. Pick up your pen from the valet outside.

And tell him you can’t wait to read his novel.

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• 

I was recently asked by a young writer about the best advice I could give him.

Since “take up accounting” is not something I would tell — or wish on — anyone, I decided to give him some actual advice. What I told him applies to everyone else who wants to, as sportswriter Red Smith put it, “open your veins and bleed.”

Here are a few tried-and-true pieces of advice — maxims, if you will, because that sounds more important than “pieces” — I’ve picked up over the years:

Carry a Moleskine and a Pilot G-2 pen with you everywhere you go, and write like mad.

1. Write every day. That sounds easier said than done, and is almost one of those “let down” pieces of advice. (“Seriously? That’s all you got?”) In fact, I have always thought this was the stupidest piece of writing advice, and whenever I heard it, I rolled my eyes so far back into my head, I could see my third grade memories. But it really does make a difference. Just like anything else you want to get good at — woodworking, sports, music, art — you need to write every single day. In fact, as stupid as I thought this was, this has also been the most important piece of advice I have ever gotten. You’re only going to get better by writing on a constant, regular basis, not by reading books on writing, or only writing when you feel inspired. Your skills are going to develop only as long as you put energy and effort into it. Write every day, and you get better that much sooner.
2. Read A LOT. Not just your favorite genres, but other genres, even ones you don’t particularly like. Find some favorite authors and devour everything they’ve written. Identify those things they do that make them your favorites, and see if you can incorporate a few of them into your own writing. You’ll discard a few of the techniques you borrowed, you’ll change and develop others, and you’ll create a hybrid style that is all your own. (That’s how those writers did it, and it will work for you too.)
3. Avoid books on writing, except for Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
   (affiliate links). (Okay, there are actually three others I especially like, but those are for another day, after you’ve read these two.) Everything else has already been said, and it’s too easy to mire yourself in every single book on writing, but they’ll only delay you from actually writing. It’s too easy to read writing book after writing book, and say that’s part of your learning process, but eventually that becomes a crutch that keeps you from actually writing. Too many new writers hide behind their tall stack of writing books, saying they’re not ready to start because they haven’t read the 23rd writing book they just got from the library. Remember maxim #1; it’s not “read writing books every day.”

   The same holds true for writing exercises. Skip those. If you want to practice writing, write something. A real something, that will actually be read by real people. Write a blog post, write an article and submit it, write an essay and email it to people.

4. Seek out one or two good mentors. Find people who will mercilessly edit your stuff and not give a shit about your feelings. Don’t connect with someone who wants to be mean, but you also don’t want the person who will pat your head and say you did a good job. So, don’t ask your mom. She loves you and wants to protect you. But you don’t need protection, you need education. If you ask your writing friends, they’ll be professionally jealous and will rip you a new one harshly enough to be helpful. Basically, if someone reads your stuff and says, “yeah, it’s pretty good,” they’re not good mentors, because they’re not giving you anything to improve or pointing out your weaknesses.
5. Write even when you don’t think you’re doing a good job. In fact, that’s when you need to write. Never let your doubts sink your goals. Even if you don’t think you’re doing a good job, focus on your writing goals. Those feelings won’t ever go away — even the most successful writers have them — but you’ll get better every day. You just have to ignore the self-doubt and keep writing. Eventually you will outgrow the feelings, and learn to recognize the negative self-talk for what it is. You’ll learn to trust your abilities and your work, and know that your work is better than your doubts let you think it is.


This is fellow humor writer and online buddy, Bruce Cameron. He writes very funny, successful books, and is more than happy to selflessly share advice and support to other writers. I hate him.

6. Never EVER compare yourself to another writer’s success. “Never compare someone else’s highlight reel to your day-to-day stuff,” I read once. You’ll make yourself crazy. Years ago, I used to compare myself to Bruce Cameron, a fellow humorist and member of the NetWits, a humor writers group. I would see everything he was doing, and despair that I would never have that kind of success. I would get depressed every time I paid close attention to what he was doing.

   And despite what I just said, you’ll do it too. You’ll see their publications and their success and ask yourself “why can’t that happen to ME?!” It will. You just have to go back and do #1 and #5 more and more, and keep submitting your work, publishing blog posts, going to seminars, re-reading Bird By Bird and On Writing. One day, you’ll look up and realize you’ve done just as much as the people you were comparing yourself to all those years ago. You’ll also find that someone newer and younger than you is making themselves crazy, comparing themselves to your publications and successes. Just keep your head down, keep your eyes on your own work, and don’t worry about what anyone else is doing. Later, you can salve your wounds with sweet, sweet schadenfreude when you spot their books in a bookstore’s bargain bin.

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• 

Cathy Day’s recent blog post, “Last Lecture: Am I a Writer?” took me back to my own days of struggling with my identity as a Writer.

I’ve been writing for 24 years, but I’ve only accepted the mantle of Writer for the last 17.

It’s an odd thing to wonder about one’s self. Either you’re a Writer, or you’re not, right?

You’re a professional, literary, word slinging, spell-it-with-a-capital-W-by-God Writer, or you’re just some wannabe hack who doesn’t deserve to even call what you do “writing.” (You even manage to speak the word with invisible quotes around it.)

Ernest Hemingway: This dude was a capital-W Writer. He also drank a lot and shot things.

Someone who does plumbing is a plumber. Someone who does accounting is an accountant. And someone who cooks food is a cook.

But ask someone who strings words together if they’re a Writer, and they’ll think about it for a minute.

“No, because I haven’t been published.”

“Yes, as soon I published my first book.”

“No, I’ve only been doing it for a couple years.”

“Yes, after I received my first check for a magazine article.”

New writers hesitate to call themselves one, as if this thing we do is sacred, and they’re not worthy. Writers don’t just string words together for people to read in an email. We tell stories to entertain people, inform and educate, persuade and rally. We can string words together that provoke, comfort, or incite. Scribblers use corporate jargon and fifty dollar words in five cent emails.

Even when I first started writing, it never occurred to me that I was a Writer, until a more experienced one said, “Don’t you write stuff?”

“Yes, every day.”

If you do this a lot, you may be a writer.

Since I didn’t have a good answer, it was easier just to mumble, “Well, I guess I am.”

That’s how most Writers are crowned, with a mumbled realization, rather than a pomp-filled ceremony, complete with gleaming pens carried proudly on red velvet pillows by pages, to be presented by the queen amidst the fanfare of trumpets. (Although wouldn’t that be awesome?)

To be sure, Writers earn their title. That capital W is not just granted to every schmuck who took a high school English class and pounds out the occasional email to coworkers. That’s not writing. That’s written communication, but it’s not writing.

There may be standards for calling one’s self a Writer — you have to write 100,000 words first; you have to submit a piece for print publication; you have to get paid — but no one has figured out what that is yet. Self-granting the title varies from person to person.

But one constant remains: you’re not a Writer until you call yourself one. The very minute you can say, “I’m a Writer,” and say it without that question mark at the end? That’s when you are one.

Otherwise, no one is stopping you. Go ahead. Take it out. Try it on, and see how it fits. You’ll grow into it over time.

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• 

After Monday’s post, “Writing For ‘Exposure’ Is Not Payment,” travel writer and photographer Mark Eveleiegh emailed me a great response that helped me crystallize my own thoughts. With his kind permission, I am reposting his reply here (not a differing response, but more of a ‘hell, yeah!’ reply), because he makes a very important point.

Mark Eveleigh is a professional photographer, travel writer, and journalist. I also like his tattoo.

(Note: Mark is British, so any ‘misspellings’ are actually English writing styles and spellings.)

When I was starting out I had a golden rule NEVER to write for free. The magazines that want your free work are rarely the ones that can offer the best exposure (also most pros and editors know you wrote for free, thereby lowering your professional credibility). Will the day come when Nat Geo will expect us to write for free? After all it is the best exposure we will ever get.

When times were hard I was reduced to selling ‘travellers tips’ for USD10 to a travel magazine. They only paid for the best tip…but I figured that a pro ought to be able to stand up to that sort of competition and I welcomed even this minor challenge. I remember bending the golden rule just once when a good friend was launching a new magazine and I wrote a story for him.

Times have changed though. Finally – after 16 years living from freelance travel journalism – I’m accepting the fact that we need to write for free. We market, advertise and promote ourselves online through blogs and social-networking.

I’ve just finished a tight deadline that’s had me on assignment for 10 days. I’ve been writing and polishing images for much of the last 72 hours. Pay rate for that was decent (several thousand dollars). Tonight though my task is to write a 500-word blog post on travel scams. Payrate for this is a big fat ZERO.

My old theory was that work that was not paid for was worth nothing – now I have even had to rethink that. The important thing if we are going to write for free is that the quality of the work we file should nevertheless be right up there with our best commissioned work. Why should we expect to market ourselves with sub-standard work? I want my best work ever to be on my blog. Many people publish sloppy writing with bad grammar and spelling and defend themselves by the statement “well, it’s only blogging.”

We need to stop this slide into a new era of true hack writing. Whether you are writing a magazine cover-story or a blog post you should be proud to have your name on the piece.

Finally, one of the greatest things about this new era is a revival of the pure sense of fun that comes from writing about something simply because it fascinates you, or because it’s a challenge. I’ve rarely had so much fun with writing as I’ve had in the months since Erik Deckers convinced me that I ought to set up my Parallel Worlds blog.

I’m enjoying this new era and as long as I can keep pulling in the paid magazine commissions I for one intend to keep ‘writing for free’ as much as possible.

Mark Eveleigh is the founder of THE WIDEANGLE photo agency and, as a photojournalist and author, has worked for more than 50 publications, including Geographical, CNN Traveller, Sunday Times, The Guardian, Africa Geographic, and National Geographic.

Undercover news assignments have taken him from besieged Zimbabwean farms to high-security Bolivian prisons, but charging African elephants, Spanish fighting bulls, and a randy Peruvian llama have taught him the real importance of ‘journalistic footwork.’

He is rated #27 in official Press Gazette (UK) listing of the 50 most influential travel writers.

—–

Mark’s letter made me realize an important distinction in my thoughts on “Writing For ‘Exposure’ Is Not Payment.”

Exposure is important. It’s crucial to building our personal brand. It’s how people know us. And sometimes writers, especially professional writers, sometimes have to write for free. I write this blog for free. Mark’s blog is free. We don’t get paid for writing our blogs, or writing guest post’s on other people’s blogs.

However, it’s not payment. Don’t tell us that’s the reason we should do it, because it shows a shallowness of thinking and understanding how a writer works.

What we ultimately get out of it is payment through other works. I write blog posts about social media, business owners and marketers read it, and they hire my company to write blog posts for them. Mark writes blog posts about adventure travel, marketing executives at travel-related companies read it, and they hire Mark to tote their products down the Amazon and write about it.

We don’t just do the free stuff for exposure. We do it for exposure to the right people.

And therein lies the difference. It’s not a payment. It’s a long-term benefit.

(But we still want the money.)

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• 

I’m still surprised at the number of writers who will write for the promise of exposure by websites, blogs, magazines, and newspapers. I was offered that a lot when I was a budding writer. It was fine when I was first starting out, but after a year, I didn’t want exposure, I wanted money.

That’s what any writer wants.

Not that kind of exposure

We don’t write for fame, we don’t write for glory, we don’t write because it’s a cool thing to do. We write because it’s our job, and it’s how we feed our family.

Our families can’t eat exposure, and our mortgage holders don’t accept, “but my article was seen by 2,000 people last month.” Our grocery stores and our banks want money, not readers.

Dorm Room Logic

Back in the 90s and early 2000s, when Napster was all the rage, you had plenty of people engaging in late-night dorm room logic, thinking the only thing musicians ever really wanted was fame. By downloading and stealing their music, they were giving the musicians exactly what they had wanted all along: to be recognized and revered for making good music.

What the downloaders failed to realize was that the only reason the musicians were able to feed themselves and pay for shelter to keep themselves healthy so they could play music was because people were buying their albums, and not ripping them off.

So it goes with the editors who want writers to write for the “exposure.”

“Exposure” is publisher talk for “we want to put you in front of all of our readers who will be so impressed by your work that they will soon become your slobbering fans and put their hard-earned money into your pocket in a desperate grab for anything you produce and sell.”

Oftentimes, what it really means is “we don’t have very much money.”

I hear the “exposure” excuse now that I’ve moved most of my written content online. Sometimes it’s a money thing.

I respect when the editor says they don’t have the money. I understand the problem, and appreciate the honesty. I’m more likely to say yes when they’re honest with me, even if it’s a one-off project for them.

But when the magazine has fewer readers than I have Facebook friends, and they’re promising me exposure? I’m not interested. I can get that level of exposure in 30 minutes. In cases like that, I think the better deal is that they pay me money, and I’ll tell my social networks about them.

If you’re still at the stage in your writing career where you need more readers, use some of the social profile building techniques I’ve discussed on this blog and PersonalBrandBlog.com. Build your readership up to the point that you don’t need the exposure, but rather that you’re doing the publication a favor by telling people that your stuff is available there.

I Write for Free When I Choose

There are times I will write for free, because I know that I am getting in front of a brand new audience. And these are people I would have a hard time reaching on my own. At the same time, the editor or publisher actually knows how to help me convert those readers into my own readers and fans, and will share that with me. A lot of editors aren’t able to do that.

At the same time, guest blogging is one of those things you should be willing to do for free. It does give you traffic, and it introduces you to another, hopefully more successful, blogger’s audience. They’re not only willing to share their limelight with you, but they’re going to tell their audience all about you. If they’re a successful blogger, they’ll have a readership of least a few thousand people.

But more importantly, that person you guest wrote for will do the same for you. So while money doesn’t change hands, there is a quid pro quo agreement between you both — you’re exchanging a post for a post. If they paid you, then you need to turn around and pay them the same amount.

So while you shouldn’t have to take any and every freebie offer that comes your way, check out the publication’s target audience and market size and see if that’s a group you want to reach. If it is, see if you have the time to do a good job. If it isn’t, ask for money. If they say no, you say no.

What Harlan Ellison Has to Say About Writing for Exposure

Photo credit: kthypryn (Flickr)

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• 

Yesterday, I shared six methods for breaking through writer’s block. But I forgot one of my most favorite ones.

Writer's Block

If you find you’re stuck for a way to explain something or can’t quite figure out a direction of a story or article, explain it to a friend. I mean actually sit down face-to-face with someone and tell them what you’re trying to accomplish. If necessary, pull out paper and pen, and diagram what you’re talking about.

I’ve often found that in order to be able to put my thought process into words, I have to be able to crystallize my thoughts. It causes all the thoughts that are pinballing around my head to get into formation, and I can express them clearly and logically.

Once I do that, I get unstuck for what I’m trying to say, and everything makes sense. I will occasionally pop open my laptop or notebook and scribble down the thoughts in a brief outline, which I can go back to later. It especially helps if I have several minutes after talking to that person to put everything down in a complete idea dump, which I can go back and fix later.

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• 

A lot of writers suffer from writer’s block. That big mental wall that sometimes get in the way of getting any writing done. But it doesn’t have to be permanent. Only a few times have people suffered career-ending writer’s block, but when that happens, we’ve gone beyond just plain ol’ writer’s block, and are getting into some serious performance anxiety.

Here are six sure-fire methods you can use to break through your own writer’s block.

• Carry a notebook with you at all times: I keep a little black Moleskine notebook and pen with me close at hand. Whenever I have an idea or a thought that I know I’ll want to use later, I write it down. If I have several minutes, I’ll write as much as I can about the idea that inspired me. Oftentimes, when I’m stuck for a topic or struggling with an idea, I’ll pull out the notebook and refer to what I’ve already written. Or if I’ve written enough, the material from the notebook is what I needed in the first place. I just transcribe it and clean it up.
• Write something else: Most writers I know get hung up on one particular project. They can’t write this blog post, they can’t write that article. So write something else. If you’re a professional writer, or even a persistent amateur, there’s always something else to write. So write that instead. It often gets the juices flowing, and you can break the block. When you feel it break, immediately switch over to the project you were stuck on.
• Write it in an email instead: Most writers seem to get stuck because they’re writing for posterity. They’re thinking not only of The Reader, but The Reader in 50 Years. I don’t know how many journals and notebooks I started and then trashed because I thought, “what if my grandchildren read this in 50 years” or “what if someone wants to study my writings in 100 years? What will they find?” I immediately froze up, got two entries into the journal, and then quit. I lost count of the notebooks I’ve pitched because of this.
  If this happens to you, regardless of what you’re writing, write it in an email instead. Start it out with “Dear Mom, this is something I’m working on right now.” Then write your project/article/blog post to your mom. We love our moms, and they love us. But they don’t always get what we’re working on. So write this in terms your mom will understand. Then, go back and delete the greeting, and you’ve got your piece. Stop writing for The Reader and The Future Reader. Write for yourself. And your mom. And call her once in a while, she misses you.
• Pick a different environment: I have two offices. My regular office and my favorite coffee shop. Some weeks see me in one office more than the other. And there are times that being in one place or the other is not conducive to getting work done. So I go to the other office. The change in environment is often enough to jolt me out of my stuckness. But if it doesn’t work — and I can usually feel the torpor coming on — I’ll go somewhere completely different. A different coffee shop, a friend’s office (Tip: Make sure they own the business. Don’t stop by your friend’s place inside the giant corporate building.) The new setting is usually enough to jolt me out of my complacency and get my creative juices flowing again.
• Write nonsense:I’ve never been a fan of writing exercises to get warmed up. This isn’t running. I’m not going to injure my brain if I don’t write something “creative” before I start real writing. But that doesn’t mean there’s not some validity to just writing complete and utter crap for the first 20 minutes. If you’re stuck on a particular topic, write stream-of-consciousness stuff about your subject, maybe even the piece itself. As you write, do it in an over-the-top voice and style, like Sideshow Mel from The Simpsons. As you do this, you’ll find yourself breaking through the block and starting to write some real material. But don’t delete the crap. Cut-and-paste it into another document, and then go back and read it a couple days later. You may find some nuggets worth keeping.
• Quit waiting to be inspired: Once you become a professional writer, you don’t have the luxury of having writer’s block. You also don’t have the luxury of “being inspired” or “waiting for the right moment.” Real writers don’t get inspired. Real writers plant their asses in their chairs and start writing. If the words aren’t coming, try one of the other five things I mentioned. If they still aren’t coming, put your head down, and keep writing. They’ll come to you eventually.
  Most professional writers ignore the writer’s block, because they have a job to do, and they do what they need to to get it done. There’s no such thing as an accountant’s block, where the figures just don’t add up. Or a chemist’s block, because they can’t get the formulas right. When you reach this level of writing, the words just come automatically, like breathing and eating. You may have times where your work is better, but as a professional writer, even your “good enough” should be pretty good.

What about you serious writers? How do you break through writer’s block? How do you prevent it? Has anything worked or not worked? And did any of those involve alcohol?

Update: After I wrote this post, I thought of one more method to breaking writer’s block, which I published the following day.

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• 

About 20 years ago, I used to sell high end stereos. Across the street in our small city was another high end stereo store.

The first time their sales manager walked in the door and started talking with our sales manager like they were good friends, I was surprised. After the guy left, I asked my manager why he was so friendly with the competition.

“He’s not the competition,” he said.

“How do you figure?” I asked.

“Because our competition is the Big Box store a few few miles away.”

He explained that our high end stereo store, whose low end components were a $400 Yamaha receiver and a small pair of $300 speakers, appealed to audiophiles and people who could appreciate the quality of a really good stereo system. The store across the street sold different brand names, but equally high quality.

The difference between a great photographer or writer and an acceptable one? Skills, experience, and knowledge.

Big Box, however, sold $179 receivers and giant speakers for $120 a pair. (To put it in perspective, you could walk out with a $12,000 system from our store; the most you could spend at Big Box was about $800.)

They were our real competition, because we had to convince the price shoppers who showed up on a Saturday that there truly was a difference in the sound quality between ours and Big Box’s, and that the bouncy lights on the front of the cheap stereo didn’t actually do anything for the sound quality. (You wouldn’t believe how many people I tried to talk out of the bouncy lights.)

They didn’t hear the difference. They believed a stereo was a stereo, and while, yes, ours was very good, they could get a whole stereo with bouncy lights for a fraction of the price we wanted for an average receiver. Of course, they were disappointed when they got home, and they realized the music just didn’t sound as good as it did in our store.

It’s the same problem we writers face. Too many times, we talk to potential blogging clients who think writing is writing. They’ve found a writer who will work at a fraction of our price — sure they live in another part of the world, and English is their third or fourth language, but, you know, they charge a lot less — or their nephew got an A on his senior English paper, and knows a lot about the Internet, and he’s going to do the whole project for $75 and a Starbucks gift card.

Our biggest competition isn’t other writers, it’s people who think that writing is writing. That stringing coherent sentences together is so easy, a monkey can do it. After all, they reason, we learned it in high school, so how hard can it be?

Recently, I was talking to Paul D’Andrea, a professional photographer friend, who said he faces the same thing. Despite the years of study and practice, and the thousands of dollars of equipment he carts around his biggest competition is not another equally good photographer. It’s the guy with a $200 digital camera or the latest and greatest mobile phone. (Paul took the leaf photo in this post. You can’t do that with a cell phone.)

After all, they reason, you just point and shoot. Don’t cut off the heads, crank up the flash, and hit the little button with your right index finger. How hard can it be?

I may have a decent camera, but I realize that even Paul’s “average” work has a level of mastery I’ll never achieve. If I ever want good photos, I need someone like Paul. And if someone wants good writing, they can’t just hire a college senior and expect expert-level writing.

Unfortunately for writers, while the Internet has made it possible to reach more customers from a wider base, it’s also created a problem for us. Now anyone with a laptop and a rudimentary command of the English language can hang out a shingle and call themselves a writer.

If you want to demonstrate your writing ability, you need high-quality samples, strong testimonials, and be able to demonstrate how your writing has succeeded and benefitted your clients. Be able to measure ROI, sales, and even regular readership. Show search engine placement and rankings. List writing awards. And most importantly, show whether businesses have made money by working with you.

Look, anyone can take pictures with even the crappiest cameras. Anyone can write copy with a laptop and an 8th grade education. That doesn’t mean it’s any good. Sadly, it also doesn’t mean that people will recognize its lack of quality either.

It’s going to take some work on your part, writers and photographers, to educate your potential clients as to why all writing isn’t the same, why your work is better than everyone else’s, and why you’re worth the higher price tag.

Photo credit: Paul D’Andrea (Flickr)

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• 

David Ogilvy was a master advertiser. He was a big proponent of “give away the good stuff,” writing an entire monograph on how to do automobile advertising, and then giving it away to all the automakers in the United States.

He was also an ardent proponent of quality writing. So I was very interested to stumble upon Shaun Usher’s Lists of Note blog, with Ogilvy’s list of How to Write.

David Ogilvy

Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters and woolly speeches. Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well. Here are 10 hints:

1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing*. Read it three times.
2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.
3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.
4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.
5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.
6. Check your quotations.
7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning—and then edit it.
8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.
9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.
10. If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

Writing for the 21st Century

Having never seen Ogilvy’s list before, I was very excited to see that some of the same writing rules I’ve been teaching are the ones that he espoused. Like a confirmation that I was doing it right. It also made me rethink some of what I’ve been telling people, and forced me to crystallize my thoughts on the matter.

So, if I may be permitted to stand on the shoulders of giants, here are my 10 hints for writers and bloggers in the 21st century.

1. Read Stephen King’s book On Writing. Also Bird by Bird
   by Annie Lamott and The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.
2. Avoid adverbs. Use descriptive verbs, don’t describe the verbs.
3. Still use short words, short sentences, short paragraphs. Big words don’t make you sound smart. Being accessible to many readers makes you sound smart.
4. Write visually. Use metaphors, and if you have to, similes.
5. Write intentionally. Practice your writing whenever you can, whether it’s a new blog post or an email.
6. Never write more than 1,000 words on any subject. No one wants to read that much, unless they’re following the #longreads hashtag.
7. Read more than you write. Don’t just read books in your industry, read fiction, history, and biographies. Especially fiction.
8. Never publish anything important the day you write it. Let it sit for at least 24 hours before you edit it again.
9. Agonize over word choice. Don’t just spit out the first words that come into your head. Choose the best ones for maximum impact.
10. Don’t wait for inspiration. If you only wait until the “right moment,” you’re not going to have many of them. The right moment will come when you’re already busy, or when you’ve got the time, you won’t be inspired. Schedule a regular writing time, either every day or a few times a week.

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How can a writer promote their own work, especially if they are just releasing their first published work? Thanks to ebooks and ereaders, as well as print-on-demand and self-publication, any fledgling writer can publish their work and make it available to the general public.

But how can they get readers before they have even established their writing career? Here are three ways new writers can promote their newly published works to a wider audience than their moms.

1. Find readers on Twellow and Facebook.

Twellow is a Twitter directory that lets you search people’s Twitter bios. Look for anyone who would fit your target readership. If you write sci-fi, look to see if anyone has science fiction or sci-fi in their bio. Chances are they’re fellow writers, but you’ll find a lot of sci-fi fans too.

Check out the Facebook pages and groups too, and start friending and connecting with people in those groups. As you follow the other two steps, they’ll be the people you want to reach out to.

2. Pre-release the book in blog form.

As you’re writing your book, try publishing sections of it on a blog. Invite reader comment and ask them to give you feedback, ask questions, and make any suggestions. Make your changes from the blog and incorporate them into the final manuscript.

You’ll also get readers who start to follow along because they get drawn into the serial nature of the story. Plus, don’t worry about people not wanting buy the book because it’s on the web. There are plenty of people who have written books that were originally posted online first, and went on to great success. They’ll be willing to pick up your book too.

3. Create an audio version of your book.

Seth Harwood released the self-published Jack Wakes Up book as an audio podcast. He would read approximately 45 minutes of the book each week and upload it as a podcast. While that seemed to fly in the face of conventional publishing wisdom, the Jack Wakes Up ended up garnering enough attention that it was then picked up by Three Rivers Press and published.

It’s possible with some publishers that you can keep the audio rights to your book. If you’re self-publishing it, you own all versions, including audio and ebooks. So take advantage of that. Get a decent microphone (I prefer the Blue Snowball USB mic), and start reading it. Don’t launch until you get at least half the book recorded though. It builds in some extra time in case you run into a production delay.

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